How does washed out make music

Although Washed Out needs more people to fill out its live-instrumentation-packed concert incarnation these days, and although Greene works with a producer, the band still only has one member. Through years of experimentation, the musician taught himself how to make songs—and eventually how to make incredibly good ones. With his sophomore album, Paracosm , now available—a sunny about-face from the nocturnal rhythms of his debut—Greene talked to Co.

Create about teaching yourself to make music in your bedroom that sounds arena-ready. My first laptop in college came with GarageBand and I was able for the first time to do everything myself. I could layer each part piece by piece with the multi-tracking software. I never was that good of a collaborator. All of a sudden, with a laptop, I could kind of do everything myself.

From that point on it was entirely a solo thing. Around the time when I got my first computer, I was really into guys like DJ Shadow—guys who had a hip-hop background, only weirder and more psychedelic. I had the simplest equipment, just my computer and a little keyboard, and that was pretty much it, but I could take sounds from other records and kind of mess with them inside the computer.

I manipulated them and built songs from scratch that way, instead of the more traditional way of recording a piano or a guitar. But because of that, I have kind of a unique spin on how I DJ. And a lot of the stuff is hard to find, it takes some digging. Other than that, just obsessive collector and that sort of thing. So one way to get around that is I started playing the demos up against the visual stuff I was inspired by.

You have new music, and this insane visual album that just dropped. And a tour starting soon? And then the bigger tour starts in August. So the live show is an extension of the video you saw. There are motion sensors in front of the performers, so whatever movements you're doing in real time are projected with really wild effects. All of that stuff is a huge influence And realizing that it all worked for my own good. You'll have to ask the guy U-he Satin might do it for you.

Not sure if it emulates a cassette that's been all the way thru a dog tho. Perhaps you might want to ask the person named "Felix" who uploaded it to Youtube! Have you actually listened to the better original versions that haven't been destroyed by said person Felix? Lets just get that out of the way and go from there. My Studio. From what I understand his early work is pretty much all sample based.

So the samples will contribute to the sound quite a bit I think. YouTube compression aside, his early work is heavily compressed and that is a big part of the sound. He was also heavily computer based so most would probably have happend ITB before he recorded to cassette tape to sell. One way I would go about it is by adding vinyl noise or tape hiss samples to your song. You should be able to find free samples to download or record your own.

Add the tape hiss samples to one or several tracks and extend it all the way through your song. What I then think will do the trick is to set the output of that tape hiss track and send it to a bus with other instruments.

Say you output all your drum tracks to a drum bus, then also output the tape hiss to the same bus. I have another of older material that was released on a tape that was six or eight songs. Hopefully a little more mature sounding. Hopefully the same aesthetic.

It was something I struggled with. I produced and mixed everything on the EP, which meant I was mixing on really shitty speakers in my bedroom. So everything will be more balanced and it will be able to translate better to playing in a bigger club on a sound system. I think was the worst part about the EP: it sounds okay in a car or on headphones, anything bigger than that sound absolutely terrible. The low end sounds really bad.

So with the new stuff it should be able to work on that level. You mentioned you were writing lyrics. What is that process like for you? I really enjoy the music making end of it.