Timo Maas

[Planar]

I like some of that old "wet & hard" techno that was a thing for about 10 minutes. Der Schieber 2 I'd quite happily play today.

"Wet and hard", remember getting a Ministry mag mixed by Corvin Dalek with that title. Didn't last long as a gnre. This though, is one of my favourite mixes of that era. Bloody brilliant. http://www.mixcloud.com/YeahRadio/timo- ... pril-2000/ [Timo Maas's Dirty Trancing Mixmag CD... those of you who saw the prog discussion in the other thread, give this a listen!]

Tbf, it was fairly unusual sounding at the time, but it's just chunky techno.

Got both of these on cd myself. I remember the corvin dalek article that was in the magazine was a little weird. There's still a couple of tracks on both I'd love a copy of actually.

[Program]

I got this on vinyl a few years ago. It's supposedly him & Santos.

youtu.be/ag1b026Qyts

[Hades]

he looks dirty.

no no,
that's just cause he's an Artist,
and Artists are absolutely unique individuals with a pure soul that us humble peasants can never properly understand.



God I hate wankers like that.
someone should plant a broomstick in his head and mop the floors with it.

[ashley BORG]

Lol only just got around to watching the Timo Mass. That's pretty much a piss take, I'm sure he could contribute more than tap the mic. Hahaha!!!

Wow he looks like shit. I guess it''s been 10 years or so since I've seen him, but they haven't been kind to him lol.
I never knew he had a ghost writer, that's funny. My friend used to make fun of me for buying a couple of his records back then. I liked a couple of tracks like City Borealis/Nightjacker but I guess I never liked his stuff enough to find out more about it...

On the other hand, I've known Goldie to do this since the 90s (Rob Playford etc)

Skip to about 15 minutes :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 3HAI&t=900

youtu.be/ulUgqzF3HAI

This was something I meant to say earlier. The Timeless album is a great example of "musical direction", and anyone who saw Goldie's BBC orchestra documentary will understand he's pretty talented at communicating audio ideas to others.

I'm sure we discussed this on the Ghost writer topic, but I know there's a huge clash of principles in the Electronic music industry/scene, since this is viewed as bedroom music. Something that an individual or group of self taught people are supposed work thire way through the processes of making shit, until one day something good comes out.
I do agree, but also think there's something very romantic about that way of thinking. If left to his own devices, Goldie may never have produced Timeless. He understood his idea was way beyond his technical capabilities and sought help.
Would it have been preferred he spent 10 years honing his ability, or worse yet make a version not even 10% as good due to lack of ability and patience?

I don't really know what to say in terms of rights of credit, and royalties distribution. I'm sure the producer/engineers are well paid for their work, and I'm sure somewhere in print lies an acknowledgement of their contribution.
Not saying in the world of Electronic music this is right, but then I'm not sure it's that bad either.

I can see both sides of the coin, and not quite sure I pick a side.

[Hades]

This was something I meant to say earlier. The Timeless album is a great example of "musical direction", and anyone who saw Goldie's BBC orchestra documentary will understand he's pretty talented at communicating audio ideas to others.

I'm sure we discussed this on the Ghost writer topic, but I know there's a huge clash of principles in the Electronic music industry/scene, since this is viewed as bedroom music. Something that an individual or group of self taught people are supposed work thire way through the processes of making shit, until one day something good comes out.
I do agree, but also think there's something very romantic about that way of thinking. If left to his own devices, Goldie may never have produced Timeless. He understood his idea was way beyond his technical capabilities and sought help.
Would it have been preferred he spent 10 years honing his ability, or worse yet make a version not even 10% as good due to lack of ability and patience?

I don't really know what to say in terms of rights of credit, and royalties distribution. I'm sure the producer/engineers are well paid for their work, and I'm sure somewhere in print lies an acknowledgement of their contribution.
Not saying in the world of Electronic music this is right, but then I'm not sure it's that bad either.

I can see both sides of the coin, and not quite sure I pick a side.

actually, I watched the goldie video from the link on here, the whole half hour, and I thought he wasn't that bad at all.
Sure it's clear that his "ghost" producer has far more talent than him production-wise, but it wasn't as if he didn't do anything at all.
He said at the start of the video he's dyslectic, so he was always behind someone else staring at the computer screen cause it never made sense to him (his own words).
Might sound like a cheap excuse, I know, but I can get that in a way.

I agree with Ashley, we really tend to look at all this far too romantic. Most of us spend hours, weeks, months, years years years to learn all this stuff by ourselves, so yes, obviously when someone seems to be taking the shortcut out, we tend to disapprove massively.

I know I cringed with that Timo Maas video, but I didn't have the same feeling with the Goldie video.
But personally I would never be able to make music like that : just sitting there knowing I could only do it as long as that other person is in there to help you, but I guess others work differently.

I just consider the whole technical side of our passion as part of the whole package.
We make techno, so we sometimes gotta use highly advanced technological equipment to do so.
It takes time to properly learn all that equipment, that's just how it is.
Plus, since we do it all ourselves in a home studio (sound design, arrangement, mixing, sometimes mastering,...) it's rather normal that it will take a lot of time to produce something that will sound halfway decent.
I'm ok with that, how frustrating all of that can be at times.
If I wasn't, I should have sticked to playing the piano, or should have picked up a guitar.

Come to think of it, Timo's new look fits the troubled singer-songwriter-cliché perfectly.
Someone just toss him a bottle of scotch and he's set to go.

[surface]

I should have sticked to playing the piano, or should have picked up a guitar.

Wish I could play piano. That's all you need sometimes. Ryuichi Sakamoto - Railroad Man.

On a seperate note, I'm tired of the cynicism creeping in here.
Always the way though, bound to creep in and I probably went along with it at the time for the the laugh.


Decks, Efx and 909. Right there.

At least he knows his shit audio-wise, even if he flowed with the tide.
(fuck me, who could stand up to the undercurrent at that time?).

I have Goldie's Timeless LP and, in my (i like to think) humble opinion, there's tracks on there where the lyrics are blatantly whack out of tune and my ears can't handle that.

Fuck it, music, music, music.
Fuck politics. Fuck Money. Fuck everything. It's all irrelevant.
Music.
Feeling,
Purpose.
Direction.

Where are we right now?
Techno Google Maps?

Two dots.
My last post here - and under a thread titled Timo Maas, ffs.

And no, I don't take drugs.
Never have, never will.
I love sound too much to cheapen the buzz of it ..

[Hades]

I should have sticked to playing the piano, or should have picked up a guitar.

Wish I could play piano. That's all you need sometimes. Ryuichi Sakamoto - Railroad Man.

yeah sure, I still love it after doing it for all these years, but I'm also extremely glad I moved into this massive world of sounds out there, and I can actually play them with piano keys and not just click in stuff (no offence to who works that way intended).
Piano is wonderful, but it's only one sound.
There is so much more out there.

On a seperate note, I'm tired of the cynicism creeping in here.

I just read an interesting article on cynism. Basically it said something along the lines of this :
(and pardon me if the translation isn't always the best)

People should realise more that cynical people can be happy, constructive people, and usually with a great sense of humour too. Cynicism is used far too often as an invective for people who are not considered "positive" enough in the eyes of people who see negativism as the source of all evil in this world. It enables these people to ignore all sceptical doubts without investing any valid grounds the doubts could be based upon.

In the Oxford English Dictionary a cynical person is someone who doubts the goodness of human nature and the righteousness of people. But why should that always be considered a negative issue to doubt these things ? You think Woodward and Bernstein would have discovered the Watergate scandal if they would have fully believed in the good and righteous nature of all human beings ?
If we wouldn't be cynical, we would never question dubious international interventions, or fraudulous banking systems, or crimes made against basic human rights.

The biggest mistake people make is to think cynicism feeds a fatalistic pessimism, a belief that nothing can ever be improved. Maybe for some forms of lazy cynicism that is true, but cyncism at its best is by far a better force to progress and improvement than optimism.
An optimist underestimates how hard it is to make a real improvement happening. He thinks everything is possible, but in reality only realistic solutions can work if we face the reality : all progress is sabotaged by the people in power and corrupted by the fact that most people are for sale if you just throw them enough money.
Cynical people realise what a challenge progress can be, but see this progress as far more urgent and important than optimistic people, who think it' ain't all so bad and things can only get better.
Cynical people are realists who know the world isn't the sunny fantasy the marketing guru's want us to believe it is.

Another myth about cynicism is that it gets bigger when you get older. In reality our life experience robs us in a painful way of many of our illusions, so we get indeed cynical about many things we used to naïvely believe in when we were younger. But it also makes us see things a lot clearer, and it makes us realise what is really important in life, and what is just nonsense that clouds up our life. While we get cynical about a lot of things, we also get more affection for what is good and true. Cynicism makes us more appreciative for what truely deserves our love.

In order to improve our world, we must first be able to see how bad it is. And we can't show our good side if we're not aware of our bad side. Only be being sceptical about human nature we can see what is reliable and what is not, and to be able to do so, one needs an intelligent form of cynicism.
Not blind negativism, but a search light to true positivism.

[Hades]

that's pretty much exactly how I feel about cynicism.

[wormcode]

Yeah I don't mind Goldie's method. There's a unique madness to it, and as far as I remember he never really lied about it. He does do more on some tunes apparently, but I agree with what Ashley is saying. Some people have excellent ideas but for whatever reason can't translate them over, or just have no interest in engineering itself. What he is doing in that video is essentially what traditional 'producers' have always done in the rock/pop world. Really no difference besides instead of a band and singer you have a guy programming synths/drums by hand.

I don't recall a ghost writer thread, I'll have to check that out.

[Críoch]

I'd be sorry if that was your last post Colm. I agree with the window to positivism "bile" (LOL _ Joke Hades) that Hades was reading. I think people naturally write their most immediate feelings and neglect to balance it out with the other side.. until they have gotten it all out. The reflective / learning bit can't happen without that venting.

Unfortunately, that learning bit often remains hidden or entirely undocumented as people are economical with their words & the time. But the learning does happen.. and it is here to be seen. You can see it in the other many, many, many positive attitudes across the site:

1. Interest in the subsekt challenges.
2. Support, interest, encouragement & praise for the results of these experiments.
3. Passionate discussion.
4. Sharing of information.
5. LOTS of natural derailing.. and indicator of positive people interacting positively.
6. Genuine feedback in the members tracks area.
7. Development of relationships outside of subsekt on FB, Soundcloud and face to face. I see it every day of the week.
9. Probably lots of other shit..

The amount of time people spend here is incredible. Even more so considering the % of free time that they probably have, given work & family commitments. The fact that they share and interact in such detail can only be seen as positive. Fuck, theres SO many other things they could be doing, they must feel that what they ARE doing is positive.

Genuinely, what Hades posted there was what I wanted to say, but obviously much much better.

All of that helps to balance it. Not saying that the equilibrium is perfect by any stretch of the imagination, as its not applied generically. Anyway.. who is perfect, or wants to be perfect or pasteurised haha?

Ok.. as a "group" we've designed a few bogeymen, which have helped us to set out some common values etc.. but y'know, same as politics and life in general, its always better, always more intelligent to question than be a follower and take what comes. I think that is a common theme here and guess some of the "kicking out" that happens here is coming from that position. Regardless of personal opinion, the positives cant be overlooked.

[surface]

Fuck politics. Fuck Money. Fuck everything. It's all irrelevant.

Haha! What was I thinkin...

@ICN
Okay, the penultimate post...as surface.
Should never have used that name on a techno forum but wasn't thinking at the time.

I'll have to get you to build in a 'drunk lock' module on here where, if you hit submit, a dialog pops up telling you that you hit the captain morgans a bit too hard!
Good points though, especially no.9.
Yeah, you have to question things, just maybe not be so 'vocal' about it (again, captain morgan's fault!).

Thanks Hades. That post's a real eyeopener and probably one of the best posts I've read on here (and there's been lots).
Was on a bit of a downer and needed an angle that made some sense to me.
BTW, I fell asleep listening to Thelonius Monk.
Damn he was good.

All in all, the fact that people post at all is an investment of time, knowledge, and, for the most part, positivity.
Gotta love that.

Needless to say, I'm not feeling too fresh this morning ..

[Críoch]

If we had a drunk lock.. no-one would post haha

_________


A great way to fall asleep

This is my favourite Monk tune / version

(Can I make a comparison between Theolonious Monk and Timo Maas now cos they share the same initials? Can I, can I? Without sounding negative haha )

And please don't re-register as Timo Maas. Surface is better

youtu.be/8o3IBxIOCtw

[Planar]

Didn't have time to watch all the Goldie video, but skipped to the relevant section and that's a guy who is interacting and dictating what his music will sound like. I don't see a massive problem with that, he's doing the musical stuff and obviously guiding how the track will sound but needs help with the technical side. Maas is just sat there, doing fuck all other than looking dodgy in the background. Big difference for me.

[Wiu]

Okay so I just watched the whole Timo video. Santos really knows his shit. The last part of the video where they start a track from scratch should of been where Timo kind stood up and got involved throwing ideas in etc etc etc, but he still just fucking sits there doing fuck all! Apart from holding the microphone and saying 'Noise' into it, he literally just sits there awkwardly. I can see exactly why using a Producer/Engineer is essential for Goldie. He was so vocal at getting across what he wanted (or at least appeared that way on the video). Timo on the other hand either got shy in front of the camera or just see's his presence in the studio enough to be considered part of the process. I guess the really puzzling thing is that Future Music decided to go with this 'In The Studio' feature at all and why Timo agreed to do it!

[RH+]

In the traditional sense - Timo is a Producer, whoever is working for him is acting as an engineer.

I work with bands and sometimes act as a producer (where I don't do much engineering other than a bit of drum-replacement or suggesting electronic parts to compliment whatever the engineer is working on).

In one situation at a studio I sometimes work, we had a member of a well known punk / rock band in to produce for an up-and-coming band.

He simply sat and drank coffee / played around on facebook whilst occasionally saying - "do another take" or "no - that's not quite right, we'll need to layer it with something".

According to the engineer who did most of the work - this was quite normal and the producer's job here was more to bring the band together and make sure the whole project was on-track.

This particular engineer is actually also the studio-manager so he's employed me to do similar with bands that he thinks could use a different perspective or sometimes it's the case that the band have a difficult personality and he likes the fact that I'm quite good at kicking bands like that into line. In those cases, even though I'm just as capable of doing everything including the engineering, I quite like it as it's a different skill-set being deployed.

So I'd probably cut Timo and all of these other cats some slack, their job is to decide what's contemporary - be the one that finds a vehicle for the music and so on.

with techno / hip-hop / electronic, obviously the artist / producer and engineer are combined and for some, this works well, but I'm thinking some people here would be surprised at how the industry really works, more often than not people stick to their own field and it's a team effort to bring productions to market.

I think a lot of "techno producers" and "hip-hop" producers would benefit a lot from understanding the wider music industry - it's given me a hugely different perspective on how I produce techno, particularly from a collaborative point of view.

[Críoch]

A good example of the "Team" aspect is that D.Ramirez video from FM. Not my cuppa, but he obviously knows his stuff & he also had an engineer assist him. He's on the road so much its probably a necessity.

I think the problem really in essence is that Timo looked like he shouldn't have been there - at least when someone like Dean Marriott does it in his vid he fucking owns it/woiks it baby!

[Mattias]

In the traditional sense - Timo is a Producer, whoever is working for him is acting as an engineer.

I work with bands and sometimes act as a producer (where I don't do much engineering other than a bit of drum-replacement or suggesting electronic parts to compliment whatever the engineer is working on).

In one situation at a studio I sometimes work, we had a member of a well known punk / rock band in to produce for an up-and-coming band.

He simply sat and drank coffee / played around on facebook whilst occasionally saying - "do another take" or "no - that's not quite right, we'll need to layer it with something".

According to the engineer who did most of the work - this was quite normal and the producer's job here was more to bring the band together and make sure the whole project was on-track.

This particular engineer is actually also the studio-manager so he's employed me to do similar with bands that he thinks could use a different perspective or sometimes it's the case that the band have a difficult personality and he likes the fact that I'm quite good at kicking bands like that into line. In those cases, even though I'm just as capable of doing everything including the engineering, I quite like it as it's a different skill-set being deployed.

So I'd probably cut Timo and all of these other cats some slack, their job is to decide what's contemporary - be the one that finds a vehicle for the music and so on.

with techno / hip-hop / electronic, obviously the artist / producer and engineer are combined and for some, this works well, but I'm thinking some people here would be surprised at how the industry really works, more often than not people stick to their own field and it's a team effort to bring productions to market.

I think a lot of "techno producers" and "hip-hop" producers would benefit a lot from understanding the wider music industry - it's given me a hugely different perspective on how I produce techno, particularly from a collaborative point of view.

This is all fine and good if it were a band, and similar. But not when it comes to music like this since the technical aspect, the gear knowledge and everything revolving around it so so closely tied to producing this type of music. In the situation you described above, then Timo shouldn't be the name to stomp as the music writer, instead co-producer.
No man, Steve said it and I quote again:

Well, admitting you are a turd, doesn`t stop you from smelling like shit.

And this:

Didn't have time to watch all the Goldie video, but skipped to the relevant section and that's a guy who is interacting and dictating what his music will sound like. I don't see a massive problem with that, he's doing the musical stuff and obviously guiding how the track will sound but needs help with the technical side. Maas is just sat there, doing fuck all other than looking dodgy in the background. Big difference for me.

EDIT: spelling

[RH+]

With respect to what Steve is saying there Mattias-san, I've trying to keep it objective.

I'm a techno-artist first and a commercial producer second, so I firmly appreciate that Techno has it's own code of ethics and practices and these can't always be compared with what we are talking about here.

However, Timo Mass has always been a commercial producer, he's making music for a market that he understand, and he knows he can make better music by employing a proper ninja engineer than doing the engineering himself.

Arguing over the production / engineering / artistic credit is pure semantics, either the combination works or it doesn't and each work should be taken on it's own merit.

Timo has been responsible from creating some great tracks, in partnership, or not - and he has also been responsible for some of the biggest turds going.

But how he does that in terms of the working relationship that brought that music is irrelevant and should not be the basis for calling an artist out because as I say, in the wider music community, this practice is perfectly acceptable, so why not with techno ?

You are aware of course that far more underground producers than this do similar things all the time, I could reel off a number of people that do this but would prefer not to due to this thing we call "discretion"

To be honest, I'd be more concerned with people who build their tracks from samples of other people's music, people using ghost producers to make sounds that they don't have the technical knowledge or means to make is a lot more honest than sampling your favourite techno track to make a 'Bomb' (IMO).

[strawMan]

Good points RH+

[RH+]

There also seems to be a huge double standard going on with this sort of thing.

When I was younger, I used to be part of the free-party scene in the UK, I hung out and played with many of the "squat party massive" I even helped setup a node of network23 in my hometown.

One of my friends who worked in a record shop, was doing parties here with a guy that had loads of cash and obtained this via his main business and also by dealing drugs.

He paid for my mate to go down to London and work with some of the figureheads of this scene.

As it turned out, when he got to the studio, his eyes were opened.

The deal was - you pay your cash and engineer x would make a "bomb" in his trademark sound, using the sounds provided as a bedrock.

Part of what made this guys sound was that he would sit listening to Bumload records till he found a beat he liked, at which point he'd sample it and work it into the track, not always - it has to be noted that this guy was / is a top-notch engineer, it's just that as this sound was new at the time and everyone wanted it, he found it was a quickfire way of getting the creative process moving and of course, would add a lot of his own tricks and techniques.

Additionally, this guy was producing most of the techno of this sound and DJs / artists from the scene would use him all the time - there's a period in UK techno that you could probably attribute around 50-70% of a particular scene to this one guy.

This all went without comment, the main thing was though that it created a divide between the whole squat-party techno scene and what were described as purists.

Personally, because I favour a more "forged" approach to techno, I gravitated towards the purer end because I found it more satisfying to work on new and what I hoped were "advanced" sounds as opposed to rinsing out the same stuff over and over and over.

But I never really thought badly of these guys for doing this, it worked for them, and it meant that a lot of half-decent DJs managed to break through on the strength of productions that this guy was making.

Some of these people were not technically gifted, but had the personality and attitude required to "front" these projects and as I say - it worked.

It also has to be noted that this particular engineer came from the band / punk scene, and so this style of working was completely natural.

This sound dominated in the UK and spread to the whole world, it's still going today, although not with such intensity and for the fans that enjoy this music, it matters not one bit how the music was created.

Anyway - my point here is - how come it's OK for "Underground heroes" to do this but not someone like loco-dice or Timo Mass ?

I mean seriously - I've nearly had my balls chopped off for suggesting things like - hmm, this "liveset" seems to contain a lot of old DBX samples or Robert Armani because it's almost like some people generate so much reverance that they are untouchable, but people like Timo Mass are fair game because they are "turd".

Some of the best 90s kicking techno is sampled / ghost produced / not quite as original as you would think, but we don't call any of that out ?

huge double standard to me, shows people ain't really done their homework (not that I'm suggesting it's the case here - it's just what I've found within my own locality).

I one went to a rave here in my hometown where a local "hero" played an entire liveset of BMB loops resequenced - the guy is a resident at one of our biggest nights and no-one bats an eyelid claiming he's the most talented guy in town.

That sucks, and is far more relevant to underground techno than anything Timo Mass does.