Designing Ableton's Performance Pack and Hunting Creativity with Iftah - Music Production Podcast #367

Iftah is the creator of a number of official Ableton Live Packs, including CV Tools, Time and Timbre, Microtuner, and the new Performance Pack for Live 12. Formerly one-half of the duo, Skinnerbox, Iftah has performed around the world. His creative pursuits cover various mediums and styles such as electronic music, field recordings, photography, and programming. 

Iftah and I spoke about his work as a music producer and developer. We discuss Iftah's journey in music, the development of the Performance Pack for Ableton Live, and the importance of rest and recovery in the creative process. Iftah speaks about the significance of building your own instruments and the satisfaction of seeing others use and create with your tools. We discuss the new features in Ableton Live 12 and the Performance Pack. We also explore the concept of constraints in music production and the importance of following one's own interests and passions. 

Listen on Apple, Spotify, Google, YouTube

Show Notes:

Thank you for listening. 

Please review the Music Production Podcast on your favorite podcast provider!

Episode Transcript:

Brian Funk (00:01.652)

Iftah, welcome to the show. Great to have you here.

Iftah (00:04.815)

Thanks for having me over.

Brian Funk (00:07.317)

I've been a fan of your work for a long time. All the way back to, I think, one of the first things I came across was time and timbre from the Ableton pack you made. And then you've got Sting and the Pyre instruments really cool. And now, of course, congratulations on the release of the Performance pack. New and Live 12.

Iftah (00:30.062)

Thanks so much. Thanks so much, first of all, for the kind words. You make me blush on air. Yeah. Of course, something I'm happy to hear. It's been quite an intense couple of years now, I guess, since the pandemic.

Brian Funk (00:50.388)

Mm -hmm.

Iftah (00:54.062)

I've been kind of working non -stop in the past, I think, four years. So it's like these weeks are like the first weeks where I'm actually coming down and I'm a little bit, I feel a bit like a magnet in space, you know, a little bit out of my orbit. Yeah. I mean, I'm not really not working. I still, I walk, but I kind of took some time off to...

Brian Funk (00:54.228)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:09.172)

Yeah, you're just kind of floating around, right?

Iftah (01:21.645)

to come down because I was really walking like a madman almost nonstop since 2020. So I felt that it's like a post -performance pack, which was a huge, probably the biggest, the biggest max work I've ever done, the most complex, the most challenging, the most ambitious, like in any aspect.

I felt that it's really good to take some weeks off and calm down a little bit. So that's what I'm trying to do now. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:55.38)

I bet.

Yeah, that's important because, you know, we live in the world where they tell you hustle, hustle, put in more, keep working. And I mean, there's a lot of good to that, but sometimes we forget to, you have to rest and recover. And sometimes that's when even like great new ideas come to you and you start realizing a little bit how you've been spending your time and if that's how you want to go. So I'm glad you're getting a chance to take a deep breath after all this work.

Iftah (02:24.334)

Yeah. I mean, I wish I knew how to take a deep breath. It's not my mind is constantly working and I'm already plotting the future and I have 1 million ideas. And actually also working, doing like fixing old stuff at the moment. So it's not really that I'm not, it's just like the, the big pressure of this huge release is a like, has a went down a little bit, which is nice. Yeah.

Brian Funk (02:38.516)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (02:48.18)

Right.

Yeah, and that's a thing, I guess, too, when you release software. There's, and I think Max for Live, especially, because sometimes things change with new releases of Ableton Live. You gotta tweak things, fix things. I know there was a lot of work that a lot of developers did to make things compatible with Live 12, for instance. So I can imagine after you finish this work, then it's like, oh, guess what? This doesn't work. That doesn't work. We gotta change this and that.

Iftah (03:10.605)

Right.

Iftah (03:17.998)

Exactly. Exactly. It's a decent some updates to really cool stuff that I'm unfortunately, I almost always cannot really say what I'm doing. It's a, it's a bit of a problem, but you need to trust me on this. It's really nice stuff. Yeah.

Brian Funk (03:28.117)

Yeah. Right.

That's gotta be a funny thing to justify to people once in a while. I promise I'm working. You can't see it. I mean, a lot of jobs, you know, you can't really do that. And, you know, people want to know what you're doing. They want to see your output. But for your kind of work, it's understandable.

Iftah (03:39.757)

Yeah.

Iftah (03:52.78)

Right.

Brian Funk (03:55.412)

When did you start actually working on the performance pack? Because I think it's been quite a while and it's so in depth and so many new features, so many things like people have wanted and wished you could do. When did that kind of idea get born?

Iftah (03:55.47)

Cool.

Iftah (04:07.436)

Right.

Iftah (04:12.813)

Wow, I mean, this idea got born sometimes in the beginning of the 2010s, I would say, when I was like deep into touring. I was, for those who do not know, I was alongside Olaf Ilgenfeld. We formed the duo named Skinner Box. We toured the world for 17 years from 2005, four -ish.

Brian Funk (04:20.372)

Hmm.

Iftah (04:40.268)

to 2000, a little bit 16 years maybe, 2021, till the pandemic basically. So, and I, my role was to, I was playing Ableton live on stage with controllers that I made sometimes with extra hardware, but Ableton was the core of my setup. So Ableton and Max and later on Max for Live because we started way before Max for Live actually.

Brian Funk (04:45.493)

Mm -hmm.

Iftah (05:07.917)

So most of the ideas for the performance pack, let's say the bigger devices like variations and performer, originated from my days as Skinner Box, basically. My personal needs on stage, things, bits and pieces that I've built myself in order to...

the computer to a better instrument, so to speak, to a better live instrument. Yeah, I hope this answers the question. So this is actually, wait, so this is the, that's where the ideas originated from, but the actual idea to make a performance pack, which was a dream of mine, an ongoing dream of mine since many, many years, came about...

Brian Funk (05:37.332)

Mm -hmm.

Right.

Iftah (06:02.894)

two years ago, more or less give or take. And it's also, we have to mention the fantastic Matt Jackson with whom I've collaborated on this pack. He works at Ableton actually. And while I did the programming, he contributed a lot to the concept of the devices. So we actually sat together and plotted on a piece of paper, like.

Brian Funk (06:04.852)

Hmm.

Iftah (06:28.494)

Literally on a piece of paper drew how things could look like and this was about two years ago Some like this

Brian Funk (06:28.628)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (06:35.828)

That's cool. So of course the experience, right? You start doing things and you realize what you want. And, um, you know, that's, I guess, something I'm really coming to understand more and more, but just about the creative process in general is you really have to start. You can't kind of just sit around and be like, wouldn't it be nice if, uh, sometimes you get ideas like that, but a lot of times it's just, let me try something and now I have to react to it and see what happens. And for you.

touring the world and realizing, oh, I wish I could do this. I want to be able to do that. Wouldn't it be great if this could happen? I think those are the way the best ideas come about, whether it's painting a picture and you do a certain color in the background. It's like, ooh, wouldn't it be nice if I had this contrast to that? So it's nice to hear. And it makes a lot of sense from your experience that this is something that would come out of that.

Iftah (07:24.621)

Right.

Iftah (07:31.182)

Right. I absolutely agree. I think that I have like a big part of my life, I dealt with a computer as an instrument. It has always been my main instrument way before computers were legitimate musical instruments, so to speak. We, by now we live in an age where it's acceptable. People treat computers as an instrument. It hasn't always been the case. And I always felt that because it's an instrument,

Brian Funk (07:34.164)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (07:50.772)

Right.

Iftah (08:00.878)

And you would, if you would play the guitar, you would sit and tune the guitar and you would make sure that it's comfortable to hold and that, you know, you would change the strings every once in a while and all these little things, you know, that makes an instrument from just an annoying, an instrument to an instrument, which is fun to play or works for you, you know? So all these little things, I missed them in the beginning, you know?

Brian Funk (08:29.3)

Hmm.

Iftah (08:30.094)

from curves, you know, from just the simple ability to adjust curves for automation, for not automation, sorry, for controlling things to...

being able to sensibly limit ranges and all this stuff that would actually then, I'm speaking mainly on like a live performance scenario here, would make you feel comfortable on stage, which is very, very important, I think, when playing live music. More important than your gear and more important than anything is to be able to feel, to take away the technical hassle and to have fun on stage because it's...

It just does something good to the music, in my opinion. In my humble opinion. I don't think it's a global truth or something, but that's how I feel.

Brian Funk (09:19.157)

Oh yeah.

Brian Funk (09:25.077)

Well, if you're uncomfortable on stage, and I'm sure so many people know that feeling, I certainly do, whether it's you can't hear the vocals or you can't hear the other people in the band, or, you know, at least with a guitar, by the time I picked up a guitar, the electric guitar had been around for well over, I guess, 50 years, probably, and it had been refined, it had been constructed into this thing, so we are at that point, but...

with computer music and the laptop is an instrument, you had to really design that. You had to build your instrument and there was no, nothing to base it on before that. And even, yeah. Well, I was just thinking when I first started bringing a laptop on stage, I think it was 2010 and I was doing my Ableton live performance here with controllers and.

Iftah (09:59.053)

Right.

Iftah (10:04.654)

But maybe this is the... Sorry. No, no, go ahead.

Brian Funk (10:21.589)

I'd come from rock band backgrounds and everyone looked at me like, what are you bringing into this club? You know, like that's cheating or that's not an instrument or, and it kind of took a little while to like win people over. But now, like you said, like you see a rock band with a couple of Mac books on the stage and no one flinches. That's just part of the show.

Iftah (10:28.269)

Hmm.

Iftah (10:43.725)

Right, right. Absolutely. And possibly also, like you mentioned, the idea that it was not accepted and a lot of, not accepted, it was not accepted, but it was a bit of fringe and no, the computer is an instrument. It took a while naturally because it was new and a lot of it was DIY.

maybe helped to make the computer the intimate instrument it is, because many of these companies did start, for example, Ableton, everybody knows, Robert Henke and Gerard Bell started by playing music and they had the need and they made this piece of software to make it work, right? So this is, I wouldn't say a common case, but it is...

more common than building yourself a guitar, you know, in a way. It's something that did help form music software and how people play on stage. And a lot of people are building stuff for themselves to play, especially using Max for Live. And I think that this contributes...

Brian Funk (11:36.852)

Yeah.

Iftah (11:56.844)

to the computer as being like as an intimate music, perhaps the most intimate musical instrument. I don't know if it makes sense. That's a feeling that I have.

Brian Funk (12:05.684)

It does because you kind of have to build it yourself. You've got to construct it. That was one of the things that kind of brought me in from my rock band background and, you know, whatever kind of beliefs and rules I had about how to make music and what was real, what was cheating and, you know, all these like things we construct for ourselves. But when I started to realize how much it was about building your own setup, combining control surfaces and designing the

Iftah (12:10.155)

Right.

Iftah (12:26.7)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (12:36.116)

Programming of your live set, for instance, and I'm talking within Ableton Live for me, not even programming actual software, but just that kind of building my set of controls. I thought that was really cool. I saw that as a very creative process. And that brought me in, you know, it made me think like, oh, it's not just turning on the computer and letting it do the work. It's, there's a lot of prep and there's a lot of thought that goes into this. I had.

notebooks of drawings myself of my controllers and what they were going to say and what they were going to do. And it was a really fun process to build that.

Brian Funk (13:17.972)

I was kind of, you know, before our interview, stalking your Instagram a little bit and reading through some of the old posts. And you wrote something a little while back about becoming bored with just making music. And I think you had just in quotation marks. I was wondering if you might get into that. And I think I also saw something too. I'm wondering if this is connected.

Iftah (13:35.594)

Right.

Yeah.

Brian Funk (13:45.396)

about the Sting device you made, which is a super useful and helpful device. It creates acid, baseline type of things, generates them for you and you can control kind of the root and key of it. But I'm wondering if you were feeling maybe like you wanted more control or I'm curious what you meant and where that took you with this getting bored of just making music.

Iftah (14:14.347)

Well, so since more or less since I professionally make music, I also deal with music technology and with some sometimes like I'd say that during these 16, 17 years that we were touring, it was like 80 % just making music and 20 % dealing with like we did build a drum machine and we.

We did work on music technology in quotations or technology that does music. I don't know what's the better way to formulate this. But at some point I realized, I don't know how many singles and how many albums I released under Skinnerbox and I also had other projects and whatever. And at some point I think like many other people,

during many, during the pandemic, I questioned a lot of things because I have been doing this for a really long period of time. And I wondered given the state of the world, what's the, why am I releasing music? Why is it like I'm, I'm putting like, I'm sitting in a, in an isolated room. I'm making something.

I'm like creating a piece of music and I am releasing it out to the world and then I expect people to behold this piece of music, you know, I don't know, it felt weird. Today, I don't feel like this anymore. It was just, it was a phase where I felt that just making music was not enough for me personally. It's not that I doubt the idea of just making music. I think music is a necessity. It's like...

Brian Funk (15:45.172)

Yeah.

Iftah (16:04.363)

It's not something that I can imagine the world existing without and not to be misunderstood, I do not encourage anyone not to make music or something like this. It's just that at this time I felt it's not enough. Like I'd rather make things that make music, make meta music, make things that are a potential music, music tools, I guess you can call them, because it's...

feels or felt, it still feels like this sometimes actually, that it has more body into it, you know, you release an instrument and people use this instrument and sometimes they make beautiful music with it and a part of it, a part of this music is also you, you made the instrument that they use to make music with. So, and there's something insanely gratifying and satisfying.

about this seeing, working and seeing this thing being used, not just being listened to or being even in a boutique where somebody buys a record that you made and appreciate it and admires you for it. But there is just something so satisfying with the idea that there is like, it has this value of being used in a, not in a technical way, but it's just beautiful. I don't know. So indeed.

Brian Funk (17:22.996)

Hmm.

Iftah (17:32.202)

Sometimes I feel that I need this more than just making music, basically. I hope this answers your question.

Brian Funk (17:40.053)

And, oh yeah, and I relate to it too. When I produce my own sound packs and instruments and design something from a weird sound, or maybe it's like a synthesizer that's built off of samples of my dog barking, to hear somebody else take that and turn it into something new and know that maybe that sound inspired them to do that. Or just the fact that I kind of have a little bit of a fingerprint on that is very exciting. And it's...

Iftah (17:55.466)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (18:09.556)

It's like it has its own children for you. It spreads your legacy in a way, if you want to think of it that way. But it's very gratifying. And like you said, sometimes just here's what I did and take it in and don't, there's no back and forth as much. Although there really is, I mean, we've all related to music, I know, but there is something different when somebody takes what you've done and takes it somewhere else. It's a fun feeling. I get what you're saying exactly.

Iftah (18:37.931)

Absolutely. I think I was like in the beginning, in the beginning of the pandemic, I was in the beginning with the pandemic, I was very hardcore. I was like, okay, now I'm only interested. I've done music 20 years of my life. I've released countless singles and albums and now I want to do something completely different. I want to, not completely different, but I want to elevate to something else. I'm not interested in just making music. Today is different. I make music again because it's...

inherently it's a thing that inspires you also. You build something and then you get inspired and you make music, you know, and then the music also inspires you to build other things. So, and I'm happy I do, actually, I'm very happy I do. I've been making music all of my adult life and even before, let's say. So it's just, it's a...

I don't know. I wouldn't call it a phase, but I'm very happy also that it pushed me to shift my focus into building tools, which is where my focus is right now, let's say. So if before it was like 80 -20, now it's 20 -80. It's just the opposite. Yeah.

Brian Funk (19:59.604)

Uh huh. I think that was an interesting time too, the pandemic, for us to all reflect. And of course, like to be touring like crazy and then to have it stop is a really drastic change, I'm sure for you. But even for the average person, just not going to work or wherever they would go normally, I ran into it myself too. I had this kind of a what's the point feeling.

Iftah (20:06.826)

Yeah.

Iftah (20:15.116)

Right.

Iftah (20:27.244)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (20:27.541)

all this crazy stuff that's going on in the world and I'm making these silly little sounds. You know, it kind of felt silly and it made me really look deep into why. And it's kind of a, I've had that before, maybe after like a relationship ends and you're feeling depressed and you're like, what am I doing this for? This is silly. Get your life together. But it's something we always turn to it. It gives us strength to get through difficult times. And.

it brings people together, it can inspire others. And it was nice to kind of go through that to re -understand why I've been doing it so long because you get caught up in the pattern and the routine and this is the thing I do and this is the process. And that kind of spirit of when you first begin and you first get excited about it is a nice thing to revisit every once in a while. And I think it...

just makes what you make even better. And it's cool you went through that, because I can see how having that will enrich the entire IFTTT experience, you know, when we look back over time, like, oh, that was cool. Maybe not a phase, but kind of like a wave in the overall ocean of your work.

Iftah (21:48.107)

Right. Yeah, I agree. It also got me into, so maybe it's the first time that I developed hobbies. Like I never had any hobbies before. I really got into documentary photography and field recording, which is something that I do. I still practice like for mostly recreational purposes, but.

Brian Funk (21:53.3)

Ahem.

Iftah (22:12.65)

not only recreational purposes because I'm very bad in doing things only for recreational purposes. So field recordings always also end up being ideas and things and music or packs or whatever. But it was very good for me to also do other things than just be in the music tech world or music world, you know. So, yeah.

Brian Funk (22:40.309)

Yeah. Those things enrich your other hobbies or passions or jobs. When you start exploring other things, you start to see how they all connect. And I guess that led to your involvement in the Lost and Found Pack too, right? Like all the field recording stuff. For me, that's a really exciting collection of work. I've always appreciated music that used kind of unusual sounds and...

Iftah (22:52.138)

Yeah.

Iftah (22:58.57)

Right.

Brian Funk (23:10.357)

The creative uses of things people might think of as noise, almost like, you know, music is this like crafted special thing. It came out of an instrument, it came out of a voice. And so much of what we hear, we almost consider like trash or it's not valuable on its own, but to hear it be put together and make beautiful music has always been really fun for me. And that pack especially is, you know, one of my favorites that have come out in a while.

Iftah (23:34.058)

Right.

Brian Funk (23:39.892)

because of that kind of idea behind it.

Iftah (23:42.569)

It was super fun to work on actually. I took a week or two, I think, off and like not off. I cleared a week or two of my schedule and just went out and did field recordings in the city. Especially I recorded the sewer system, which was really, really cool. I made, I made this. Yeah. Yeah. It was fun. It was fun. Yeah.

Brian Funk (23:59.636)

I love those sounds, the sewer drums. Yeah, cool.

How did, now, were you granted access to these areas? Were you sneaking in? How does that work?

Iftah (24:13.513)

No, no, I built really, really tiny mics and I just let them, like I slid them in basically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there was also this interest in field recording also made me, I did also, I made like a limited edition of mics that I actually sold.

Brian Funk (24:21.652)

And you built the mics too.

Iftah (24:38.633)

And it became insanely popular and I decided to, I just don't have the time. I would have done this. Like it would have became a thing, but I'm always in between things. And this is like, it's a very demanding, like I found myself becoming a microphone company, unintentionally. So I had to like.

Brian Funk (24:50.452)

Yeah.

Hahaha.

Iftah (24:59.433)

uh, break, like put on the brakes a little bit because I was in that time, I was like building micro tuner, which was, which was, it is probably the second most complicated and ambitious max device I've ever walked on. So the time was just not there, but they did manage to build and sell and nice limited edition batch of microphones. Uh, and.

Brian Funk (25:07.38)

Yeah.

Iftah (25:27.369)

but they were not that small. The tiny variations, just a variation that I made for myself, project specific in order to be able to record the sewer actually.

Brian Funk (25:38.356)

That's really cool. So there's this sort of almost undercover sneaking around like a spy microphone.

Iftah (25:43.464)

Yeah.

Iftah (25:47.625)

Exactly. More or less. It fits through the holes of the... yeah.

Brian Funk (25:49.62)

Yeah.

Right, wow. So that's the kind of thing too, I'm sure, where you don't really know what you're gonna get, right? It's kind of an exploration.

Iftah (26:02.825)

I mean the resonance is just amazing in the world. It depends on the size, you know, and it becomes very tonal, very fast. And then if you start to flow in, it depends on the depth. It's just, it's a universe going on down there. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (26:16.629)

Yeah, all beneath our feet every day. No idea what it's doing half the time, but take it away. We know it's gone. Very cool. What city was that? Was that Berlin? Yeah, very nice. Which is a great, you know, builds the character, of course, with Ableton being a Berlin company and adds to the charm of the pack.

Iftah (26:25.512)

Absolutely.

Iftah (26:32.36)

Berlin, yeah. Yeah.

Iftah (26:44.84)

Right.

Brian Funk (26:45.685)

How fun to know you're able now to make music with that. Have you heard some of the stuff people have created with it and got to enjoy that a bit yet?

Iftah (26:55.049)

Honestly not yet but I would love to. I'm sure people did. I just didn't get the chance yet.

Brian Funk (27:01.749)

The demo sets that come with that pack are really cool, really awesome sounds and outlandish music, you know, like genre defying. It's not like one kind of style of music we would all recognize, really interesting.

Iftah (27:05.193)

Right, right, right, right.

Iftah (27:19.688)

Totally.

Brian Funk (27:22.485)

I can imagine the difference between making hardware and software, right? Because you can produce the software and then it can be copied infinitely. You don't have to take an order and then create it, but with a microphone company, the time for each order, for each product, and the care it must take to get it right.

Iftah (27:42.985)

Yeah, you know, and parts and things go wrong and I don't know, also environment. I mean, there's some, just something so elegant and beautiful in software. It's, uh, I, I'm definitely more attracted to that. I have to say there are, you know, throughout my career, I, I, I've built a lot of hardware for myself and there's also.

Brian Funk (27:59.509)

Yeah.

Iftah (28:08.969)

many times, so Skinnerbox, we started projects in order to release them, hardware projects. And at some point always I was a little bit, it's just so complicated to build hardware, you know, and then it's, I'm gonna quote Gerard Bells, he said in an interview that like, and I agree with it very much, making software is very elegant because,

You give something to the world without leaving too much traces, basically. It's true. It's, uh, it sounds might sound trivial, but it's not. It's, uh, especially nowadays. And I don't pretend to be, I don't know. It's, it's just, it's just very elegant. Let's say hardware is super complicated, like, you know, by all means.

Brian Funk (28:42.26)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (29:02.805)

Well, I mean, it's a point worth considering, right? We don't need more future garbage, right? Like, eventually, stuff we buy, things we have, they end up somewhere.

Iftah (29:15.592)

I mean, I'm not saying we don't need hardware. Hardware is great, but there is, I think that every hardware manufacturer should stop for a second and ask themselves, ask themselves, I'm sorry, ask themselves, could this be a plugin or does this need to be a hardware device?

I think that it's a valid thing because I think that like a golden rule for hardware is not only, I mean, interfaces, the interface for the hardware is very important. Maybe this is what makes hardware unique and more musical, but it should also be something that makes sense and maybe does not exist in too much of the same variation or.

Brian Funk (30:09.077)

Yeah. Or at least not come in so much plastic packaging. That would be good, right? I read an alarming article of how much plastic is in everything, including our food and waters. So I'm with you on that. I can agree.

Iftah (30:14.377)

Yeah, awesome. Right.

Iftah (30:25.672)

It's insane. Yeah.

Brian Funk (30:30.709)

Do you have, with the Performance Pack in particular, say, one of the things I loved about it that you did is the curves on the controls. Very early on in programming, my MIDI mapping on my controls, I realized, I want this knob to turn on the filter, but I don't want the reverb to come right away. I want it to take a little time and maybe go up and then come back down. But you couldn't do that. It was all very linear.

Iftah (31:01.258)

Right.

Brian Funk (31:01.429)

Are there some favorite features that you find useful? Things that you think will maybe work its way into music you create or performances you do? Stuff that you especially wanted?

Iftah (31:13.641)

I mean, just the curves since you mentioned it was hyper important, as I mentioned before, for actually tuning things to make things work for you. So this is for sure, like one of the most important features. And I think also the ability to, I'm not sure I'm answering your question, but I'm just going to go with it.

Brian Funk (31:39.668)

Oh yeah.

Iftah (31:41.897)

So when we first envisioned the performance pack, there was like a performer, let's speak about performer, the device that you talked about, because there are four devices. The idea was to have like a third view for Ableton Live, like you have session view, you have arrangement view, and then you have performance view. Like, it should be this big window where, with like kind of a replica of your MIDI controller or something like this.

Oh, an imaginary controller, it doesn't matter, but just one window with all your performance macros and controls, which would... Let alone this feature I find helps... Just to be able to look at one place on your computer and see all the controls for a live set is a very important feature, actually, that would help you to...

Brian Funk (32:34.772)

Hmm.

Iftah (32:39.081)

gain more overview basically, not to get lost or something like this. So it might sound very trivial, but this is my favorite feature, just the ability to see everything in one place. And then...

Brian Funk (32:47.764)

Mm -hmm.

Right. Because in the past it was just on the left where the browser goes MIDI mapping and that was a bad oi.

Iftah (32:56.938)

Yeah, but only if you would also, yeah, I mean, you would have to, it was not really human readable in a way, it was just lines and it was very small. So I believe in this visualization anyway. So I think it helps and especially if it...

Brian Funk (33:05.268)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (33:10.677)

You kind of draw your picture like you did in your notebook when you were making up what your controls were going to do. You basically can do that on the computer.

Iftah (33:21.417)

Exactly. So I think that this is like this very simple feature is my favorite feature, actually. I mean, and of course the ability to create curves and to also process the signal to add slew and sample and hold and to be able to send to.

Brian Funk (33:31.86)

Right. It's powerful.

Iftah (33:44.905)

not only to map things to live, but to send MIDI out and CV out and tempo and notes and everything. It's like one, you can like, you can use it also to build like micro instruments, you know, like, because you can send notes out directly out of Performer. So you can, you can build yourself. I don't know. It's like, it's very interesting. Something that I like to do is granular soundscape generator, just using Performer and Simpler or something.

Brian Funk (34:12.916)

Hmm.

Iftah (34:13.737)

with a lot of curves and kind of smart macro -ing thingy. So it's just like an open book that you can do many things with actually. And now by now with people actually use it, I even learned a lot of things that you can do with it, which is really, really cool. Like I just saw Yudha Benatar doing this beat failure thing. I never thought about that. So this is really, really cool.

Brian Funk (34:32.276)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (34:40.501)

Yeah, I saw that too. Yeah, Sidebrain, he's a maniac. He's always doing cool stuff that makes me say, oh wow, I can do that? I had no idea.

Iftah (34:42.793)

Yeah.

Iftah (34:47.465)

Yeah.

Iftah (34:52.393)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Brian Funk (34:56.053)

Do you get that a lot? I mean, I'm sure you must where you see people use your stuff and you go, oh, like, how about that? You know, you've created something and then people use it in unexpected ways.

Iftah (35:08.105)

Yes, I think Sting seems to be popular for generating drums. I never like think about that. Yeah, I see a lot of people do it for example, drum patterns. I mean, yeah.

Brian Funk (35:13.716)

Oh yeah? Really?

Brian Funk (35:19.573)

Yeah, because it's designed for the acid kind of bassline sort of thing. But yeah, interesting. I never tried that. Percussion, yeah, I could imagine it. Some evolving stuff. Ooh, that's a fun one.

Iftah (35:26.025)

Yeah. Yeah. Should.

Iftah (35:35.209)

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Funk (35:39.029)

I have to imagine with the Performance Pack there's going to be a lot of cool stuff. I think the Variations device is really interesting. It allows you to kind of do these snapshots of everything in your session. So where all your knobs and faders were. I mean, I think even just for mixing, that could be really helpful. You know, I want to mess up my mix a lot, but then I can go back. I think it's going to encourage me to be a little more experimental with what I do.

It's mixing even. Of course, performance, but let's try some weird stuff. We can always go right back.

Iftah (36:09.193)

Right. Right.

Iftah (36:15.689)

Absolutely. I like when a device can be utilitarian and performative or artistic in both, like I appreciate it. And I think variation is a good example because you can absolutely do A -B mixing or simple things and you can, or just saving presets of synths with your clips, you know, like things that you couldn't have not done before.

Brian Funk (36:23.412)

Yeah.

Iftah (36:41.161)

linking sounds to clips and staying within the synth realm and not switching to audio. Or doing this kind of control, not control, but save the state of your life set and build up the tension and go back to the state before. It has many facets, which is really cool.

Brian Funk (37:01.844)

Yeah.

Yeah, in my own live performances, sometimes you do that, but then you got to turn everything back. I turned all these knobs and made this cool swell or something, but now we got to get back to be able to just be like, boop, one button, one switch or whatever it is to go back is going to be handy. And I think allow me to be more adventurous with my playing around with my knobs and effects, because I know I'll never get too far from home.

Iftah (37:15.368)

Right.

Brian Funk (37:34.485)

always get back there.

Iftah (37:36.456)

Right. This was actually, this originated from my live sets. I had like a button, one button program on my MIDI controller, which was like this four to the floor button. So, because I had this sequencer that I made myself, which I was controlling with one of the monoms and I would like to basically sequence breaks live. And then this one button would just like.

go to fall to the floor. So this is where it originated from, it was like 2008 or something. It was the idea of like, I mean, by now you can find it on hardware, like the electron machines can do it, you can save the state and go back to how it was.

Brian Funk (38:13.044)

Ahem.

Brian Funk (38:20.181)

Right, just get back to that pulse.

Iftah (38:23.944)

or whatever you define as like, it's like, you know, as my, I don't know, thought, not thought to the floor, but post break thing, which is like a core element of electronic music is the ability to like build tension and then to break the tension and yeah.

Brian Funk (38:26.068)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (38:34.196)

Right.

Brian Funk (38:41.94)

Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's so much of music in general is that feeling of like, and then here it comes, you know, that payoff after something being maybe a little uncomfortable for a little while there. It's exciting. I'm looking forward to doing just different changes to my mixes with that. You know, in the past, it would be like, I'll save a file.

Iftah (38:56.744)

Right.

Brian Funk (39:07.957)

I'll save the session and then start a new one and do a different mix. And then if I want to hear the difference, it's opening the new session and it's cumbersome. And it kind of makes you not feel like doing it as much, but to be able to just be like, all right, we did this stuff. Let's, what do you think? Does it sound better than this? Which one do you like? Just boom, boom, boom real fast is so powerful. You know, that's going to be the kind of thing I think where.

Iftah (39:16.84)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (39:37.397)

You almost never know how much impact you made on people's work.

Iftah (39:45.034)

I hope I mean, I hope I contribute, you know, I guess.

Brian Funk (39:46.356)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (39:50.805)

I think, I know you have, but I think it's probably way more than you could imagine. Just, you might not hear about some of this stuff, right? Like not everybody that gets something out of what they use goes out and tells the world how important it was. But I think there's a lot of stuff here that's going to really, the stuff we kind of wished we had already, but now is there. Do you have any idea about what

makes it into the actual Ableton Live software compared to stuff that stays max for Live. When I think of MicroTuner, I think a lot of that has now been incorporated into Live. I think there's still some value to using MicroTuner, but a lot of it has become kind of just part of the whole tuning system that's in there.

Iftah (40:32.746)

Mm -hmm.

Iftah (40:44.492)

Right, right. It's true. I think, I cannot, I do not work for, I mean, I'm not an Ableton employee, so I cannot speak on their behalf, of course. But I think that possibly a part of MicroTuner's success, let's say, also drove Ableton to...

Brian Funk (41:11.604)

Yeah, incorporate that, right?

Iftah (41:11.725)

in building into live 12. I think that I mean, I get it's not that micro tuner was the reason to do it. I think they were planning it. I'm sure there was, there was, they were planning way before micro tuner ever existed also like to at some point integrate. Um,

micro tonality into live. I just think they had a lot of open questions, which I find they dealt with marvelously, like the new piano roll and how things appear when you actually, you know, they didn't just like leave it as 12 tone piano roll, you know, then they're rescaling it. Yeah.

Brian Funk (41:47.125)

Yeah, it's cool how it changes and you get all those different, you can see the labeling is even really interesting. Like this is not quite E flat. It's not quite F. It's got like the greater than less than. It's cool way of thinking about it.

Iftah (41:56.621)

I know.

Iftah (42:00.59)

I love it, I love it.

Iftah (42:05.518)

So, and for my personal encounters with Ableton Crew, which I know since many years by now, many different people that work there, since possibly 2009, since we released the first drum machine, the SPX 2049. I think it's discontinued. It was a free product. It's unfortunately discontinued since like, it was the first Max for Live device released.

Brian Funk (42:32.18)

Was it? How cool is that?

Iftah (42:33.581)

Yeah, like the first officially released this and then the Alex Kidd stuff, the Instant House. Yeah. So for my personal encounter, or how do you call it in English? Like...

Brian Funk (42:39.508)

Yeah.

Iftah (42:51.758)

and encounters with everton, they don't do things before they know how to do it properly. They take their time and I really think that the new microtonal integration is an excellent example for something which is done right. Yeah.

Brian Funk (43:06.26)

Yeah, that's something I've appreciated about them. And sometimes they catch a little heat on the internet. How come you don't have that feature or Logic has had it or Pro Tools or whatever DAW has had it. But when they come through with it, you're like, oh, okay, I see. You thought about it. You didn't just cram in a new feature because so many of us really rely on it for so many different tasks.

Iftah (43:25.326)

Right.

Brian Funk (43:35.348)

Really, when I think about it, to have it be something I record music, produce music on, and then I can go perform on it too, those are big jobs and they're very different. To be able to do it all within one is really cool and it takes a lot of planning and careful thought about what goes in, what should change, what shouldn't. One feature can change somebody's entire...

workflow and it must be really stressful coming up with new ideas with all that in mind.

Iftah (44:14.35)

Absolutely.

Brian Funk (44:14.421)

But the Max For Live environment is kind of genius in that it really allows them to see how things would work, how people are using it, if they like it. I know there have been a lot of things that have started, even just like follow actions in the scenes, there was a Max For Live device for that, that was very popular and very useful. And then,

It was cool to see how they took that and integrated it in a way that made sense.

Iftah (44:48.014)

Hmm. Yes, of course. It's a symbiotic relationship. Although I think that Max is also becoming more and more professional, Max for Live, let's say, and you can see it because people are actually selling devices and doing, it's not just random devices, devices which have been like meticulously created and the UI looks amazing and they work and you know, so it's not only an experimentation tool, I think.

Brian Funk (44:50.644)

So.

Brian Funk (45:11.252)

Right?

Iftah (45:17.198)

by no means. I think that by now it's pretty powerful. Like there's still, of course, there's still some work to be done, but it's a very, very unique environment and it's much more stable and it's much more performant, let's say, and I think the boundaries are slowly dissolving, let's say.

They're not dissolved yet, but I could imagine a future where like you wouldn't necessarily ask yourself anymore. Is this a Max for live device or is this a native live device or.

Brian Funk (45:56.084)

Yeah, I go through that a lot with my students. A lot of people are afraid of Max for Live devices and I try to... Well, I teach a Berkeley sampling class. Berkeley Online is an Ableton Live sampling class. And there was actually a week where there's some Max for Live programming. Very minimal stuff, but just to...

Iftah (46:04.941)

Tell me about it, I wanna hear.

Brian Funk (46:22.836)

get into it a little bit and a lot of people avoid it and a lot of people avoid even just using the devices, even just using like the LFO or convolution reverb or any of the ones that have kind of been worked into live a bit more. And I try to explain to them like, you don't need to know what's going on under the hood here. You don't need to know how to program to use these. Just like, I don't know how my car works. I just know how to drive it, but.

When I started up, I don't really know what's going on in there. There's a lot of stuff that's happening, but I know if I step on the gas and turn the wheel, the car goes. And it's very similar, I think, with the integration of Max for Live devices. And it's kind of cool how you're starting to see it. They're included more in just kind of the regular categorization. They're modulators now. They're not Max for Live.

Iftah (46:52.653)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (47:22.26)

It scares people a little bit, I think, but it's really just like using anything else. You really don't need to know how it works to use it.

Iftah (47:31.692)

Right, right. Also, I think the UI, at least the official Ableton devices, they do look like native devices more or less. There's a very, there's a very, there's an effort to make them look and feel like native live devices basically. Right.

Brian Funk (47:54.485)

Yeah. Right. That's something I've always appreciated about live in general is that there's uniformity to the devices. A knob on compressor looks like a knob on wavetable. It's not like a whole new spaceship I have to learn every time I open a new device within the software. Where, oh wow, what is this one now? It helped me learn actually quite a lot too.

When I was first starting to understand synthesis, the envelopes looked like the envelopes everywhere. And then you start to see that, oh, these are common parts of these systems.

very helpful. So something I'm interested in a lot lately is how to decide what to work on. And you mentioned this, millions of ideas all the time and I think we all have this. There's so much we can do and we have so much potential at our fingertips all the time now. It used to be, you know, I can't do this because I don't have the gear, I don't have access to this fancy studio, I don't have access to this equipment.

But now with software and how advanced everything has become, we kind of can do almost anything we want. But if we try to do everything, we wind up doing nothing. We can do anything, but we can't do everything. I wonder how you decide, because I'm sure even just with something like the Performance Pack and touring or a lot of the devices you've made, what is it that...

makes you decide to pursue something. How do you figure that out?

Iftah (49:41.74)

Well, it's like making music. It's almost the same. It's just I have to feel that it's... It needs to turn me on, first of all. I need to like it. You know, it's not... I don't... Like, I wouldn't go and do something because I think somebody else needs it. I would start...

Brian Funk (49:46.132)

this here.

Iftah (50:07.148)

with my own perspective and then make sure that it's also useful if it's intended to be released. It's also useful for other people than me, but I need to like it from like, I wouldn't go on an idea hunt or usually these things just come, you know, when I walk on something and I realize that there's something missing or I know if it's sound, if it's something that generates sounds, uh,

I just, for example, when I did peer or pyre, like this physical modeling small thing. Actually, yes, I know why it's cool. There's no reason to say peer, but I say peer.

Brian Funk (50:43.028)

Is that how you say it, Pierre? I've been saying pyre. Okay.

Brian Funk (50:50.516)

Is it a word or is it just a name? Does it mean anything?

Iftah (50:55.788)

Not really, no. So, yeah.

Brian Funk (50:57.044)

Okay, that's cool. I like that. But that just for anyone listening, you should just tell them what it is. It's really interesting. Kind of like a string synthesizer, I would say, a modeling type of thing.

Iftah (51:07.212)

Yeah, it's a string modeling synth. It models an acoustic string. So this is a different example, for example, because there are, of course, I didn't invent this, but I wanted something which is, a lot of times I feel that physical modeling synths are too complicated to use. They have too much parameters for what I actually want.

to achieve this beautiful, simple string model sound. So I thought that, okay, that's a good enough reason for me to build it, for example. And I wanted it also to support MPE. It was like before...

Brian Funk (51:46.036)

make it simple.

Iftah (51:50.444)

by now the native physical modeling synths of live support MPE. And I wanted it specifically to support MPE because I wanted to play it microtonally, which was not so easy before. So these two simple reasons were enough for me to pursue this idea. There is something there that I can still not do. And I don't like, I could probably achieve this sound.

in another physical modeling synth, but it required too much tweaking for what it is. I felt I wanted something very gratifying like it, like you play a guitar, you know, you don't play a guitar and you start to tune it too much. You just, I mean, you do tune it, but you don't need to turn a lot of knobs for it to sound like a guitar, you know, you can just play and it will sound. So I think this, these, these were reasons good enough for me to pursue it.

Brian Funk (52:26.74)

Yeah, I wanna play it.

Brian Funk (52:33.204)

Right.

Iftah (52:44.012)

And I don't know, Sting for example was just a joke. I was in a...

Brian Funk (52:49.396)

I got that impression from reading some of the stuff you wrote about it that there was some humor in it, maybe almost poking fun at the, maybe even the whole genre of music.

Iftah (52:56.78)

Yeah, it was m -

Iftah (53:01.548)

No, not at all. I have huge appreciation for the whole genre, but I'm sure that like I I got up in the morning. I was like, can I it was 2012 or 13, I think 13 and I was in a residency in Reykjavik in Iceland. And I got up in the morning and I was like, is it possible? I'm sure I mean, I knew that the answer is yes, but I didn't know how yet. But can I just write something that will?

Brian Funk (53:04.436)

Okay.

Iftah (53:30.572)

generate random acid lines, but will not sound, you know, it would not be a random generator. I don't want the Turing machine. I want something that also makes musical sense. I want something that will always sound like acid lines. And then I, my immediate answer was, I think it's possible because I'm pretty sure that the first five years of acid music was...

people exposed to this machine they've never seen before and randomly pressing the sequence because this sequencer on the 303 is like notoriously complicated to use also. Although I personally appreciate it, but it took me like a year to not stop and think of my actions until I could actually program a 303. So a lot of, I think what made acid music so unique and so interesting is...

the idea that people actually just pressed buttons in the beginning.

Brian Funk (54:25.396)

Yeah.

Iftah (54:29.1)

So...

Iftah (54:33.388)

I think that that was my answer. Yeah, it must be possible because it is kind of random generated music originally, not completely random. I guess people learn how to edit afterwards and they got better in sequencing. But let's say that I'm sure that the first 20 acid records, well, just like, like same, same here. Like my first synth, the JX3P has this like onboard sequencer.

And I think I spent the first two years just like randomly typing sequences in. I was like 17 when I got it or something. So, and one out of five sequences was like really cool. Like I wish I've recorded all of them, you know? You know? So.

Brian Funk (55:17.908)

Yeah, that's nice the way you're playing, you're interacting with it and you're deciding that's a good one. I don't know what I did there, but that one we're gonna throw away. But that kind of spirit, I think that was probably part of why it was so adventurous when that music first started coming out and then what people were eventually doing with it. But yeah, just...

Iftah (55:32.748)

Yep.

Brian Funk (55:45.94)

We're going to play and see what we get. Press buttons.

Iftah (55:49.292)

Yeah, absolutely.

So yeah, so like in Sting, for example, so I wanted to attempt to do this. And then when it worked, I was like, Hey, okay, it's not funny at all. It's pretty cool. Like that was the moment of sobriety that this is really nice. Like it's way better than I expected. And then I, it was very important for me that it will have as little parameters as possible because I don't really like random generators. I like to set, I like very specific random generate like music idea, random genera -

Brian Funk (56:01.716)

Yeah.

Iftah (56:22.83)

I like them when they are limited so you don't get stuck on generating things because it can be very counterproductive. You just sit there and like, browsing tons of presets or something. Just sit and you're never happy with the idea that you can always get something else and always tweak it too much prevents you from being happy with what you get. So the idea with...

Sting and there I say other things that might or might not come out in the near future Is that they have to be Musical and They shouldn't have if at all parameters that you tweak or very little because they should just give you something that you

Ideally like out of the box and you continue to walk on your music or you don't and then you just change two notes and then you like it and then you move on. You shouldn't just sit there and it's not a generative music tool, you know? It's not supposed to. People use it as such, which is cool, but the way I envisioned it to be was like an idea starter, you know? It's like, okay, I have it and then I move on.

Brian Funk (57:43.348)

Yeah. You know, that's an interesting point you just made about if you know you can keep on tweaking and tweaking, you're never really satisfied. And I've run into that problem a lot with music and recording and editing and mixing. And sometimes I've been lately playing around with an eight track reel to reel. It's like, you can't do much to that. And imposing that limitation on myself has made me kind of settle.

Iftah (57:53.036)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (58:13.268)

in a way, but except some of the actually interesting things that are happening because it's a performance, because you did that and maybe it made a little noise at a funny part, but that was life happening and it makes the music feel like it's real and alive and got some personality and it wasn't just a perfectly...

sculpted thing, it was more of like a moment in time that you've captured. And I like that a lot in my music. So it's interesting to hear you say that about even just designing a device to encourage you to accept those types of things.

Iftah (58:59.692)

Absolutely. I'm a big believer in constraints, especially in music, like self -imitation. I think it really helps. Actually, yeah.

Brian Funk (59:06.292)

Yeah. I used to think if I could do everything I wanted, I would be, you know, so empowered and have so much fun and all of that. But I have the most fun when I make these decisions to like, oh, I'm only going to work with this thing. I'm only going to play around with this. I want to see what happens if I do this with only that thing. And they're always so much more interesting and more exciting. It's the problems to solve now. It's like a puzzle. It's not.

every answer possible is there. It's like, no, I can't do that. I got to try to do it this way. Creativity happens there.

Interesting stuff. You, you know, for somebody that's known for software and programming and, um, you know, a lot of electronic music, you seem to really have a lot of interest in the physical world and how sound interacts. I was, I got a kick out of that video. You mean, I'm not even sure how you did it, but you had a candle and you're making the candle flame dance with the bottles and an LFO.

Iftah (01:00:14.22)

Alright.

Brian Funk (01:00:16.468)

and you could watch it move in sync with the LFO. There's a lot of interesting stuff. The way you're connecting the two worlds is pretty fascinating. Can you speak to just what is happening in that particular video? I'll put a link in the show notes so people can watch that little flame dancing between the two bottles, but it's really neat. It just proves like how physical sound is. It's...

Iftah (01:00:20.906)

Right.

Iftah (01:00:28.585)

Thanks.

Iftah (01:00:44.202)

Right, right. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty simple actually. This is what you call Helmholtz resonance. It's practically the opposite of blowing air into a bottle. You know, if you blow air into an air bottle, you would cause the air to move and it would vibrate and produce sound.

And this is the frequency of that body of this bottle, basically. So if you take that frequency and you play it next to the bottle, you would cause air movement in the bottle, which would then blow air out of the bottle. Right? So all you need to do is just blow into the bottle, measure the frequency, and use a speaker.

That's what I did. I placed the speaker next to the bottle and played the same frequency. And this just causes air to blow out of the bottle. Instead of blowing air in and producing sound, you do the opposite. And then I just use an LFO to control the amplitude of this sine wave that I used.

and this is practically just blowing air at given intervals on the candle and making it dance. It's just very very simple and it's beautiful.

Brian Funk (01:02:00.597)

Right. So that's just modulating the volume of a certain pitch, a sine wave that's being sensed.

Iftah (01:02:08.105)

Exactly, which is the, it's this, this speech is not just certain. It is the resonance speech of the body, which you then call Helmholtz resonance. It's like the, the term. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:02:21.109)

Right. And that changes depending often like how much liquid is in. If you've ever blown on a bottle as you're drinking it, the pitch changes. Ah, that's so cool. Yeah. Wow. It's a really cool demonstration of just the fact that it's all like pressure and waves moving. And it's pretty fascinating how all of this comes together and makes us feel something. It gives us, you know,

Iftah (01:02:29.001)

Exactly, exactly. Or the size of the butter or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

Iftah (01:02:48.425)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:02:50.101)

Goosebumps or builds tension and then release like we were talking about before it's just air It's just air moving

Iftah (01:02:57.13)

I know just just to see it also interacting with the real world, you know, it's just not even using some sophisticated like solenoids or what not using any motors or sensors or whatever just using air pressure. It's just nice. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:03:01.652)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:03:12.117)

Right. Yeah. It's kind of magical. Like a string just wiggling at a certain speed and creating that sound. Hmm. It's awesome stuff you're doing. And I'm, I'm a big fan of, I love how useful it all is. That's something I've really noticed about what you've got here is as I've been going through your collection of work, it's just like all of this stuff is fun. It's useful.

Iftah (01:03:22.249)

Exactly.

Brian Funk (01:03:40.853)

And you can go deep with it if you want, or you can just pop it in and play and have a good time. And you've struck a great balance of those two worlds. You're obviously into a lot of extremely technical stuff, but you've found a way to just kind of make it really practical and useful and musical. It's great work.

Iftah (01:04:03.881)

Thank you for these kind words again. I also, you know, sometimes just to relate to this, sometimes I'm also very not technical. I have phases, like sometimes I just, I'm the most sloppy, like for personal stuff, not for stuff that I release, but sometimes I just prioritize results over any kind of like.

Brian Funk (01:04:06.485)

Thank you.

Brian Funk (01:04:20.596)

Yeah.

Iftah (01:04:29.898)

methodology, methodology or however you would call it. But sometimes, yes, sometimes it's just technology that turns me on. It just phases, really. It shifts, it changes. Yeah. And I've learned not to fight with it also because as an artist for many, many years, you know, when I was like only making music, I had this like guilt of not making, you know, not working on something else. And when I was...

Brian Funk (01:04:40.916)

Right. Yeah.

Iftah (01:04:58.923)

Because I know how to build things, like, it can be a hindrance, you know, when you're only making music and then you get an idea and then it's very hard to... The drum machine that we released, for example, we wanted to make an album and we ended up working two years on the drum machine. We never made the album. So it's a curse and a bless, actually. And it was something I always had issues with. It was like an internal conflict.

Brian Funk (01:05:17.172)

It's so funny.

Right.

Iftah (01:05:28.779)

And now I've learned to not fight it anymore and I just do what I want, which is have proven to be the most productive and fruitful and fun way of doing things. I just don't fight with it if I don't feel like...

making anything artistic and I'm just like really into experimenting and like dissecting a new sound design and sound production idea that I just have. I'm just going for it and I don't care. And then usually after a while it inspires me to actually make music and vice versa. So.

Brian Funk (01:06:00.436)

Hmm.

Brian Funk (01:06:08.245)

That's really cool that it works out that way. That as soon as, it's like so many things, right? Once you let go, then you can kind of have it. You can kind of enjoy it. But as soon as you try to grasp something and force it, it disappears. It slips away.

Iftah (01:06:11.722)

Yeah.

Iftah (01:06:25.962)

I know I, I, I'm really, I, I feel that I should be very thankful because I feel that I really get to do what I want to do now. And I, I'm not sure it was always been the case, especially all of these years, like being, being a freelance artist, you know, and being into this game of like social media and everything, constantly having this pressure of like making a new record and playing in the, like the clubs that everybody talks about at the moment. And.

you know, hanging out in backstage and all this and something very tough in it also, like this constant...

Brian Funk (01:07:03.284)

Yeah, like, yeah.

Iftah (01:07:04.81)

It's a hassle. It's a hassle. And I love what I did. And it was a fantastic time of my life, but I very much appreciate the fact that I feel that I do, like I do what I want in a good way nowadays. It doesn't mean that I just do what I want. You know, I just feel that I go with what I feel that is like more fun to do at the moment and it works. And I'm very thankful for that.

Brian Funk (01:07:24.597)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:07:33.461)

Hmm. That's great. And we're all benefiting from it. So thank you so much for doing that. You're doing really cool work and so much I'm excited to dive deeper in. I mean, the stuff you create is beautiful in that it's easy to get into and then you can really go far into it. And I'm excited to incorporate it into my work.

Iftah (01:07:33.93)

Actually, yeah.

Iftah (01:07:39.786)

I hope so.

Brian Funk (01:07:59.061)

And I highly recommend anyone listening into this stuff and that's excited about this kind of stuff. You're gonna have a lot of fun if you start playing with if there's work and checking out what he's doing, because it's fantastic. Where can we tell people to go to find all your work? Do you have a favorite place to direct people?

Iftah (01:08:12.746)

Thanks so much.

Iftah (01:08:19.658)

Not... I mean, I think Instagram would be the best place. This is where I like put stuff, like I announce stuff that I have made or I don't really...

Brian Funk (01:08:22.356)

Okay.

Brian Funk (01:08:28.404)

That's where my investigations all spread from.

Iftah (01:08:32.778)

I know, I'm not big on social media. I do Instagram. I think that's probably the best place to go for updates and stuff.

Brian Funk (01:08:42.676)

Cool. And you've got like the Linktree type of thing that has a lot of YouTube and your downloads and your products and all of that. So many of which are free, which is also incredibly generous.

Iftah (01:08:47.53)

Exactly.

Iftah (01:08:52.202)

Exactly.

Iftah (01:08:56.01)

All of them by now, at the moment, I think. Everything I did in the last four years can be freely downloaded. Okay, some of them do require, for example, the Performance Pack do require Live 12 Suite or Standard plus Max for Live. But a lot of people own it by now, so they should use it. Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:08:58.356)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:09:09.429)

Right.

Brian Funk (01:09:14.356)

Yeah.

Brian Funk (01:09:18.357)

If the thanks so much man really awesome getting to talk to you and I appreciate you taking the time with this I'm very happy to have you and thank you to the listener. Have a great day Awesome, man Thank you

podcastBrian Funkmusic production podcast, iftah