Ableton Live Course Student Success

Raumstadt releases on Mixmania Records

Hey Raumstadt! Great to catch up with you. You’ve recently completed our Ableton 4-day Course at MMS and released an EP, congrats! How did you find the course?

I’ve been a musician for a long time but doing the course opened up the world of production to me. It really showed what can be achieved using Ableton.

Did it have a hand in helping you create the Kommunikation EP?

All the tracks on “Kommunikation” were started before I did the course, but taking the course definitely helped me finish the tracks and add a polish to the EP that I could not have achieved on my own.

I use the skills I learned on the course every time I create a new track.

Can you tell us about the creation process of the EP, and how it came to be published on Mixmania records?

I like to write by experimenting with sounds and rhythms. All 3 tracks have a hardware synth at the heart of the track but also feature various vst soft synths and a lot of the built in Ableton instruments.

I had posted a few tracks on Soundcloud and got a message from Mixmania asking if I had any new tracks that they might release, luckily I had just finished Kommunikation and sent it to them. They liked it and the rest is history.

We can definitely hear the warmth in your tracks from the hardware, what hardware do you use?

Hardware I use..Novation Bass Station II, Roland JV2080, Akai MiniAK, Cyclone TT303, Yamaha RY10, Gakken SX 150 MK2, Teenage Engineering PO16, MacBook Pro, Ableton Push II, Akai MPK25 and various Boss guitar pedals.

You release music under the name Raumstadt. Where’s this from?

Raumstadt is a word I came across along time ago and I liked the sound of it. When I found out it meant Space City it fitted perfectly with the sort of experimental techno and ambient tracks I’d been working on.

I want to keep making experimental music with creativity as the key and not worrying about who will like it or if it will get released on a label. For me it’s all about the music.

To that end we have recently started our own label “Space City Recording” to release experimental techno, acid and ambient music without worrying if it will get in the beatport charts.

Is there any advice you could give any budding producers who may be where you were a few years ago?

I would tell people to do what you love and try and be original rather than trying to copy what’s popular.

Because I come from a musician background rather than DJing (I do DJ sometimes) I don’t think too much about genres I like to just experiment. but when you start releasing stuff you need to put a label on it for the distribution and stores. I do just work on whatever I fancy doing that day, I even play guitar sometimes too.

I get inspiration from traveling and listening to different sounds and music and cultures. So when I get in the studio I work from that inspiration like with my “People of Tokyo” (ambient EP)…inspired by a short trip I had to Japan. I even managed a trip to the legendary synth shop Five G but I never bought anything, it was too expensive!

That’s really good advice – getting out of the studio to find inspiration is definitely something we should all be doing more!

Have you got anything in the pipeline we should be watching out for?

I’m working on a live set as I think musicians should get out and play live. I have some collaborations in the pipeline for next year too with some big names in the Glasgow (where I’m from) techno scene.

If you’re interested in the course Raumstadt did, have a look at our 4-day Ableton Live course here.

Or, if you’re looking to take your music production and Ableton Live skills one step further, check out our Complete Music Production Diploma.

For Raumstadt, follow him on Twitter | Soundcloud | Bandcamp | Mixcloud