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747 about Production, Technology, and Creativity

“There is a deep reservoir of creativity often found within self-imposed constraints.”

The word “production” as a separate item from “composition” suggests a creative process with different stages. Do you see it that way – or are all the steps towards a piece of music always integrated and connected for you?

I see composition as the idea creation stage and production as the execution of that idea, so they are definitely two completely separate things. Naturally in the studio these two stages often happen at the same time so they feel like they are very connected and can also influence each other in the process.

That’s not to say that the execution of an idea has no room for creative decision making. There is a lot of creative bandwidth available during a mixdown or sound design, but the type of creativity there is subtly different, similar to the difference between art and design.

At the end of the day it’s composition that drives the bus.

Do you want technology and production to mainly “serve musical ideas” – or do you like to bring them to the fore and play with them?

I have no problems with technology and production being at the fore in a track because that in itself can be a compelling musical idea. Especially in a club setting, a well produced high-fidelity track can be very powerful and bold. The real question is how interesting that concept is as a musical idea over the course of time.

For example I think we’re seeing intricate modular techno with ear-tickling soundscapes and flawless mixdowns becoming a commodity now and it becomes less interesting with each release.

The concept is impactful, but it is ultimately very shallow.

In how far, would you say, was your evolution as an artist connected to the evolution of your music set-up? Were there shared stepping stones?

I think for any artist it takes time to find the sweet spot in your musical set-up, similar to how it takes time to find your sound. Some find it sooner than others, and for some it’s a never-ending journey.

For me I get distracted by too many pieces of gear or VSTs in the studio so I prefer a minimal set-up, and I think that constraint allows me to be more creative with what I have.

There is one thing I definitely can’t live without though and that’s my Cyclone 303. The rest could go and it probably doesn’t change much.

There are artists who can realise their ideas best with a traditional – or modified – piano interface, others with a keyboard and a mouse, yet others by turning knobs or touching screens. What's your preferred and most intuitive/natural way of making music and why?

It depends on what piece of the track I’m writing. For laying out drums I like using a mouse to write out midi patterns in a drum rack. For pads and leads I work best with a midi keyboard.

On my upcoming album, Pacific Spirit, I worked with a lot of jungle breaks and that was a very different experience to what I normally do with techno drums. I could definitely see myself getting into sampler machines to lay out jungle patterns instead of mouse and keyboard, but oddly for techno I prefer the way I do it manually with a mouse.

Tell me about the space of your current studio/workplace and how you've set it up to optimise creativity.

I’ve moved around a lot in the last 10 years so my studio and listening environment is always changing. It’s actually been more about adapting myself to change rather than optimising my space to my preferences.

Having a minimal set-up allows me to have my synths within arms reach no matter what space I’m in and I think that’s essential for creativity.

Late producer SOPHIE said: “You have the possibility with electronic music to generate any texture, and any sound. So why would any musician want to limit themselves?” What's your take on that?

From the perspective of SOPHIE, who synthesized all of their own sounds from scratch, it’s very difficult to argue with that take. I also see the other side of that argument though, which is that there is a deep reservoir of creativity often found within self-imposed constraints.

I sit somewhere between those two schools of thought, where at a high level I think limitless possibilities are where innovation and new ideas form, but at the more practical execution level, constraints can refine an idea in a way that a limitless approach cannot.

From the earliest sketches to the finished piece, tell me about the production process for Pacific Spirit, please.

For the tracks on Pacific Spirit I always started with a drum break. I then chopped the break up into midi slices and wrote the pattern out.

Depending on the energy I felt from the break pattern the rest of the track was completely open ended and the process changed for each track.

In tracks like “Camosun Bog,” I wrote an acid line and built the track around the acid and breaks.

On “Pacific Spirit“ I sketched out a chord progression and brought in other melodic elements to build around the progression.

I usually decide very early on what the main driver of the song is, whether that is the pads, the bassline, the acid line etc. and work to add elements to complement it.

Do you see a benefit in getting an external producer on board for your studio work? Do you see a benefit in recording or refining at least parts of your music in an external studio?

Like most, I have someone else master my music, but I like to be in control of the rest of the process. I wouldn’t be opposed to an external producer if there was a case where I couldn’t execute an idea myself.

For example I’ve had pretty much no experience recording vocals or live drums so I would be open to having external help there if I wanted to explore that realm.

Generally speaking though, my process in the studio is not very compatible with having other people there with me. I’m someone who needs a lot of control and privacy.

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Name: Ryan Chan aka 747
Occupation: Producer
Nationality: Canadian
Current Release: 747 new full-length album Pacific Spirit, an audiovisual concept work, is out July 25th 2025 via Aquaregia.

If you enjoyed this 747 interview and would like to stay up to date with his work, visit him on Instagram, Soundcloud, and Facebook.

For a deeper dive, read our interview with 747 about his production process.

Tell me about the concept behind your upcoming album Pacific Spirit.

Part of the reason why I’m so excited about Pacific Spirit is that it fuses two of my biggest passions of music and visual art. The project challenges the notion that album art has to be a static image and instead proposes that album art can be an algorithm.

The Pacific Spirit vinyl is a limited run of 300 where each cover art will feature a unique piece of art created by an algorithm written by Emily Nicoll and I. Using deterministic random variables, our algorithm is capable of creating an infinite number of unique yet cohesive outputs.

Not to be confused with AI art, Pacific Spirit’s art is created with code, written by humans, in this case the p5 library of Javascript, and has a much more constrained range of potential outputs.

So there is a difference between the terms “AI” and “generative,” when it comes to production and creativity in general?

I think there is a massive difference between the terms AI and generative when it comes to music tools.

Generative is a much broader term and could include things like a randomizer on a step sequencer or really any tool that uses randomness in some capacity. AI is a much more specific application which uses large language models to complete complex tasks such as building custom tools or to even create music from scratch.

I think AI generated music is fairly uninteresting to listen to, but it’s fascinating to track the progress of the most advanced consumer products out there like Suno. I’m also interested in using AI in a coding capacity to, say, build a custom VST plugin that fits my workflow better than what’s available out there.

I haven’t gone down that rabbit hole as I haven’t felt compelled to do it yet, but I anticipate that being something that may put a lot of plugin companies out of business in the near future.

How would you describe the creative appeal of the generative approach you used for the artwork to Pacific Spirit?

Conceptually speaking, creating visual outputs with code is an artform that dates back to the first computers with artists such as Vera Molnar making code-based generative art in the 1960s.

However in the last few years, code-based art took a step forward with the introduction of long-form generative series. Instead of writing an algorithm that could produce a range of works that the artist would curate their favourites from, the algorithm would be run a set number of times without artist curation. This meant that the algorithm needed to be dialed in such that each and every output was satisfactory, while also giving the algorithm freedom to produce unexpected and interesting outputs.

This changed the way artists coded their algorithms, and has presented an interesting format where the algorithm can be viewed as the art itself rather than the individual outputs. It was this revelation in the generative art field that inspired us to bring this concept to our music practice.

How did putting this concept into practise work?

With Pacific Spirit, we have partnered with Art Blocks to launch the series.

They are the mainstay in the blossoming generative art world, and with their technology each output is provably random and permanently available to view anywhere.

These are all important aspects not only to the generative art discipline, but also as a feature to enhance collectibility for the vinyl record.

In which way?

The art concept aside, we wanted people to enjoy the experience of having Pacific Spirit in their collection. When someone buys Pacific Spirit online, they will receive a record with a different cover than what was shown online, and in store, each copy in the bin will differ. They may be confused initially.

Further investigation will lead them to the Art Blocks platform where they’ll realize their record cover is unique within the collection of 300. They’ll also see that there are traits that govern various aesthetic features of the art. Their cover may be one of only ten outputs in the entire collection with acid smileys. Their cover may be very common and have 150 other outputs with the same colour palette.

Either way they will own a fragment of a collection that is greater than the sum of its parts. We hope that collectors will feel personally connected with album art that is uniquely their own, and we hope that it strikes an emotional chord whenever they see it in their collection.

Or they might be put off by the concept.

We did also anticipate this and initially, yes, the might be. Technology is scary, especially for vinyl collectors.

But I remain fascinated with the concept of code as a paintbrush for digital artists and the potential creative unlocks it can bring to formerly mundane creative practices and products.

Part 2 of the Interview with 747 and 15questions

15questions Interviews 747 about the Beauty of Randomness and the Communal Aspects of Generative Art