Interview With Gifted & Blessed: Changing Your Approach to Spontaneous Creativity With Dubler 2

In this new Artist Feature we interview composer and sound artist Gifted & Blessed about how he has incorporated Dubler 2 into his creative process.

Gabriel Reyes-Whittaker is best known for his electronic works of widely varying styles. He has released records through his own record label, Gifted & Blessed, as well as with numerous others including Wild Oats, Eglo, All City and Sound In Color.

Name/ What do you do?/ Where are you based?

I go by Gifted & Blessed, but you might also know me for the various monikers under which I create, including The Abstract Eye, Frankie Reyes, GB, The Reflektor, and others. I think of myself as a composer and producer of primarily electronic-based music but styles widely vary.

When and how did you get into music tech?

I first got into music technology by making primitive sample-based beats on old software sequencers back in the early 2000s. I just always had an ear and a desire to make music of my own but didn't have other tools at my disposal. When I was around 17, though, I bought my first synthesizers, a Crumar Orchestrator and a Korg Poly-61, but purchased at a local pawn shop. Since then my attention has shifted to primarily hardware-based electronics and using MIDI sequencing for creating with all these electronic instruments I now use.

When did you start using Dubler?

I started using Dubler somewhere in the middle of 2021. I was super interested in what I could possibly come up with using just a microphone rather than a keyboard to come up with my MIDI sequences.

How has using Dubler impacted your creative process?

Dubler has changed my whole approach to spontaneous creativity. I have found that with Dubler I'm able to very easily make sense of music theory which is easy to grasp for a person like me with no long term musical training. I also find that Dubler allows me to express my ideas much more quickly and to spontaneously come up with happy accidents that end up sounding like nothing else!

How has using Dubler impacted your workflow?

My music creating process with Dubler is a lot faster than with other MIDI controllers. What used to take me hours to put together now takes minutes. Also, triggering hardware instruments with often unusual results is very satisfying and requires a lot less thought and editing.

Tell us something you’ve discovered since you started using Dubler?

I've discovered that while I'm not a vocalist per se, Dubler has sort of made me into one, and my voice is the synthesizer or drum machine I'm triggering. It's incredible.

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Below is a quick Dubler improvisation by Gifted & Blessed, in which he uses Dubler to beatbox drum samples, manipulate delay effects in real-time with his voice and sing pad chords: