Throwing Snow blends iOS apps and hardware

Houndstooth-staple Ross Tones, aka Throwing Snow, is a producer head-andshoulders above most out there, with an masterful ear for sound design. We caught up with him in 2018 to watch him deconstruct Simmer from his album Loma, which grew out of jam sessio

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To create the raw audio material for Simmer, Ross uses an Elektron Octatrak that sends a MIDI signal via a Kenton splitter to an MFB Dominion Club and a Novation Circuit. The Circuit outputs the MIDI clock to an iConnectivity audio interface for iOS that feeds it to Marcos Alonso Samplr on his iPad.

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“The sequences aren’t all ‘on step’,” says Ross. “Every one is slightly shifted. They’ve got the illusion of swing, but that comes from me slightly changing the timing of each hit on the Octatrak. You can also do really interesting probability stuff, which can be an interesting way of adding extra bits of melody.”

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“The Dominion sequence in Simmer rises up from being really subby to being really acidic and then back down again,” Ross continues. “All that was me playing a sequence several times, recording it into Ableton Live via the Elektron Analog Heat with a little bit of reverb from the Oto BAM.”

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The one-shot drums in the track come from the Novation Circuit and are triggered by an Octatrak sequence. The audio is fed from the Circuit back to the Octatrak, and is driven slightly by the Octatrak’s filter to warm it up.

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Samplr on the iPad provides the breakbeats, which can be played looped or per-slice from the iPad’s touchscreen. The bowed sample created by Will Plowman is also played back via the app, with granular processing used to give it a vocal feel.

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Once Ross knows where he’s headed on the hardware, he’ll record the results into his laptop. “Although I get a main out from the Octatrak’s stereo mix, I generally remember the kind of stuff I’m doing, then play it soloed into Live. I make myself a toolkit so that when I go back to Ableton, I’ve got what I need.”