See Torley as a boy in his "Techno Kid" years! BEHOLD!

I decided to do this because I have loose ends I didn't get around to in 2004 after my music composing career was interrupted: namely, sharing more details about what went into the making of my music. Some of the finer anecdotes have been covered in my aborted [SELF-REVIEW] series (which I got distracted from), but I figured it'd be a good idea to lay it out in a single post, knowledge which may hopefully be of use to future readers. So here goes — and a particular thank-you to longtime fan Jamie Edwards for the encouragement!

I really got into producing techno (electronic, or whatever they call it these days) at a time when soft(ware) synths hadn't fully or even considerably matured, so there was a lot of hot air and derisive mockery. My early teens was when my strong belief of being more of an AND than an OR person started to develop, and I found myself using both hardware + software… as well as pieces that were a combination of both. The entire list is exhaustive, but most of my core physical pieces included:

• Alesis QS8
• E-mu Proteus 2000
• Roland JV-1010
• Yamaha A5000 (sampler)
• Access Virus Rack (no, not the fancier tabletop one… couldn't afford that at the time!)
• Novation Nova
• Yamaha RS7000 (mega groove box)
• Yamaha MU100R
• Yamaha DJXIIB (as featured in my classical jammin').
• cheapo Zoom RFX-2000, it was noisy as heck but provided some spice to sounds
• … and some other pieces I can't recall at the moment.

I didn't own an original modular analogue beast or anything like that, altho I fantasized about it at times: I figured it might be like having a white tiger/elephant for a pet. Sure, it's cool to hear about, but it's costly and you get saddened by how unstable it is. I have this particular obsession with resource efficiency, so I didn't see a need to spend $$$ on old gear. The Moog name has come a long way and there are plenty of Moog emulations on the market, a testament to combining the original sounds with greater stability.

I also had a Kurzweil Expressionmate, which cost US$500 or so at the time, but was one of the best investments I made. Paired with a US$80 Yamaha BC3 breath controller, the ribbon touch strip and mouthpiece let me make some amazingly — well, expressive sounds. It helped me turn even bleepy square waves into poetic warblers. To this day, I'm upset and ashamed this input mode hasn't seen more popular acceptance: most MIDI (still common, so passé) controllers are still made for your fingers and feet alone. Time to time, I've been asked, "How did you get such a great flute sound on that track? It was hot!" and earnestly, that's my "secret". With the ribbon strip, I was also able to do smooth guitar-licky pitch bends, like at @ 1:12 and @ 2:47 of this country-line-dance-meets-acid-house rocker:

Apparently, I invented several new genres along the way. Sadly, they didn't catch on more: that's market opportunity missed!

I could rant on about how I wish more people discovered the joy of mouth music controllers. A prime reason why acoustic (woodwind, guitar, etc.) samples frequently still sound tinny and static is not just a problem with the samples themselves: it's how you play them. I used to know some people who'd tiringly program MIDI CC (Continuous Controllers) messages to make something sound semi-realistic, but in one take, I'd just fire up my breath controller and be done with it. What they took hours to do, I spent seconds on. The investment was terribly, madly, severely worth it. So while I haven't looked closely at the state of physical modeling synthesis, it's really incomplete without having an actual controller to use it with — sorta like a PB&J sandwich without the J.

In hindsight, I could've done things clearer and line noise/hiss/hum always bothered me to some degree: I used the line inputs on an M-Audio Audiophile (external USB version) to record my mixes into my computer before mastering. Something wasn't the cleanest about my electricity, and amidst the 100-or-so cables tangled behind my next, there'd be clicks and pops… ugly ones. So I had to listen carefully to the mix after it was recorded, and assure there weren't glitches like that. Another challenge was when certain sounds had randomization elements (shifting LFOs and all that), which was wonderful for live performances, but not so much when you're trying to playback and have it sound the same everytime. I was more of a stickler about it then, not so much now because I've traded in perfectionism for results, but it did annoy me.

Not only was my recording setup a touch odd, my entire production process was unique to me: I had an old Power Mac G3 (233 MHz, whee) running Opcode Studio Vision. I'd upgraded from Musicshop after I won Studio Vision as the prize in a contest: David Pogue's Musical Mac one in Macworld. It was a pretty popular sequencer in its time and had staunch users that clung on and couldn't get used to Logic (I was one of them). I remember showing solidarity with some of those folks in online forums and being mad at Gibson for botching up Opcode. What teenage angst! What I especially liked was the notation view — I just couldn't get used to the piano roll, which is funny because I'm not very much into traditional notation at all. But, maybe I was a creature of habit, and Musicshop, then Vision, got me acclimated to working very quickly with a stave above and a controller "strip" showing levels of various parameters below.

This wasn't the end of it: I also had a PC running Windows-only software like Propellerheads Reason and Ableton Live (back then, version 2 and 3, respectively… now we're up to 4 and 7 and while there've been some major advances, the programs largely look and feel the same as they did 4+ years ago). I had a MIDI cable running from my Opcode Studio 4 interface (I had 2 of those, 1 was a backup, and a 64XTC linked to it). (I get weird feelings right now as I try to recall model numbers.) So essentially, my PC was an instrument unto its own, being controlled via the MIDI inputs on the Opcode gear. It worked pretty good for not being more digital, and altho I was aware of timing problems, they were negligible for the most part unless controller data was really thick (then I'd thin it).

(I realize how geeky this sounds, and I also realize how much someone else who's also been in the same/similar sorts of situations will just "get it". I was watching M dot Strange's We Are the Strange making-of documentary the other day, and one of the most memorable parts if when he mentions a failed video rendering job. I looked at my wife with wide eyes, 'cuz I know what that's all about. So if any of the above also makes sense to you and you've got shared memories, let me know.)

I eventually setup a template of sorts to save time, since I needed to have SysEx data loaded into each and every synth/sampler to recall settings. It was a pain to dump each when a track (meaning a whole composition, not just a single audio channel) was done, but as I composed more and more (leading up to 230 works in a particular series and additional loose ideas), it became a sort of relaxing Zen exercise. Then in the sequencer file, I'd have this "intro" consisting of a few bars, enough for all the SysEx to load. After that, there'd be the block with all the music. For shorter pieces with not a lot of instrument changes, I'd do additional blocks and record the works as separate pieces. It really depended on what I wanted to do, since I occasionally did DJ mix fillers (with proper rhythm-but-no-melody intros/outros) and liked to get 3-4 done in a pass. These are good examples:

As you can hear, I have a unified style yet am pretty diverse — from crunkin' hip-hop breakage to exotic proggy house!

Things are likely much easier now, especially if your music production setup consists of a single, capable computer with instant recall of parameters. And that's one of the biggest things that bummed me out about hardware, that I had to be persnickety with each piece and learn its "temperament"; it was kind of patchwork and awkward at times, but never so bad that I gave up. I just kept going, like they say.

I grew up on classical piano, and ended up using assorted piano samples along the way. I was fond of layering pianos with "Ahhh" voice-choir-ish and synth strings stuff, as you can hear in this romantic improvisation which would be super to play when couples are making out:

[http://www.archive.org/download/torley_wong-wong_songs__1b_/13.mp3]

but I never had one particular standout favorite. I thought the Alesis QS8's 8 MB piano sample set was good for its time, but over the years, my tastes matured and I came to love the key-off and pedal noises that are found in more advanced, expensive simulators. It's intriguing how a rock piano (like Elton John's) that cuts it in a mix may be totally inappropriate for a softer, new age, pastoral mode. Sometimes I just used real pianos too, and to this day, if you ask me "Which are which?", I'll smile mysteriously and leave that up to you. I like to share a lot, but reserve some rewards for the curious.

Recording rhythms was a lot of fun. I usually did the drums first in a track, since they're the underpinning for all that sits on top — a notable exception would be if I already had a sweetly catchy riff in my head. The basic process would be that I'd have an 8-bar loop to build up a solid idea, and expand on it. I'd copy-and-paste that 8 bar into, say, a 32-bar section (this varied from track to track, obviously) and play it back, changing parts along the way. One of the easiest layering methods is simply to cut parts in and out, or fade them gradually. Never one to be content with a single type of transition, I played with so many different ways of introducing and removing elements: one of my faves involved putting a big reverb atop the kick + snare drum at the beginning of a breakdown. It'd make for this really roomy, even echoey "BOOOOM!" and that would change the tone and direction of a track. For a few bars, anyway. You can hear that effect @ 4:48 and 5:43 here, when the tone goes from upbeat Balearic trance to skippity hip-hop (still one of the fave beats I ever crafted), then back again:

I had a lot of fun with those curves, and it taught me a lot. Reverse cymbals and swooshes are good too: just like sudden hits are good for releasing tension, if you play those in reverse, they build suspense unto the climax. Listen to "Constant State of Revolution", where I used many swooshes to dramatic effect (the theme for this piece was to think of a Che Guevara-figure before I even knew his name, and make it vaguely Southern American revolutionary-style):

I didn't use "trigger pads" much for drums, altho the RS7000 had a couple velocity-sensitive ones I could press. I did some impressive samba rolls with those, altho if I felt they were getting "too real", I did something to tweak them onto the course of surreality. Altho I can't find the quote, Trent Reznor (or was it Depeche Mode?) once said something sage about combining quantized + unquantized grooves to get a feel that's simultaneously precise and flexible. I wholly agree, and did that a lot. Also, some people excel at making the synthesized sound totally naturally acoustic, but that was never my goal: I wanted to get listeners not thinking so much about the origins of sound as where it was going — like an alternate sonic universe where Christofori was assassinated by a madman and we had a very different "pianoforte".

My drum tracks were pretty rich, and if I felt they were getting too full, I'd lower the volume on them so they were more "ghosted" and provided a supporting presence in the mix, albeit an undeniably subtle touch. Think of visual art, where focus is drawn to subject matter if you crop it in a certain way, ramp up contrast, etc. — you don't want to draw the same attention to everything at once. I'd like to combine samples from multiple machines to shade things out, and when I once read that Rza from Wu-Tang Clan considered an 8-bar drum loop impressive (since that was commonplace for me), I knew I was on the right track (pun intended).

Sure, I'd do shorter loops in times where I'd deliberately be minimal, like this:

but as much as I could, I didn't want my loops to be boring. Another powerful juxtaposition is having a repetitive underbed while having a fluid, evolving melody and other layered elements above. As stated in various ways earlier, I often made a case for being very diverse while maintaining a cohesive style. Looking back, I can smile and see how often that held true.

An old banner ad graphic:

And the logo I used before the "watermelon eye":

Naughty dinosaurs:

More old-skool graphics: an early gravitation towards watermelon colors, and psychedelia promo!

Philosophically, a lot of the music I wrote came about because it was inspired by existing music, but I wanted an alternate take to change things up, make them better. Minimal and Detroit techno was a superb example of this, especially because I admired the strong production techniques involved, but felt they went on too long and didn't make for captivating home listening. Another pillar of my philosophy is that there was a considerable divide between music that sounds great on the dancefloor vs. that which only works well in your living room (or headphones, wherever you are) and I wanted to do both. I wanted to have it all. To this day, it's still a genre-wide problem, and not enough artists are thinking about both.

I got into various arguments with people I'd come to term "technosnobs", as they reminded me of classical music chinstrokers that turned off the very people who wanted to get more into that kind of music, but found themselves put-off by unkind, belligerent, intolerant attitudes. I found it strange that these technosnobs often had a hatred for catchy melody of any kind, calling it "cheesy", and yet, melody is often the most key part of a song: if you can't hum it back, how do I know what it is? I'd go on my quests and make many forum posts arguing in favor of marrying the precise, surgeon-style production of mnml tech with popular trance melodies years before "tech-trance" became an oddly-hyphenated style. I wish I saved more of them. But to this day, there's not enough artists covering this chasm and providing what many listeners would welcome. Which is why I was so intent on providing that music, because I knew I could do it.

I seldom have creative block. There's just too many ideas. I did get depressed and sad at times after some of these Internet flamewars (you can see how I've evolved from that into the productivity guru you see before you today ), and when I doubted myself because I thought others knew better, that could be the worst. The lesson I learned: the harsh critics don't care about you, so it's up to you to better yourself and find others who will give you good advice. And don't get into wordy disputes: to paraphrase David Lynch, it's such a sadness.

I was a mixed-race child of music because I wore a tuxedo to most of my techno performances — as you saw in the video above — which stood out because everyone else had on bright clubwear. Luck was somewhat in my favor here, because I had a cheap neon jacket (bright green on the inside, purple on the outside with some patches of pink… sound familiar?). I'd wear that on top of the tuxedo, and then throw it off. Sometimes I'd throw off my pants too, and be dancing in jailbird shorts. Those were fun times, and the whole house (it was never literally a warehouse, but I performed in some typical raver places like barns) went wild. I loved the attention I got, and I felt this was the life for me. This, by the way, came after feeling awkward early on — classical music really doesn't relate to most youth, in large part because of those snobs and a lack of avid enthusiasts who'll introduce older arts & culture to our new generations. I got into techno mainly because I was so intrigued by an amazingly vast array of sound palettes, and so I could get chicks. And the chicks part would've worked better if I wasn't a fairly strict (in my mind) Christian at the time, but things've changed and I have my wife today. Things haven't happened the way I expected them to, but you know what they say about life and surprises, and things are good.

Along the way, I'd develop life skills that would benefit me in the future. My passion for automation, as you may've gleaned, has its roots in me cranking out one piece of music after another and wanting to make more, better, in less time.

One area I spent too much time in: relistening to my tracks after recording and mastering them. I spent so much time on that darned mastering process, continually adjusting EQ, compression, limiting, harmonic balance, and so many little things in order to have a fuller, richer, louder (overall) sound. I was never 100% happy with it, and wish I could've found a friend skilled at mastering so I didn't have to worry and/or pay oodles: not everyone can afford the talents of an Emily Lazar, especially when you've got 200+ songs going on! Alas, one of my worst mistakes was playing my music too loud in my headphones: it eventually caused hearing loss and no doubt accelerated me having the hyperacusis I suffer from today.

Further notes on creativity: I wish I could've worked on more than one track concurrently like I do today with video tutorials, but due to the aforementioned limitations, this was often not the case. It was very inconvenient to switch in mid-track from one to another. I'm the kind of person who prefers deep concentration over the "multitasking myth", yet realize there are related tasks that can be worked together as a whole. I envy today's simplified production setups, and if there's going to be more multilayered musicmaking in my future, I look forward to taking all that I've learned and applying it forth.

Here's another creative tip: don't feel an artificial need to expand a track. Some are just meant to be short and sweet, as those of you who listen to Prefuse 73 and The Flashbulb have likely experienced. You may get 14-minute quasi-symphonies, but don't force them. It's very amusing that "Passion8", which was actually the 1st of the 230 composed, ended up being among the longest. I didn't try for that, but I had these mad visions in my head that just had to come out.

[http://www.archive.org/download/Torley_Wong_-_The_Final_Selection/Torley_Wong-Passion8.mp3]

It's amusingly insightful what I wrote about this almost 4 years ago:

Finally, "Passion8" started out as an exercise in generic, cheesy (I mean that as a compliment) trance — whatever — but I decided to elaborate on it with a few classical ideas as you can hear. I think it's quite regal and classy, yet trashy and dirty. Is this like Kraft Dinner with caviar? I promise you, time will tell

If you do want to make a short track longer, think about what I said above re: transitions. Experiment, play with different ways to bring sounds in and out to add movement, color, and vibrancy. You could just loop sections longer, but what fun is that when you can do something so simple as dropping in a new hi-hat loop on the 2nd set of 8 bars, or playing a 1-off weird sound effect? (I think Way Out West does this sometimes, and they're rare in that regard.)

Speaking of variations, there are many parts in my music where I changed one note on a subsequent repetition, or added in a few 16th notes to a bassline or drum pattern but didn't loop it. I suppose this became a comfortable signature of mine, since I'd reinforce the main themes yet add some extra flava this way. If you listen carefully, you'll hear these too.

I wish I had some lofty sentence to end this with, but I don't. Looking back, you can glimpse at TORLEY.COM as it was nearing a decade ago (sigh, so many broken images). Looking forward, what I do know is that as the story continues, I'll keep sharing about my lives (First, Second, and beyond ) in hopes it'll help you!

Looking back at this, there'll be plenty more smiles.

DOWNLOAD THE ABOVE FEATURED TRACKS AND MORE:

• The Final Selection - 230 diverse MP3s
• Wong Songs: 1a | 2a | 1b