Taika-Kim

HI psycle guys... this time one of the most active psycle tracker,a lot of cool tunes every year for this finnish musician...he also was the winner of COMPO#3.

http://psycle.free.fr/Photos/taika.jpg

TAIKA-KIM

1 )Q:hi taika,introduce yourself please!

A:My real name is Kim Åke, I'm 26 years old and I live in Helsinki, Finland.I've been using Psycle since about...Hmm around 2002 I think,I'm not even sure anymore.I remember trying out some early version of Psycle too,but at that time I used Dreamstation and it was better IMO.Currently I'm now studying environmental studies & developement studies in the university of helsinki.I'm finishing my bachelor's degree this spring,and next year I'm going to a craft schol to learn historical crafts.I don't have a job since I get along rather nicely with the study support.I love the nordic style welfare state I've been working to Greenpeace and Amnesty in summers for the past three years though.

2 )Q:nice...could you explain what "the nordic style"is?

A:It's the ideology we have in Finland & the rest of the nordic coutries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland...) of a very strong social support from society's part So everybody is guaranteed free education, health care unemployment support and so on.So the state pays about 67% of my rent while I'm at the university,and I also get about 220 euros additional support money for studying.university is almost free of course (about 70 euros/ year to be exact) So people can study a lot if they want in Finland quite easily!

...(between third and fourth question) I was really impressed by that cool life style but not by the weather ....

<^MfM^> that's really good

<^MfM^> i love that style too

 Yes,it makes people very equal!

 And gives everybody a chance the develop their own best skills...

<^MfM^> unfortunately i live in the deep south of europe

<^MfM^> but i dont like the wheather in north of europe

<^MfM^> think we have more than 20C right now here

 Yes,the winters are not always so nice.But I'm used to this of course.Or actually,spring/autumn are the worst times when the snow is only coming/ melting.So there's this nasty slush and +-0c for some months...

 Here it's snowing now again...It should be spring already but for some reason it's been a long winter...

<^MfM^> exactly what i meant

<^MfM^> i cant live with the snow

<^MfM^>:)

<^MfM^> here just one day every year snowing

 But I really love the Finnish summer...There's so much green plants & I love the Finnish forests & lakes.I think Finnish summer is the best thing I know almost

3 )Q:when have you started tracking?

A:I have been listening to tracker music since around 1995 I think.For a long time I liked to just listen to the samples of different tunes.I also made some general midi patch sets for my Gravis Ultrasound to make some games sound better. So in the beginning I was just working with samples.This was in 1996/7.Then at that time the first soft synths started to appear. For DOS,I think there was some 303 emu by RadAd (or something like that) and some thers.I remeber scene people talking that in maybe five years it's possible to have a studio inside your computer,but at that time it really felt unprobable!Of course, then came Rebirth, and everything changed...I was playing around with that,and realized that maybe I could write music afterall.Previously,it just didn't occur to me that I could do my own music because I didn't understand anything about it and it was completely mystical to me.There was also a russian non-realtime rather complex soft synth called Orangator...I was playing with that too.Then, one day:It just came to me what is a musical scale and what is a rhythm time.I suddenly understood how rhythmic music is made!So I made some samples with Orangator,and fired up Fast Tracker 2 and made a few patterns...It was magical,like reading to read all of a sudden!They actually sounded quite much like my music still does This was in winter of 1998.It took me a very long time to finish my first real track after those few first patterns.Something like 5 months? I was working on it a little bit of time every now and then.It was very hard,I didn't understand much about music still.Luckily I met some people who also were tracking,and I could talk with them and learn something.So that was the beginning And I'm also quite proud that even from the very beginning I was doing my own samples with Orangator & also ripping from CDs and sampling myself.

4 )Q:I readed that you want to migrate to another musical software which one and why?

A:yup..I've been thinking about Aodix,I have bought it almost a year ago.But I haven't finished any real tracks.There's many things I like in that.Mainly the rock solid VST host,and also a very flexible pattern view. it's not confined to ticks & rows like a typical tracker.So it's easy to do grooves,shuffles and all kinds of small adjustments to the notes.And it has a pattern sequencer But it's hard to get used to a new software after many years so I'm still using Psycle.And there's not a sampler in it!And I don't know of one good,simple VST sampler.And now Arguru licensed his new sampler to Imageline and it's still not available as VST...And also I don't think there's a discout for Aodix owners so I would end up paying something like 150 euros for a tracker :/ I'm not sure if I want to do that...

5 )Q:what is the feature that you really need on psycle and which you would to see on new psycle version first of all?

A:There are two things:the pattern sequencer and a better VST host.Luckily they are both in the plans And in the long run, something to work more accurately with the notes.To be able to adjust the trigger/ note-off positions with a bigger accuracy than per row...

6 )Q:your track E.A.R.E. was one of the first song I was on psycle,and I was really scared by all that machines..i think you push psycle to the limits,how do you compose your song?

A:From the beginning to the end.I just start building up some rhythms & sounds...I keep building on them when I start to get some ideas for melodies...You can hear this easily,my tracks usually start rather simply,and there's more and more layers & synths towards the end.Usually this stops when I run out of processing power So mostly it gets hard for me to track the end of my tunes because I'm at the limits of my computer.(even if I bypass all reverbs,some heavy synths, etc...)I rarely do any big changes after I've proceeded to the end of the song. I might make some small adjustments, but mostly my tunes are all linear processes.

7 )Q:how do you put your emotions and your feeling into your tracks?

A:Hmm. That's a hard one...I guess for me it's mainly to do with melodies.I try to reach that state of intuition where the melodies just come to me without planning. It has been like that for many of my most liked songs.....Kääpiö-Saaren salaisuuks,Unessaelämä,etc. Those "hit" melodies that stay in your head just appeared in my head and I quickly put them down in the patterns.For me to get into this kind of "flow" feeling,the track must be already going on rather strongly on it's own.So first I need to lay down a (in a case of a dance track) nice rhytm,some engaging sounds,etc.It's actually easier to do atmospheres in more peaceful music,but I like gripping goa trance so much so that's what I end up doing a lot I hope to move on to a different style in the future...I'm more interested in atmospheres and feelings now in music.Time will show

8 )Q:where do you find your inspirations?

A:Obviously,I love the aesthetics of goa & psy trance & also the lo-fi 8-bit thing so I take a lot of influences from this kind of music.But there's many other things,too...For me,I try to make my music as honest & pure as possible,in a way to show my heart out to people,and just be able to transfer some kind of energy between people.This would be easier to understand if people knew me personally, I'm a rather outwards focused person so I guess my music gets rather engaging too easily. Musically,in addition to electronic music,I also love different ethnic music, instrumental (interesting! not some elevator music) in general, choral music,a cappella singing...Lately I've been listening to a lot of 60s french girl pop like France Gall,Clothilde etc..So all these things inspire me.All this music that I listen to has very much light & beauty,I hope my music to have a bit of this, too. Lately I've been very interested in art nouveau style visual art & architecture...And also the art nouveau philosophy.So I'm now doing some mental processing to think how to turn this kind of artistic thinking into music. It's funny,many art nouveau artist had this ideology that an artist must be competent in many fields to do "total art"...and so they did ceramics, architecture, paintings, graphics and so on. But I don't know of any that were musicians.So that's something that I now am exploring.The synergy between visual arts and music...I've been doing a lot of ceramics lately, this has helped my sense of three dimensional comprehension lately,and this in turn is reflected in the music too,somehow.Also I have a very deep & close relationship with the planet earth & nature.So I also hope to,at some level,to have also some organic and living feeling in the tracks.I'm not so much into this cybertrance" that psytrance these days is for a bit part...Completely cold synthetic music with nothing warm.(of course there's some good artists in that style like X-Dream,but for the most part,this kind of music lacs any kind of soul...)

9 )Q:your GOA is awesome but…have you other genres that you like and compose?

A:I have a lot of musical ideas in my head all the time,and most of them are just melodies,feelings & atmospheres. The reason I like to do goa is that it's so easy to me,and also it's very easy to get feedback for it since I have a lot of fans around the world now.I like playing around with weird sounds and producing sounds,and trance music is great for this.I would really like to move to different genres,but there's always so much mental effort in learning new things,and I also enjoy doing trance so much so I'm a bit stuck in it. It's not always a good thing, but then again, I'm rather productive these days because it gets quicker and quicker to do this one kind of music all the time. And also now,when people are booking me to play also abroad...There's this kind of incentive to continue this when I see how much people enjoy this And of course I also like this electro style videogame music...Haven't done much of that for some years still.But I really am trying to move on artistically.It's just a problem of time also,I would like to continue refining my trance sound,and learning new styles of music & ways of thinking would mean a big dedication musically. But at least my next compo tune will be different, more like Talvenkulma if people remember that song. Actually,I've been thinking of it as Talvenkulma part 2 And also lately I've been interested so much in ethnic music and also instrument building.I have this vague vision of this kind of danceable "roots" trance with ethnic sounds close to earth...But also to be enjoyed peacefully at home.

10 )Q:you are one of the compo winners,some ages ago: compo#3….what do you remember about that win?

A:That was Kääpiö-Saaren salaisuuks,was it? My memory fails me now...I think I was either late with the submission,or otherwise in a big hurry...So I decided to go for the easy way.I had been listening to a lot of "electroclash"(as this electro punk/ pop was back then called) music and 80s synthpop lately.So I decided to put down a heavy octave bass,because that always sounds good to me Then the big break at the middle(which gets people often crazy at parties) was an pasting accident...For some reason I pasted only a few rows to some pattern when I was trying to do a block copy and all the notes were left hanging after triggered.Luckily they were in unison or at least sounded good,so I made a complete breakdown based on that good sounding accident This happens a lot to me...I try to appreciate lucky accidents always.The the whistling melody...I first made it with Feedme,but it wasn't completely all right. So then I happened to remember that I had Enigma(that Theremin-emulator)installed,and well,it had one of the best sine oscillators at that time,very clean,and also very good sounding portamento because it has this nice floating action that it doesn't immediately settle to the desired note when you play it legato.Also the gating for the strings was an accident...it's hard to do ducking in Psycle,but I routed both a breakbeat and the strings to that same spectral transformation plugin(spectral monkyage!)and realised that the bass kick is gating the strings out.so I tweaked a bit and got a really nice pseudo-vocoding/ducking effect. I made the song in one evening in something like 5 hours I think,and then only refined it a bit a while later.So it's also the fastest song I ever made.And many,many, many people I've met really love it,it's probably one of my most popular tunes to this date. So maybe there's a teaching in all of this (I don't remember if it was that first version or the refined one I applied for the compo now...)

11 )Q:you are a great traveller,I readed a lot of things from your post about your travel.would you talk about something particular happened to you during some travel?

A:Oh,there's so much...I can't really tell any special stories now,that's for another time I think.But in general: I love meeting new people,seeing different cultures & places...My last trip was to Ukraine where I was playing at a party,and it was just fantastic!I pasted the link to the pictures somewhere in the boards...But of course the pictures can't capture that energy between people,and the exitement of even some ordinary things when they happen in a new context.Next,I'm going to Israel in May.I really am waiting forward to that!Oh,ONE thing I have to tell!(some people have read about this,but probably not everybody)When I was travelling in Europe a few years ago,I had just begun my trip and was going to Germany through Sweden and Denmark in a train.So at one point we had to change a train,and I was looking for a seat.There were these two really nice looking people,that gave me a very good feeling so I went to them.They were talking about psytrance music so I said I'm also doing that...The guy asked which software I used,and I replied that he doesn't probably know it,it's very unknown...Psycle of course.Well,to that he replied that he's Druttis,and...Hmm.I was really blown away by that.Talk about a small world!That was so funny.Also later after one month I met that girl again in Croatia at some psytrance festival,about which we neither knew we were going to by that time we were going to Paris accidentally together...So again,I was very surprised how small the world really is!

12 )Q:travel a part what do you like to do in your free time?

A:Well,obviously I spend a lot of time with my friends & do all the "normal"things.(except NOT go to bars much.I don't drink or smoke and the atmosphere usually just makes me feel very unhealthy...) I have many artistic pursues.I do textile dyeing,some silk screening & tiffany & stained glass work(this is really new to me still...),and lately I've been doing a lot of ceramics work.I like to create beauty to this world,and also I think it's just nice to learn new things.Lately I've been very interested in istrument building too,I made one string instrument after a Moroccan model already.It's sampled a lot on my compo tune Next autumn I'm moving to that craft school,and I plan to focus on historical instrument building probably as much as I can.I'm very interested in the state of the world & environmental problems,so I also keep an eye out for what's happening in the world.I tend to take it as an challenge too to live as ethically as possible,I'm always trying to change my life to a direction that would be as sustainable and independent as possible.I used to go really a lot to psytrance parties & clubs,but now I don't go so much anymore,it's mainly because I don't like indoor parties so much.Summer and outdoor parties is a different thing of course Also maybe some more a bit unusual hobbies,I really like to play some role playing games... I also used to go to live action role playing games a lot many years ago,but now only accidentally.Now we're having a D&D 3.5 edition campaign.Good old fashioned high adventure,I like that I would like to be more politically active in some grass roots action,but now it's rather accidental for me.I'm doing so much other things that there's not really energy to get active in some organisations anymore. But I know many really active people in the squatting scene & other things like that so I'm hanging around the forefront of societal change none the less I really love this whole DIY culture.Just do what you want,and try to find some alternative ways of life apart from this consumer society.That's also the reason I love to learn to build things,cook,make clothes or whatever.People these days are so accustomed to getting everything ready from a shop.I really appreciate skills that enable a person to be independent and take care of him/herself and those around him.But of course this is also for a big part just a romantic chase after some utopia...But it's better to believe and even try to change things than just submit to some harsh realities and let go of any dreams because "that's not possible!"You got to aim high to achieve anything valuable...

13 )Q:ok taika,it’s finished…would to add something?

A:Let me think...Of course a big thanks to the current creators of Psycle & Argu of course!I love open source & I love free information.I love the dedication that people put into this thing because I think that this kind of developement is going to be more and more popular in the future.Also the society around Psycle is very nice.I think Psycle has HUGE potential,I don't know why it hasn't taken off in the same way than Buzz before.Maybe it's because these days there's so much more options (when Buzz came out,it was pretty unique!),or maybe it's that Psycle doesn't have that kind of graphical "pro"sheen like some other trackers with colourful rendered graphics & things like that.And yeah,one thing: PEOPLE,DO THOSE COMPO ENTRIES I think it's fantastic how anybody can get into music these days with very little money.As I said earlier,10 years ago it really seemed impossible that people could have a whole studio in their computer..Real synths had so big symbolical power,if you had (expensive!) hardware,you were a musician! You got a lot of prestige for that...These days, it's the music that counts.I think it's fantastic how anybody can get into music these days with very little money.As I said earlier,10 years ago it really seemed impossible that people could have a whole studio in their computer...Real synths had so big symbolical power,if you had (expensive!) hardware,you were a musician! You got a lot of prestige for that...These days,it's the music that counts.Many people are surprised that I for example don't use hardware...There's still the weird thought that software must be somehow inferior because it's immaterial,it doesn't exist...Ok.That's all for now And everybody remember to check out my latest album at http://www.aavepyora.net ,almost all the tracks are refined & reproduced versions from those that are available at Psycledelics!

'''-well...really good taika,1000 thanks...bye bye!! '''

made by MFM on 4/4/2006