Something/Everything

Sometimes when your warp tracks in Ableton Live, you encounter this track that has no real definite starting point, let’s say an Ulrich Schnauss track that is just a slow buildup of material, or a long intro with no real percussion.

What I do in all those cases is just to scrub forward until I find a proper place where the first kick or some kind of percussion is heard, or a bass line starts. Then I set this as the 1:1:1 starting point, and check the warping from this point forward.

When I’m sure the warp points work all the way to the end, I go back to the 1:1:1 point, and with a four or eight bar loop go again backwards in the track to a point where I feel it’s the start point, and now again reset the 1:1:1 warp point to this location.

This technique has saved me lots of time when warping really hard tracks.

What I also do is to save a four or eight bar loop as part of saving the warp information, so if I load the file, I could immediately play this thing over and over again, without worries, and then lift up the loop point and continue when I want. So it’s a quick insurance to have something playing the first time the track is loaded without getting into big trouble.

The other nice thing with Ableton MIDI clips is that you could open up the envelope section and have fun painting envelopes with the MIDI information. In the example above, I did painting of pitch bend information on the incoming MIDI stream. That means that there was this acid-like glissando effect that worked out really well with the synthesizer I had wired for this midi track. So if you want to make acid sounds with Ableton Live and MIDI, this is one technique.

You could do all kinds of other experiments, just open up various MIDI controller parts and paint envelopes for the loop. I’m a big believer in experimenting out new sounds, and this is one example where you are entering another universe sound-wise, doing stuff that maybe nobody else has done yet.

Here’s another MIDI plugin in Ableton Live, the chord plugin. If you feed in one MIDI stream, it will make another MIDI notes based on the original one, and shift them based on the original one.

The obvious use is to build chords, but you could also use this one to fatten up the MIDI playback by shifting the tones up 12/24 steps, or down -12/-24 and so on. One usage case is if you want to get that fat electro house bass sound which sometimes is the only melody in electro house productions. What you do then is to create the original MIDI clip, and then multiply it up and down and let the original plugin play it back. Depending on the synth setup, and CPU power used, it’s a quick way to get the same effect as when doing layering of the MIDI clip with multiple synths.

In the case above, I wanted to hear how an incoming MIDI stream sounded like if if added six additional tones, three that were octaves above, and three below. Sounded, hmm, fat and muddy, but it depends on the synth sound used.

As with the other plugins, you could also do automation so that the shifts could change across the track, in case that’s the musical idea that will make the track what it is.

Anyway, I think anyone could try out all the other plugins, random et rest, so I will move on to other usage scenarios with MIDI clips in Ableton Live.

Here’s another simple but cool MIDI plugin, the pitch plugin. You could always go in and select all notes, and drag them to another pitch, but you could as well place this plugin into the track where the midi clip is running, and change it.

As an example, let’s say you have a couple of bass MIDI clips, in G major. And you have this DJ gig where the track is in F Major. You could drag in the MIDI clips, and just take down the pitch -2 semi-tones, and you are in business.

Or, you have a nice lead, but would like to use the same lead MIDI clip as a bass line, no problems, take it down -12 or -24 semitones, and key in a nice bass sound.

This plugin could also be tweaked with automation in the arrange view, you could open up the automation section and draw lines concerning pitch changes — now, I have a hard time figuring out where to use this, unless it’s a cool effect, but who knows, sometimes good music appears from experimentation.

The SW synth shown is Zebra CM, you could get it from the Computer Music DVDs, if not get one, it’s one of the best free SW synths ever released — and when you get the taste of ZebraCM, get the Zebra 2.0 version that is even more extensible.

Maybe some of you already know, but if not check out the MIDI effects racks (and presets) in the Ableton browser. Just load a track with midi info, and drag the rack or effect into the effect pane, and start tweaking.

For me, presets and racks is a good starting point, but I always go in and start tweaking them so that the outcome is not a vanilla usage of the rack or preset. But it’s a good way to get started.

Note that Ableton is one of the few DAWs where you could actually easily drag in plugins that modify MIDI information, arpeggiators, chord builders and much more. It’s kind of doable in Logic, but you need to learn the Environment world, and I wish it was a quick-start, but that will take a while to get a grasp of. While in Ableton Live, it’s a matter of drag and drop MIDI effects.

Another nice thing with these effects is that you could take older MIDI material that you saved, and reuse it, and most likely with the effects, the output is totally new. Which means that it’s good to save MIDI files from existing productions (note to myself).

Sometimes I don’t think far ahead of the possibilities in Live. I’ve been used to chop audio loops into tiny parts, and sprinkle them here and there, or take four-bar loops and chop them into smaller parts, and rearrange the entries in the arrange view, so that the song has a variation instead of this same boring four-bar loop playing over and over again.

Well, one could do the same thing with MIDI loops in Ableton Live’s arrange view! This makes it possible to make really interesting and variated MIDI sequences inside Live. Just chop and possibly set the loop point for the MIDI clips, as well, as you could loop the MIDI clips in Ableton Live as well.

Another option is to chop a MIDI part, and then go in and select all the notes and push them up an octave, five notes, or so. Or, you could just copy the MIDI track or part of it, and drag it into another MIDI track and another synthesizer. Or, this other track has an arpeggiator Ableton live plugin, or any other of the fun MIDI plugins provided by Ableton.

Then there’s the old trick of taking the bass line, copying it over to another MIDI track, and add another bass line to emphasize it, either with an octave higher synth, or some other sound. Or, you could do it multiple times, hey, now we are into the fat electro house domain!

Anyway, think of the MIDI clips as another way to take such “lego pieces” and arrange them in new configurations.

Here’s a trick that I use a lot in Ableton Live’s arrange view. Usually I want to extend multiple track loops forward in time. But instead of selecting each one and dragging them out in the timeline, I just position the loop point at the end. Then, important, select the loop point so it is hilighted. After this, if you drag one loop forward, all the other loops within the loop point will also be extended.

Very handy, saves me time.

I’ve been using 24-bit 44.1kHz for any audio material since the first MacOSX computer running audio applications (a 2 x 867MHz PowerMac). I never had any performance problems, and it’s really good I didn’t go down the road of creating and using 16-bit samples. The additional 8 bits give far more dynamics range.

The upper end, whether 44.1kHz or 48kHz, or even higher, is a big topic of discussion, especially in the mastering side. Some think it’s good to have more higher end for especially software synths so that any filtering will happen far beyond the hearing range. Others think it’s overkill. I could live with 44.1KHz, it maps nicely down to CD and MP3/AAC release versions, so there’s one less sampling I need to need or worry about.

Anyway, with most of the material as 24-bit or MIDI instruments, the output needs to at some point be rendered down to 16-bit for CD, MP3/AAC and so on products. This is where you really need to do dithering of the 24-bit material down to 16-bit in the the final rendering. Logic Pro has excellent dithering algorithms you could select. Of some reason Ableton Live still does not have any. I’m using Izotope Ozone for the final dithering from Ableton Live, myself.

So what is dithering, really? The Dithering with Ozone Guide over at the Izotope web site has excellent explanations what is happening. But shortly, if you take down 24-bit to 16-bit, the software needs to approximate values, so it doe something like average, and it makes the transition points very digital and harsh — believe it or not, adding noise up there will make the digital curves smoother, so the ear hears the final result more pleasing.

While you are at that web page, download and read the Mastering with Ozone Guide as well — even if it’s using Ozone as the example, it has tons of excellent advise about mastering, I try to re-read this document every three months or so to keep my mind fresh about mastering issues.

OK, enough mastering posts — marketing next!

It’s actually good modern DAWs have a lot of functionality — never a dull moment. Anyway, I’m usually falling into the trap of reading the manuals inside out, and trying to learn it all in one big session. It seldom works.

It’s better to learn one thing at a time, one feature a day or so. For example, you could go through Logic’s feature set, for example the key bindings, and use control-P for a day until your brain is programmed to realize that: “Hey it’s nice that I could switch on the left side between control strip mode and normal mode.”.

Or with Ableton Live, use command-option-B for a while until your brain gets the message that this is for opening and closing the browser view.

It is true that you need to start from somewhere, but just get things up and running with simple projects, and then learn the complexity one thing at a time.

Maybe some of you know that I’m somewhat active on the Ableton Live DJ forum. Check out the forums in case you are interested in Ableton Live for DJ purposes, a lot of issues and new tricks are discussed there every day, and this forum is actually quite clean and fun, no big religious debates.

Anyway, one idea we came up with recently was to take tracks from the Tracks section where various producers are listing links to their new productions, and make this to a showcase mix. Here’s the link to the first showcase mix, ALDJ Mix Showcase 001. Actually mix showcase 002 is already in the works.

Now, if you want to contribute material, check out the forum postings about the 002 showcase mix, here’s one of the threads.

It was fun, but also a challenge, to mix this one, as the music is eclectic from slow chill up to drum and bass, in the same mix, or, from 118 BPM to 175. Also, there are many different kinds of styles. But that was also the fun part, to see what could be done with such widespread material. Anyway, check it out, for me it’s fun listening to a wide domain of electronic music. It was the first time I mixed drum & bass as well, and it’s not easy, I learned the hard way.

The other thing that happened was that I got another interesting idea about working with new electronic music artists and net labels, more about those plans shortly!

The latest Ableton newsletter had this URL with new YouTube video where Robert Henke shows Simpler in action. It’s really worth checking out, as you will get a lot of ideas how to incorporate Simpler into all kinds of projects. Also, Henke talks towards the end about the design philosophy behind Live — simple tools build more complexity, such as a brush for a painter could create complex results.

Samplers are actually sometimes tools that are, at least for me, considered old-fashioned compared with all the new synthesizers available. But they could really be used for all kinds of music sample triggering, like the video shows.

Also, Logic’s EXS24 is really nice, as it has a lot of vintage synth samples. I really miss my old Jupiter-6, and Logic has many Jupiter-8 sounds incorporated. With EXS24’s filtering unit, more effects, and layering, I could even create more complex patterns from the base sample sounds.

EXT24 also has many nice drum sets mapped in, such as default 808 and 909 samples, as well as others.

Here’s another trick I used when producing Genietronix track called Nanotec — should go out on the promo circuit later today.

The common pattern for house productions, including tech house, is that classical syncopated hihat, you can’t miss it, any house track has it as its basic element. See picture to the right, this will trigger the syncopated hihat over and over again. The astute reader might also notice that I’m using a loop from a bigger drum loop, this way I could reuse various elements if needed inside the track, but in this case I was interested in the classical open hihat house sound.

However, what I did was also to make a slower version of this pattern where the open hihat triggers every second time. I use this pattern in the beginning of the track. When moving to various ‘climax’ parts in the song, such as just before breakdown, and just after breakdown, I use the faster version. And in the beginning of various parts I use the slower version. This makes it sound like the overall track is getting faster with more energy — even if it’s just the same BPM! This is one of those audio illusions it’s good to use from time to time, to make things faster and higher energy, just make the loops trigger 2x the normal pattern. It makes the overall production also sound more interesting.

As the final decoration, I use the same loop with an even more accentuated loop setup at various eight-bar endings — it’s like using cymbals but instead the accentuated hihat is indicating that a new section is starting.

Now, to be fair, in certain productions like minimalist electro, variations are not there, maybe you even need to have the same hihat pattern repeat across the whole song, and that’s fine, that’s a production decision that makes sense from time to time. I’ve just noticed how the drum patterns for the last year or so have indeed been very sparse, with little variations. If the style changes, tricks like these are in fashion again, and that’s fine, too. Personally I prefer more production work behind tracks, but in the spirit of the punk movement, too much polish will make things sound too constructed. Good taste rules with a lot of production work. But I’m a big fan of ‘think different’ — not even minimalism needs to sound like a formula, so using hihat techniques as discussed before might make a minimalist track more personal and intriguing.

I was going through three-four year old Ableton Live productions, and found a couple ones that I will resurrect and release soon as tracks. Anyway, what I noticed when I was composing years ago was that I really tried to put together intro-verse-chorus-verse and so forth compositions.

For a while now, while I’m in this Berlin tech house mode, such parts are not really needed, or common, so I’ve been just following the modern patterns of ignoring them and just writing longer sections.

Still, there’s something special about variations in a song that makes it vivid and interesting. I think by resurrecting these tracks and using modern production tricks — and also re-creating some of the synths, especially bass lines that now are different — there’s maybe a nice synthesis happening between old and new.

Maybe this is also suddenly a new sound, hehehe.

Otherwise, I’m very happy I could open up old Ableton Live 3.0 projects and just continue from there. It’s good to put aside projects that don’t work at a certain time, and resurrect them later and possibly finish the track.

It’s interesting how a lot in contemporary dance music is based on four-bar loops. Now, there’s more 1-bar looping happening, as well, and some occasional longer loop is in there.

Anyway, to make things interesting, there’s no need to always use bars evenly divided by four. A classical trick is to take a loop, such as a four-bar one, and just loop three parts of it. This makes it an syncopated loop that changes over time. With Ableton Live it’s really trivial to make such loops.

Or, as in the image above, this loop is not a one bar one, rather 3/4 bar long. Such syncopation loops are really good for changing drum sounds — resembling the effect with African drumming where these tricks are used. But it could be used for other cases, too.

Another example is a melody or a bass line that is seven bars instead of eight. I did a recording recently, a minimalist track, where by mistake I only recorded seven bars in Logic. I didn’t notice it until I placed out this melody loop, and it really worked out well as the variation happened over the whole track. A 9-bar track would do something similar, too. Or any other non-standard bar loop.

The key is to experiment and try out if it works. It’s true that the dancing audience kind of expects even bar loops, and the brain does not like too much non-organized material, but a strategically placed loop that is not normal will make the track much more interesting.

More about volumes. The obvious, first though when you can’t hear a certain instrument in the mix is to increase the audio level of this instrument. Then others are not heard, those are raised. At some point everything is clipping, and even if modern audio engines are 32-bit (soon maybe even 64-bit) resolution engines, too much clipping and overdrive will just cause a big mush. So the final mix does not sound airy, rather harshly compressed, especially if a limiter is in place. If you look at such mixes, the tops are chopped off, rather than having nice waves that reach the upper part naturally.

So here are some more tricks how to get everything heard. This one is about how the loudspeakers work, especially with big systems. The low end has a slow frequency, so it takes a while for the cone to move in and out. The more material is pumping down there, the more movements the cones have to do, and instead of having a nice pumping movement that will move the air and get the feeling into the stomach of the dancing audience, it’s mostly a quick rumble with no emphasis on anything particular.

So. Let’s narrow down what’s operating down there. To start with, any other instruments and kicks and bass (with some exceptions) does not need to go down to below 120Hz. So just filter it all out with a high pass filter. The mix gets airier, and less volumes to drive the mix. Most other instruments don’t really have any interesting frequencies that low, anyway — with some exceptions, of course.

Secondly, and this trick could be used from time to time, just let the kick drive, nothing else. If you have a bass line, chop out or leave out any bass tones moving while the kick is doing its thing. With MIDI it is easy, but even with a pre-existing loop, with for example Ableton Live you could draw a volume envelope (see picture above) where the bass is not driving the cones while the kick is doing it.

I must again state that this technique will flavor the track — if you really want the bass line to follow the kick, which used to be common in ancient dance music, go ahead. Anyway, in many trance projects, this is a common technique, as well.

You could extend this to any other instruments, too. Ultimately this technique is heavily used in combination with a side-chain compressor so that when the kick is operating, most if not all the other tracks volumes are down via the compressor, leading to this hypnotic pumping sound that comes in and out of flavor from time to time.