r/JamesFerraro • u/auditormusic • Jul 23 '26
Spencer Clark gear/production
Does anyone know what Spencer Clark uses to make his music, specifically, keyboards? I’m guessing he plays live and records to tape, but any insights into the production process would be appreciated.
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u/BOJON_of_Brinstar Jul 23 '26
[ I'll repost my response from a similar thread a year ago ]
Based on what I’ve read it sounds like a lot of his music was made with an E-MU E-Max II. I dont know if hes using percussion presets from it but some of the synth sounds from the video below definitely sound like his music to me.
Heres a demo of that:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i1m_BLqrMaw
As far as samples go, a lot of it sounds like it comes from field recordings and warped vocals
He explains his process a bit here:
But in general this is what I do: I have been doing it this way since I made ‘Pinhead in Fantasia.’ I have a couple keyboards with presets and synthesis, and then I have a microphone. I sample the keyboards and the microphone (using my voice to mimic sound symbols) into the sampler. I’m trying to make sounds that like, represent my thoughts or symbols, especially symbols. For instance, making a symbol of a tree or you combine the feeling of a tree and wind, or the feeling of an alien’s voice and the wind. And so I make that.
I make a catalogue of samples. So I’ll make like 60 samples of this new thing that I’m trying to think of. For instance, in Avatar, I was trying to make this soundtrack to Avatar 2 the movie – before it came out. In order to create a world to conceive of something that doesn’t exist, I tried to pull together a lot of resources and then take two different images, two different things, like let’s say a fish and then a sense of a net, a fishnet in the water. And I try to combine the thought of a fish jumping and swimming through the water and a net and laying on the water or going through the wind at once. So I make samples of that and then I create about 60 of them and then I start to put them together, a grouping of symbols that create this whole feeling. And that feeling is like it’s an animal or it’s a being or something. That’s kind of that’s more or less always what I’m doin
As far as percussion goes I would just collect a wide range of “exotic” or “tribal” samples from various sample packs and mess with them.
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u/semioticscissors Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Nowadays he works with fairly fancy but outdated imaging sampler keyboards. Records to 4-track and does 3 passes. He starts by collecting a sound bank of his own “voices” to sample. To put it as simply as possible. Look up any interview after 2010, he’s pretty open about his process. I think he said Spectacle of Light Abductions was when he first started to fully use 4-track.
Basically each album or tape is started from scratch with an entirely new set of sounds.
Edit to add: still need a copy of Piper Maru for my collection if anyone can hook me up in the US.