John Frusciante Quotes

We incorporate various electronic devices - the echo plugs and things like that. Actually, all we're trying to do is make that sound musical. As opposed to just making sounds, we do musical things with them.

If I crave a frequency in the mid, I'll just drag in a sound and try to mold it into what feels right. It happens very quickly. And if I've been making a piece of music for five hours and it sucks, I'll just throw it away.

I like working with sound; sound and rhythm. I like the abstract more than "What does that mean?" Nobody ever says to you, "Why did you use a harmonium?" Or "What is that ringing sound that occurs here?" The questions are always "What does that song mean?" or "What were you trying to say here?"

I just love crafting and shaping sounds... I like to breathe my own life into these sounds

I do love voices so much that I will use them and manipulate them. The presence of a human voice in a piece of music is really exciting, even if it's just someone's breathing.

Every kid has a laptop; everyone can make music, so in order to stand out, I think it's important to find that sonic identity, I think my sonic identity - and mine is finding these weird sounds that may not necessarily sound that musical, and make them sound musical.

What really excites me is the production. I get in there and change a lot of stuff.

Maybe I'm just stubborn about learning new things - I can't stand learning new programs - but any sound I can imagine, I can make with SoundForge. And I'm using the old version, like 4.5 from 1999. I use it for every sound.

The track 'Open Eye Signal,' when you hear that choir sound come in, that's actually me singing but sped up and with huge reverb and overlayered harmonies.

I'm not the most technical producer, so the weird mixes and blown-out sound happen naturally.

I was completely fascinated by the studio process and layering sounds and creating soundscapes out of layering massive squalls of sound.

The drone is a very fundamental part of my music, although it's not always present.

Clipping is a very specific, concept-y thing. We have all these rules: we don't sample drums. We create all our own sounds. I don't speak in the first person. We come from a background of experimental music like John Cage... Philip Glass.

What Joanna and Solange and Kanye all had in common was a mental image of what the sound is supposed to be. As a collaborator, my goal has to be to help them get toward that mental image. That was cool.

I don't have a huge amount of gear, but on the software side, I have a number of plug-in chains that act as abstracted versions of real instruments.

I love Ableton's vocoder and Operator for basic side subs and general low-end.

In the past, I used to rely on the randomness of working with samples, which was a good way because it threw you in a completely different direction. You just thought, 'What if I take this samba drum and combined it with an '80s synth line or something from this record?'

The Internet has given us an unlimited platform of knowledge and inspiration. Sometimes the most efficient way to create a new sound is to cross between genres and experiment with noises/tempos that wouldn't normally go together.

Whoever has a next-level ear needs to be an Eardrummer.

All of those 10cc 'Not in Love'-type synthetic choir sounds on 'Replica' are all from the Omnisphere. We used a lot of that.

There are parts on 'Wind's Poem' that are literal recordings of wind. I had this old sound effects record that I got some wind from and then I figured out that distorted cymbals sound just like wind so I used that a lot.

Music feels so environmental to me, especially the process of working with synths or mixing. I started thinking about music as a psychological landscape as well. It's a landscape of the mind.

I think the sound that I have had on all the records that I've been a part of have been important and special.

When I'm in the studio, I'm experimenting, trying things on.

The sound itself, the production, is of such great importance that it has become an integrated part of the composition.