Often I use delay on the main kick drum to create a rolling or pumping under current to a song. This technique is sort of the old school equivalent to sidechaining a bassline. However, the old school method sounds different enough that it should be a color on anyone’s sound making palette. It’s a simple trick and in Ableton its just a matter of a few clicks to the desired effect.
First create an Impluse and put a place in a 4/4 kick drum. Next, add an Ableton Simple Delay to a Send Return channel. The Simple Delay loads up with the preset we want so you don’t have to tweak anything. Lastly, turn up the Send Return’s volume on the Impulse Channel to hear the kick drum start pumping and rolling along.
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Imagine you have a song and during the verse you have the Delay off (by turning the Send Return to zero) and then when the Chorus begins the Delay is on. This builds some tension and energy into the Chorus. 
Maybe you have a song and you can’t get any bass sound to fit? Just forget the bass and use a delaying kick drum instead. Many dance records in the 90s used this technique. Partly because it was a sure way to get a dance groove and possibly even because there wasn’t enough sample memory available for a bass sound in an Akai S900!
Adding a delay to a bassline which has notes strategically placed off the 4/4 grid can get you an old school EBM sound. Early Front Line Assembly tracks all had basslines treated with delay in this manner. Here’s an example:
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But let’s not stay stuck in the 90s. Switch the kick to something tight, increase the shuffle to about 50% and replace the bass sound with a high end noise sound and add a low pad and your now in this decade:
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I know this is an incredible simple technique but it’s hundreds of small details like these that add up to a song that’s infinity interesting.
Related post: 6 steps to Sidechain the Auto Filter in Ableton Live 7
This entry was written by , posted on December 5, 2008 at 8:01 am, filed under Ableton Live, plug-ins, song writing and tagged Ableton Live, bassline, EBM, Front Line Assembly, song writing. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
A few years ago when my brother got married I was the best man and has tradition dictates I received a gift for my duties. He handed me a small square box wrapped nicely and when I opened it I was surprised to see an Apple logo. He gave me an iPod Nano. At that time I never owned an iPod or believe it or not even thought I wanted one. I knew they were cool but I was only really listening to music in my studio. For the first few weeks after the wedding the iPod sat in a pile of stuff next to my computer. When I plugged it in iTunes popped up and it synced some music. I remembered reading on a few blogs about TWIT (This Week 
in Tech) which was a “podcast”. Basically a podcast is an audio file you can subscribe to via a special RSS feed from inside the iTunes Store. I subscribed to TWIT, re-synced, put my headphones on and walked to my studio which was about a 10 minutes away. When I got to the studio I was so into the podcast I decided to just keep on walking and listening. Today I subscribe to about 20 podcasts.
Without a doubt the best podcast for pro-audio is Sonic State’s Sonic TALK from Nick Batts and his friends. If you like this blog there’s no doubt you will like Sonic TALK. A few brits, Americans and sometimes a German very politely chat about synths, weird music, live performances and software.
PJ Tracy, Dave Spiers, Nick Batt. Our first moments are spent marveling in the wonders of Ad Jingles and their creation, with blasts from John Parr and Jonathan Hodge, then we discuss the recently announced Moog Taurus pedals reissue. Then a quote from Blixa Bergfeld on Disquiet gets us onto the topic of originality, then we talk about Raysgigs.com – a site where Ray Morrissey lists over 5000 gigs he has attended and made notes on many occasions – a real goldmine of information and impressions. And thats it for this week. – sonicstate.com
Recently they started to record Sonic TALK live. Everyone is invited to listen and join in the chat room for a real time discussion. I’ve been meaning to join in the TALK for a while and I finally remembered the time slot. It was definitely fun in a super geek way. From time to time Nick and crew would check in with the chat room and mention us “on the air”. To listen to this week’s episode: click here
Catch SonicTalk live every Wednesday at 11:00 AM EST. For more info: click here
photo credit: zoomar
This entry was written by , posted on December 4, 2008 at 7:46 am, filed under interviews and tagged iPod, Nick Batt, podcast, SonicState, SonicTalk. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
TouchOSC / Ableton Live from max Min on Vimeo.
Now that I am living in New York again I decided to go from a two person live show to a solo act. However, if I perform alone how can I still walk away from the computer and approach the audience? For one thing, I will put the table close to the edge of the stage and have the laptop facing sideways so I will be standing on the side of the table, not behind it. Yet I still want to be able to walk around, even into the crowd.
I just bought an iPhone this week so I’ve been searching for a way to control Ableton Live with it. Since I haven’t been following iPhone apps very closely I’m throwing the question to all Wire to the Ear readers: What’s the best way to do this?
Am I correct that TouchOSC needs a Wifi network to work? That would take it off the table as an option. Few clubs I play have a solid WiFi network running. Or could I somehow serve/tether my own mini network up? Or would that require an international data plan?
Thanks for any advice. I’ll be searching for answers and reporting back to here too.
More info about TouchOSC: hexler.net/touchosc
This entry was written by , posted on December 3, 2008 at 7:03 am, filed under Ableton Live, iPhone, live performance and tagged Ableton Live, iPhone, live performance, TouchOSC. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’ve had a Press & Distribution deal for my label Things to Come Records with Neuton Distribution since June 2002. Neuton has been a major force in vinyl manufacturing for electronic music. They out paced and out lasted many of it’s competitors. More likely than not if you purchased a new dance record in the past decade it had a small white “Distributed by Neuton” sticker on it somewhere.
According to Belgian online magazine Side-Line, Neuton will announce insolvency today. To be clear, I don’t know the exact details and what this really means. The word insolvency generally states they won’t be able to pay their bills. Is it a sign they are about to go out of business? My initial thinking is yes. The world is moving all digital and music is basically free. Vinyl is a niche product for collectors and audiophiles only.
“Neuton, one of the biggest (vinyl) music distributors, is about to announce its insolvency today. After the collapse of the UK distributor Amato and the Japanese distributor Cisco, the whole vinyl label scene and the distributors were under extreme pressure. Neuton worked with many top electronic labels, distributing music for diverse labels including Four Twenty, Tresor, Vakant, or Perlon and has worked in the past with labels like Bpitch control, Playhouse, Klang or M_nus.” – Side-Line.com
If Neuton pulls through I will happily continue to produce records with them. If they follow the path of the DoDo bird I wish the very best to SIggi, Bo and all my friends there. Electronic music and great songs will always be produced.
For more info: Neuton.com
This entry was written by , posted on December 2, 2008 at 5:24 am, filed under business and tagged distribution, Neuton, records, Vinyl. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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