Especially when I talk to other producers, and we talk about "boundaries" and undefining them in dubstep, to me this is one of the most important boundaries to overcome that has really allowed me to explore sounds in directions that I wouldn't otherwise concieve, further undefining my "process" in the studio so that the shit that I come up with is creative and pushing my own personal boundries constantly.
Someone brought up the concept of top down vs bottom up at school in a presentation on nano technology. In top down, you build a machine that builds another smaller machine that builds another smaller until you're at the nano level. In bottom up you manipulate things at the atomic level until you've built that which you have intended.
I'm going to change those models a bit tho. We'll say top down is where you have an idea of where you want to end up, and you go through the processes to get your original idea as best represented as possible.
We usually do this on a micro scale when we're making music. We beat box some sounds and then try to represent them or we just "hear" where things should go.
I've started thinking about the alternative to that, and how to get outside of those usual processes. That is, moving "atoms" around until a machine is built. Hear what I"m saying? There is an alternative. Just jostle shit around until it sounds like you're getting closer to the machine that you're ultimately hoping to end up with. Things start to gel, and you communicate with the piece - certainly you have inklings as to where things should sort of be located, but do it pretty randomly and without an idea of where you want to be as much as is possible, so that if while jostling around a piece it gells somewhere unexpected, then stick with it.
Remember both processes are to end up as the same thing - a good piece of music. They're just two different approaches to the same end. I hope that made some sort of sense! it does to me, and I've had some pleasing results (well, pleasing to me at the very least
) As some ideas take form, then you've got a foundation of incredibly fresh ideas, which you otherwise would not have come up with from which to build things as you normally would.
I think we all do this naturally a bit. It's always a bit of both. I don't know. just a crazy psychedelic rant for you!
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