Thinking out loud...

[nowaysj]

Alright, will dl and take another peek (initially wrote peak, lol, where are my PEAKS at Reaper?!)

Does reaper have a comping feature? Midi comping?

[SunkLo]

It's got the Takes system. You can snap on loop and record the same 8 bars or whatever over and over. Once you stop, it stacks all the takes in one clip and you can switch between takes to audition the best one. You can also explode the takes to one linear clip.

[nowaysj]

Yes! that is comping! Okay, am liking what I'm hearing. FL you can comp audio in edison, but it is not totally cool, like comping in the arrange/playlist. Nice! My first few takes are always shit, you know? Like I've finally found the part, it is awesome, I hit record, and it goes to shit. Has happened for like 20 years now! Bashful when the record goes on. Like have never gotten used to it.

So comping is a big plus for me.

Okay reaper salesman, how close to the audio can you get in reaper now? Can you get to sample level in the arrange page? Like very fine control over the start and end of audio clips? And there are automation clips, yeah? Is there track level automation as well? When recording automation, does it go into clip or track? Can you thin/reduce automation points after the fact, to simplify, and refine your curves?

Thx, for answering all the q's by the way. Once I've got reaper installed... expect some pm's! Haha, we'll see if you ever get that compressor done when I'm haranguing you!

[SunkLo]

My first few takes are always shit, you know? Like I've finally found the part, it is awesome, I hit record, and it goes to shit. Has happened for like 20 years now!

Yeah I'm the same way. I can play it a thousand times perfect and in the time it takes to reach over and hit record my brain fries itself.

Can you get to sample level in the arrange page?

Yes.

And there are automation clips, yeah?

No. One of the reasons I started using Ableton. Although there is clip automation. So a bit of audio you record has it's own volume, pan, etc envelopes that you can overlay on the clip, as well as midi CC data inside the clip. But in a pure automation lane, there's no clips, just curves. You can set them to move with the midi clip but they don't duplicate when you drag the midi clip's length over multiple bars, as far as I remember. (The midi CC data inside the clip does though) I suppose you could create a new track and group it as a sub track, route the midi to the parent, and then have dummy midi clips with accompanying envelopes that get routed on to the plugin parameters of the parent track. Pain in the ass though.

Is there track level automation as well? When recording automation, does it go into clip or track?

Of course. Automation goes in lanes under the track but you can set them to overlay the track.

Can you thin/reduce automation points after the fact, to simplify, and refine your curves?

Yep.

Haha, we'll see if you ever get that compressor done when I'm haranguing you!

You're like my own personal cheerleader/slavedriver. I did a lot of work on it today. Quite a bit of restructuring going on but the resulting code is much simpler. The audio thread now just does a few function calls instead of one big mess of if statements. A lot of variables and functions were abstracted away into objects so the main plugin class doesn't have a shitload of variables now. Just pointers to, for instance the input envelope object, which takes care of its own data. Also previously the ratio was inversed, ex 4:1 was stored as 4 instead of 1/4 which is what it actually is. So every time I had to inspect any code dealing with the ratio I had to flip it in my mind along with > and < comparisons, multiplication and division, etc. I was going insane.

[nowaysj]

Re clips and automation. Face palm. Each daw has an Achilles. Fuck. Dude, I live by clip automation. It's cool, that they've got volume in the clip, and that is a lot of what I do, but I do runs of cc stuff too.

Re your sanity... Starting from where you did, short trip, I'm sure.

[SunkLo]

My unicycle's wheel has a very small diameter so it seemed like a long ride.

[wub]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03wgpyg

Most current pop music is created not with live instruments, but from pre-formed, off the shelf chunks of music known as loops. Musician Matthew Herbert explores the art of the loop and the million-dollar industry that has grown up around it, and asks whether it is setting music makers free from the constraints of traditional instruments or killing creativity.

Loops are pre-recorded performances, typically of a solo instrument, and typically 1 or 2 bars long. Looping isn't new - it started soon after the advent of tape recorders. But recent advances in computer technology and software mean that effects which once needed a full-scale studio costing thousands of pounds can be created for little or no cost on a laptop or even a mobile phone. A CD of loops costing £10 can be used to make a million-selling international hit, but who is the real composer?

Matthew once made an entire album from the sounds of a single pig's life, so he's no stranger to the benefits of loops and sampling. He talks to producers, musicians and loop-creators and experiments with technology ancient and modern; he hears from looping's defenders and detractors and looks into a musical future which he finds fascinating but many find terrifying.

And, along the way, he builds a dance track out of a Radio 4 Continuity announcer.

Only up until Saturday.

[wub]

http://www.xlr8r.com/news/2014/03/simia ... cord-new-a

Simian Mobile Disco to Record New Album Live in Joshua Tree

Longstanding UK production pair Simian Mobile Disco has revealed plans to record its next album as a one-off live performance in a small venue outside of California's Joshua Tree National Park. An apparent attempt to shake up their longtime working method, James Ford and Jas Shaw will limit themselves to using "just one synth and one sequencer each" for their performance/recording session. "This forces us to commit,” Shaw points out in a press release. "When we record with it, this is the system, and there can be no turning back." Furthermore, the press release goes on to explain that the "entire process is going to be open ended and exploratory, as [Simian Mobile Disco] works their way around this new system until that very moment when they come to record, then they will have to commit 100% to the sounds they are making."

Set to be entitled Whorl, the live recording of the duo's next album will take place on April 26 at Pappy & Harriets in Pioneertown, California. Following the live recording, the group will return to the studio to mix the record, noting that they will "not slavishly [be] limiting ourselves just to this performance, we'll be recording numerous takes beforehand in the studio, and when we come to mixdown the album, we might well end up using portions of studio takes as well as those recorded in the desert. At the moment, the whole project is pretty fluid, and there's no telling where it will be by the time we actually perform."

That is fucking amazing and very inspiring, fair play

[wub]

[nowaysj]

So much better than I hoped after that other thread. Awesome. Am at 7 minutes now.

[wub]

Jeff Mills RMBA session from 1998

[wub]

Artist Tips - Max Cooper Details Five Ways to Focus Your Artistic Vision and Tighten Up Your Productions

Max Cooper is a quiet artist. While some producers garner acclaim that's based as much on their personas as their tunes, Cooper has been content to hone his craft and steadily build a following by issuing a stream of cinematic, glitch-infused creations. In recent years, his output has occasionally been lumped in with that of the "bass music" crowd, but the UK producer's reach extends much further than that, and his freshly released debut LP, Human, is even prompting comparisons to the likes of Jon Hopkins and Pantha du Prince. Of course, some of these similarities can be traced to the fact that, much like those revered artists, Cooper is someone who more or less lives in the studio. His productions are precise, mutilayered, and full of nuance, which makes him an excellent candidate for our Artist Tips series. When asked to share a bit of his knowledge, he chose to focus on maintaining clarity, both of artistic vision and sound itself.

Beware of the wild goose chase.

The electronic music scene now is an amazing thing—new genres, fashions, fads, and ideas are constantly evolving, blowing up, disappearing, and being reinvented in shorter than ever timeframes. It's an exciting thing to get involved with, but there are also dangers—people blow up one month, and seem to disappear another, with music being treated like some sort of disposable item.

If your sole aim is to DJ in packed clubs, then making the most fashionable music is a logical thing to do, but with some scenes coming and going so quickly, too tight an association with a particular scene can mean a career is short lived. Or even worse, you can get stuck with a long career making one type of music that you don't even really like!

People seem to have such strong opinions on what music is great and what is crap too, without much consideration for the fact that music is something subjective—if you like it, it's good to you, whether or not someone else agrees. So if you're trying to follow what is fashionable and what people think, you can easily end up on a bit of wild goose chase, losing sight of what is important and what might actually generate meaning and longevity musically. What do you actually like? What really makes you feel something? What makes you want to dance? What makes you want to throw up? What makes you passionate about music? If you can identify those things and work with them, I think it gives the best chance of making something special.

Fill the frequency range.

Most people want their tracks to be loud and fat, and compression is a standard answer. But a lot of my older tracks have no standard compression, just a small amount of limiting (a particular form of compression that won't let the signal past a particular dB value) on the master channel, and a frequent use of sidechain compression in a subtle manner to make one sound duck around another. When you have the right choice and design of elements, a track can be punchy and loud without needing much normal compression. I do often compress the drum or hat bus now and rogue elements like field recordings which aren't possible to tame otherwise, but the old pains of how to get tracks loud enough has disappeared with the learning of what sorts of sounds will combine to fill the frequency range, how to shape and layer sounds properly (such as by adding short click versions of synths at higher octaves to increase their cutting through the mix), use of sidechain compression for clearing space for any punchy sounds, and by the frequent use of subtle saturation/distortion on individual elements to boost overtones and fill the range further without noticeably changing their character.

Probably the most common issue with demo tracks I receive is that the sounds chosen don't cover the frequency range (from around 30/40Hz up to around 20KHz) properly, but that's also because it's a very hard thing to get right. It just takes a lot of listening and analysis time to get your ears tuned in properly to be able to spot what might be missing and how to choose the right sounds. But you can certainly aid the process by A/Bing your mixes compared to other tracks you like, and looking at both mixes in a spectral analyzer to see if you can spot any differences.

Sort out your bass troubles.

We hear music on a logarithmic scale, with bass frequencies separated by 10s of Hz, mids separated by 100s, and highs separated by 1000s, roughly speaking. That may be part of the reason why bass needs such careful attention, as there's less bandwidth for separate elements to sit in, and we can really hear when things are interfering with one another—the bass elements need to be clean and simple. Obviously, a lot of work goes into bass elements, but a lot of the character you can hear in different tracks is more a result of the higher bass and mid frequencies giving basslines their timbre—the low frequencies alone are usually simple.

I'm probably one of the worst offenders for trying to cram too much information into my bass frequencies, and with the wrong system or acoustics, I've made some pretty weird noise in the past. There are a few things you can watch out for. Firstly, again, coverage of the frequency range is important, starting from around 30/40Hz at the lowest. It's handy to have your kick and bass elements creating a few peaks up to around 200Hz—often you can layer a duplicate octave up of a bassline without much of a noticeable change in character to fill a higher peak if needed. Or, if the fundamental frequency is too high, pitch the bassline down an octave. It's very useful to check your bass peaks in a spectral analyzer, and compare to other tracks too, particularly ones you think sound great on club systems, to see how they've set up the relative loudness of each bass peak and where they sit.

Anything which regularly sweeps the bass frequency range is very handy, as it's bound to hit the sweet spot for any venue. That's why all of that sweeping bassline techno always sounds fat, even if you don't like it. If you look at a kick, most have a range of frequencies across their short timespan too, which is the same reason why kicks come through on all systems so well and are so fundamental to standard dance music. Sidechaining bass elements to one another is a useful way of clarifying each element, and there's no need to make it noticeably pump. I like the fast-release sidechaining, which forms a tight pocket around each hit and just adds a lot of punch without much of a noticeable change to the element being compressed. You should hi-pass filter every element in your track which isn't specifically a bass element; this will tidy up any stray lows that you hadn't noticed, and ensure you've got a low end to work with that's as simple as you want. And of course, separating different bass hits in either time or frequency is a basic way of ensuring clarity down there.

Be brutal.

Sometimes I sit there for ages working on a particular melody or synth patch, eventually landing on something I think is good. I carry on with the track for more hours, days, or weeks, but I often get this little ****** feeling in the back of my mind that something isn't quite right with the element, or maybe even the whole track. That usually means it's crap, and it needs to be thrown out. But after working on something for a long time, it can get very hard to do that, and somehow, the time investment starts to cloud over the quality assessment. It's not easy to do, but no matter how long you've worked on something, you have to be prepared to throw it away and start fresh. I find that when something is really right, it keeps feeling really right, and you have to fight for that if you want to keep the quality up.

A big part of the problem is that after listening to the same loop for 50 hours or something, you sort of go a bit mad, and having any type of good objective judgement goes out the window. That's why I have to rely on these little subconscious thoughts giving me an inkling that something isn't quite right, as all of my conscious thoughts are long gone into the infinite, loop-induced stupidity. Leaving a track for a few days and coming back to it usually helps a lot, but of course, sometimes you have to get something done sooner than that.

I know that some people take a view that if something isn't feeling totally right and flowing and all coming together seemingly without effort (usually the signs of a good piece of music), then they just bin it. But personally, I find that good pieces can come from a hard grind as well, leading to my next point.

Persevere like an infinite monkey.

If you have a strong opinion on what music you do and don't like (and most people do), then you can ignore all the points above, because perseverance is the only other thing you need to make good tracks. All you need to do is sit at your computer, randomly changing things in your DAW until the hit tune comes about by chance. It might take a few decades, but in practice, after the first few weeks and months, you start to learn how to make shortcuts. The important point is, getting to any decent standard of writing/producing music takes fucking ages, and you have to put in the time—unless you've got a load of spare cash to pay ghostwriters and engineers, but where's the fun in that?

http://www.xlr8r.com/gear/2014/03/artis ... max-cooper

[nowaysj]

Must have been posted.

[wub]

Must have been posted.

I prefer his live Boiler Room to his DJ set;

[+] Spoiler

[wub]

[+]

[nowaysj]

Starting at 17:48. YES. Totally see that in myself. That is why I've had favorable results with benzos and producing. Can handle that anxiety of unresolved issues. Allows me to keep playing/trying to find something that is right. Totally totally totally.

[hubb]

all other men should have to ask him wether they have a moustache imo

[nowaysj]

Really didn't like 4T's live boiler room... made me so sad.

[wub]

[+] Spoiler

Electronic Beats' acclaimed Slices video series recently made the switch to a weekly online format—episodes were previously delivered to subscribers on DVD—and the latest installment features a roundtable discussion between electronic heavyweights Moderat and Jon Hopkins. Apparently, the German trio (a collaboration between Modeselektor and Apparat) recently invited UK producer Hopkins to open up for the group in its hometown of Berlin, and Electronic Beats managed to sit down with the four producers for an extended chat before the show. The 10-minute video includes live footage of both Hopkins' and Moderat's performances, and also finds the artists discussing a variety of topics. During the course of the conversation, they touch upon exactly what they like about each other's music, the importance of visuals in a live set, and how their production and performance methodologies differ.

[wub]

[+]

[+]

[+]

Noise music - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_music
How To Be A Noise Artist, Part I: Playing Noise - http://www.khznoise.com/karlheinz/conte ... ying-noise
How to make noise music? - http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=273118
Noise! Understanding the Mysterious Cacophony - http://slushpilemag.com/?page_id=510
DIY Noise With Feedback Loops - http://www.regurgitron.com/diynoise.htm
Harsh noise/ noise in general - http://drownedinsound.com/community/boa ... ic/4202049
Make Modular Musical Mayhem Telegraph-Style, with Make Noise Teleplexer - http://createdigitalmusic.com/2014/01/m ... eleplexer/
Creativity Bytes: A Brief Guide To Noise Music - http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog ... oise-music
How To Make Noise Music? - entertainment.blurtit.com/180563/how-to-make-noise-music


Pondering on the state of noise vs. field recordings and wondering why I can't have more than 3 cups of this coffee a day and why FL does not allow feedback loops.