The Adventure Begins

If I had to pinpoint the moment I started to actually care about music production, it would be watching Madeon’s music video for “You’re On”. There’s something about that video - the way it captured music as this colorful, kinetic adventure - that just clicked with me. The whole Adventure album lived up to its name, and it made me realize that making music didn’t have to be just about technical skill or following formulas. It could be about exploration, about chasing sounds that excited you, about creating your own sonic world.

That perspective stuck with me through the years. When I was messing around with Auxy on my iPhone 6S, I wasn’t thinking about music theory or proper mixing techniques - I was just adventuring through sounds, seeing what felt right. Even during the years I fell out of the hobby, that seed Madeon planted was still there.

Coming Full Circle

Fast forward to 2023. I bought Ableton Live and a Novation Launchkey MK3, and suddenly I was back on that adventure, but with way more tools at my disposal. Serum 2, Synplant 2, all these plugins and possibilities. Sometimes I feel like I’m still showing my self-taught roots (lol), but that’s part of the journey, right?

I gravitate toward EDM and trance because that’s where I feel most free to experiment. Every project is a chance to learn something new, to push my sound design a little further, to get a little closer to the vision in my head. The childhood piano lessons gave me a foundation, but music production taught me to think in layers, textures, and energy.

Beyond Music: Building Communities in Novel Ways

One thing that’s always fascinated me is how music brings people together in unexpected ways. When I discovered KWSX, it was like finding a kindred spirit in the web radio space. Their approach to curating music, the beautiful design of their site, the way they’ve built a community around shared listening experiences - that inspired me to create my own web radio station.

Running my station on a Raspberry Pi using AzuraCast is part technical challenge, part creative outlet. It’s not just about broadcasting songs I like; it’s about creating a space where people can tune in and share a moment, even if they’re scattered across the world. There’s something beautifully analog about that concept, even though it’s all digital infrastructure.

Here’s something I’ve learned: I’ve wanted to join a community of like-minded individuals who I can bounce ideas off of and collaborate with. But I realized one of the best ways you can find that space is to make it yourself for others to participate in. Whether it’s a web radio station, a Discord server, a blog, or a self-hosted service - building the community you’re looking for is often more fulfilling than endlessly searching for the perfect existing one. I try to follow this principle and guide others with my findings, hoping that what I create can be that space for someone else.

The Intersection of Code and Creativity

My journey into web development kind of parallels my music production story. I started in 2021 when I was working ISP tech support, just tinkering around, learning by doing. What drew me to technologies like Docker, Astro, and Bun was the same thing that drew me to music production - the creative possibilities.

Self-hosting has become its own form of expression for me. Running services on Proxmox, setting up n8n workflows, deploying to Cloudflare Pages - it’s all about building systems that work the way I want them to work. Open-source software and self-hosted solutions give you that same freedom that a blank project in Ableton does: infinite possibilities, limited only by your imagination (and sometimes your hardware lol).

I’m a big believer in open source and free alternatives to paid services, especially ones that appeal to those who bring their own server. Before subscribing to any service, I try to research alternatives - partly out of necessity (I’m no oil oligarch or tech CEO with deep pockets), but also out of principle. I don’t think you should have to be wealthy to access powerful tools and services. The democratization of technology through open source is one of the most inspiring movements in tech, and self-hosting is my way of participating in that.

The Philosophy

Whether I’m making a trance track or deploying a new service, I’m driven by the same core belief: creativity thrives when you’re free to experiment. Madeon showed me that music could be an adventure. The self-hosting community showed me that tech could be personal and expressive. Both taught me that the journey - the learning, the failures, the small victories - is just as important as the destination.

I’m not looking to follow established paths or conventional wisdom. I want to explore, to discover, to build things that feel authentic to me. Some days that means tweaking a synth patch for hours until it feels right. Other days it’s diving into Astro documentation to figure out how to optimize a page load.

Looking Forward

I’m still figuring out my sound, still learning new frameworks and technologies, still experimenting with ways to bring people together through music and code. That’s the beauty of seeing everything as an adventure - you’re never really done, there’s always another horizon to explore.

If you’re on a similar journey, whether in music, code, or any other creative field, I hope you give yourself permission to wander off the beaten path. The detours are where the interesting stuff happens.

What are your creative influences? What projects or artists made you see things differently? I’d love to hear about them - drop a note in the guestbook or reach out through my contact page.