The past 6 months have been an extremely important six months for 59 Perlen. During this time I have found something I have been searching for over 20 years, and that is a kind of "signature sound" or simply "my way" to put it more generally.
One extremely important event contributed to this development, and that was the blocking of my Facebook account in mid-2020. My account got hacked by a terrorist group and subsequently completely blocked by Facebook. To this day, I no longer have access to Facebook, the Business Manager and the advertising opportunities that go with it.
There's more than Facebook
As I wanted to continue to interact with other artists and grow my appearance, I was forced to look into other channels. One of them is YouTube. At the time, I had 90 followers and there was hardly anything going on because I wasn't managing the channel regularly.
Shortly after my FB account was blocked, however, I started uploading jams and tutorials there regularly. My thumbnails got better and better, I developed a constant look and feel, included formats for tutorials and started to use new YouTube features, like the Video Premieres.
After only 6 months, and I'm really proud of this, I was able to increase the followers to 560 and my jams now achieve an average of around 500 views after 2 weeks.
But what was much more important than these pure numbers were the many, many positive and motivating comments I received (not only on YouTube, also on Instagram). And these comments have made a very important contribution to my musical development towards a minimalistic approach!
Defining a signature Sound using the Digitakt
I started music making more and more the dawless way with my Digitakt only and I developed a style that was pretty minimalistic, raw and spontanous. In the beginning, I was very unsure about this development. For my previous releases, It took me ages to finish a track with all those endless DAW plugins, mixing and mastering chains, it was a pure nightmare to me. And by going dawless, I suddenly created tracks in a few hours instead. I asked myself, if this was really the way to go coz I felt my work was kinda incomplete yet unprofessional.
But after I received more and more comments telling me the opposite, I began to trust and consolidate this new style more and more. Suddenly I got a very clear view of the essentials in my music.
I would like to thank all my fans and viewers for this and I have summarised a small selection of the most beautiful comments below.
Selected Youtube comments
Julian commented In My Pockets
"Like the other comments, don't stop making these tracks, they are very inspirational. You certainly have a talent on this great machine. Is this track totally created on the digitakt and no other equipment?"
Paap Humbaba commented Reject My Mind
Haha, I was just thinking, how did you get this sweet atmospheric hiss. Bit reduction or... But it is a tapes artefact. Beautiful piece. I like your confident minimalist approach that really points to possibility to appreciate a single sound, and find complexity in it if you pay attention.
Atlas Castle commented Ambient House Jam
Oh my Perlen! I had to come over here first to listen to the full length 😶 That was absolutely awesome M! I’m really impressed by the outcomes - So happy to know that some of my previous inspirations can be part of your journey as well - Super sweet process 🖤🙏
Ludwig commented on Granular Texture Tutorial
Such nice results from such a “simple” granular technique — again goes to show the man, not the technique makes the music! You’ve got a great sense for these subtle movements that many like me may be too impatient to even catch. Thank you so much for showing us your process in such detail!
Howard Anderson commented on Dub Techno Jam
I agree with swabisch, you really have a knack for this music....really nice and pleasant to listen to!
Greg van G commented on Groovy Minimal House Jam
Always so refreshing to hear someone who is tuned into natural frequencies through electronics. Your sound design is a big inspiration
Kyle Tait commented on Digitakt Track Breakdown
Read the blog post, wow, a complete walkthrough, incredible! Amazing how you can get so much sound and atmosphere out of so few sounds. Bravo! Thanks for taking the time to put this together.