Dear Friends, 

I have completed an objective of mine over the last thirty-one days in my committed participation in a challenge called “Beatober.” The rules were simple enough—create a piece of music or “beat” everyday for the entirety of October. 

After the release of Lacrimorta’s first album in August I wasn’t sure what my next move was going to be. Considering the sheer amount of “serious” work that went into the album I wanted something unofficial and simple to pursue. I joked throughout the month of September that I was going to do Beatober. I kept finding an array of excuses to not do it: 

1. It wasn’t my style 

2. I was worried about putting unpolished work out 

3. All around worried about the negative impact it could have on Lacrimorta’s primary objective. 

There were an innumerable amount of other excuses I won’t list, but in the end they all had the same exact effect, they kept me from seeing the positives of doing it. In the end, I decided to commit to Beatober despite my negativity.

Things I learned from this exercise: 

I learned to effectively utilize the Elektron Octatrack, a device known for its arcane and fussy nature. In using it almost exclusively for Beatober I became very good at using it. My early sessions with the device took 4-5 hours to create a single song on it. By the end of October I was making songs in 1-2 hours depending on how ambitious I wanted to get. I used to be scared of it, but not anymore. 

I learned how to create music on the Yamaha QY-70, a robust and portable hardware alternative from the late 90s. This is the same series of device that Bjork used for “Post” (she used a QY-20). It’s even better when you plug a midi keyboard into it. 

I became more aware of the economy of my time spent on songs.

In using the Octatrack, I became aware of zeroing in on minute step-by-step detail. It’s incredible to think how much detail you can put into a period of ten seconds. 

I accumulated a variety of seemingly unambitious, but cool, sounding songs that I can now use in a live setting.

I explored genres and styles I’ve been apprehensive to dip my toes into, including trap, hip-hop, drum and bass, retro, as well as, sample based comedy genres.

I am very pleased that I was able to create something every day. The idea of creating art during different periods of “mood” including during moods that were less optimal was something I kept in mind throughout the process. Looking back at the days I was not feeling too great is quite eye-opening, because some good stuff came out of it. 

I read both the manual for the QY-70 and the Octatrack during my free time to give me new things to try when I was ready to start making music.

I learned that I was able to effectively stay engaged on social media by doing work rather than participating in the endless mud wrestling match.

I learned that it’s okay to use opportunities like this to learn new tech. 

Some of the struggles I had:

On day 3 of the challenge my Octatrack’s Compact Flash card corrupted and I lost the first two days of work completely. I almost gave up the challenge that day if it hadn’t been for my Digitakt. Granted, I had to do some really quick learning on the Digitakt to make it through the third challenge. This gave me a day grace period to find another compact flash card on the other side of the city to continue using the Octatrack.

Managing time. This project required me to not only create a song everyday, but I had to practice and record each song via video, and with decent quality.  This wasn’t always easy. It wasn’t until much later on in the process that I nailed this by learning to couple the creative process with the actual recording in order to capture once instead of having to redo perfect takes.

My day-to-day schedule is jam packed with various responsibility. There were several days that I got home at 8pm and had to push a video out before midnight. I always managed to do it, but these were the most difficult days. Something that helped these days the most was to sample in the morning and use the samples to create songs in the evenings. When I switched over to the QY-70 that no longer became a problem but it did take me several days of going through the manual for it to get the hang of that machine. 

Traveling. Towards the end of the month I went to a music retreat. I ended up only taking the QY-70 with me for convenience and ending up making an actual song with a drummer and myself on drums for the finale for Beatober. This trip ended up being a boon, but it was trying both before and after traveling to get myself together mentally to self-start my process in a different place, and a different circumstance.

Getting the right volume levels for video. I figured it out towards the end. The beginning was messy, and the middle was too low. I should’ve paid closer attention to the levels on OBS rather than just my DAC.

Sample slicing could’ve been optimized a bit more if I had chosen all of my samples up-front in September before the challenge began. In other words, if I had to do it again I would do more prep rather than “doing it live.”

The daily process of naming songs wasn’t always easy. I usually named a track based on my mood.

Conclusions:

I have a new found respect for those musician types who crank tunes out. I did it everyday for a month straight. It isn’t easy. I still think that my preferred method of writing is a bit slower than this, but it’s good to know that I have what it takes to fuck shit up when needed.

I can use periods like this to sketch out ideas and fully form them at a later date.

Always back up your work.

Conditional triggers on Elektron machines are underrated.

Using one drum loop on a single track and slicing it up into various parts is a tremendous way to save space on an already limited Octatrack format.

The QY-70 has a unique character to it that shouldn’t be understated. It is a powerhouse despite being 25 years young.

If I want to get serious I don’t need to open up Ableton Live and sit at my computer for hours on end. DAWless is effective, fun, and less stressful when I’m not in the mood be at the computer.

In any case, I had a lot of fun. Beatober was worth it. I highly recommend giving it a shot next year if you’re looking to level some aspect of your music making skills.

Darkest Regards,

Nikoletta Winters

Here are some of my favorite highlights from the project: 

The entire playlist can be found on my channel.