Hello and welcome to the Sound on Sound podcast about electronic music and all things synth.  I'm Caro C and in this episode we're talking to Sam Battle, better known as Look Mum No Computer.  And yes, he is of the digital age but prefers to keep it analogue.  Sam is a maker, inventor and musician inspired by 80s pop and he is certainly carving out his own path with almost half a million YouTube subscribers. 

and a solid Patreon following. He's even set up a museum in Ramsgate in Kent in the South of England, where you can get your hands on his inventions alongside other experimental and obsolete science and music technologies. 

It was so much fun to hear about his somewhat unique inventions and creative approach. To get us started, here's a sample of the Furby organ. 

Thank you very much for chatting to us today. Look Mum No Computer, aka Sam. Thank you very much, Cara. It's a pleasure to be chatting with you today. Excellent. Loads of amazing work that you're doing that I can't wait to unpack a bit. Um, I guess we're going to have to start with, um, you defining yourself and what you would describe yourself as what you do.

I'm not sure. I guess I am a musician tinkerer. Uh, it's, it's a very strange thing. I suppose when you become like trying to get along, uh, in the creative kind of world nowadays, you, you try and cover as many things as you can. And at some point you look back and go, What do I describe myself at a dinner party?

And I just don't know. I don't know what I would. I haven't been to a dinner party recently. You're an inventor. I don't know. I don't know because yeah, I'm not sure.  Yeah. From what I gather, you're an inventor. You're a maker. You're a musician. Definitely. And because thinking about the fact that it is more analog and you're doing it all on the fly, I started off using hardware and I've now gone more digital.

But in a sense, there's a different kind of more physical musicality, isn't there? Uh, yep. Um, I mean, I do a bit of both to be honest because, uh, like, I think the whole, the whole going to the physical realm quite a lot was, uh, probably started, uh, fully. I mean, I was messing around with it quite a bit beforehand, but I just got sort of sick of, uh, a band that I was in previously.

We were touring with Ableton and stuff. And just a few times, there was just no reason why it wouldn't work and there was no way to fix it because. It was on a computer, and we were just getting annoyed, and it was all having to boot it up, and all that stuff. And I just got utterly sick of the idea of having to rely on something.

something like that. So I sort of moved out of it. And, um, having used Logic for many years, I felt like I needed to, uh, uh, figure out my sound in other means.  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So find your sound world in Logic. beyond, beyond the digital dependency. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And how did that come about then? Where did, how did you start to explore more hardware?

Well, uh, regarding the hardware, it all came from a DIY kind of standpoint of, uh, when I, when I started looking at hardware and stuff, uh, uh, well, I can, I couldn't really afford much, anything to be honest. So I was, um, uh, I started with a DIY stuff when I was, I think I was probably like, I mean, I, I was playing around with electronics when I was a kid, but then I built a guitar pedal, uh, in, uh, I think year 10, I don't know what year that is, age that is, that's like, 15, 15, and I just, I read, I was in the library, I remember I took a book that was like a queen biography, I read it, and I think they got it wrong, because I don't think this is right, after looking at it, but it said, John Deacon made Brian May, A Dallas Rangemaster copy, which is a treble boosting pedal.

I was like, that's cool, maybe if I build one of those, I can sound like Brian May. And I built it, it took two months because I didn't know anything. At that time there wasn't a massive amount of, I didn't know where to look on the internet. Nobody was able to help because nobody else knew around me or anything.

My dad was nice enough to drive me to the um, electronics shop. Uh, I picked up a load of things. I got it wrong. Yeah, it took me two months. But the second I turned it on, there was that magical sensation of like being like, Holy moly, this works. I mean, it sounds absolutely rubbish and I don't think it's supposed to sound like that, but it works.

And that is so cool. And that feeling of actually making something at this time, I think I only had like, I don't think I had a pedal. I didn't have any other pedals. I just had a guitar, an amplifier. The idea of building a pedal, because for some reason I didn't really, I didn't even know that you could get pedals.

I didn't know they existed, like, you could buy them at shops.  It was a bit stupid. This was at the point where I was, um, uh, recording onto Logic, and I didn't know that there was, like, plug ins on Logic, so there was, like, no  uh, synths and stuff. And at that time, I didn't even know what synths were to be honest.

I saw keyboards. I didn't know. I did, you know, like sometimes people, it's weird now. I think it is that the last five years, maybe it's become a little bit more of a main thing for people, for the punter to potentially see like, like the two thousands, probably a lot of people forgot even they, they were, uh, uh, a main thing.

It was just like, Oh, the electric sounds. The electronic sounds, like the sampler in Slipknot or something. It's like, what do they do? Waka waka waka! It's, uh, I'm not really sure. So, um, yeah, yeah. And I just didn't have a clue what any of it was. I just kept on playing guitars and playing Logic. And then somebody, one day, went on my Logic and opened up this tab.

And then just loaded a synth thing and they played it on the keyboard. I was like, what are you doing? That's amazing. And at that time I'd been using like Logic as a tape recorder kind of style thing for like, yeah, four or five years.  And they just went boom. Uh, synths were, yeah, then synths happened, and, uh, after a while, I felt, uh, like I needed to mix my electronics, uh, love for electronics with, well, with synthesizers and stuff.

Uh, at that time, I, I've got, I think I, I kind of figured out quite quickly on that I didn't like plug in sounds. Purely because, uh, all of the presets, they all sound too  There's too much stuff going on, like, I hate it, like, when, you know, you click on a preset and it's like, all of the delays are loaded, everything's loaded, and it also, when you push your finger down, it automatically sounds like, uh, keygen music, it's like, 

So the only other logic  plugin I ever really kind of, found myself enjoying and stuff was actually the GarageBand Analog Mono, which was just like, I think it was like, just a line of um, yeah, the, the controls on an analog mono synth, but on the computer, and that was the closest that I got to feeling like, the sound that I wanted because it was just simple and it just didn't have any fluff and you just could adjust it.

So quite quickly on, I didn't really vibe with presets because it sounded like the stuff that I didn't like on the radio.  And so at which point did you sort of start to build? Was it synths you build first or was it drum machines? Yeah, so um, I was uh, and then at that time, uh, me and my friend decided to try a circuit bending because, uh, somebody, uh, College was just showed us.

Oh, there was a TV program and it was like, Oh, circuit bend. I was like, Whoa, what, what is that? So we bought some, uh, secondhand toys from the charity shop, broke them. And then after that I started working, he got bored of it. I just kept on trying it and I got a game boy and figured out that you could make music on the game boy.

I was like, well, this is mad. Come on music it sounds way better than it sounds more like  It's more like raw kind of sound to it than on the things that I was messing around with logic It just sounded a bit more. I don't know and it was just a decision that I was like, it just sounds nicer And it's like it's not that it sounds nicer, but it sounded worse But I like it sounding worse.

I don't like nice sounds. Yeah, there's a kind of visceral, there's a visceral edge to, um, a couple of your videos, like, live videos that I've seen that, um, that, yeah, I really love, and that's all the analogue noise, isn't it, basically? Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of analogue noise and stuff coming from, like, liking full bands and stuff, band performances.

Uh, there's another element, which  I'll get to with the Modular Simpsons stuff. It feels like, even though it's, you know, you're playing it through the electronic stuff, it feels like a live band is playing in your face. It sounds like a live band is playing in your face, purely because it sounds worse, but in a visceral kind of manner.

And, you know, when it all sounds too prim and proper and it, you know, I it is just not my, not my, not my cup of tea. Yeah. Yeah. And it also, it's that thing of, it's all the harmonics are clashing and stuff like that, aren't they? Which makes it feel like there's more of a collective thing going on. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

And it's like you watch a band, like, you know, a live performance of it and it's just, yeah, it is just a bit rough around the edges and it's very hard to simulate that. Uh, I mean, it probably is possible, but it's just a bit more of a, it's a quite a faff. in the computer realm, I think. After that, well, I bought, um, I found on eBay, there was a broken Korg MS 10.

And at this point, I didn't even know that, uh, the synthesizers existed out of the computer.  I thought it was like, oh, there's a Game Boy that does it. And I was like, I wonder if there's any like real versions of these. And I  basically, I don't really look on the internet. I don't really watch TV or films or anything.

I think I've only made it through about three or four films fully, but like, um, I found a broken Korg MS 10, uh, after about six months I managed to fix it. Before that I didn't even like, the envelope generator wasn't working so I was just playing with it without an envelope generator. It still was fine, I managed to come up with some good riffs that I've kept throughout that I've tried to compose songs around.

So I got that kind of sound going and after a while it's that sort of built into finally finding on the internet that synthesizers and modular synthesizers existed and building things, messing around with circuits and sort of somewhat coming to a point. where I think in 2013, 2014, maybe I was like, I'm going to try and make the full sound and stuff going out of electronics that I've built.

Well, I'll have real electronics fully, so everything's there and I don't need to go on the computer and then get sidetracked and go on, I don't know, the internet looking on YouTube or something. Um, and that was like the aim. And it's sort of kind of built into, I didn't even intend it potentially, just a sounding, yeah, um, the way I wanted it to sound.

Coming from, uh, songwriting in a rather pop kind of stance, like I did a couple of years of solid songwriting sessions for other people. And that made me sick of Logic, I've got to say. Uh, the idea of having too many sounds. At your disposal, I find, personally, not from I'm more of a composition kind of person than a soundscape kind of person.

I've tried to get a soundscape that I like and stick to it. But I find that, like, if you have too many at your disposal, then you  can't focus on the composition. Sometimes. That's for me. Maybe other people have found the magic method. But, um, when a band is playing in a rehearsal room, they don't have a million sounds.

You know, they've got the drums, the drums are like that sound, the bass, maybe a couple of pedals, but that's three bass sounds, uh, four or five guitar sounds, and that's about it, and then you focus on the composition, you focus on what the song is doing, and I find that that is why I went to modular synthesizers, not because there's a, you know, Unlimited amount of sounds and an unlimited possibilities is because it's extremely limited and you can curate your limited world To make the songs you want 

So tell us more about your, yeah. Your explorations and experience with, with the modular stuff. Uh, modular stuff. Well, it's, it's, it's interesting I guess. I mean, I, I dunno, it's, it's, uh, I, I talk to some people, they're like, w wha wha what? Why you do that? I dunno why I do that. I've gotta be honest. Uh, I, I started doing it with DIY and it was taking a really long time to learn it all.

And I got kind of sick and I was like, Oh, I wish I could afford some Eurorack. I've sold some things, I think, and I bought a little system for a little bit. And amazingly enough, like I couldn't get the sounds that I wanted out of it. And, and after a while I realized that like, I need to sort of most, like some of the modules were good.

And in fact, a couple of the dope for modules. I was, I like this. I can't replicate this. So I took the, uh, out of the panel, pulled the panel off and rewired it behind my one, just because then it's because mine is a different size to your Iraq is 20 centimeters tall and big jacks. And, um, yeah, I just found that I had to build it and mine were worse technically than the Eurorack ones, which in some respects actually made it sound more like the way I wanted it to like the, the, uh, the waveforms I didn't realize, but a lot of, um, the, the  waveforms go through the zero voltage.

So it dips to minus and plus voltage. So you've got that kind of, that's what an oscillator should do. But unknowingly when I was making mine, I made it so it only goes in positive voltage, but that means you get a very unsymmetrical kind of distortion and I prefer it. Yeah. And so, yeah, you sell, don't you?

Is it the Cosmo? Yeah. Like there's a, so, um, in 2019 I decided that, um, my synth kept on breaking on tour. And there was a few different times where it started to become kind of a thing, uh, When playing the gig it's like, oh no, uh, I've broken something people thought I was so prepared for something to break that they thought it was part of the set.

But every time it was something different broken and it was just having to bypass it. And I realized that this is problematic. So I had to start designing them on circuit boards. And, uh, I figured whilst I'm doing that, I may as well share the journey so people can build their own, um, similar machine from these findings and people seem to enjoy it.

It's quite good. It's quite good. And, um, the only thing that breaks it now is probably, probably moisture. And that's, uh, like it's been a couple of times where there was this small gig and some, some guy, it was fine. I had, I'd like, they had, they were putting beers on top of the synth whilst I was playing, which is fine.

Like I'd let them stack it. But then somebody walked into the symphony, all fell down and, uh, like, uh, the bottom power supply on the bottom one broke. And I had to gather I had to fix it for the next day. But it's lucky I was able to fix it because I had a bunch of spare, big ol bag of HWSCHWCHWCHWCHWCHWCHWCHWCHWCHWCHWCHWCHWCHW That's the sound of it, it went HWSCHWCHWCHWChwchwchwchw Just loads of random electronics.

But heh heh I'm not particularly precious, with things. And that's why I really can't buy new things. Because um, the value that I own, it goes like  make sure not to buy pristine condition things as you can tell with the microphone.  That's amazing when yeah, when you make stuff, but just don't give you just yeah, nobody should give you new stuff.

Just give you broken stuff and you'll make it work. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Broken stuff. Uh, because It can work, and then, yeah, if it gets a bit dented, then it's okay. Yeah, so talking of broken things, you've got a newish project called, um, what is it, The Museum? This Museum is Not Obsolete. That's it, yeah, tell us about that.

So, This Museum is Not Obsolete is a museum full of  And basically, I've been doing YouTube videos. It's weird, like, I ended up doing YouTube videos. It wasn't even something I was focusing on. I just, um, in 20, end of 2016, I started doing videos about what I was making and stuff. And yeah, I just somehow ended up doing more, and it sort of worked.

But over that amount of time, I ended up with a lot of stuff, um, to do videos on. And there was a point where I was like, I should start trying to do videos on weird, curious old things, as well as the things that I build. So I just ended up with a load of stuff, and it was costing a load of money to store all of this stuff.

because I wanted to keep it just in case somebody asked, oh, can I see this thing? It's like, sure. Because if I bought the, and then sold it, I wouldn't.  So I just ended up with loads of stuff and it ended up costing loads of money to store it. And I found, I found I've did some maths and it was cheaper to, um, set up a museum. 

So I've got a museum full of  stuff that I've built and full of old stuff. There's a whole load of things. There's, uh, the machines that I built, the thousand oscillator mega drone.  Furby organ. Yeah, that doesn't work right now. I've got to fix it. Gameboy mega machine. There's an owl organ made from a load of owls that's built by the nervous squirrel.

But then there's a load of old, old things like, um, I've got a, I've got a full telephone exchange. That's a bit of a dangerous thing. But the plan is that that calls up all of the, all of the synthesizers and music making devices in the building. But that's a, that's a big wiring job. Wow. Where is it then?

Where is this museum? So this museum is in Ramsgate.  Uh, which is a coastal town, you just come for the seaside, it's next to Margate, and, uh, funnily enough, we are next to, uh, the Micro Museum, which is an old computer museum, so you, the plan is, you come along, look at all the old computers, look at all the old musical and scientific equipment and stuff over here, and go and see the sea, and have some fish and chips, maybe.

Yeah, sounds ace, fantastic. And, um, yeah, so talking about some of your inventions, there's lots that I'd love to talk about. I think one of your most recent ones is an installation that's coming up, an interactive one that's around Teletubbies. Yeah, Teletubbies. So I decided to start collecting this specific type of Teletubbie Teletubbies.

a couple of years ago. It's a 1990s specific Teletubbie that does this weird dance. It's very fluid. It's a lovely dance. It's like, and it's so strange. And I was like, I'm going to try and find as many of these as I can. I just, why not? Nobody else was, but this is another thing. I love finding things that nobody else wants.

Uh, it's just, uh, it's like, why would you want it? So I'll find a use for it. And I figured by the time I have enough, I'll have an idea. And it was just like, you know, a big stadium cascading wave of all of these Teletubbies going down. It's not super musical but they all sing at the same time. However, they all sing out of sync.

So it's just going to be another heavenly noise of Teletubbies just going,  It will be done in a week or two. It's going to be, it's going to be equally awful, but super awful, I mean.  And that's going to be an installation that the public can come along and play. It would be indoors. Uh, first, it's going to be outdoors, uh, in the Ramsgate Festival of Sound for, it's going to be open for five days.

There's a good chance it'll get broken, but that's just the way the world works. And then after that, I'm going to set it up down the hallway of the museum so people can just play all of them. It's about, uh, I've got 50 of these Teletubbies, but, uh, it's funny. Somebody said, somebody said, you don't hear this, uh, this statement very often.

It's like, but I'm going to find the 40 best Teletubbies.  Yeah, good. Yeah, yeah, no, no, that is, um, that is, it's an important mission in life. Yes. Um, and, um, can you tell us a bit about how these are being triggered then, um, both by the, the, the person using them as well as how you're getting it all to work, getting them to do their moves?

Of course, of course. Uh, so some people may think this is quite a luddite kind of point of view, but I feel, um, I'm not a Luddite, I'm just trying to find alternatives towards the modern, bloated digital world. Because the digital world is really built on top of stuff and it's just so bloated. I mean, it's, it's been reworked at the minute, like, with all of the progressions with other, other technology.

But right now, we're in a dangerous world where, you know, computers  And it's not down to a physical thing, which is relatively easy to fix. Like, you like, have a look in, have a test around, and it's like, oh, it's that chip gone. It's like, uh huh, what is wrong with it? It's just so bloated. But this is why I'm not using microprocessors for something like this.

So, um, the machine is basically, you push a button, and that sends a signal down this cascading run of relays. Uh, relays are electromechanical switches and these are triggered by things called serial to parallel shift registers and these things, uh, basically they're made to transfer serial data into parallel data, but the parallel data is relays and you push the button and it's a load of logic and relays that just  turn the Teletubbies on one by one and as it goes along, it's a really simple idea, but it's just very big multiplication.

It's much like the thousand oscillator Megadrone, which is a simple idea. but a big multiplication of that idea so the thousand oscillator megatrone is like a four meter wide two and a half three meter tall uh wall i know it's pretty grotesque a wall of a thousand oscillators i don't know why i built it i was just like I've built a hundred oscillator Megadrone, what does a thousand sound like?

Because a hundred wasn't enough.  And so what does a thousand sound like? Sounds nearly the same as a hundred.  No,  it's sort of, it's, I find the most amazing thing about it is, uh, uh, the reason of the output is very low on all of the oscillators, just because, uh, when they get added together, the volume just gets incredibly high.

Much higher than you'd think. Like, I'm not, I'm not much of a mathematician, I'm more of a, you additive going on there, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a very additive thing and it just keeps on going up.  Every, I've got this, uh, button controller and you could just put your whole arm over it like that. And it plays all of them.

And just you can test how much louder it gets every hundred oscillators you add. It's quite preposterous. Wow. And so was that just the same  little circuit, if you like, that you just built and soldered a thousand times? Yep.  I did it in the first lockdown. It took, uh, I don't know. It was, it was very boring, but it's just like, it's, it's just a, uh, job in the end of the day.

You've just got to get it done. It's like working sort of a factory.  Did all of the soldering, took me about a month of just, um, yeah, about eight hours of soldering a day, maybe? 

So yeah, that's the Thousand Oscillator beast. Um, and let's talk about the Crystal Palace, because, um, yeah, obviously my work, um, through Delia Radiophonic Workshop, Um, I remember Dick Mills, um, Delia's assistant making the Doctor Who theme, and obviously worked on, he worked for the Radiophonic Workshop himself, Um, and him telling me about this, um, Crystal Palace and how it was, um, he'd, he'd had sort of a guide document that went with it.

Basically the document is titled, um, Necessity is the Mother of Invention. And so talking, telling us about Dave Young's Crystal Palace, which is made from, is it a fountain pen, a tobacco tin? Yeah. You know, so everything in there is, is repurposed. You made your own version, basically. Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

It's a little bit of a different, because that, that his is more capacitance, the way it spins around and reads it. But basically, Hy back messaged me one day and said, have you seen this? I was like, no, no. It looks cool. I looked at the picture, he said, ah, you should make it. And then he was like, oh, I've got an idea now.

He making it. Oh, he's doing a plugin. And I did that. And then so what would, what happened was I looked at the picture once. And I decided not to look at it or research it and just build what I thought it was. I didn't even know what it did at the time. Luckily,  the thing that I built was nearly sort of what it did.

My girlfriend's an academic and I drive her crazy. She's like, where was the research? You gotta research everything!  But, um, uh, like, uh, so, I built it. Uh, I just was sitting there, I was like, how should I build this? Because I thought, when I looked at the picture of it, I thought it was, uh, um, more of a, like a jukebox switch, where it was, um, what I call a slip ring, where, uh, there's a bit of, um,  metal that spins on top of this disc and flicks between a different, like spinning disc of a switches.

So like, but the problem with that is it would have been like really, uh, solid changes.  Which probably at times might've Being funky, but, um, I just used two guitar pickups to start with. So one was acting as a speaker, one was acting as a microphone. Listen, that works. And then I used, uh, think, uh, basically, uh, phite, um, inductors, which are basically just single guitar taped. 

You can use them for a load of things. Multiplying voltages, um, filters and things like that. Well, you can use that and then you can listen. But then I found that it was listening too wide of a field. A tape head listens in a really limited field. Like, so I've got a tape head for the, uh,  microphone and then a load of these, uh, inductors around in a circle and just  plumped it together, tried to, it was a really messy design.

I designed it in a real rush. It took about a day and a half to actually put, like, figure out, but, uh, yeah, it was cool. It turned out really well. Uh, if I did it again, I'll do it way differently. But that's just what you do. It'll probably look a lot more like the Crystal Palace if I built it again. Yeah.

And so it, I mean, the original was like a capacitive sequencer, wasn't it? So, um, was it, it was to do with faders and things like that. And as opposed to what, how would we would describe a sequencer now, but I mean, so what was yours doing the same function? How were you, how were you able to use it? Cause I know you did a kind of live performance with it, didn't you?

Yeah. Well, actually the application was the same, which I'm quite relieved about. So the way mine went in was, uh, There was every single of these, um, the speakers, electromagnetic speakers, uh, had an input and they, they were cascaded in such a way that you could only plug two, uh, signals in if you wanted to.

But it actually worked, worked the same as the Crystal Palace. So instead of a sequencer nowadays where, um, it would be running on more like control voltages and that's controlling something like an oscillator or something. It's more like a crossfader that crossfades between different sounds. Theirs uses capacitance, mine used electromagnetism, but they actually ended up being the same in application.

Yeah, and so, um, apart from the Teletubbies project, what else have you got, what else are you building or destroying or making at the moment? There's a lot of, uh, things. Uh, there's this, uh, machine that I've been building for the last couple of years, it's driving me mad because it's just way more complicated than I thought it was gonna be called the Game Boy Mega Machine which is, uh, turning 50 Game Boys into a digital analog hybrid polyphonic synthesizer and it's, it's a nightmare but the, the other day I put in two stereo Leslie speakers underneath.

Uh, Leslie speakers are the rotating speakers and, uh, yeah, I need to finish it. That's one thing. There's a load of things that I need to finish. Uh, telephone exchanges need to wire up to the internet so people can call in here and then listen to whatever synthesizer or sound making device they want to listen to.

But I, I tend to try and build, uh, at least a couple of things every week. So who knows? Every week? Wow. Yeah, I know. It's pretty stupid. It's fantastic. It's fantastic. So much energy. So. Where are you at kind of musically at the moment then what's exciting you in terms of what you can make or what you want to make musically?

Uh yeah well right now I'm working on an album everything that I've been doing is EP so far and uh I've been sitting down and um because I write my songs I don't write my songs with synthesizers I write my songs in the shower uh so uh whatever sticks whatever melodies and vocals and stuff. Um, remain with me longer than a week, uh, tend to turn into a song.

So that's how, that's, that's how I'm just doing that. I'm going through all of my, my whistles basically, and turning them into songs. There's a new song out in about, in about two weeks. And, uh, yeah, uh, that's that. And usually I tend to write in a very, um, uh, you know, like, um, three or four minute long song.

And that's the kind of music I like. I've, I've always been into that kind of stuff. Elvis Costello, Human League is probably, you know, My favourite kind of soundscape for music. And, um, so that's what I'm doing. So I'm also writing songs as well. And how do you use your voice then? Do you put loads, is there loads of processing with that?

Or do you keep it quite raw and human, if you like? Uh, I try and keep it quite raw and human to be honest. Like the way, the way it's set, I set up everything is just, it's like, uh, I call my synth Cosmo. Cosmo's like the musicians and I'm like the singer, basically. It's a, it's a weird thing trying to mix my kind of taste of music with my kind of taste of technology.

Uh, and um, I find that the YouTube videos, I try and make sounds and weird soundscapes and compositions for them that are different to the music that I would, you know, Make personally and I you know, there's two areas of what I like to do. Really. There's no rules in the end of the day So, how do you like to record it then?

Do you like to record it live or do you do more sort of multi tracking and and an arranging post recording if you like? Yeah, I use a digital mixer that all of the synths go into and every gig I record it And there's things that I make up at the show. In fact, a few of the last EP that I put out songs wise are recordings from the gigs, but I just re recorded the vocals because they sounded like dog poo.

So usually it's just, um, I perform it in a take, use it, use the recorder as a tape machine, and then have to record the vocals over the top again. But usually that's, that's as That's as far as it goes, like, so I just try and make sure it's all composed and sorted beforehand. And like, um, there's a few videos, for instance, the last song I'll put out, which is Youth 8500.

I did a live version of live, a live video of the song, which is  pretty much exactly how I recorded it for the recorded version. Yeah. Yeah. And then do you do all your mixing and mastering and stuff yourself, or do you have someone else, do you send that to someone else? It's different every time. So mastering every, I'd send to somebody else purely because I don't really, uh, I'm not very good at that.

And it's funny, like with the mixing wise, I found that The less I try, the better it seems to turn out. Uh, uh, I'm not sure. It's been, obviously, like, sound on sound, the technical things, but it's a weird journey with, like, um, mixing and music and production stuff. For instance, there's like There's a, there's a,  there's a song that I made with a guy called Barnes Courtney called Glitter and Gold and I did this in, we recorded this as a songwriting session just as a demo.

I had a webcam microphone, USB, and this was using Logic because, but we literally used all manner of random rubbish. It took us four hours to do. I, they asked for, the stems because I thought they were sending it to another producer to produce and they ended up just mixing it and putting it out. And this thing on Spotify, it's like had 120 million listens and stuff like that.

It's crazy. It's like, and this is top one. It's like, that took us five hours. So there's no like real matchup between the thing. It's actually, I listened back to it. So it actually sounds pretty good. It's like, but we didn't try at all. Like, like literally like the drums are all terrible. Tupperware boxes and like a Rototom that's, uh, the bass drum was a Rototom.

I just really detuned, detuned and stuff like how did that do that?  Sometimes that's, I think most, most bands that you've read about almost, you know, I was thinking Simon Garfunkel, Beatles, all these different people, and now Rodgers, they'll talk about, it's those moments where you capture  It is just the humanity and it's the raw energy and you just get it out there and you just put it out there.

Sometimes they are the ones that, that resonate more with people. Yeah. Um, yeah, that can, that you're right. There's a certain, this is finding your place in your balance in terms of the amount of production that you want to do and all the rest of it. So, um, so in terms of sort of, um, I know you're working with Patreon, how does that work for you?

And, and yeah, how do you work that? Yeah, well, I treat Patreon as somewhat of a job because that's what sort of, um, it funds the machines. Everything that goes into Patreon basically gets spent on videos and, uh, as the Patreon's, uh, been helping more and more. It just goes, the machines get a little bit more elaborate.

Um, so like, I usually like, I pay, I pay my bills and, uh, like, just, uh, home and stuff with songwriting and stuff. And then, yeah, all of the machines and stuff are, and the museum is funded by Patreon. And, um, yeah, I basically, I do loads of live streams on there and stuff. And it's just people, Sign up for a subscription and they get, they get sample packs, a video or a live stream every other day and stuff like that.

It's just loads of random stuff, but it's been an amazing tool, I must be honest, and I'm extremely grateful for that situation as it's made what I do, which doesn't make sense, and I haven't got a phone. Clue how the heck it happened. But what I do is a somewhat of a job and it's amazing because like I wake up and I work from maybe nine, nine in the morning till probably one in the morning every single day.

I don't do any holidays or anything much to my girlfriend's dismay. I go to the pub a couple of times with my girlfriend, but I cannot do anything else but work. And I'm so grateful for having the opportunity to do that. thankfully from support on Patreon to be able to be allowed to do that. Wow. Wow.

That's amazing. It's amazing. Yeah. I think more than anything in, if you have the line of work, I can relate to that in terms of you basically it's, it's amazing to be paid to be learning all the time, isn't it really? That's what you're doing. Yeah. That is the biggest thing. Like learning is just, um, it's the best thing to do with your time.

Brilliant. Amazing. So if people want to find you on Patreon, how do they find you? Uh, yeah, I mean, I usually link it on all of my videos and stuff, and if you'd look up Look Mum No Computer on Patreon and stuff, and yeah, all that money basically goes into this museum, which has turned into a little bit of a money pit, but people are coming in and enjoying it, and um, hopefully it's, over time, it's going to be Yeah, educate, aiming to educate and inspire people, hopefully, or just annoy them, I'm not sure. 

It all has its place. Yeah.  Thought provoking and all that. Brilliant, cool, well thank you so much for your time today, it's really interesting to hear about your work. Yeah, thank you very much, it's been very enjoyable.  Thank you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes for further information as well as links and details of the other episodes in the electronic music series. 

And just before you go, let me point you to sound on sound.com/podcasts where you can explore what's on our other channels.  This has been a Carly production for Sound on Sound.