ILM music making thread for techno and other Ableton/Reason/Reaktor/whatever based questions and chat

SIO offers a relatively simple way of accessing multiple audio inputs and outputs independently. It also provides for the synchronization of input with output in a way that is not possible with DirectSound, allowing recording studios to process their audio via software on the computer instead of using thousands of dollars worth of separate equipment. Its main strength lies in its method of bypassing the inherently high latency of operating system audio mixing kernels (KMixer), allowing direct, high speed communication with audio hardware.

(Though be aware that they're making more and more DJ mixers that have direct Firewire links for your computer, so you might even be able to find something affordable and just sell off the old mixer to get it.)

I suppose you could say in that case that I use compression as a "special effect" but when you're saying "get a new bass drum if you need to compress your current bass drum" to me that's just two completely different ways to skin a cat, both perfectly valid.

I can't imagine how many tracks I have that sound absolutely dire compared to modern production that still sound just fine on a house sound system. You can mix most things just fine without a lot of heavy effort in the final mastering and polishing process and they come out okay as long as you don't have OCD.

listening with my hands is easier than walking out of the room with the loop playing to see how much boom vs punch is coming through

I mean I still eventually do the latter but work smarter not harder right

yeh, but with a lot of modern music volume and impact of sound are important, i was just trying to say that jumping for the compressor isn't necessarily the best first step. now that mixing is such an integral part of the writing process the old 'fix it in the mix' idea needs even more careful attention.

yeh re: house systems, and big pa systems in general. when mixing at home i struggle with blending old and new music, dong the same mixes out, it all sounds alright.

sometimes I wonder if the biggest problem with pro monitors, esp. the bi-amped super-fine-tuned models most people use now, is that they inspire tinkering and twiddling beyond what's necessary because they're TOO flat and accurate.

i never got that walking out of the room thing, works for getting levels between stuff okay, but surely you're just hearing the characteristics of your room? like yr room will be acting as a big sub?

i don't really worry too much about kick / bass stuff really, sometimes there are disasters but you can filter and listen or spectrum analyser and watch to see whats going on down there. i just want all my kicks to sound more crackly and warm. nice trick i learnt recently was to stick an envelope follower on the kick and have a pitched down turntable rumble follow the envelope of the kick. filter the turntable sound it till you get the nice bits.

recently set up a pa system with a kick stage, subs designed to cater for the kick drum which was really interesting. managed to get a nice balance between the bwoooommyyy sub freqs and the rattle yer bones kick drum.

(every post is a xpost)

yeh, i guess if yr a sound geek you'd want to tinker forever. like ooh, i'll just modulate this little 10Hz band on the hi hats to give them more life.

whereas if you were listening on an old hi fi, you'd be all like lets run this shit through another distortion pedal.

ever since i bought my studio monitors my sound has gone more villalobos and less loosefingers or whatever.

i never got that walking out of the room thing, works for getting levels between stuff okay, but surely you're just hearing the characteristics of your room?

A really deep familiarity with how other people's music sounds when you leave the room tends to work as your control group / triangulating point with this

I figure carl didn't exactly run the secret tapes of dr eich through any THX-compliant rig, if you get my meaning

So I've gone on a bit of a gear spree over the last couple years, and I can say with certainty the piece of gear that I like the least and that I'm now considering selling is the Ableton Push 2. When I started getting back into Ableton, I found it all very awkward clicking around on the screen and I thought I'd be well served by getting away from that with the Push. A couple years later and I'm still clicking around and barely touch the Push. Pretty much the only thing I use it for is banging out little synth melodies, and I could do that just as easily on a cheapo midi keyboard. It's a beautiful piece of gear but has always felt very unintuitive, and the more proficient I get in Ableton, the less purpose it serves.

Uh oh, now there's a Push 3, including a standalone version with its own processor, RAM, storage, and battery that you can get for a cool $2K. The non standalone is about half as much and looks nice with pitch bend and expression built into all of the pads and a few other neat add ons. I'm not rushing out to get this but it does seem like a solid upgrade, so maybe someday.

Oh hell yes, been waiting for this since Live 4.

waiting for what? ableton in a box?

Ableton 12 is coming, looks pretty nice. They are finally putting big faders in the arrangement view and making some other nice workflow improvements. Very excited!

Have you heard the Good News about our Lord and Savior, Bespoke Synth? It's not just a synth, it's a whole-ass modular DAWstrument and it is all I want to play with anymore

https://www.bespokesynth.com/

(the fact that it's free doesn't hurt)

Interesting, will check it out :)

This looks neat, I'll have to give it a try. Reminds me a bit of a free version of the grid in Bitwig.

So is Meld the Ableton answer to Mutable Instruments Plaits and the Arturia Microfreak?

Just reading about it, it sounds a lot like Pigments?

The thing that reminds me of plaits is that you have a list of synth engines to choose from and then each one has 2 macro knobs. The knobs control tone in different ways based in the engine you select. Then there's a big modulation matrix, though not a huge amount of individual modulators, not unlike the microfreak (which is based off the plaits architecture).

They call it a macro oscillator synth, that was Mutable’s description of Braids (and probably Plaits) IIRC.

Holy crap! That bespokesynth looks amazing, thanks for the tip zchyrs...
Reminds me a bit of the old Jeskola Buzz... still might be the most fun I've had making music on a computer...
Looking forward to diving in...

I adored Buzz. Wrote so many crazy tunes with it been 99 and 2004

Gonna have to check out that bespokesynth now too

Although I was happy with the quality of tracks I made this year, I was less happy with my low output overall. Lately I've been falling into the trap of laying down some cool sounding parts and then trying to mix as I go, before I have a proper arrangement. Inevitably, I dump a bunch of plugins on everything and my computer then grinds to a halt. I'll have a half-finished track, but everything runs so poorly that I get frustrated and move on to the next one.

Anyway, as I have some time off and I'll have the house to myself for a couple weeks, I've decided to challenge myself to doing a track per day. I'm splitting the days into 2 sessions. First, I work on building the base parts on the Digitakt II. My goal is to fill all 16 tracks of a pattern. I really love working with the Digitakt, it feels like endless possibilities at by fingertips and is so quick and so easy to fine-tune everything.

In the 2nd session, I record all the Digitakt parts into Ableton and shape them into a full arrangement, also adding any extra parts from other instruments if needed. Any mixing and polishing I'm going to leave until I have enough arrangements ready, then I'll mix them all together, maybe in a week or so. Forcing myself to do the arrangement first is very important because it's the part I struggle with the most. I can always add or swap out sounds or move things around later, but as long as I have a fairly fleshed out track, I'm ok, as that's the place I keep getting stuck.

I've already finished 2 arrangements and have a 3rd ready to work on tonight. Forcing myself to shift to this workflow has made the whole process much easier for me even though it forces me to focus on the less fun parts first.

Also, for anyone interested, here's a couple tracks I made earlier this year.

Back To Back

Secrets In The Dark

focus on the less fun parts first.

I absolutely hate hate hate writing lyrics so today I'm forcing myself to write lyrics first. It's a real 'eat your sprouts' approach but the alternative is that I procrastinate by doing everything else first and then can't finish anything because I still haven't written the lyrics.

Do you have the melody first?

I don't have a problem structuring tracks, but I am trying to find the balance between "mix as you go" vs getting out of creative idea mode because I've gotten bogged down in mixing or sound design. Honestly it kinda helps me to go back and forth, because it's more inspiring to keep working on the track once the sounds are great.

I totally agree with it being more inspiring to work on a track when it sound great, unfortunately my computer does not also agree

I've been loving life ever since getting a new music-only (desktop) computer two years ago, highly recommended

Am I the only dork who still uses Reason Compact on my phone? I love it to death but I am worried about it having been unsupported for a number of years and bugs becoming more of an issue as iOS versions and hardware continue to evolve.

Do you have the melody first?

Usually I have bits of the melody but I try and avoid having the entire backing track done before writing the words. I've only once been able to complete the lyrics to a song where the rest of it's already been done.