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In this episode of Come Back to Earth, I reflect on the grounding power of having something small you can control — a dial, a cable, a circuit — when the rest of life feels unpredictable.
I then sit down with music technology veteran and journalist Robin Vincent to talk about modular synthesis, hardware culture, and why building electronic music by hand keeps people curious, engaged, and sane.
This conversation explores tactile creativity, community, and the difference between scrolling presets and crafting sound from scratch. It also asks a bigger question: In an era of instant generation, what do we lose — and what do we gain — when we stop building things ourselves?
This is an episode about process, presence, and the quiet joy of plugging cables into possibility.
This episode is part of Come Back To Earth, produced by Story House. We believe story is a tool for meaning-making, not just performance.
The Letterbox
I read every letter. If something in this episode landed for you, or raised something you're still sitting with, I'd love to hear it.
Email me at: storytellingpods@gmail.com
Find the House
- Long-form writing and studio notes: https://story-house.beehiiv.com/
- Support this work: http://storyhousestudio.org/community
Presence over persuasion. Consistency over frequency. http://storyhousestudio.org
Creators and Guests
What is Come Back To Earth | Music & Mental Health?
What does it cost to make music, and what does it give back? Come Back to Earth is a weekly music interview podcast where host J.D. Murgolo sits down with musicians and songwriters to explore mental health, creative survival, and the stories hidden behind the songs.
We go beyond the stage to uncover the wounds, turning points, and hard-won hopes that shape an artist's life. Through honest conversations about the creative process, music and mental health, and what it means to keep going, this is a show where the music is the doorway — and the soul is the destination.
Because the most important thing an artist makes isn't the record. It's the decision to come back to themselves.
J.D.: [00:00:00] Every story begins somewhere. This one begins with Story House Studios.
Opening Memory
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J.D.: There's something grounding about having a small piece of the world you can control when everything else feels abstract or unpredictable. A dial, a knob, a switch, turn it, and something changes. Maybe that's part of why we're drawn to making things, not to dominate them, but to explore what's possible.
That's where this episode begins.
Introduction
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J.D.: This is Come Back to Earth, a podcast at the intersection of music and mental health from Story House Studios. I'm JD, a storytelling alchemist, and each episode is an invitation to return to the stories, wounds, and hopes behind the songs
Episode Orientation
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J.D.: When I sat down with Robin Vincent, I [00:01:00] expected to talk about synthesizers.
What I didn't expect was a conversation about engagement, about staying curious, about the difference between scrolling presets and building sound from scratch. Robin has been making music technology since the early days of digital audio. But what he's found in modular synthesis isn't just gear, it's connection
Interview with Robin Vincent
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J.D.: Hello, it's great to, to be here. My name's Robin Vincent. I'm what you would probably call a veteran these days- ... of music technology, starting in... Well, it's something that I enjoyed playing around with, something which I ended up studying, and then working in retail for many, many years. Harking back to the, to the 1990s at the, kind of at the birth of computer music- Yeah
for the large part. I mean, obviously these things can stretch back for decades and decades. But when it all started becoming popular, I was right sort of in the middle of it, making music in a music shop called Turnkey in [00:02:00] London, and I was selling systems to people, and software and hardware, and putting all those sorts of things together.
So that's kind of where my, where my grounding came from. But these days, I've gone through sort of retail into, uh, manufacturing. I used to build computers for studios. I have all sorts of people from George Martin, Dave- David Arnold, Chuck Ainlay, um, lots of nice big names I like to throw in there from time to time.
Yeah. Oh, names you do. All right. Yeah. And, and that's, that's nice of enabling people to make music on, on these nice big computers which do- Yeah ... all the recording and stuff for you. But since then, I've, I've sort of transitioned a bit in the last sort of 10 years away from computers into more hardware-based stuff.
Really, it came from this, this itch that a lot of people feel, where you spend a lot of time in software, and it's, it's an extraordinarily versatile and massive place to spend your time, where there's, there's no end to the possibilities, there's [00:03:00] endless depths to everything. And you imagine for yourself that you're within this, uh, extraordinary creative world and, you know, with endless possibilities.
You just pick another possibility out of the air and you start working on that, whether it's music, graphics, video, anything, and it's all extraordinary. But I feel, I felt, I think other people do too, that at some point, all your creativity is, is going through this little tiny- Yeah ... end of your mouse, and it seems ridiculous- It does.
Yeah, yeah ... that everything I'm trying to express myself with or through ends up through this little tiny inch square of mouse mat that I'm fiddling with. How can that be? How can that be? Yeah. How can that be how we do things? Yeah. I have all these other appendages. I have all these other ways of interacting with the world.
And so, uh, as I say, about five, 10 years ago, um, it, it came to a head for me and- I just kind of couldn't bear it anymore. I was [00:04:00] like, "What am I gonna do?" I mean, I've always played guitar, and I look for solace in, you know, in real instruments, and that- Yeah ... that's fine. But I kn- I know that I have all of this energy that I wanna give to- Yeah
to music and creativity, and it, it just was no longer there in the constant scrolling through of presets or through snare drum samples or- Yeah ... whatever it is you're trying to find to make a perfect track. And so I, I sort of found myself looking out and around the computer into other little boxes, and little synthesizers started to appear, little bits and pieces.
And at the same time, I was sort of pivoting away from building computers because there wasn't really the market for it anymore. I mean, mainly because computers just sort of started working because we went- Yeah ... we went through many, many years where a Windows computer, for instance, couldn't really do the music-making thing- Right
because they just weren't very good at it. That's how it was before, right, yeah. And so my job in building computers was to, to tune and tailor-make, custom-make computers that did [00:05:00] do the job very well. Jeez. But these days, we're overwhelmed with computing power, and so it's no longer such a problem, and so there's not such a need for people- Yeah
to spend extra money to buy something specialized. Anyway, so I sort of tipped myself out of that and went back to writing, which is something that I really enjoy doing, journalistic writing, so writing, uh, news articles, uh, reviews, that sort of thing. That sort of spilled into making videos in, on YouTube, and I built a YouTube channel Uh, doing that sort of thing, reviewing gear, talking about gear.
And so I've sort of pivoted away from building computers into more content creation, I suppose you would call it. Yeah. And, and in the course of that I was... I took on this job of, uh, becoming the synthesizer correspondent for a website called Gear News, uh, which, which was great. I did that for a, for a number of years.
But within that context, I suddenly realized I had to know more about synthesizers- Yeah ... than I did at that time. And so I found myself [00:06:00] having to sort of get out of my environment, get out of my shed, and go and go to a synthesizer show, and go and meet other people who, who played with synthesizers. And it was in that, uh, in that pushing myself out that I came across, uh, modular synthesis.
Uh, now modular synthesis is something that's been around for a very long time, before we had keyboard synthesizers. Yeah. I should, I should reach out and, and grab- Grab something from back- ... sort of visual aids ... this background. People can see this background, like- Yeah. Okay. So- Like you're not joking about it.
Yeah, yeah. I, I mean, we're familiar with keyboard synthesizers- Yeah ... you know? Uh, these have been around for a, for a long, long time, and then we hated them. We, we got rid of them all. We threw them all out because we thought software was going to- Change the world, yeah ... supply everything that we could possibly want.
And now we're back out the other end of that going- ... "Oh, I wish we'd kept hold of all those synthesizers." But, but that's a familiar thing, a keyboard with a synthesizer. But they... Before we had those, we had stuff which was more, more modular, more made up of individual- Yeah ... parts like this. Dials [00:07:00] and cables and- Yeah
switches. Dials and cables and stuff. It- Just like all sorts of fun. I'm sorry. It is, it is, it is. But, but the... See, the thing of, the thing about that is exactly true. This is instantly exciting. You know? It is. I actually- I, all of my senses- ... you know, like- ... are engaged. You know? I'm completely- I could just see other musicians or other people just looking at something, like going like...
I just... Like you were saying, like it's in a mouse, it's in a button. I don't wanna stop your train of thought- Yeah ... but just like, like it is like you want it simple. Everything just needs to be simple. But nothing about that stresses me out. I don't know anything about it. I don't know like what anything does, but I'm...
It's the complete... And, and it should. It should make you go, "Oh, my gosh. What the- Yeah ... what the heck am I doing?" But it's like I instantly, I'm like, "Oh, my gosh," like I wanna know- I wanna know how to do that. Yeah. This sounds really complicated, but you want to learn it. You do, you do. You wanna get your fingers in there, you know- Yeah.
and turn things- Turn something ... and move things and unplug things and, and plug that in there. And so this world- ... sort of opened up to me that I hadn't really considered. I considered- Yeah ... it to be ancient history, you know? Whereas it's actually something, [00:08:00] as I say, this is 2017, something like that. At that time, the whole thing was just about to explode- Yeah
in our tiny little niche corner of the world, but was, yeah, was becoming mightily popular. So I had the opportunity to be sort of paid to write about this stuff. And so in the course of doing that, I was able to use, use... I mean, I have, you know, I have small amounts of talent, and that, I think, is mostly in explaining stuff.
You know, I sort of, I sort of cut my teeth trying to explain, uh, how to use MIDI on a computer back when no one had computers. Right. You know, that was- That's right, yeah ... that was where I, on the shop floor on a Saturday morning, I had a queue of people asking me the same question over and over again. I'd try to explain the concepts of digital audio, of MIDI, of sequencing, of audio recording.
You know? You carry the two- Yeah ... multiply by X- Yeah ... divide by Y. You're right. I just Yeah. And I had to do that day in, day out for a long time, so I sort of honed this- Yeah ... ability, I suppose, to, to explain stuff [00:09:00] pretty well to people who don't really know what they're talking about. And so I was able to bring the, those, those thoughts to- Yeah
modular, which looked horribly complicated. And at the time, it was very, it, it... There was quite a high bar to entry. Yeah. That was in, in some regards in terms of cost, but also in terms of what the, how, you know, what, just what the, what, what the- Yeah ... is this about? What's going, what's going on here? Yeah. How do I start?
What do I need? And there's, there's lots of talks about power supplies and voltages and- Yeah ... um, ampage and all these other complicated engineering terms. And so it just said to me that somebody needs to explain some of this, and so that's, that's kind of what I jumped in to do. Yeah. So in, in a very long way of introducing myself, I guess these days-
I would consider myself, um, a music technology journalist to some degree, so I do review- Yeah ... for magazines. I review audio interfaces [00:10:00] and MIDI controllers and software and hardware and synths and bits and pieces. So I do that, and I also, I create, um, YouTube content on similar gear- Yeah ... and hopefully demonstrate how to use it, how to lower the bar on these things- Yeah
to give more people access and the opportunity to try this sort of stuff out. And I do that online, but I also do it in the physical space as well. I've, I've, I run an, uh, a yearly event in Norwich called Synth East, which is like a synthesizer show. Um- And I also do a monthly one as well, funnily enough, called Synth Picnic.
So, so I mean, that, that in a nutshell is everything Do. So I'm, I'm heavily immersed in synthesizers. Yeah. But, but that also spills out into audio hardware, recording stuff, I mean, microphones, all the, all the r- the stuff and associated, all the things behind me, all of these thing, things that I like to talk about, I like to get immersed in- Yeah
and have found that, [00:11:00] that creativ- creativity is more a, is actually larger than just the making of the music. Yeah. Um, there's a lot of creativity and a lot of emotion and connection that you find- Yeah ... within the equipment, oddly, within the gear. So it doesn't have to just be an emotional connection to a lyric or emotional connection to a melody.
It could be emotional connection to the way that your, your gear is set up, the way the sound is moving, the way that you, uh, control, uh, sound and aspects and generate. And f- you know, all of those things, too, feed into this hunger that we have to- Yeah ... to create, to, to express ourselves. Uh, you know, I honestly have so many questions.
Mm-hmm. And, like, not e- not even just on the side of, like, how it works and what's going on here. To me it's, it's just one other, like, small story of, like, are we, are we removing ourselves too far from that, the actual, like, feeling of crea- [00:12:00] creating anything, honestly? But, you know, here we're talking about music.
I mean, I ... We were talking before I started recording, like, when it came to, like, the equipment, you know, when you ... It's, it ... Then that's how they say it, like, it's so easy to, you know, to get your songs out there. It's so easy to start a YouTube channel. It's so easy to start a podcast. Yes, we've made things more accessible, and that's wonderful, but s- I, I wonder sometimes if, like, in the simplicity, which it sounds like what you're saying, in the simplicity of all of it, did we forget that, like, part of, like, the challenge of being able to do it does a lot of things for you.
It answers the question of, like, why you're doing this, you know? And if you get to the looking at a, you know, a modular board like that and you're like, "Yeah, I did wanna create music like this, but I don't, I'm not ready for it. I don't think I can do that challenge. Maybe this isn't what I wanna do," and that's great that you figured that out.
But I wonder sometimes in the simplicity of all this, and, you know, certainly, like, you know, dive into, like, the music side of this or the creation of it, if we've, like, forgot that feel, right? I mean, you can just ... Like you were talking about, like, presets. Like you, [00:13:00] you don't even ... Like, which is great that you could just say, "Well, I'd like this sound.
Oh, there it is," and then you're gone. But did you really get yourself attached to that sound? Did you ... You know, whatever you're doing, whether you're talking about the electronic of it or the, the, the guitar of it. Did you actually strum it and say, "Mm, yeah, well, no, that's not what I liked at all, actually."
Or as you're, you know, plugging and playing on the synthesizer, that, you know, that, "In my head, that key sounded fi- now that I've put that out there-" I don't know what the heck Daft Punk just did with that. I'm not, I'm out. You know? Like, we forgot, like, I mean, it certainly, like chime in there, like did we forget somewhere with all this, like making it like quote simple, that like part of the str- like the challenge of making it be so...
I mean, I'm not saying this is complicated because it, it just looks complicated, but it doesn't to me. You know, it's, it's did we lose the ability to say, here's the emotional attachment to this like thing that I'm create- like you said, I mean, the mouse. Yeah. Like mine- mine's glowing and it's- Yeah ... I still think the same thing.
You know? It's like, what? Yeah. Well, I, I think, I mean, [00:14:00] there's... A lot of it is, is to do with int- with intention, you know? Right. What, what is it that you are trying to a- to achieve ultimately? 'Cause there, what, what I've dis- discovered, I think, is that there are so many different levels to being a musician and what that actually means.
There's only act- there's only a tiny amount really that are in the process of, of releasing and promoting- Yeah ... and touring, and then writing, and then releasing. On that, on that merry-go-round of actually being a working, performing musician that we see and recognize, um, that's only a small proportion. For most of the rest of us, we've already, you know, at some point we thought that was gonna happen to us too, and there's always an element there going, "Oh yeah, you know, you could go viral."
Fireworks are coming. The giant stage of fireworks is coming. You j- Yeah, yeah. You just never know, so that's always a factor. But we, I think you come to a realization that it's not necessary that I'm trying to climb the charts or trying to be a successful musician. It's that I'm in love [00:15:00] with the making of the music- Making, yeah
regardless of where that gets to, where that goes to. I may not have a film to score, I may not have a, you know, a contract or anything of, of that nature, but I, uh, I fulfill my creative urges through the making of the music. Making. And that, and that is, that becomes evident through the equipment and the gear that you use.
Uh, so many, many, many people now are acquiring gear, buying, fitting out little home studios with, with modular and equipment and synthesizers, and it's in the exploring of that equipment that you satisfy those urges. It, it's no longer trying to find an end product because, you know, if you are working to a budget or you're working to a deadline, then you need presets.
You are going to need to do the majority- Sure, sure, sure ... of your work on a computer. But particularly if you're working with, with a client who turns up and says, "So how you doing?" If, if I'm doing something on modular, it's like, "Well, half an hour ago it was brilliant, but now I've [00:16:00] taken it all apart and I'm, I'm just trying to solder these two bits together."
That, that wire's sparking over there. Is that supposed to be happening? Yeah, exactly. So, so the whole thing's completely- Where's my song? And none of it is recallable, you know? When I- Yeah ... once I've patched this particular bits together and then unpatched it, it's completely different. And then I- Right
can patch something else together and it's completely different. And there's no button I can press that goes, "Go back to your last setting." Go back to your last setting. Yeah. So the whole thing is in a s- is in a state of temporary existence. You know, you're, you're creating a sound. Uh, so rather than surfing for a preset and going, "Oh, that sounds nice," you are trying to craft a sound with your equipment- Trying to get something together, something going which resonates with you and you, you, I mean, you, you come at it with a bit of knowledge over, oh, I know that if I put that in there, that sounds nice and that sounds nice.
Right, right. But also there's a huge element of exploration and experimentation. Yeah. You know, what happens if I plug that in there? What happens if I do that? Or I can't remember [00:17:00] how I did that last time. I'm gonna have to try to rework that a different way. And so that then produces a sound. And it may be that you spent all day trying to come up with this interesting sound that you then lose the next time you come in the next day, but it doesn't matter because you've spent a day, uh, in a worthwhile space enjoying yourself.
Yeah. Yeah. You're connecting with control voltage and signals and equipment, and that honestly, in many cases is enough, you know? Yeah. And that, that is the joy. It's the joy of using the gear as opposed to the, the joy, the deferred joy down the line when you're supposed to do the gig or- Right ... release the record.
Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So you have- It's like, here's, here's your, here's your sound. Can you sing over that? And like you had no attachment then to the, the other half of that- that, that, that, that piece of music, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, it's, it's just giving you a whole different level of, you know, whether it's your song or not, y- y- you know, a whole different understanding and [00:18:00] appreciation for, oh, like this is...
I, I know exactly how that sound came about. I didn't hit a button. I spent a day- Mm ... unplugging and plugging, and turning and tiling, and figuring all that piece out. Like, y- you called y- Yeah ... you said veteran in the beginning, and like, you know, you're, you're looking at all this equipment and like, you know, like, like the word's ancient.
And does that feel weird to say that, you know, about, I mean, something that, I mean, really like didn't, is always necessary when it comes to music, is always there? But I guess, I mean, I guess the way I like, like am putting it in my head is like the, the tr- the evolution from like, you know, vinyl to cassette to, you know- Mm
CD to now it's just like streaming and... That's weird to me, like when I, like wh- I got a, I had an artist like send me a vinyl record the other day, like, you know, as a thank you. And I have a collection somewhere in the bookshelf, but it never needed to come out for our kids, but I left it there to open and, you know, when I, when they came home so that, um, they could see it.
And my five-year-old, and it was, it just happened to be one of these like nice, pretty, like not black, um- Mm ... vinyls, so it caught your attention even more. [00:19:00] But to like hold that and explain that like the music that was currently playing out of a speaker that I just told my phone to do for you came out of this, too.
And I, so I'd imagine it's gotta be something like that, that you're sitting here talking about something that's ancient, but it's like, it's not to you, but the rest of the world is calling it like, you know, like whatever those fun words like, you know- Yeah ... a retro or a throwback. And it's like, well, no, like this actually is like a lot cleaner and more involved and- Yeah
worthwhile in the end. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I don't... I mean, progress is fine, but it's not always in, in the right way or the right direction, or necessarily- Or necessarily, yeah ... even advantageous to us, you know? We all love the, the, the convenience of certain things, of being able to listen to Spotify or find a tune.
I mean, my, my kids, I have teenage children, and they're, the fact that they've grown up with Spotify and can listen to any music pretty much, uh, that's ever been done is amazing. I mean, it- It is, right ... it has, it has a downside to [00:20:00] it perhaps, but I don't really see that particularly. I don't see them being bored of music.
I see them being excited and invigorated- Sure ... and going on little journeys, and that's all great. But also, if they have the opportunity, they do prefer to buy something on vinyl- Yeah ... because I have a record player set up in my home, as you can imagine. Right. And, and they just love that because it has- They, I mean, they still wonder at the idea of listening to an album through as opposed to- Right
just a playlist. You know? Right. Why are those things different? Why do they, why do they exist? What are all these weird tracks that, uh, they've never- Yeah. ... before from their favorite bands- Their favorite band. Right ... because they've only, yeah, they've only ever listened to the, to the singles. The ones with stars next to it.
If that exists. Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Their most popular ones are the only ones you're listening to. Yeah. So that's, that, that very m- I mean, I think in our, in one's post-modern era, we are looking at ways of not just going forward, but also bringing with us what was decent from before. Yeah. [00:21:00] And while things can be inconvenient, they can be large and lumpy, like, you know, like the gear that we use.
It can be, you know, there's lots of reasons why we try to leave it behind in the, in the '80s and the '90s. It's b- things like, uh, tuning was, was terrible. Right. Uh, lugging these things to a gig, they're heavy and- Right, right ... uh, unmanageable. Things break. You, you know, you're in a hot environment, all of your oscillators go out of tune.
You've got to try to get that back together. There's reasons why a laptop with a software synth is far superior in certain circumstances. But that doesn't mean that we have to leave everything behind and- Yeah ... jettison it, because there's so much, you know, joy and a connection to be had from that process, from the process of making that music- Yeah
even if it ends up being a sample or a track that you DJ with. But the process of exploring sound and exploring the way that textures comes together, the way that a sound [00:22:00] moves along its timeline, the way that it changes over time- Yeah ... and modulates, the way that timbres can move and crash into one another.
You know, that in itself is exploring the art of this sound wave musical creation that you don't necessarily get in the end result. Yeah. And it, I mean, it, I mean, if I have to, like I'm gonna walk back to my kids just 'cause they're five and three and it's that stage, but it's- it's like that age of life in general, like is, you know, just your natural curiosity is like on- Mm
like high alert. But you've figured out how to keep that natural curiosity like throughout your life, and like, and- and more importantly, like spit it out in- in a way that other people can see- Mm ... your natural curiosity, you know, like- like c- continuing. You know? Like you look at a kid when they f- re- figure out that like waterfalls are a thing, you know?
Like it's, like you can see the shock and awe and it's like, oh, like you just like bank that into your memory now. Like you didn't have that there before. And just the way you're describing it is that, that it's just, [00:23:00] it's this constant, you know, feeling of you had, you were involved in that. Not to say the guitar player or the singer wasn't, but I, to- to me, this is just like a different level of- of where that, you know, where that natural curiosity keeps coming.
Like you get a chance, like you said, you could spend a day, where other people would be like, "Well, that was frustrating." Like you could see it on your face, you were like, "This was fun." Like Yeah. Yeah ... I didn't waste a day at all. No, no, absolutely. I mean, you know, the- there's- there's old adages about how far do you go back to be authentic, you know?
If you're- Right ... if you're playing guitar, then it's only authentic if you built the guitar yourself- ... you know? And then you're gonna have to have, uh, felled the tree and you're gonna have to have planted the acorn in the first place, you know? All of these, the ways that you can try to- to map the authenticity of your music generation.
At what point- Right ... are you compromising? At what point are you selling out to some other- Selling out, yeah ... you know, some- something else providing the tools for which you then make your music? But I mean, that, I- I don't think that's a useful thought process. No, not at all. You know? But at the same time, [00:24:00] with, uh, with modular synthesizers, you can design circuits.
You know, you can, if you want, design circuits that have never really been designed before and put those together and solder together a- a module which then creates waveforms that- that you can use. You c- you can go that deep. That sort of access is available to you, and it's not, it's not a difficult way in.
It's takes a little- Yeah ... bit more than, uh, than nothing, but it- There is, uh, that sort of access is open to you so that you can actually design and build the very source of the waveforms you're gonna be using in your music, which is, you know, so, I mean, there's so many branches to this. Yeah. You can be, you can be purely, you know, a whimsical creative person and just twiddle a couple of things and go, "Ooh, that's lovely," and off we go.
Off we go. Or, or you can be a complete nerdy engineer who needs to know exactly what the, you know, voltage levels are between here and here, and they want to make sure that they have the [00:25:00] right capacitors involved, and they're, you know, all the way down to component level. You know, there's, there's so many different ways that you can, you can explore- Yeah
electronic music at home. You know, w- there, there's no, there's no real barriers to which way, to how far you wanna take it, whether it's creative, whether it's engineering, whether it's scientific. I, I know plenty of people who m- who make music in a very, you know, a notebook and pen kind of way. Yeah. So they're noting down knob positions, or they're noting down voltage levels and then trying some other- That's true
experiment to see how that changes. And I know people who code, you know, uh, uh, who do live coding, which is, which is electronic music, but it doesn't use this sort of stuff. But using a computer to create waveforms, they write the code as they go and generate music as it, as it... The music is generated from their code live and in real time.
So they're typing in, "I want this sort of oscillator- Yeah ... this sort of frequency with this sort of- Amazing ... filter." And, you know, and it's all co- semicolons [00:26:00] and backslashes and this, that, and the other. Jeez. You know, so the, there's so many different ways- Definitely. Yeah ... that you can approach it. And very little of it is about picking up a guitar and singing a song.
You know, it, there's a lot more, uh, to it. Now, I mean, I do that myself. There's nothing against that, don't get me wrong. But the, it just offers such a wide array of- Yeah ... of, of opportunities to use different parts of your brain and different parts of your creativity that you perhaps haven't explored before.
And it's very often seen, you know, electronic music, it can be seen quite bor- uh, can be seen as being quite boring. We perhaps perceive it as a more of a DJ thing. Yeah. I mean, and DJs can be exciting, of course, but it does tend to be somebody just sort of standing slightly awkwardly next to something which is, which is perhaps making some music.
It's difficult to- It's- ... difficult to see from the- Yeah ... outside, I think. So I, I have like, like a twofold question that goes along- Mm ... with that. You know, when you're [00:27:00] looking and listening, I have somebody listening to this that isn't within the world of music in some shape or form, just like as a listener, how do you explain to them that like, yes, this is a facet of music, for starters?
Mm. But then for somebody that's on the inside, you know, of, is some musician of any sort, you know, whether it's a singer, you know, guitar player, drummer, y- you know, and, and isn't involved necessarily in this version of music, do you think that musicians, other musicians see this as like a, an influence, I guess?
I, I, I talk that, uh, like that's always fascinating to me. Like, anytime like you hear like, you know, your famous artist and they're, you know, let's just say they're like a hip hop artist, and then like they're in an interview and they're like, "You know, what's, what are your influences?" And they're like, "Well, you know, Spyro Gyra and Pat Metheny and..."
You know, just the complete opposite of like what they play. And it's like, no, that's not possible. You're supposed to like that genre that you play all the time. Do, do other musicians like see this as, you know, something that's like, yeah, like this is exactly music as well? Like do they, I don't wanna say like appreciate it 'cause that's not the word- No
that I'm looking for, but like do they see [00:28:00] that and go, "Yeah, you are also a musician with me"? Yes. Uh, yeah, partially. I mean, it, it's, it's interesting because for a lot of people, this sort of thing is kind of invisible. Yeah, that's what I was gonna- It's very much, yeah, it's very much in the background. So while all of the music they're listening to undoubtedly has synthesizers going through it and, and various bits and pieces going on, it tends to be, tends to be obviously the lead guitar that people look at- Right, right
or the drum solo, or even if there is a keyboard solo, it tends to be, uh, on a keyboard instrument, you know, an electric piano or an organ- Yeah ... or something like that. So a, a lot of this gear is not very performative. While you can absolutely perform with it, it doesn't, it, it doesn't fulfill- It's not as cool as grabbing a stick, right?
Yeah. It doesn't fulfill that leaning into your guitar, you know, one foot up on the, on the monitor as you're gurning at the crowd. I mean, you could. You could change wires and dial knobs, right? Yeah. You know, you're- Yeah, sure ... but you're right. But look- Yeah. But [00:29:00] most of us are kind of over that. That's, that's kind of the thing.
It's we've come out the other side of a, of a lot of that kind of performative idea, and now we're perhaps just more interested in how the music's generated and how that works. So I think, yeah, so as I, as I say, I think it's often largely ignored or just not particularly understood, and that's not necessarily important because this sort of music also creates its own genres.
Yeah. And you will find, um, you know, pubs and little clubs where there are people who bring along their boxes, their little boxes of lights and knobs and cables, and people will sit around and listen for, for 20 minutes, for half an hour or how- however long it goes on. And it doesn't have to follow the usual avenues that music takes Yeah You know, the usual scripts.
And you have, you know, everything from, from glitch and noise and, and weirdness, uh, through to beats, through to drones. I mean, um, I was at something called an EMOM [00:30:00] just a week ago. Uh, an EMOM is electronic music open mic. So if you're familiar with an open mic where you might take your banjo along and play a song- Play along.
Oh, play along ... this is an electronic version of that where you bring along your, your box of, uh- Okay ... you know, some, some box or other, "I'm gonna play a tune on this," and it just goes for, for 15 minutes. But that's brilliant, and everybody- That's brilliant. ... everybody brings something along, and they sit there, and they set up.
And it might be someone with a laptop doing a DJ thing, or it might be someone with a groove box who's just sort of cutting beats and samples about the place. Or it might be someone with an analog synthesizer that's just creating this, this, this sound. Yeah. And, uh, the other Thursday, um, I did a little set on, on a little box, which was...
which I enjoyed quite a lot. Don't know who else did, but I had fun. But then somebody else did this drone set. So there was, like, 20 minutes of just this one sound, so this one sound droning on, which was then, it just had elements in it that came in and went [00:31:00] out and sort of- Yeah ... waved in and waved out, and these, these sort of harmonics that came in, and then other bits that, that rose and fell.
And you could just sort of feel this gradual loosening- Yeah ... of tension around the place as everything just relaxed into kind of a puddle on the floor. And it's that- Humans, humans are just amazing, I swear. Yeah, and it- You know? It's just that transformational nature- Yeah ... of music which, uh, which does that re- regardless of what your, what your source material is, what you're using to generate it with.
Yeah. It still follows that same idea that you find some kind of connection. It works on you, whether- Yeah ... you know, whatever, whatever sort of music it is, it can, it can do a work on you, and I think that's the connection that we have that makes it so, so extraordinary. It's the wonderful part, truly. Mm.
Robin, thank you so much for sharing your story. More importantly, thank you for gifting your sound to the world. Well, I think the jury's probably out on that. But we will con- [00:32:00] we'll, we will continue to do so. I think that's... I mean, that's, that's the key, the key thing to it. I mean, to, just to say that this sort of making music in this way is very, very...
is more accessible than you would think. Yeah. It takes a little bit perhaps of, of money to buy some gear and a little bit of time to explore, but there's such a great community around it of people who are dying to help you out and to explain stuff. There's such good resources out there. And it's a, it's a fabulous place to play, I think, and a fabulous thing to experience as you do so.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you.
Closing
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J.D.: There's something striking about hearing someone talk about physical connection to sound, about plugging cables in instead of clicking a mouse. Listening back, I kept thinking about how easy it is now to generate something instantly, but there's a different satisfaction in crafting it and not being able to [00:33:00] recall it later and being present because you have to be.
It's this idea of control. Not control of people, not control over outcomes, just control over a small circuit, a voltage, a sound. Listening to Robin talk about modular synthesis, it's a reminder that sometimes creativity isn't about the finished track. It's about staying engaged, staying curious, and building something, even if it only exists for a moment
Outro
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J.D.: Thank you for joining me on this journey with Robin Vincent. If this conversation stayed with you, carry it into your next walk, your next quiet moment, your next horizon. Music connects us, not just through sound, but through shared experience and the courage to keep evolving. If you've got something you want to share about this episode or how music has supported you in your life, [00:34:00] you can send me an email at storytellingpods@gmail.com.
Until next time, keep breathing, keep listening, and keep coming back to earth