I am hoping that the video below will explain (better than I can in words) the musical direction I am going in. Partcular attention should be given to the Electro Harmonix 2880 Super Looper this guy uses.
I should make it VERY clear that this video is not me! I stumbled on it over the weekend.
But the idea is similar to the way I am intending to work. I love using a computer to work on music, but it is only recently that I have realised that using a computer exclusively stifles me. Yes, you can get MIDI controllers to give some sense of 'hands on' control. But there is something about using a piece of hardware that... I can't explain it. It's as though with hardware you can 'touch' your music.
There are some things that a computer excels at. One would be audio editing. Being able to zoom in on the waveform of a recording and see it on a large screen... you can be so precise. And my new love, Renoise, is just so suited to working from a laptop.
So, here's the new plan. I am now working exclusively with 'field recordings' and 'found sounds' that I am recording myself. At the moment I only have a crappy old dictaphone, although to be honest that has a certain quality of it's own. Later this month I should get a portable digital recorder so I can get some clearer sounds. Then, I am editing the field recordings and sequencing/processing them with Renoise. The plan will then be to send the loops I make out of the laptop into a looping device (like that EH 2880 Super Looper in the video below) and screw about with them using some hardware effects (guitar pedals... whatever.)
The result is sure to be an unholy mess and terrible noise. But you wouldn't have it any other way, would you?
Monday, 21 April 2008
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
On the right track(er)
You shouldn't take my lack of blogging for a lack of general activity. Friends of mine have every reason to think this would be yet another blog that I would give up on after 2 posts. I am happy to prove them wrong. Even if it is by just posting this third time :-)
When I started on a new path as Six O'Clock, Crow there were a number of changes I needed to make to how I create music. This meant selling a lot of gear, including my guitars, and ridding myself of previous working practices. The past few months have seen a lot of experimenting and while I don't yet have all the hardware/software I feel I need the way ahead is getting clearer.
On the subject of 'gear' I think it's important to say that deciding on the tools you are going to use is far from a trivial matter. To produce certain music you need certain tools. So the experimenting I have been doing is far from some 'geeky' pursuit and indulgence in technology.
The set-up I am working towards is far from original. It's mainly software based and I will add some sort of hardware to enable realtime control over the programmes/plug-ins I am using. The problem is narrowing down WHICH software/hardware combination is best for me. Like I say, I am getting close. I have replaced my desktop PC with a laptop which is a massive workflow improvement. Like any reasonable person, my other half doesn't like me spending all my free time on music. But with the laptop I can be experimenting anywhere in the house and still be sociable. Kind of.
On the subject of laptops, I was very intrigued to read about the Asus 'EEE PC'. As much as laptops are great they are still a bit too much to carry around just in case I get the chance to make some music. I don't drive and have to travel light wherever I go. I already have enough to carry without a laptop and was looking at getting a PDA or similar handheld device for when inspiration strikes on the move. The Asus 'EEE PC' looks to be the ideal solution. It isn't high spec, but good enough to run some basic music making software, and at around 23cm's wide it would fit in my 'man bag' easily.
The biggest discovery I have made recently is a piece of software called Renoise. It belongs to a group of programmes known as 'trackers'. I can't believe I've never come across the tracker before because they have been around since the 80's. Indeed, I can recall as a kid owning an Amiga computer and wishing I could make music with it - if only I'd known about trackers then!
Essentially, Renoise is another way of triggering samples/software instruments and sequencing notes. It's killer feature - indeed the essence of all trackers - is that it is designed to be driven from the computer keyboard. This means that to get some ideas down you need nothing more than a computer/laptop. Most software is designed so that notes/chords can be entered with an attached controller keyboard. This is fine but means connecting up additional gear. With Renoise, I can just sit on the sofa or in bed and tap away coming up with beats and melodies.
You might think this sounds very souless, but it really does feel natural and it is a very fast way of working. Trackers do look a bit like a spreadsheet and deciphering the on screen data might seem confusing. But once you get into something like Renoise you can get sounds and sequences you'd never come up with using any other software, or indeed any other instrument.
So, once I get all the software I need, my workflow will go a little something like this:
1. Searching for sounds. This could mean sampling something from vinyl, TV, radio, films, CD's... anywhere (I've had a change of heart on limiting myself to vinyl) or creating a sound with my favourite software synth, the amazing Absynth (indeed, it's the only soft synth I think I'll end up using). One of the things I love about Absynth is you can use a sample as a sound source and mangle it, or alongside an oscillator to create a sampling/synthesis hybrid. I also want to get one of the new generation of portable digital recorders so I can make 'field' recordings.
2. Editing sounds. This is done in Sound Forge Audio Studio. It's at this stage that I'll strip out bits of audio from the vinyl or field recordings etc. These will either be short sections of individual 'tones' and percussive sounds, or longer loops of sound. I am considering whether to get Melodyne as well so I can accurately re-pitch sounds/loops that are difficult to tune by ear.
3. Renoise. What I've found is Renoise is great for getting a track started and sparking off some initial ideas. Using the sounds I've found and edited, or sounds created in Absynth, I'll start building up a track and developing half a dozen or so 'sections'.
4. Peformance / arrangement using Ableton Live. I'll export the various elements and sections from Renoise and bring them into Live. I can then experiment with re-arranging the track sections as well as coming up with new parts on the fly by using Absynth and the various tools/processors included in Live. I saw a video recently of Live creator Robert Henke using only midi sequences in the programme (i.e. no audio clips) so he could modify the soft synth sounds in realtime. I'd like to incorporate this as well because it opens up the idea of live synthesis. The biggest improvement to Renoise for me would be the ability to export the sequences as MIDI data. I could then use those sequences in Live alongside the audio exported from Renoise.
5. Mixing down the song. Taking all the parts out of Live and into Sonar because I prefer to mix in a more traditional DAW. By now all I'm doing is grouping similar sounds together and balancing the levels between them. It helps, in my head anyway, to seperate the creative stage from the more practical stage.
This kind of process seems to be working well at the moment, although I have yet to finish anything I am happy to share! In addition to the software above I am interested in Cycling 74's super complex looking Max/MSP. I would imagine using this in various ways, and at various stages of the process mentioned above.
Initially, I am thinking of employing Max/MSP to handle data from the hardware controllers I want to use with Live to give me hands-on control over the performance/arrangement stage. I really, really want a Jazz Mutant Lemur or Dexter. But because these units, and the OSC protocol they use, aren't directly supported by Live then Max/MSP would be required to interpret the data that the Lemur/Dexter sends out and to pass that data through to Live.
The Lemur/Dexter is very expensive, though. I need to think more about what I actually want to control within Live and see if this is possible using other controllers. The appealing thing about the Lemur/Dexter is being able to customise the Lemur side of things so much. The control this gives you over the computer means your controller can evolve as your use of the software does. Also, to match what I could do with a Lemur in other hardware would involve lugging lots of gear around because no other software controller does all the things a Lemur does.
When I started on a new path as Six O'Clock, Crow there were a number of changes I needed to make to how I create music. This meant selling a lot of gear, including my guitars, and ridding myself of previous working practices. The past few months have seen a lot of experimenting and while I don't yet have all the hardware/software I feel I need the way ahead is getting clearer.
On the subject of 'gear' I think it's important to say that deciding on the tools you are going to use is far from a trivial matter. To produce certain music you need certain tools. So the experimenting I have been doing is far from some 'geeky' pursuit and indulgence in technology.
The set-up I am working towards is far from original. It's mainly software based and I will add some sort of hardware to enable realtime control over the programmes/plug-ins I am using. The problem is narrowing down WHICH software/hardware combination is best for me. Like I say, I am getting close. I have replaced my desktop PC with a laptop which is a massive workflow improvement. Like any reasonable person, my other half doesn't like me spending all my free time on music. But with the laptop I can be experimenting anywhere in the house and still be sociable. Kind of.
On the subject of laptops, I was very intrigued to read about the Asus 'EEE PC'. As much as laptops are great they are still a bit too much to carry around just in case I get the chance to make some music. I don't drive and have to travel light wherever I go. I already have enough to carry without a laptop and was looking at getting a PDA or similar handheld device for when inspiration strikes on the move. The Asus 'EEE PC' looks to be the ideal solution. It isn't high spec, but good enough to run some basic music making software, and at around 23cm's wide it would fit in my 'man bag' easily.
The biggest discovery I have made recently is a piece of software called Renoise. It belongs to a group of programmes known as 'trackers'. I can't believe I've never come across the tracker before because they have been around since the 80's. Indeed, I can recall as a kid owning an Amiga computer and wishing I could make music with it - if only I'd known about trackers then!
Essentially, Renoise is another way of triggering samples/software instruments and sequencing notes. It's killer feature - indeed the essence of all trackers - is that it is designed to be driven from the computer keyboard. This means that to get some ideas down you need nothing more than a computer/laptop. Most software is designed so that notes/chords can be entered with an attached controller keyboard. This is fine but means connecting up additional gear. With Renoise, I can just sit on the sofa or in bed and tap away coming up with beats and melodies.
You might think this sounds very souless, but it really does feel natural and it is a very fast way of working. Trackers do look a bit like a spreadsheet and deciphering the on screen data might seem confusing. But once you get into something like Renoise you can get sounds and sequences you'd never come up with using any other software, or indeed any other instrument.
So, once I get all the software I need, my workflow will go a little something like this:
1. Searching for sounds. This could mean sampling something from vinyl, TV, radio, films, CD's... anywhere (I've had a change of heart on limiting myself to vinyl) or creating a sound with my favourite software synth, the amazing Absynth (indeed, it's the only soft synth I think I'll end up using). One of the things I love about Absynth is you can use a sample as a sound source and mangle it, or alongside an oscillator to create a sampling/synthesis hybrid. I also want to get one of the new generation of portable digital recorders so I can make 'field' recordings.
2. Editing sounds. This is done in Sound Forge Audio Studio. It's at this stage that I'll strip out bits of audio from the vinyl or field recordings etc. These will either be short sections of individual 'tones' and percussive sounds, or longer loops of sound. I am considering whether to get Melodyne as well so I can accurately re-pitch sounds/loops that are difficult to tune by ear.
3. Renoise. What I've found is Renoise is great for getting a track started and sparking off some initial ideas. Using the sounds I've found and edited, or sounds created in Absynth, I'll start building up a track and developing half a dozen or so 'sections'.
4. Peformance / arrangement using Ableton Live. I'll export the various elements and sections from Renoise and bring them into Live. I can then experiment with re-arranging the track sections as well as coming up with new parts on the fly by using Absynth and the various tools/processors included in Live. I saw a video recently of Live creator Robert Henke using only midi sequences in the programme (i.e. no audio clips) so he could modify the soft synth sounds in realtime. I'd like to incorporate this as well because it opens up the idea of live synthesis. The biggest improvement to Renoise for me would be the ability to export the sequences as MIDI data. I could then use those sequences in Live alongside the audio exported from Renoise.
5. Mixing down the song. Taking all the parts out of Live and into Sonar because I prefer to mix in a more traditional DAW. By now all I'm doing is grouping similar sounds together and balancing the levels between them. It helps, in my head anyway, to seperate the creative stage from the more practical stage.
This kind of process seems to be working well at the moment, although I have yet to finish anything I am happy to share! In addition to the software above I am interested in Cycling 74's super complex looking Max/MSP. I would imagine using this in various ways, and at various stages of the process mentioned above.
Initially, I am thinking of employing Max/MSP to handle data from the hardware controllers I want to use with Live to give me hands-on control over the performance/arrangement stage. I really, really want a Jazz Mutant Lemur or Dexter. But because these units, and the OSC protocol they use, aren't directly supported by Live then Max/MSP would be required to interpret the data that the Lemur/Dexter sends out and to pass that data through to Live.
The Lemur/Dexter is very expensive, though. I need to think more about what I actually want to control within Live and see if this is possible using other controllers. The appealing thing about the Lemur/Dexter is being able to customise the Lemur side of things so much. The control this gives you over the computer means your controller can evolve as your use of the software does. Also, to match what I could do with a Lemur in other hardware would involve lugging lots of gear around because no other software controller does all the things a Lemur does.
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