Name: Timothy Nelson aka Karma Fields
Occupation: Producer
Current release: Karma Fields's "It Girl", a collaboration with Associanu, and Kah-Lo is out via Sweat it Out.
Gear Recommendations: This is going to be a really boring answer, but my biggest aha moments have all been around mixing and being able to hear my songs better. So getting good monitors and learning how to make good sound panels changed everything for me from making bedroom mixes to professional mixes.
The other gear that changed everything for me was really grasping how to use an 1176 compressor (or really any compressor). All the plugin variations do about the same thing, but I use it on almost every track, and once I mastered that everything started to settle in its place.
May Decapitator as well. Clearly, I’m a nerd for subtle flavors more than any flashy piece of gear.

If you enjoyed this interview with Karma Fields and would like to find out more about his music, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, twitter, and Soundcloud.



What was your first studio like?

I’ve had Pro Tools since I was 14 on a Windows computer and a $40 mic from eBay. So that was really my “first” studio. In college, I had a slightly better setup with a Mac, keyboard, sm7 mic, and headphones instead of computer speakers.

My first studio as an adult was in my dining room where I carpeted the floor, built sound panels, hung blankets in the open doorways, bought some Mackie speakers, and ran it all off my old laptop. You had to walk through the studio to get out of the houses and I lived with 2 roommates. I made most of my early music off that setup.

How and for what reasons has your set-up evolved over the years and what are currently some of the most important pieces of gear for you?

I have my own room that no one has to walk through now so that privacy is probably the biggest difference. I still built my current studio from scratch but did a lot more research in acoustic so it is treated really well.

It's still pretty simple, I don’t use a lot of outboard gear or anything, but my Genelec Speakers and sub are easily the best investment.

Some see instruments and equipment as far less important than actual creativity, others feel they go hand in hand. What's your take on that?

I am a minimalist when it comes to production. I play most of my melodies and drums in real-time and focus on crafting melodies and tweaking sound design.

I feel like in all modern music, sound design and melody go hand in hand in hand. So taking the time to revise over and over again is way more important than which bass is bigger or more “analog sounding”.

A studio can be as minimal as a laptop with headphones and as expansive as a multi-room recording facility. Which studio situation do you personally prefer – and why?

I don’t like working in big facilities. I think most producers that didn’t grow up around big studios still work off their laptops even when they are in fancy studios.

The only time I wish I had a more extensive studio is when I want to track live drums.

From traditional keyboards to microtonal ones, from re-configured instruments (like drums or guitars) to customized devices, what are your preferred controllers and interfaces? What role does the tactile element play in your production process?

I’m a piano player so the most important instrument that I have is really just an oversized overpriced midi keyboard (Fantom X8).

I think it's silly when people use drum pads and single-finger drums like it's 1980. Keyboards can do that 10x over while using all your fingers and just programming the right sounds.

The one custom thing I do use though is a microphone I built. I wouldn’t call it a secret weapon or anything but I use it for about half of my vocals when the vocal requires something special and intimate.

In the light of picking your tools, how would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

Hmmm, I guess I don’t look at it as the music of the future or continuing tradition as much as making trend music or not. I think any artist that tries to make a specific genre is automatically pigeonholing themselves and really risking losing relevance quickly.

I guess in that way I lean toward the future.

How would you describe the relationship between technology and creativity for your work? Using a recent piece as an example, how do you work with your production tools to achieve specific artistic results?

I try not to overthink new technology. There are so many plugins and hardware that claim to be “the best” at something, but none of that affects a good melody and good mixing. It's really about nailing the basics and understanding what gear you use in every way.

I work a lot on finding the right melody / lyrics / chords, and then I go in and just tinker for weeks. But it's really just clever chopping, stretching, and EQing at that point more than any specific tools or fancy techniques.

Within a digital working environment, it is possible to compile huge archives of ideas for later use. Tell me a bit about your strategies of building such an archive and how you put these ideas and sketches to use.

Every time I have a new idea I make a new session and run with that idea instead of showing restraint. I’ll often make several songs that started from the same session.

Another thing I find myself doing is I’ll make several variations of a song in the same session. Often with different arrangements or different melody ideas then I combine the best parts of each one.

How do you retain an element of surprise for your own work – are there technologies which are particularly useful in this regard?

I never start a song in the same way. I open a blank slate and start with whatever I feel like at the moment. Whether that's making drum sounds, a weird sample that I’ve been collecting on my phone, or fiddling on the piano to find interesting chords.

Production tools can already suggest compositional ideas on their own. How much of your music is based on concepts and ideas you had before entering the studio, how much of it is triggered by equipment, software and apps?

I can say that really none of my inspiration comes from the equipment. I usually form ideas in my head and take notes whenever an idea comes in and use that as a starting point, but it's always a melody or sound design idea to try.

Like, “reverse wind chimes” or, singing one note and stretching it for 10 minutes and chopping the distortion parts. Just whatever strange thought pops into my head I try that and just run with it.

To some, the advent of AI and 'intelligent' composing tools offers potential for machines to contribute to the creative process. Do you feel as though technology can develop a form of creativity itself? Is there possibly a sense of co-authorship between yourself and your tools?

Ironically (because of the branding of Karma Fields) I think AI is so so far out from making any form of creativity. I’ve heard the songs that are “created by an AI” and they are always just doing exactly what the programmer told the program to do.

For example, if you feed a computer 200 of the best songs melodies, you’ll first have to pull out all the melodies manually, organize them in some fashion based on components you decide, and then tell the computer what to spit out exactly. From there, it will combine the most common melody structures but at that point, you’ve already done all the work, you might as well just rip all the melodies yourself and combine them.

The computer doesn’t spit out a cool song, it spits out notation and that doesn’t take into account virtuosity or sound design in the performance. If you’re trying to teach it virtuosity, it will just be copying someone else’s technique that the programmer told it to rip off. So after all that work you end up with the melodies of one band, played in the style of another band.

All that to say, no I think technology often just reuses the same tools that have been around for a long time disguised as something new and shiny.