Beat-matching is soo 1999 (or Fun with Ableton pt. 2)

Don’t get me wrong, I started off with vinyl and I still love it, but I just sold my turntables in favour of a DJ controller to use in conjunction with Ableton Live!

Not spending half of my time focusing on beat-matching opens up a lot of mixing possibilities. For example, if I wanted to mix a dozen tracks at once, I could. I don’t want to, but I could. More realistically, I can mix in bits and pieces of tracks that I may not want to play in their entirety, while doing a conventional two-deck mix and applying a healthy dose of filters and FX to create some additional movement, suspense, etc.

Another advantage is that I can audition a track, in sync, in a split second. If it works I can start bringing it up in the mix right away. Looping a track is just as easy and it’s always in sync with the master tempo.

On a side note, something I’ve become completely addicted to is harmonic mixing. I used to do this instinctively with vinyl but it took tenfold the effort to find records that mixed in key, since adjusting the speed of the record also adjusted the pitch. Using Live to do harmonic mixes is a dream. Not only can I key-lock tracks I can also transpose them on the fly with high quality algorithms.

The main downside I’ve found to letting the computer beat-match is that it doesn’t always get it right. Messing around with warp makers is definitely not as gratifying as nudging a piece of vinyl or adjusting a pitch slider, but when it’s done, it’s done for good – I don’t have to do it every single time I play a gig, over and over 😉

My keyboard has cancer

So I took my Novation X-Station with me to Ottawa for a gig last month. I traveled by plane, which is always a risk for gear, but I had it in a crush-proof, air-tight and well-padded Pelican case which I bought specifically for flying with. Nevertheless, upon returning I noticed that a few of my keys weren’t working.

With three shows on the very immediate horizon I was freaking out a bit. The X-Station is a key part of everything I do: I use it as both an audio interface and controller when using software live. I also use the synthesis engine a lot for live hands-on tweaky goodness.

Luckily, it was just a few keys in the higher registers that were broken, everything else was fine (audio interface, knobs, etc.). I can easily compensate for this, I thought to myself. WRONG! The first show went fine, but at the second show, on stage, as I went to play a note in a synth riff… silence! Ack! More keys ceasing to work on a daily basis. I dub this disease keyboard cancer!

The third show is this Thursday – it’s a live Ableton thing. I had all sorts of keys pre-mapped to trigger clips, but I’ve since had to re-map them to compensate for the broken keys. Now I need to borrow an Oxygen8 from a friend just in case the cancer keeps spreading!

On the bright side, I’ve rented a Roland Juno G to play around with while I get the X-Station fixed. I may do up a little review at some point.

Side note: I hope to God Porter airline’s insurance policy will cover this! You’re supposed to make any claims within a few hours of landing, but under the circumstances that wasn’t exactly possible!

Update March 29th:

We apologize if you discovered that your keyboard sustained some damage to the internal circuitry.

Unfortunately, as per our baggage liability clause, which can be found at www.flyporter.com, Porter Airlines Inc. assumes no liability for items such as, but not limited to, money, jewelry, silverware, negotiable papers, securities or other valuables, business documents, samples, keys, liquids, food and other perishables, computers, prescription drugs, photographic equipment, video equipment, cellular telephones, cameras, other electronic devices, artistic items, glass, musical instruments, equipment, sporting goods and any other fragile or perishable item. Therefore, we are unable to process an insurance claim.

However, we would recommend you contact your own insurance company, to determine if your insurance policy can help in replacing the keyboard.

No dice.

Micah admires my blog!

I just wanted to share this lovely comment I received from Micah about my blog:

“I absolutely admire your blog.I can see you are putting a lot of effort and hard work on your posts, I’m sure I’d visit here more often. You may also want to visit my site. It’s about impersonator, acrobatics, unicycling, mentalist and a lot more about other forms of entertainment. Just check it out… “

Oh yeah, and she was also kind enough to include various links to an Australian Entertainment directory. Thank you for your contribution, Micah!

My new love

Okay, well we haven’t met yet, but we’re being formally introduced in a few days at NAMM (okay, well I won’t be there, but I’ll be watching through the miracle of the internet)

(I’ve actually been gazing at this picture at random intervals throughout the day. That’s not healthy, is it?)

With that out of the way, I present you with the reasons why I’m so excited about the Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Boy:

  • analog delay
  • tap tempo
  • modulation
  • expression pedal input
  • tempo subdivisions
  • modulation shapes
  • true by-pass (assuming I actually turn it off at some point)
  • effects loop
  • apparently, a price point of less than $200 USD

The only reason I’m running a digital delay right now is because I didn’t feel like dropping $600 on the Memory Lane 2. Truth be told, I went with the digital Memory Man is because it has tap tempo and can do a fairly convincing modulated analog delay (minus the spaceship take-off). Unfortunately, I think it’s just a couple weeks away from retirement.

More to come…

P.S. I still love you too Angie, even if you’re not an analog delay pedal.

Exporting seamless loops from FL Studio

FL Studio is half-decent at exporting seamless loops when you’ve got the render mode set to “Wrap”. I say half-decent because while it will account for delay or reverb tails, it seems to have trouble with the release phase of instruments (audio)

Here’s a pretty straight-forward technique I’ve come up with to get around this. (In my case I’m using an older version of Sound Forge but any decent audio editor should do)

Step 1. Export what you want to loop, plus a tail of the same length (audio):


Step 2. Load the file in your editor

Step 3. Select the second half of the wave. In Sound Forge I do this like so:

A. Double-click the loop point that FL added to the wave:


B. Set the “Input format” to “Measures & Beats”:


C. Change the selection from 16 to 8 and click OK:


D. Double-click the second half of the wave


Step 4. Cut the selection

Step 5. Paste the clipboard at the start of the wave in “mix” mode:


Et voila!

Fun with Ableton

So I’ve spent the past few days setting up a live set using Ableton and my Novation X-Station. So far it consists of 7 audio channels, most of which have a dedicated effect, with a bunch of stuff pre-mapped to the X-Station.

Here’s the channel breakdown as it stands now:

  • 1: Beat repeat, EQ3 & auto filter
  • 2: Dry
  • 3: Saturator
  • 4: Phaser
  • 5: Grain delay
  • 6: Dry
  • 7: Auto filter
  • Send A: filter delay, compressor
  • Master: compressor

Channels 1 & 2 are used for drums, and channel 3 for bass. Everything else is used for whatever.

I’ve mapped 7 of the sliders on my X-Station to the channel volumes, and the buttons above to the mutes. The rest of the knobs and buttons control various effects parameters. Here’s the template from the Novation X-Station editor so you can see what I mean:


Here’s a run-down by section:

OSCS-MIXER

  • SEND A: send A level (ch1)
  • REPEAT: toggles beat repeat (ch1)
  • LOW CUT: cuts the low on EQ3 (ch1)
  • S. LEVEL: saturator dry/wet (ch3)
  • S. BASE: saturator base level (ch3)
  • P. LEVEL: phaser dry/wet (ch4)
  • P. RATE: phaser rate (ch4)
  • G.D LVL: grain delay wet/dry (ch 5)

FILTERS
The filters section is mapped to the auto filters on channels 1 & 7 (toggled via the 1-2 button). Ideally I’d have a separate controller for each filter, but this should do for
now.

  • F. FREQ: filter frequency
  • FLT. RES: filter resonance
  • F.E. AMT: filter envelope amount
  • F.L. AMT: filter LFO amount (filter 1 only)
  • F. TYPE: filter type

LFOS

  • FLT. RTE: controls the filter rate for filter 1

EFFECTS

  • SEND A: feeds send A back to itself
  • F.D. FRQ: filter delay filter frequency

As you can see, I still have a few more sliders I could map to an 8th and 9th channel. I’m thinking about adding one channel for MIDI clips, and one for general effects (swooshes, etc.) that I could trigger from different keys. I was also thinking about setting up some side-chain compression, say, take the low-end from channels 1 & 2 (beats) and use it to side-chain the bass channel and possibly my “swoosh” channel.

More to come on this as it evolves 🙂