Electronic Music

Venetian Snares is an electronic music project of Canadian musician Aaron Funk, who is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Funk is one of the foremost names in breakcore and electronic music today and has released dozens of albums since his official debut on a record label in 1999 with the release of the vinly “Greg Hates Car Culture” (although he had been self-releasing music since 1992).

When Mike Paradinas (of the IDM project ?-Ziq), head of the record label Planet µ, stumbled upon a Venetian Snares vinyl in a music store in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he contacted Aaron immediately and signed him to his label. Besides Planet µ, Aaron has released music on a variety of record labels including Hymen Records, Sublight Records and Zhark International. In addition to Venetian Snares, Funk also has a number of other pseudonyms and side projects, such as Last Step and Vsnares, among others.

Venetian Snares is renowned for precise and meticulous drum programming and the use of amusing media samples at high BPMs and often uncommon time signatures (such as 7/4). Funk composes most of his music on trackers, which are music sequencers that typically arrange samples and notes into a vertical timeline. Some of Funk’s preferred trackers include MED Soundstudio (a Windows port of OctaMED) and Renoise. Prior to 1999, Aaron’s music was predominately composed on the original OctaMED running on an Amiga 500.

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Since the dawn of electronic music some time in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, musicians and inventors have been coming up with creative new ways to manipulate sound and make music. These days, there is an astounding array of hardware and software available to any artist. The tools a musician chooses to produce their music are as unique as their style. Below is an overview of some of the devices commonly used to produce electronic music:

Audio samplers

Audio samplers are instruments that can record, store and playback sounds. They often include tools common to synthesizers such as filters, pitch-shifters, and oscillators. Usually samplers come with a keyboard, sequencer, or some other form of controller. Samplers are often used to replace real instruments by musicians on tight budgets, but can also be pushed to create new, innovative, and creative sounds.

Drum Machines

Drum machines are widely used. They are popular in electronic and hip hop music. They are also often used during studio recordings and when human drummers are not available. The history of drum machines is quite long, but they never really entered public consciousness until Roland introduced the TR-808 and TR-909 in the eighties. Since then, the beats of the TR-808 and TR-909 have become some of the most recognizable sounds in pop music.

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