Staying Inspired and The Tools to Keep Creating, with Beatsurfing and Native Instruments

For the third night of the Plugin Boutique and Friends event series, creators gathered in Los Angeles for an evening focused on one of the most essential, and often challenging, parts of the music-making journey: staying inspired. Bringing together Beatsurfing and Native Instruments for an interactive discussion, they explored how the right tools, workflows, and mindset can help artists break through creative blocks and keep the music flowing.

Nick Garcia, Operations and Label Manager at Insomniac Music Group, led the night’s discussion. A graduate of Berklee College of Music with a background in contemporary writing and production, Nick brings experience across electronic music, artist development, and label operations, offering a grounded and knowledgeable perspective on the creative process and the realities of music-making today.

From Belgium, Jean Uenten, Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of Beatsurfing, is an award-winning musician known for his innovative approach to performance and interaction. Drawing from years of live shows experience and hands-on experimentation, Jean focuses on designing playful, tactile tools that bring physicality and spontaneity back into digital music-making.

Brian Kullas is the Global Product Specialist Lead at Native Instruments, where he bridges classical musicianship with cutting-edge sound design. Classically trained from a young age and later immersed in electronic music, he blends performance, composition, and technology to help shape tools that empower modern creators and reflect today’s evolving musical landscape.

After brief introductions, Nick immediately brought the room into the discussion, asking the audience whether they were producers, musicians, or songwriters. That early engagement set the tone for the night – casual, collaborative, and centered around shared creative experience. From there, Nick posed the first question: What does it actually mean to stay inspired? It opened the door to a nuanced conversation about writer’s block, creative momentum, and how to maintain a healthy relationship with the artistic process.

Brian Kullas spoke about the importance of preparation. Setting up your workspace, tools, and environment so that when inspiration strikes, you’re ready to move quickly. Creativity, he explained, often comes in short sparks, and having a streamlined workflow can help catch those moments before they disappear. Jean Uenten added that inspiration often comes from exploration. When stuck, he suggested stepping outside your usual genre, experimenting with unfamiliar workflows, or listening to music that lies far outside your comfort zone.

This led naturally into a conversation about the relationship between creativity and user interface design: how tools can be built to encourage speed, spontaneity, and happy accidents. Both speakers emphasized the value of interfaces that invite experimentation rather than enforce rigid structure. Fast-paced, tactile workflows, whether through hardware, expressive controllers, or thoughtfully designed software, can often generate ideas more quickly than linear or overly technical systems.

Live performance also played a key role in the discussion. Nick asked how the experience of performing shapes the way these developers design tools, and vice versa. Jean, who has extensive experience performing live, spoke about how the energy and improvisation of the stage directly inform the way Beatsurfing builds its products. That connection came to life when he opened an app on his iPad and demonstrated a tool designed specifically for playful, tactile interaction, bringing immediacy, movement, and physicality back into digital music-making.

Jean’s demonstration echoed Brian’s reflection on how much music creation has changed in the last twenty years, shifting from physical instruments to computer-based workflows. Both emphasized the importance of reintroducing a sense of “human touch” into music technology to keep the creative process fun, intuitive, and emotionally connected.

The theme of balance surfaced again when the panel turned to the relationship between organization and spontaneity. While inspiration often emerges from experimentation, Brian and Jean agreed that structure plays a crucial role. A well-organized workflow creates the conditions that allow improvisation to flourish. Structure doesn’t inhibit creativity, they suggested; it supports it.

The conversation then expanded into one of the most topical subjects in music today: AI. Both guests approached the topic with a blend of fascination and caution. Jean shared that while he’s deeply interested in new technologies, he doesn’t see AI as something he wants creating music for him. Instead, he views it as an assistive tool that can accelerate workflows, offer suggestions, or free up time for the more human, expressive aspects of creation. Brian shared this perspective: when used thoughtfully, AI can support creativity, but it shouldn’t replace the emotional and intuitive elements that make music meaningful.

After the panel discussion, the floor opened to audience questions. The Q\&A moved through a range of practical and speculative topics, from transitioning from DJing to full-scale production, to the physicality of music-making, with Jean describing how he views music as an extension of movement. One question about the possibility of an augmented-reality-style plugin, controlled by finger movement, sparked a lively conversation about future technologies, virtual reality studios, and the evolving ways artists may interact with sound.

The night concluded with a listening session featuring tracks submitted by attendees. The room shifted from discussion to creative exchange as participants heard each other’s music and received feedback. It was a fitting end to an evening centered on community, inspiration, and the shared desire to keep pushing forward creatively.

Night Three of Plugin Boutique and Friends delivered exactly what it promised: not just a conversation about inspiration, but an experience designed to spark it. Through open dialogue, hands-on demonstrations, and a supportive community atmosphere, the event highlighted how curiosity, thoughtful tools, and playful workflows can help creators stay inspired and keep making music that feels exciting, expressive, and alive.