Berlin-based Jasper Walden is one of those modular synth musicians who enjoys and develops the art of playing for an online audience. He started just 10 months ago – with a relatively compact system, playing the above piece titled Descent – and has hence uploaded 8 more videos. He tells us a bit more about Descent and why he got into modulars:
This one was my first modular video. I didn’t initially plan on doing a video. The approach was to have 2 melody-lines that work good together, because I usually was only able to have a drone and a melody on top – not two melodies working hand-in-hand.
Inspired to get a modular, very likely because how it looks and then it makes these lovely unexpected sounds, which I couldn’t create with anything else. Plus it’s great to have everything in one place : sequencer, effects, wavefolders, etc. and at hand. No browsing, no routing. All modular and all hands on. But I haven’t realised that before I had a bunch of modules. The type of music I recently make on my modular synth is inspired a lot by Alessandro Cortini, especially his live performance ‘Trash Audio at the Apothecary’.
Jasper Walden, who studies physical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin, used to play piano and drums, but as of lately he’s focusing more on the modular synth and extending his knowledge of music theory. His approach to music comes from counterpoint and movie scores. He tells us that he hasn’t used the modular to play live yet.
[…] I would perform with my modular – I have never done so tho. Problem is, when performing with a modular synth, it is hard to keep it interesting for an audience for more than 20minutes without silence in between.
For techno that’d probably work – but with this melody-merging-type of music I’d either have to re-patch or need a massive modular synth. Which I totally need!
