I did a workshop with Thomas Ankersmit recently at Rewire Festival in The Hague, where he talked quite a bit about his work process, both in the studio and live.
Very interesting and inspiring, even if I don’t have a Serge (or even another modular system).
Some of my main takeaways:
He uses only Serge (apart from a matrix mixer that I didn’t see in this video; maybe that is used only when he performs with a more compact setup), but some of the things you hear live are samples of Serge generated sounds that come from experimenting in the studio. The samples are triggered using a very basic sampler-type patch in Max/MSP; the triggered samples from the laptop are sent into the Serge, and are often processed live.
He chooses not to use sequencing or looping, wanting the performance to be as hands on as possible. Everything that happens, sound wise, happens because a knob was turned, a gate triggered, sometimes a cable plugged, or unplugged.
He uses relatively simple patches on the Serge, at least in the live setup. No intricately interlinked, or quasi generative patches. This, again, is in line with the idea of playing the synth in the moment. Also, intricate patches often have very specific sweet spots, which make them hard to ‘perform’ live.
As a result, the entire system is basically a collection of 5-10 (mostly) independent, small, patches that are then played at different moments in the piece.
No processing or effects on the final output. So, no reverb (given that there is no Serge reverb). A sense of space is created by different means (some of his sounds really sound huge).
Beginning and end of a long piece are often fixed/composed. In between it is more improvised, but with some predetermined ideas about sections and pacing.
