RIAN TREANOR

The Yorkshireman bringing art to the dancefloor

Planet Mu are currently on a rich vein of form, releasing music from some of the most interesting and innovative electronic music artists around. None more so than the wondrous new Obstacle Scattering EP from Yorkshire’s Rian Treanor. The new tracks cement Treanor’s burgeoning reputation having received some serious attention and plaudits following his 2020 album, File Under UK Metaplasm, a rich melting-pot of dance music sounds old, new, and yet to be.

Obstacle Scattering takes no prisoners from the very off, with the frenetic pulses and FM tones of Obstacle 1 wasting no time in launching a blissful sensory assault. Obstacle 2 was written specifically for Rian’s set at Aphex Twin’s 2019 curation of the Warehouse Project.

Rian certainly has techno hard-wired in his

DNA as his father (and sometime collaborator) is highly regarded music-maker Mark Fell (SND and Sensate Focus among numerous other projects) and the pair have recently been busying themselves in lockdown hours with investigating remote collaborative software and ways to keep things in the box… while inviting more people to join them in that box.

Rian has some fascinating insights into running a software-only approach to making his music and how you don’t need to shell out vast fortunes on hardware synths and samplers when you can deep-dive into software to design and build your own. As borne witness by the Max-created delights of Obstacle Scattering.

Have you found the lockdowns a blessing or a curse for your music-making process?

“It’s weird really as I haven’t been making any dance music… at all. But I have been working on lots of projects, so I have been busy with lots of stuff but it’s stuff that I wasn’t busy with before lockdown. One of the reasons I haven’t been making any club music is that I like to make music for specific places. Say, if I have a gig coming up then I’ll make a bunch of tracks for that. If it’s just me making music in my room then I don’t get as much direction for it and that seems a little pointless to me. I have been doing loads of other types of music stuff where it’s more collaborative, or workshops, and it feels more connected at the moment. Even though I come from a background of making solo music on a computer, I’ve always been into working with people and, in lockdown, I’ve missed being able to collaborate with other people. So, rather than, say, streaming something to 50 people, I’ve got into doing workshops with maybe five other people involved. And doing four sessions over a month, with the goal of making something together.”

So, quite satisfying?

“Absolutely, it’s been a really good direction and it’s brought up lots of other routes in my work. Doing that as well as working with my dad on MaxMSP has allowed me to work out ways to develop systems that enable remote collaborative stuff. When lockdown initially happened, I wondered what the hell was happening, but it’s given me some time and space to get my head round things and to work out how I could best respond.”

Collaboration is a great antidote to the solitariness of electronic music-making!

“That’s literally the background I’m from… lock the door and be working solo on the computer for two weeks! [laughs] Electronic music is a bit weird like that, isn’t it? I’m not sure whether it’s because software engages that kind of process where there’s one mousepad and you are the creator of that environment. What’s strange is that I think music, fundamentally, is the opposite to that. So, is it the software that’s gearing us up to work like that or is it just because music producers are weird, and they want to work that way!”

Always nice to get real-time feedback on your musical ideas.

“Me and my dad started developing this software. I had a few workshops planned but couldn’t do them in a small space, so we made some Max patches and worked out how to share the patterns and changes remotely in real time. When we got to that point it then led to a lot of other possibilities too. So, rather than streaming audio data we can send people a Max patch that functions like a transmitter that lets us send patterns to them and the audio is being generated locally on each computer. The audio is then high-quality or at least not degraded. In terms of being able to sit and make music on a device like a drum machine then have other people real-time interacting with it is really great. It’s brought up some interesting questions and new possibilities that I hadn’t really thought about previously.”

Are you making the patches you’ve built for MaxMSP available for general use?

“Well, there aren’t any available at the moment as each workshop has been different… either a different interface or something specific to each one. What that ends up being is a stand-alone application that the participants on each workshop can download. I’ve not made anything ‘open source’ yet that would give people the components to go and do something else with it. I quite like the idea of, rather than just giving the tools, explaining the tools, which would allow people to have their own interpretation of how that tool can then be used. Me and Mark got it to a point where it works and approached CTM Festival who asked us to do a remote piece in September last year. So, we literally spent two weeks developing a new set, which was a little rough around the edges, but we performed it alongside a dancer who was in the space. It was a success, but we knew afterwards that

we needed to spend more time working on it to realise it in a better way. And that’s what we’ve been doing since, basically.”

How’s that progressing?

“Well, one thing it’s led into is looking at how, rather than developing so specifically for Max that you have to download it or install certain software, we can make it more accessible and we’ve actually been developing stuff for a browser. We’ve been working with No Bounds Festival in Sheffield, who’ve commissioned us to develop this thing for a browser that will allow people to log on from anywhere and participate in a workshop with us.

There’s no need to download or install any software, you just click on this website.”

It must help having a like-minded dad to develop these electronic projects with.

“We’ve both been locked down together for a year now because when lockdown was announced I decided to come to Rotherham as my family are there and there are caring responsibilities and we’d all be together. What’s really weird is that we’ve been able to spend a year talking about how we can develop projects, so it’s been really interesting and productive. So, good things can come from adverse situations as we’ve both had all this time together to talk about new ideas and navigate problems… [laughs] all hours of the day! There is a big filter in place when there are two people throwing ideas to and fro, which is important. I find it really difficult working on my own sometimes with something as abstract as music.”

A second pair of ears is often handy…

“Definitely…and it’s the same with building Max patches, really. I might be working on a drum machine for two weeks that does one specific thing but when I go to actually make music with it, I’ll find it a bit arbitrary or something. I like both processes… doing something really quickly or other times doing hyper-detailed.”

How long have you been with Ableton Live?

“I think the first thing that I started out using, other than a drum machine that I had, was Logic when I was about 15. When I got a new computer, I couldn’t install Logic on it, so I got Renoise, a tracker software. I used Renoise for years and all my friends were using Ableton but there were a few things in it that did my head in, so I kept on using Renoise. About five years ago I started using Ableton to edit audio files together, which made me realise how easy it is to make stuff in it. After using a tracker and chopping waveforms with scissors, Ableton was just so easy to use. I use it a lot and what I tend to do is make MIDI patterns in Max then record them into the timeline in Ableton then process them. It’s really powerful and all the built-in DSP stuff and EQs are really solid. I was talking to Errorsmith about this subject, whose opinion on sound design I really trust, and he said that the compressors, limiters and EQs do exactly what they should do... and if he says that, I’m convinced. I was always a bit apprehensive because so many people were using it that I thought it might good if I didn’t as it would give my work a different direction and sound but now, I realise I was just putting hurdles in place that I didn’t need to be doing.”

So, at what point in time did you then take up using MaxMSP?

“It’s weird as I knew when I was growing up that my dad worked with Max and that a lot of music I liked was made in Max. I’d always be helping my dad set up projects and I’d always be thinking how brilliant Max was but also that you needed to be a neuroscientist to use it. So, I didn’t bother trying but when making music with drum-machines I’d always be wishing that I could do certain things that I couldn’t. Then I started making music that was more improvised, which was different to how I’d previously made music with sequencing, automated and pre-programmed. So, I tried making some things with Pure Data, which I found quite fun and you can build simple things relatively easily. After Pure Data I thought ‘I’m going to get Max and really go into it’. I started using it in 2013 and spent a couple of years building things in it up to releasing my first record. I initially made a few drum machines,

“I’m not really into the fetishisation of synths… but I wouldn’t mind an old Buchla system”

sequencers and a pitch-sequencer and just recorded the first EP (2015’s A Rational Tangle), which was pretty much press record, hit play and do it as a jam.”

Moving from Pure Data to Max is interesting as they, along with Reaktor, all come with a strong community ethos of musicians sharing ideas and creations?

“Yeah, absolutely. I only used Pure Data a little but with Max, for sure, if you have a problem you can go on a forum that’s very active and it’s a brilliant resource. People are genuinely there to help. There are also loads of online tutorials and even a Max Cookbook (https://music.arts.uci.edu/dobrian/ maxcookbook/node/56) all about the processes and algorithms, which is really detailed and Gregory Taylor’s done a great book about specific sequencing modules (https://cycling74.com/ products/books/). I just watched lots and lots of YouTube tutorials as there are hundreds of great ones online.”

Are there any particular Ableton racks or Max patches that you find yourself going back to all the time?

“What I’ve tended to do with Max over the past few years is mostly pattern-generating processors and sequencers. I’ll send the MIDI that they create out to a VST or Reaktor as I use Razor and FM Synth a lot. That’s the sort of setup I liked using, a sampler and a synth, but recently I’ve started getting really into the synthesis processors in Max and it’s really detailed. In December I was just building loads of additive synths in Max, which was a lot of fun. Sometimes I’ll look into the modular environment Beap, in Max for Live, to see how I do a specific process like FM synthesis and I’ll maybe take out some components to build into something else I’m working on. It’s really versatile and open.”

Do you think bespoke software is the way forward for electronic music?

“For me, personally, that’s what I find really interesting, but I’m not closed off to other things too. I’ll pick up a new bit of software and make a track with that… or something off the shelf as I’m not against using presets. I actually think there are some great-sounding presets, and I don’t mind people using them as part of their process. I’m more interested in bespoke software at the moment and those processes have made me look a little at modular synths like Eurorack and try and implement functions I like in the modular systems into my software.”

Any other software that you like to mess around with?

“As I said earlier, I really love Razor. I just got a new Mac with the M1 chip and I was doing a synthesis process which uses maximum CPU as it has 7000 oscillators… [laughs] I’ve probably fried my computer already! I’m really looking forward to new software being native to this new M1 chip. I think once that takes place, it’s going to be a really powerful thing.”

“I’m also really interested in browser-based music software at the moment. Oliver Larkin developed a process for using four Web Audio Modules, which is basically like a VSTplugin for your browser. That kind of stuff is so powerful in terms of accessibility for people who maybe don’t have any access to music software. One thing that I find with music software is that it often has a million different options but it’s more geared towards professionals… there is hardly any really good music software out there for total beginners or as a fun way of engaging kids with patterns or sound generally.”

There were four great tracks on the new EP but Obstacle 3 particularly tickled our fancy… could you maybe talk us through the process of making it?

“I made a chord generator in Max and I figured out the algorithm to let it explore different modes… Lydian mode etc. From that I just messed about, triggering things and finding chords I liked the sound of, and I made a poly-rhythm generator so it’s more like a six-beat pattern and I had a button that allowed me to shift the velocities to different points in the pattern, which allows the accents and velocities to change at random points. It makes it feel like it’s weird and rotating. I was playing that and tweaking the synths for about an hour then I took three good bits I liked and chopped them together.”

With this EP there’s no hardware synths or machines used at all then?

“Just the computer and my headphones… that’s all that I used. All the music that I do tends to be digital. I’ve got a Nord Modular but it’s still digital. Weirdly enough, I’ve never actually played any instruments. Once you’ve got over the initial cost of buying a computer you can build your own synths instead of spending £500 on a Eurorack module. You can learn how to build something in software that’s in a similar ballpark. I’m not really into the fetishisation of synths and equipment although, saying that I wouldn’t mind spending some time messing around with an old Buchla system or the like.”