wire to the ear

I’m happiest when creating songs for fun. Music that doesn’t have to fit anyone’s expectations. Constantly those recordings are my best. Remixes fall in the “oh man why am I doing this” category. I really pull my hair out trying to bend someone else’s vision into my own. For the most part if a song is great to start with it won’t need a remix. Sure there are super rock or melodic songs that need to be made into club hits but most of the remixes I get offered are already electronic.

Today I’m remixing a guy named Satronica. He’s one of my good friends from New York. He’s working on an album for Lenny Dee’s Industrial Strength Records. The song titled “Revenge Plan” is vocal heavy. The way he sings is pretty weird, almost an Arab chant style. I’m still trying to figure out how to mash the vocals into a tight grid. I may end up cutting each word up and throwing it into Reason’s NN-XT.

Because the vocals are so strong I don’t feel the need to keep his original music so I fired up some new toys and here’s a clip of what’s on the machine today.Keep in mind it’s just the synths and basic beat at this point. Purely amateur time so far:

The kick is Jomox Mbase 01, the main synth is the Voice of Saturn being sidechained with the key using Ableton’s compressor, later I add in another two copies of the Voice of Saturn channel but detuned left and right. The lazer zap’s are from an Audiorealism ABL. The drum roll is D16’s Drumazon and Devastor also sidechained with the Mbase 01. The snare is loaded into Native Instrument’s Battery 3 and if from a freebee disc I got with Computer Music magazine a few years ago.

It’s not nearly where it will end up but I thought you’d like to check in on the process. Writing this post gave my ears a few minutes break.

Out with the old, in with the new. When Ableton released Live 7 they simplified the way to bring in audio and midi from an external device such as a hardware synthesizer or drum machine. If you use external hardware and your not using the Live’s new External Instrument Device read on.

So let’s take a look at the old way of bringing an external instrument into Live. You would have to create an audio channel, select it’s input and arm monitoring. You would also have to create a separate Midi channel, choose then Midi Interface (Midi To) and Midi Channel.

Now for the new imporved method. Go to the Live Device browser (upper left side of the interface) and under Intruments drag an External Instrument device to a Midi track. On the device you can choose all the parameters that were previously spread over two channels: Midi To, Midi Channel and Audio Input. You also have the additional Latency parameter which is usefull if you notice your hardware synth or drum machine notes are coming in a little late. The best part of the External Instrument Device is now that you set it up you can save the preset and your now one click away from adding any hardware you have into your current song. I have seperate presets for all my hardware synths and drum machines.

The Covert Operators are Ableton freaks like myself. Their website is full of tips, tricks, videos and free stuff to download. They also offer a few things for sale. Tonight I bought one of their products called Traces 1. Traces 1 is simply 50 Arpeggiator Racks created with different live Midi Devices. I’m constantly looking for ways to break out of my own mind’s repetitive mode especially when it comes to melodies. You know the deal; you sit down to create a new song and all you end up playing is the same four notes you always play!

The first edition of Traces focuses on arps, with 50 Arpeggiator Racks, ranging from simple beat sequences to complex melodies that can be altered in real-time. Combining the Racks with each other delivers even more sequences with literally thousands of combinations to try out. From instant glitch to subtle backgrounds. And how about using several Arpeggiator Racks at once? - www.covops.org

Here an audio sample I put together using Fabfilter’s Twin as the synth, Impulse loaded with GoldBaby’s free Cassette 808 drums and a few Traces 1 arp presets:

Here’s an audio sample of Impulse loaded with GoldBaby’s free Cassette 808 drums and a few Traces 1 arp presets controlling the actual drum beat (nice!):

With both the above demos I only have 1 note, 4 bars long laid into a clip. The Traces 1 presets are creating all the movement. It’s true you can make these yourself with some time but even I learned a few things by looking how they put these together. By the way here is a related post I did about using an arp on drums: click here

Traces 1 is 7:50€. link

In any DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) an important keyboard shortcut to learn is “Loop to Selection”. In Ableton Live’s Arrangement view select a clip you want to have looping and hit Command-L. The Loop Brace surrounds the clip and Looping is turned on. Command-L also works inside Clip View. Hitting Command-L will work on selected Midi notes or audio waveforms.

Whenever I start a new song I like the tempo to be 123bpm and have a 4/4 kick drum going. I also always like to have Reason ReWired into Live. Instead of loading Live and setting these things up each time I did it once then opened the Live Preferences and under the File Folder tab clicked “Save Current Set as Template”. Now each time I launch Live I am ready to go with the things I like pre-set.

Use the File/Folder Preferences’ Template Save button to save the current Live Set as a template. Live will use these settings as the initialized, default state for new Live Sets. You can use this to pre-congure:

• Your multichannel input/output setup.
• Preset devices, like EQs and Compressors, in every track.
• Computer key mappings.
• MIDI mappings.

The template Live Set, Template.als, is located in Live’s Preferences folder and can becopied or deleted from there. The easiest way to locate this folder is to search your disk for Template.als. - Ableton Live User Manual

Some other DAWs such as Cubase allow multiple start up templates. Whats your start up template?

When I record old analog synthesizers that do not have MIDI or CV control (like my Roland SH3) I often use a Chopper plug-in to make the synth sync rhythmically. An example where I did this is my song Sex Machine. The main driving bassline is actually the SH3 playing a solid note being chopped into 8th notes (audio sample below)

I recorded that song using Cubase SX3 which has a built-in plug-in called “Chopper”. But Ableton Live doesn’t have a dedicated Chopper plug-in. For Chopper duties in Live select the Auto Pan! If you want a triangle wave cutting your audio into 8th notes like in the Sex Machine audio sample below put Auto Pan on the track you want chopped, choose the Chopper preset and input these settings: Amount: 100%, Rate: 1/8, Phase: 0.00°, Shape: 100%

Sex Machine:

Of course there are many free and third party chopper, gate, trance freakout plug-ins you can also use. What’s your method?

Here is an Ableton Live keyboard shortcut most people don’t know or use. Once you learn it you will use it all the time. In either Session or Arrange view hit COMMAND-OPTION-L. This toggles Clip View on and off giving either your mixer or arrangement more space.

Great no?

This morning I had a message on Facebook from a friend of mine George GábriÅ¡. The message said. “Yo I found this to be quiet bizzare.” and there was a link to the video above. Apparently someone figured out you can use the magnetic strip of a drivers license as a mini ribbon controller for Ableton Live.

Using the magnetic strip on the back of my driver’s license to make a ribbon controller which then controls Autofilter in Live 6 via MIDI. - db3l

He has some other cool videos up including an Ableton controller made of Popsicle sticks and pennies and a controller printed on a regular piece of paper.

By the way you can friend me on Facebook too: click here

Here’s a cool Midi feature you may have missed in Ableton Live. It’s called “Stretch Notes” and I’ve been using it lately. Double click a Midi Clip to show it’s contents in the Clip View (the bottom right panel of the Ableton Live interface). Select all or multiple notes and then either Right Click or Apple Click to open the Contextual Menu and choose “Stretch Notes”. Now two handles pop up which you can drag left or right. As you move the handles the notes shrink or lengthen. Cool and easy no?

When multiple notes are selected in the Note Editor, the Stretch Notes command becomes available from the context menu. Note Stretch markers will then appear in the Note Editor, allowing notes to be scaled proportionally in time. The markers are a pair of downward-pointing indicators that snap to the beginning of the first and last notes in the selection. - Ableton Live User Manual

Here’s an example how I used it in a song. In my song “You Are Disturbing” there is a melody that plays over and over as the chorus. At one point in the song after I say the lyrics “What are the things you like sexually” the same melody plays using TC Powercore’s Roland SH-101 emulator Powercore01 but at double speed. I did this using the Stretch Notes feature:

There is an interesting video by Andreas Wetterberg called “Phase music with Ableton Live” where he uses the Stretch Notes feature to create an entire song. Check it out: click here

I hope this tip inspired you. Oh yeah… try it on some drum loops!

Sometimes its good watch someone else work because you can pick up interesting habits they use. About a year ago I was watching Miro Pajic produce a track on his laptop. He was new to Ableton Live but was doing something I never thought of and it’s a killer tip. Here it is:

While in Arrangement view clicking on Mixer or Ableton Device controls brings up their associated automation envelopes.

So what does that mean? Here’s an example: If you working on a song and want to edit the volume envelope of say the third audio track normally you would go to that track, select the The Automation Device chooser drop down menu and pick “Mixer”, then select the The Automation Control chooser and choose “Volume”. Then the pink Automation lane representing the Volume for that song would pop up.

Here’s the easy way: Click on the small orange rectangle with the Volume level number in it one time. Bam! Instantly the automation envelope for volume pops up.

Big deal? Now go and click on anything in any of the Ableton devices. Sample start in Simpler… 1 click on it and you have the automation lane in front of you! No need to dig through menus to find the parameter your looking for. Click the on/off button on an Ableton Reverb. Bam! (eek I sound like Emril) The automation envelope pops up allowing you to control the on/off of the Reverb in the time line.

Often, when working with Live’s mixer and devices, you will want the controls’ movements to become part of the music. The movement of a control across the song timeline is called automation; a control whose value changes in the course of this timeline is automated. Practically all mixer and device controls in Live can be automated, including the song tempo. - Ableton Live User Manual

Unfortunately this only works for Ableton’s stuff. Third party plug-in parameters still need to be hunted down. I really hope Ableton figures out a way to make this feature system wide as it’s a huge time saver. Using the one click method I can work really fast making tons of minor adjustments on timeline automation envelopes.