Alex Braga is the first artist to use a revolutionary new instrument called A-Mint. This is the first adaptive Artificial Intelligence working in real-time for the artist to explore infinite audio/visual creativity. He created the instrument with professors Antonino Laudani and Francesco Riganti from University ROMATRE.
The Artificial Intelligence A-Mint is also the first to enter Classical conservatories: Alex Braga is the first teacher of such instrument with his masterclass in Santa Cecilia, one of the oldest musical institutions in the world.
Alex Braga has been touring as a solo artist with A-Mint and performing all over the world, among other places as a headliner at Ars Electronica, Mutek Festival, or in duet along with “hacked” star pianists such as Niklas Paschburg, Francesco Tristano, Boosta or Danilo Rea. He is also known in Italy for his activities of host, writer, and producer for TV and Radio.
In order to celebrate his latest single ‘Spleen Machine’, Alex Braga shares 5 tips to motivate you to be a better music producer.
1. Do not enter the studio without a concept
“I wanna do that”. And do it! Sitting and playing around can be fun and relaxing but will eventually lead you to lose a huge amount of precious time, or will make you produce non-sense music and art. You don’t get “there” to your final work by chance… you get there because your soul, heart, and brain are aligned to lead you there, from your concept. And you use your instruments to get there.
2. Start from simple, get to complex, sculpt back to simple
Simplicity is where I find the purest forms of emotions. And I always start from there. Complexity is where my brain dreams all the possible implications of my emotions, and where all the layers of different arrangements shape a vision. Then it is compulsory to sculpt away all the undesirable complexity and leave only the core to proceed onto a form of augmented simplicity to find the right synthesis.
3. Always sleep over your work
It is too easy to get locked in our own trip and start liking some really awkward arrangement or composition and think: “Yes, I got it!”. A good night of sleep and your morning tea (or coffee or juice or whiskey or whatever) will tell you the truth…and most of the time the truth is awful 🙂
4. Build your own instrument or die trying
We struggle all our life trying hard to find our own sound, our unique style. The only way to achieve it is through unique concepts and/or unique tools. This is one of the main reasons I started digging so deep into artificial intelligence intended as a “new musical instrument”.
5. Less judgemental, more experimental
Try, over and over, till you get there. Leave the easy way, the presets, the soundbanks (not to mention loops and samples) and manipulate and mix and put together your own thing as much as you can. To produce something means to create something new: if you haven’t achieved something “new” in each and every one of your works, probably you are in the wrong direction.
Alex Braga’s ‘Spleen Machine’ is now available. Stream and buy here.
