Dead Laptop…

Hey guys, got some bad news. I can’t do any updates for a fairly indefinite amount of time because my laptop’s power source just died. It was smelling kind of like burnt plastic for a while, so I should have seen it coming, but that’s the way it is. Anyway, I’m back in Vancouver, so I’ll see what I can do to get it fixed tomorrow. Hope to be back up soon.

In other news, happy new years!

Merry Christmas (And Electro)

Well, merry Christmas , bah humbug, etc. So I wasn’t in bed last night, like I was supposed to be. I was up working on this until about 1. Let me know what you think. I’m a little too tired to fully explain this right now, but I added reverb to the bassline (which makes it dramatically fuller on a high-quality version – not sure about this one, but I’m on dialup), and threw in a cowbell-type synth. I’m really, really stoked about it, but like I said, I AM tired. Maybe it doesn’t sound as good as I think. Simple enough for me, though. Here’s the patch for the synth:

Merry Christmas,

- Pat

Grimy Electro (On A Lazy Winter Wednesday)

Last Wednesday, my folks went off to the great big city to do a bunch of Christmas shopping. What with my siblings off at school (or skipping class or whatever it is they do), I decided to switch on the coffee machine and invade the kitchen for a few hours of solid music time.

Here’s what I came up with. Well, more precisely, it’s the arrangement I came up with. I put the instruments together (read, tweaked Ableton Live’s presets) over a month ago. IMHO, one of the sweetest sounds I’ve ever heard (but then, I AM an electro junkie). Make sure your speakers or headphones have some pretty good bass, because I haven’t gotten around to tweaking it for anything else yet.

The synth I used is pretty simple. Made in Ableton Live’s Operator, it’s a sine wave directly modulated by three other oscillators: a sine, saw, and square. The square is set to 6 times the frequency of final sine wave, which gives it that really present mid-range sound. The saw is at half, giving it that low, dirty sound. After that, I sent it through a side-chain compressor to create that pumping sound (I fully plan on explaining the specifics of it at some point later. For now, I’m afraid you’ll have to google it elsewhere).

The important part is the routing algorithm. By having each of the peripheral oscillators modulate the main one directly, I can dramatically change the sound of the synthesizer by adding or removing the sound from those basic oscillators, without detracting from the sounds produced by another (e.g. I can add and remove that mid-range discordant sound from the square wave, without affecting the sound of the bass a whole lot. This leaves me free to change the level of the saw wave, changing out abrasive the lowest frequencies sound).

After I first came up with this, I spent a good hour and a half with the levels on each oscillator linked to dials on the midi controller I’m using, just manually creating builds, tweaking, and enjoying the bassy goodness. The last thing I did to the synth (actually, the first thing when I finally got around to working on it again – before I did my arrangements) was to add a highpass filter. Then I spent the next five hours playing with six different envelopes, and creating the following arrangement:

For those who don’t know, envelopes are simply preprogrammed changes to controls (any controls). Time runs from left to right, on the screen shot above, and the envelopes are the levels of the various controls (my oscillators and filters). This way, I can modulate multiple properties at once, and don’t have to do it all manually, recording it (alternatively, one make envelopes record the changes you make with a midi controller).

I also filtered my kick drums and hats a couple of points in the song, to decrease emphasis (shown below – I highlighted a couple of points on the kick drum, to show where I’m using a highpass filter. The rest is all lowpass).

Anyway, that’s the basic sound I’m going for. It needs: more hype, more variety, some minimal overtones, and more length. I’ll update whenever I get more done. Right now, I’m going to go work on it a bit more. Cheers!

- Pat

New Mix: “Halucinextacy”

Last night has to be one of the best sets I’ve ever done. Period. More than anything, I’m just thrilled with the track selection. I’ve listened through it over five times now, and I still can’t think of any tracks I would replace. So my plan is to go over, do it again, tighten up the transitions and some of the timing, and use it as my “official” mix CD (not sure if I actually want to call it “Halucinextacy,” but that was what came to me). Anyway, for now, I’ve uploaded the recording of what I did yesterday. Hope you like it! Here’s the tracklist and a bunch of babble about what would work better and what I’ll do differently when I redo it:

Halucinextacy

00:00 Trentemoller – Miss You
03:49 Moguai – Ataque (Guy Gerber Remix)
08:27 Dusty Kid – Constant Rising (Mason Remix)
11:07 John Acquaviva – No Fear (Luetzenkirchen Remix)
16:34 Sono – Heading For (Monosurround Remix)
21:05 2 Faced – Rock Music (Don Diablo Remix)
23:28 Don Diablo – Wet Smoke (NYC Still Rocks Dub)
27:40 Monosurround – Cocked, Locked, Ready to Rock (Mix 1)
32:15 Terry Lynnn – Kingstonlogic (Angrier Mix)
36:54 Outwork – Elektro (Electro Mix)
41:45 Yoshimoto – Du What U Du (Trentemoller Remix)
45:03 Dualton – Papercut (Klaas & Micha Moor Remix)
47:57 BSOD – BSOD (Original Mix)
50:42 Mark Knight – Drug Music (Original Mix)
Outro John Acquaviva – Feedback (Loulou Players Remix)

Postmortem:

[Everywhere] – Use a few less filters, or at least use them with more subtlety, especially where there are vocals.

11:45 -Right around here, I should have kept Constant Rising in for a bit longer, but cut the second half of each bar a couple of times, or cut the second bar, brought back the third, etc., cutting it out with the crossfader. I think that would work better, when listening to the compositions of the tracks (Constant Rising has a lot of minimal, glitchy, present trebble. No Fear is very full and bassy, but the bassline is a very stop/start-y one, so I’m thinking using abrupt mixing techniques would work well here).
21:10 – I should have faded Rock Music in a lot more gradually and steadily.

23:00 – Should have faded into Wet Smoke a lot faster, or using more abrupt/defined techniques of some sort. As opposed to having half of each bassline, I should have cut one completely, or jumped back and forth a few times, then swapped the trebles.

25:20 – Way too early to bring in Cocked, Locked. The first “hey!” (at ~26:10) worked really well, so I’ll need to repeat that, and perhaps use it again before the transition.

27:24 – Here was the right place to bring in Cocked, Locked, but it should have been 8 bars further into the song, and come in right on the “hey!” Also, I shouldn’t have tried to bring Wet Smoke back up there.

30:00 – Here is where I should have started bringing in Kingstonlogic. Then I should have worked it in with the break in Cocked, Locked at 30:55.

32:18 – I liked the way this came in, but I should have extended the intro on Kingstonlogic, before the vocals, for another 8 bars. Seriously screwed up this transition. And I really do thing that Cocked, Locked played for way too long.

35:00 – I should have kept the pitchbend down for one bar, then pitchbent the whole thing up for one bar.

36:25 – I should have set a loop in Elektro, and let Kingstonlogic’s vocals play over, ending at the same time as Elektro’s build. The swapping in the highlights from Kingstonlogic into Elektro worked well though, and I’m happy with it.

40:00 – This whole transition sounds awkward, but it was way, WAY too early to bring in Du What U Du. I shouldn’t have started with that track’s intro. I should have gone straight to the first peak, looped it, and used that to mix it in, probably with some pretty abrupt techniques, or highpass filtered Elektro out, and emphasized the crescendo. And if I wanted to use the Elektro vocals during the breakdown for Du What U Du, I should have used the acappella (which would probably sound really good. I’ll have to see about that).

44:25 – Sounds a bit messy. I probably need to bring in Papercut with some more ‘chunky’ techniques. On the whole, not too bad though, especially considering that I don’t particularly like Klaas’s stuff at all. Worked great for the set though, especially the breakdown .

48:00 – I love the way I brought BSOD in here! The filter was my brother wandering by and saying “hey, what does this dial do?”

50:30 – Also really happy with the way I brought in Drug Music. I might want to filter it a bit, because the treble from BSOD works SO well with that bassline! Also, letting the bassline just play there before the vocals kicked in, worked great. If I were to do anything to it, I’d play with the filter during the vocals (around 52:00), at a really low amount.

53:00 – I’m so, so, SO happy with this track selection! In bringing in Feedback I should have just brought in the screamy bits, and held off on the glitchy, poppy stuff that track has going on for a bit. When that first long scream kicks in, I should have started filtering Drug Music, then used its bassline again when the bass hit, and swapped between the two. Letting the vocals from Drug Music play over after worked great, too. It just needs touching up (the tracks went really out of sync at the end there, too).

Anyway, like I said, I’m really, really happy with it. I’m going to finish up the final by pitchbending down during the slowdown part of Feedback, and clean the whole thing up… then I’m going to try to get my roommate, Kirk, to help me with some artwork for it. STOKED !!!

Melodic Horror Trance

Okay, this is the first piece I started working on (working name “blahhhhhhhh” – that’s 8 H’s). I started throwing it together while some of my room mates and I were in a coffee shop down on commercial Drive, about mid-November. So far, I have the first verse, and part of the first breakdown. My reason for not going any further is I know it’s missing something crucial, and I don’t want it to be just another trance track, where the beginning and end sound basically the same. You can hear what I’ve got so far here.

The percussion is all straight out of Ableton Live 6’s presets for Impulse (the ‘Techsas’ patch, under ‘Electronic’). The line for the first synth that comes on is some other trance track, but I can’t remember which one. The second synth line (the keys) is mine, as far as I know.

First off, a deeper look into the percussion. The drumkit is the “Techsas” patch for Impulse, which comes with Ableton Live 6 (not sure if it does in all versions). That long, drawn-out bass noise is, aptly, called “bass.” As far as I can remember, the only thing I did to it was gave the reverb on it a lower cut on it’s filter, and that just cut out a bit of the high-end noise. I don’t think, at this stage, that it makes any huge difference to the sound of the track. I just prefer it a bit cleaner.

I actually made two other copies of the drumkit so that I could have my hi-hats and shakers separate. Pretty stupid move, really (eats up more processing power, etc. My computer’s not brilliant to begin with), but that’s alright. This way I can get a better look at what’s going on. I find it truly sad that so many house and trance producers fail to make more interesting use of their percussion. Here we are, with the most basic element for creating rhythm, and it just goes “thud-ksh-thud-ksh-thud-ksh-thud-ksh” over and over again. But then, I don’t have the faintest idea of how time signatures work, so I guess I shouldn’t be one to judge .

Anyway, I’ve split the bassline into two parts. A 4/4 line and a more broken-up one. The great thing about having that bass noise separate is that you can take the occasional note out to break up the pattern without removing the kick drum, which is what keeps it moving. Having two patterns like this, I use the broken bassline to break up intervals where the synths are doing a second repetition, and things are getting a little boring; and the consistent, unbroken one to keep things moving forward, in one direction (at least, that’s the sort of emotional response I get).

The second thing I’ve used to break up the track is the shakers. I’ve used them to hilite certain beats. The shaker sound has an almost echoy quality, and if you leave the Techsas patch the way it is, it’s got that little “Random” controller set to almost 100%, which makes it sound fairly different each time you trigger it. This detracts from their “presence,” lets them draw attention without being overbearing, and gives the track a bit more depth. This also leaves the hi-hats, which are a pretty blunt sound, with just enough decay, to give the track the high-end drive it needs.

I’ve also got a few other percussion elements later on in the verse, but those honestly sound pretty bad to me, so I’ll pass on an explenation of them. I added those based on input from my room mate, Joe, who figured it needed a bit more depth (and with who I wholeheartedly agree). I’ll be replacing those with some more carefully constructed sounds, later.

Onto the synths. That first line, like I said, is shamelessly ripped from some other trance track I heard on a mix CD or at a live set some time. I have absolutely no idea what the track was called, but I liked it. It was a lot darker, and more mellow than most trance I hear (I need to find more of that stuff). If you find it, I’d love to know.

So far, I haven’t made any real use of any synths except Operator (the one that comes with Ableton Live). It’s a little weird at first, but as far as I understand it, it’s a pretty simple Frequency Modulation synth, with a few nice features, like pitch and filter envelopes. It’s nice because it has a number of routing algorithms you can use. I can’t personally understand why you would want to chain four oscillators together like that, but that’s alright. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that the rest of Operator is all pretty standard FM, Subtractive synth stuff.<

As it is, I’m only using one oscillator anyway – the basic sine wave, with a slight attack, a low decay, and a fairly long release time, filtered with a lowpass filter (set at around 500Hz ad a 0.30 resonance – nice, mid-to-low sound, and none of that ringing noise over it). Nice, simple, and it does the job just fine (well, until I hear it on some proper monitors through a good sound card, anyway).

The key synth (the eerie, horror-esque one) is almost as simple, with the one addition of a Ping-Pong Delay. This acts just like a regular delay, except that it alternates its output from left to right. It sounds kind of trippy, and emphasizes that crystalline sort of sound.

The settings I’ve got are pretty simple: I have “Synch” selected, which makes the frequency it replays at synchronized with the track tempo. The number buttons determine what fraction of the tempo it returns at. 4 is once each beat, 1 is 4 times per beat. 16 is once every four beats. Pretty simple. I used 2. Underneith it is a box with a percentage in it. You can use that to adjust whatever frequency you selected by +/- 33.3%. My track works just fine without any weird deviations, but I’m sure there are loads of reasons you might want to use this. Feedback is how long the delay takes to fade away, and Dry/Wet is obvious. The graph is a bandpass filter.

The piano roll for the keys is pretty simple. The first bit sounds pretty cool on its own, and could most likely be used just like that, but I have a real dislike with bland, one- or two-bar synth lines that are repeated throughout the track, so I went with the extra highlight. It gives it some emphasis, and adds more progression to the track.

The pad (I suppose it’s a sort of organ-type sound) is pretty low-quality. I didn’t put much time into it, and at this point my initial inspiration had ran out (I threw out a good three hours worth of work after hanging out in Starbucks with my roommate Kirk), so I’m going to pass on the explanation for that as well.

EQing is the one other thing I did to the track. I slapped an EQ Eight onto the first two synths, and tuned the main synth to a mid-low range, and the key synth to a mid-high, shown below, in that order. It makes a world of difference.

EQ Eight is pretty easy to use. What you have is a standard EQ graph that allows you to have anywhere up to eight control points. Each of those control points lets you pick the way it treats the graph – “bulge” at the controller’s frequency (for lack of a better word), rise to the left, rise to the right, cutoff to the left, cutoff to the right. Sadly, you don’t seem to be able to use it like a notch filter, but there are plenty of ways around that, and I’m not sure just how useful it would be, anyway.

I think the best way to use this plugin when throwing together drafts is to just turn on 2 or 3 controllers, move them to the general frequencies and decibel levels you want, then add two or three more until you get the shape and sound you’re looking for. It’s really a less-is-more kind of toy. In my experience, EQ spikes don’t sound pretty, so the less extreme it is, probably the better. At any rate, you likely won’t need a whole lot of controllers to get the sound you’re looking for.

EQ Eight also has a scale parameter, which basically lets you change how extreme the EQing is (multiplies the decibel values of each controller). Nice and simple.

Looking at the track as a whole, so far, I know it’s missing something, and that drop from the verse into the breakdown with nothing but the keys sounds just plain weird. No hype, no climactic feel, and nothing that leaves you with a whole lot of anticipation.

Anyway, I realized a while back that what the track needs is some good, old-fashioned electric guitar. About six or seven paragraphs back up, I realized why, where it should go, and what I should do with it. I’m hoping to enlist my brother, Finlay, in that while I’m here at home, and my plan is to start it off as a slightly cranked-up variation on the first synth, with more notes. Probably a slightly altered arrepegio that hits the same highs and lows. But, since my brother’s really more interested in guitar than the music in general, I’m going to try to get him to see what he can think up. I’m hoping to get him to make it more and more complex as the track builds, then replace the keys as the breakdown’s main instrument.

Well, that’s about it. Let me know what you think. No promises as to how soon I’ll get anywhere with this, but I’m hoping it’ll be soon. Feedback is appreciated!

~ Patrick

P.S. I’m trying to figure out how many different kinds of stupid that song “Ghost Ride” or whatever the hell it’s called is. If we say stupid topic, stupid message about topic, stupid lyrics, stupid appeal… 4. Somehow, I don’t think that quite covers it. My God, hip hop has been abused beyond comperehension. What the hell happened to intelligent lyrics, THOUGHT provocative (not stupid provocative) subjects, interesting metaphores, poetry…? Whatever…

Hello? Is This Thing On…?

Well, first post, so here’s a basic overview of what I’ve been up to. I’ve been messing around with Ableton Live 6 for a few months, but I just started getting into using it for production a few weeks ago. I’ve got three tracks on the go right now – a trancy, almost horror-movie style track, a dirty electro bassline that sounds absolutely amazing, and a deep, progressive house track with a load of side-chain compression and some trance-y sounds. It’s mostly going great, but the big snag I’ve hit is adding enough elements to create a real crescendo.

So far it seems like finding a hook isn’t too tough (though it’ll probably get worse later on). It’s finding that fourth or fifth instrument or chord to give the track a full enough sound. Obviously it depends on the track, but regardless of how good a bassline sounds, there needs to be something more to call it music, even if it’s dance music. Currently I think I might just be too stuck on those hook concepts, so I’m assuming if I take some time away from them, I’ll get it down. Good news is that I’ve gotten good enough at using Ableton Live that I can use it as a scratch-pad to throw together my ideas without having to worry about the technicalities. I originally wanted Fruity Loops (FL Studio) for that reason, but I’m actually starting to think that Live is easily as intuitive and quick to use as FL, if not more so.

Now, right about here, I’d like to start a couple of big discussions on each of the tracks I’ve been working on, but I just went home for December, which means dial-up internet, so I’m not uploading them. It’s also starting to get late, and I’d like to take advantage of being tired and go to sleep early for once.

Outside of music, I’ve been nerding out like crazy and generally being antisocial – staying up way too late, watching Battlestar Galactica, and playing loads of Half Life 2 (despite the fact that it crashes 1/3 times it has to load anything. I think it’s got to do with some sort of memory errors relating to permission… or my RAM’s dead… or my graphics card needs a driver update). Also baking cookies. We have around 6 inches of snow outside, so I’m going to have to grab my snowboard and head out at some point too.

Anyway, when I get a chance at some high-speed access, I’ll upload my projects, and write a post on the processes I’ve been using to put them together, as well as the individual elements (what makes them sound that way, etc.).