Primarily used for creating string arrangements, Sibelius is a bit like having an orchestra inside your laptop, except you can export your score both as an audio file and as sheet music. While Pro Tools has mainly been the domain of studio professionals since its release, in recent years its owner Avid has tried to expand its appeal by releasing a free version if you want an idea of how Björk makes music then downloading it is a good starting point.Īnother key piece of software that Björk started using during around the time of Vespertine is Sibelius. It took me like three years, very enjoyable, but it was like crocheting a huge blanket with a tiny needle.” “With Vespertine I recorded all sorts of noises around the house, very quiet ones, and I then magnified them up in Pro Tools, and created rhythms with them. “I like that it isn’t on a 4/4 grid, and I can be more focused on the narration, look at the music from a film perspective, rather than as a ‘house’ club thing,” she told Sound On Sound in 2015. Whereas DAWs such as Logic or Ableton Live allow you to make music using instruments inside the software, Pro Tools is focused on recording and editing audio. Instead of simply using Pro Tools as a basic mixer for multi-tracking however, Björk has previously used it as an instrument in its own right. It was then that Björk started learning Pro Tools, using the software on every one of her albums from 2001’s Vespertine onwards. The popular software studio was first released in 1991, but was only widely adopted later that decade Ricky Martin’s 1999 hit ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’ was the first number one record to be made fully inside a hard disk using the software. The hub of Björk’s studio today is Pro Tools. It was owned by Autechre, PJ Harvey and Tricky over the years and we know from archive footage that Björk also used the QY20 to sketch tracks at home in 1995, even using one on stage at during the ‘90s. These tiny devices were actually more like shrunken workstation keyboards, and Yamaha’s QY20 packed a tone generator (with drum kits and 100 different instrument presets), MIDI sequencer and memory for up to 20 songs into a box just a little larger than a Korg Volca. Though the laptop wasn’t really a viable too for making music in the early ‘90s, it was still possible to make music on the move thanks to a now obsolete class of portable sequencer. We’ve looked at some of Björk’s most illuminating past interviews to find some of the most interesting examples of how she’s used technology to shape her music. She’s allowing fans to purchase her latest album, Utopia, via cryptocurrency, but this is just the tip of the iceberg: over the past decade, she’s looked to emerging technologies such as touchscreens and virtual reality to create her art, usually long before they reach the mainstream. However, Björk’s relationship with technology has gone far beyond using off-the-shelf tools to create her music. I could basically make up the dream but make the dream real.” “I could do 90% of my music in my bedroom. “I got my laptop in 1999, and it totally liberated me from the studio,” she told RBMA in 2016. It’s a process that typically starts with her writing songs at home, or even on mountain walks. While Björk has frequently employed collaborators like LFO’s Mark Bell, Arca and The Haxan Cloak to help her realize her musical vision, from 1993’s Debut onwards she has led the production process herself, typically using cutting-edge software in unusual ways to craft her music. When Vespertine was released in 2001, Matmos were widely credited as having produced the album when Björk spent three years creating the seminal LP’s patchwork of microbeats using a laptop and software. A few months earlier, Arca had been wrongly reported as the “sole producer” of Vulnicura it wasn’t the first time that her role in the studio had been ignored by the media. In a 2015 interview with Pitchfork, Björk detailed her decades-long struggle to be properly identified as an auteur of her own work. Ahead of the release of her next album Utopia, Scott Wilson looks as some of the most memorable tools the Icelandic icon has used across her career. Björk has long used pioneering technology to shape her music, often long before it hits the mainstream.
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