Live Looping with a MIDI Fighter 3D and Ableton Live
A live looping improv jam performed on a DJ TechTools “MIDI Fighter 3D.” No phrases or pre-reocrded loops were used. Only single notes are being triggered from an instance of NI’s Kontakt for drums, and three separate instances of NI’s Massive for the bass, lead, and polyphonic synth. The bank-select buttons at the top of the unit selects the proper instrument in Ableton Live.
Tilting the unit to the right controls a low-pass filter on the synths. A backward tilt controls the resonance on those filters, and tilting the unit forward controls modulation/vibrato. The side buttons are controlling Ableton’s loopers, and are also used to engage the master filter at the end of the song.
Lemur on the iPad is being used to clear loops and control reverb and delay on all four instruments.
More info on the DJ TechTools MIDI Fighter 3D can found on DJTT’s site: http://store.djtechtools.com/midi-fighter-3d.html
Moog Guitar and Ableton Live Effects Examples
Background info:
My main camera is out of order so the droid will have to do for now. This is a selections of hand-held videos I created while experimenting with Ableton Live Suite effects and The Moog Guitar. Learn more at www.experimentalsynth.com
Interview: Dave Gahan – An Inside Look at His Very Personal Studio
Sonic Scoop has a new interview out featuring Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode – taking a closer look at his studio in NYC:
New York City and rock stars were made for each other.
Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan has many good reasons to settle in NYC.
Wherever in the world these musical success stories – and we’re talking the multi-multi-multi-multi platinum variety here – come from, NYC still has the power to go from tour stop to adopted hometown for waves of them.
Rock stars move to NYC not to stand out, but to get swallowed up among the teeming millions. But they also continue to create — and with the well-deserved financial windfall that often comes with recording global smash hits, they can take personalized approaches to their creative spaces.
Today’s case in point: Dave Gahan, whose unmistakable voice has been central to the sound of Depeche Mode since that landmark band bowed in 1980. A group with an unmatched ability to produce timeless electronic dance music, Depeche Mode’s shockingly original songs are permeated with intellectual depth, elegance, and artistic devotion.
Little wonder this is one of the most successful bands of all time. They can claim over 100 million in record sales, and their members have collectively faced 30 million audience members in concert – thanks to a parade of huge hit singles including “Enjoy the Silence”, “Just Can’t Get Enough,” and “People are People”.
The band’s 13th album is on the way now, due for release coincident with a tour in 2013. And expectations will be high. Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, and Andy Fletcher earned a GRAMMY nomination for their last album, 2009’s Sounds of the Universe. While his Depeche Mode bandmates transfix with their musicianship on that engrossing record, Gahan’s voice comes through with increased agility – wiser while still somehow sounding younger and more athletic.
Even more recently, Gahan got a turn as lead vocalist for the famed production duo of Rich Machin and Ian Glover AKA Soulsavers. Their just-released collaboration, The Light the Dead See hears Gahan’s vocals grow even more cinematic in scope, in emotionally massive songs like “Gone Too Far” and “Bitterman”. The thought that Gahan could come completely uncaged on the next Depeche Mode album is tantalizing.
Personal Studio, Personal Choice
Gahan has acquired a beautiful vehicle for getting there via his innovative private studio here in New York City. Built into a residential apartment separate from his own home, Studio Blanco has been constructed with a clear mission: capture one of modern music’s most iconic voices.
Kurt Uenala engineers all at Blanco Studio. (all studio photos in article by David Weiss)
The pilot flying this plane is Kurt Uenala. A Swiss-born engineer/producer with sharp engineering skills, deep production experience, programming and songwriting abilities, and an amiable personality, Uenala is a versatile presence at Studio Blanco, helping Gahan to get where he wants to go – as quickly and easily as possible.
Even though Gahan can – and does – make ample use of NYC’s world-class suite of commercial recording studios, Uenala points out that a personal facility is essential for an artist on this level to write, demo new tracks, and also record final vocals – as was done here for many of the Soulsavers and upcoming Depeche Mode songs.
“Money is not necessarily a big issue with successful bands, but still at $2500 a day in a commercial studio, you can’t be as experimental as you can be at home,” he says. “You can work at a personal studio any day and any time, and that can be a big part of the creative process. The mindset becomes, ‘We arranged and finished a song a certain way, but can redo it from scratch if we feel like exploring further.’
“The end result is better than a big room with all of the drama gear. We can book a studio like that for a month, but when that time is up, Beyonce is coming in – so you have to go. At that point money doesn’t help: It’s booked. Not having a deadline is wonderful, and so is knowing the room in and out.”
An Unusual Recording Home
“The room”, in this case, is a personal studio operating on a high very level. The obvious centerpiece of the sun-kissed residential space is a space-age white hut which occupies a large portion of the main living room, without engulfing it – plenty of space remains in the room and the rest of the apartment to provide headroom for writing and relaxing.
The acoustically isolated structure is made by the Barcelona-based company Studio Bricks. A “self-assembly cabin system” that can be constructed by one person in a short amount of time with minimal tools, Studio Bricks are acoustic solutions made specifically with artists, engineers and producers in mind.
According to Uenala, Studio Blanco’s big white box represents the first Studio Bricks deployment in the US. “They’re modules that are really Legos – they snap into each other, but they’re made of sandwich wood and rubber,” he notes. “It’s been here since September, and it really works sonically and in terms of providing acoustic isolation. It reigns in the sound not just of the vocals being recorded, but also of productions and mixes – we have to be able to turn it up.
orangePeels : Beatsurfing / Teenage Engingeering op1 / Machinedrum
Checking out the Beatsurfing app:
New set up test three. Now that other gear can be used in conjunction with the op1, I was able to try out a new midi controller app for the iPad : Beatsurfing.
Imho, its the best ‘build a midi controller’ app that has been made so far. It is designed in a way that is more conducive to working with a PC and software synths, however, there is still a lot that can be done in an all hardware setup like mine.
This video shows a template I have created. In this test of the app, I chose to try and keep it simple with focus on being musical rather than create a complex setup where I tend to lose the music along the way.
1950 early electronic synthesizer: ‘This is music with a strictly electronic beat’
To order this clip in high res. follow this link:
http://www.clipsandfootage.com/contac…
00:10:33 Electronic Music Synthesizer , ‘No instruments necessary’! “This is music with a strictly electronic beat”. Man demonstrates synthesizer, bit of an anticlimax as it plays ‘Camptown Races’.
Clip ref CF30d
autoharp
software by meng qi
4 track autoharp with physical speed/resistance system for monome grid
autoharp
8 chord slots, setting chord is easy with per note / per chord / all chords transpose buttons
4 tracks, each can select a different chord, note velocity, duration, resistance, midi output and channel
4 “strum” speeds in each direction (user configureable for full version max users)
preset management system that remembers everything from chords to track parameters
more details:
docs.monome.org/doku.php?id=app:autoharp
mengqimusic.com
Reason – Getting Started with the Pulsar Dual LFO
NOTE: Reason 6.5 and Reason Essentials 1.5 users can and get Pulsar from the Rack Extension Shop for FREE until October 1st, 2012! Reason 6.5 and Reason Essentials 1.5 are free upgrades for Reason 6 and Reason Essentials 1 users and special upgrade pricing is available for users of earlier Reason versions.
Pulsar in the Rack Extension Shop:
http://shop.propellerheads.se/product/pulsar/
Also featured, the Synapse Audio AF-4 Filter:
http://shop.propellerheads.se/product/synapse-af-4-analog-filter/
The Pulsar Dual LFO, new as a Rack Extension in the Propellerhead Shop, is a flexible little powerhouse utility with tons of routing potential. Even though Pulsar is capable of some wild tricks, it also is one of the best places to start learning about modular synthesis and LFOs.
We put together this introductory look at how to use LFOs to spice up your existing sounds and how to get Pulsar making some sounds of its own.
Lustmord – interview on experimental and extreme creative processes in electronic music
http://bit.ly/KFRNqv
In this episode of Dubspot’s Wireless interview series, Brian Williams a.k.a. Lustmord sits down with composer, producer and educator Raz Mesinai f.k.a. Badawi for a brief interview that touches on experimental and extreme creative processes in electronic music, sound design and composition techniques, live performances, visual composition, and more.
Brian Williams (better known as Lustmord) is an accomplished British electronic musician, composer, sound designer, and visual artist. He started his recording career in the early 1980s when he joined the legendary industrial and noise band SPK. Williams is regarded as one of the key innovators of the industrial genre and a pioneer of the subgenre commonly known as ‘dark ambient’. A large body of his work remains defiantly experimental. As Lustmord, Williams has remixed and collaborated with bands such as Tool, Coil, The Melvins, and Isis. He’s also worked in sound design for film and television, lending his technical expertise to movies like The Crow, Underworld, Tank Girl, Spawn, and even a Nike Sports basketball commercial.
Reason Combinator Tutorial – Dynamic Rhythm Generator
“In today’s Reason Combinator Tutorial we’re looking at how to create a dynamic rhythm generator using Kong, Redrum, and Spider CV merger/splitter. Follow along, and download Seasoning Lite, our free combinator, here! http://ohdratdigital.com/downloads/free-reason-combinator-automatic-dynamic-t…“
Demo of the Akai MPC-60, MFB Synth II, and EMW WCS-1
Background information:
Here is a demo of the Akai MPC-60 Sampler/Sequencer, MFB Synth II Analog Synth, and EMW WCS-1 Analog Synth. The drums/sequencing were done by my MPC-60; the drums were sampled on the MPC using my Roland TR-808 as a sound source. The bassline is the EMW WCS-1 and the MFB Synth II is the sequenced melody. Both are sequenced by the MPC-60. The delay/echo effect is a really old Washburn analog delay. The mixer is an Alto AMX-220.
There is lots of cross-talk/hiss/noise in this recording. I personally like this, and I fully understand how I would go about eliminating this. But I would never want to.
DATAMASKIN
