– NEW THING! –
wind chimes sample instrument
A collection of (6) sets of sampled wind chimes, paired with a stereo delay section. Create natural sounding wind chime patterns, or play the chimes like keys. Simple, intuitive controls for shaping the sound get you where you need to go quickly.
go outside
My name is Andrew Shaffer. I live in central Vermont, US. I launched this project, Go Outside, in 2020 after roughly a decade-long hiatus from music. Since then, I’ve generally considered my music to fall under the “ambient” genre. But as I continue down the creative path, I feel less and less tied to those kinds of distinctions.
This project started as a healing salve to soothe my spiraling mind and nervous system in the middle of a major episode of burnout, anxiety and depression that’s since been followed by years of chronic illness.
In addition to a handful of physiological conditions, I was diagnosed with Autism and ADHD. These diagnoses provided a paradigm shift that helped me wake up from the confusion, isolation and hopelessness of living a life that didn’t reflect who I really was.
So instead, I’m choosing to lean hard into living a life that creates beauty, meaning, and genuine connection. I need to do it for my own sake, but I hope in the process I can make life a little better for the people around me.
This project serves as part of the support matrix to that life. And it’s the relationships that I’ve built, and continue to build, that form the life-affirming connective tissue that keeps me going.
music
I believe that music, like all art, is a social endeavor. There are moments when I make music just to soothe myself. But most of the time it’s made with other people in mind. Whether that’s wanting to provide a collaborator with something useful and fun to work with, wanting to emulate or reimagine an influential artist/work, wanting to balance the frequencies so it’s pleasurable to listen to.
Even trying to be “authentic” is distilling my expression down to something that, as individual as it can feel, is communicating my human experience in its most felt and therefore most relatable form. I’m true to myself so I can be seen and accepted and connected to others.
Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It brings us together to see and feel the beauty and the pain of the world; to remind us that we’re not alone and nothing lasts forever.
So using guitar, piano, synths, harmonium, field recordings, tape loops, etc… I make music that moves me. I don’t generally go into a project with any idea what it’s going to be. In fact, it’s often not until the song/album is done that I can look back and have the perspective to see what I was processing through the music. The “meaning” is there in the experience of creating, even if I don’t have the words to describe it until after the fact.
instruments
I’ve never loved the idea of using the same sounds/vsts that I hear on so many other artists’ songs. Not because they sound bad. I just have this part of me that feels like I’m stealing someone else’s idea. And so I’ve had this compulsion to build my sounds from scratch as much as possible.
That’s why I started making sample instruments. It’s frankly a long and tedious process. But the end product is something that’s truly unique and custom-built to my tonal and aesthetic tastes. They’re designed with the balance of ‘character’ with ‘usability’ in mind. Carefully recorded, one-of-a-kind sounds, in a simple and intuitive interface.
I use these instruments in my own productions and now you can too. Ambient, neo-classical, lo-fi, guided meditations, indie, film music; these royalty-free sounds fit in wherever you need them to. They’re built to use in the free and open-source Decent Sampler plugin.
All are affordable, some are FREE. Sign up for the newsletter to stay updated on new releases and sales.
field recordings
I’ve created two sample libraries of stereo field recordings, taken of mostly natural soundscapes (birds, water, thunderstorms, etc.) from around my home region of central Vermont, US.
Between the two, there’s 111 samples for a total of 2hr31m of clean wav files. The shortest sample is 8 seconds of crunching gravel and the longest is a 7+ minute summer thunderstorm. They cover a wide range of soundscapes, frequencies, and densities that can be used, royalty-free, in whatever project you wish.
There are two libraries because they represent slightly different time periods of recording. But they can essentially be treated as one big collection of unique sounds.
Both libraries are FREE. Sign up for the newsletter to stay updated on new releases and sales.
photography
Music is the foundational medium of this project. But I’ve been a photographer for almost as long as I’ve been a musician. And I’m happy to be able to incorporate that side of my creativity through cover art, promo images, videos, and even just the design of this website.
I’ve worked with photographer Shane Brock for the cover art on several of my releases (shift, distance, open ended, working memory, kinesthesia). And many of my collaborative and label releases have art provided by the label. But everything else you see visually on this page, my YouTube videos, my sample instruments, my remaining solo releases, my newsletter; all of it is captured and designed by me.
If anyone is interested in buying me a real camera, fr hmu. But until then all images and videos are captured with my humble iPhone 10. I’ve included a gallery page showcasing a selection of my favorite shots.