EKT Share Your Secrets

  On 8/6/2010 at 4:44 AM, ryanmcallister said:

also, this:

 

**FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL**

 

made this about a little while back. haven't gotten around to posting the patch as my site is a WIP but if anybody wants it let me know.

 

it may not be relevant to a lot of you as it's specifically ableton and max4live, but the concept could be explored further using other tools. maybe show me variations in more vids/audio clips?

ahhh i guess watmm's vimeo embed doesn't work?

here's the link if interested:

Random Midi Note On CC Generator

ryan, it works! I experimented with this in lots of different ways with different plugins and different combinations of recording but never tried global record vs track record. I was convinced ableton users just do it differently. this is fucking great. thanks for the personalized reply... also the video is fine. actually you're pretty effective at communicating without text or voice, just mouse. haha. make us some more videos.

R-NOCC is a sweet modulator.. I don't have max4live but I would give it a shot if I did. i'm checking out RMsounds now.

  On 8/6/2010 at 5:26 AM, iamabe said:

ryan, it works! I experimented with this in lots of different ways with different plugins and different combinations of recording but never tried global record vs track record. I was convinced ableton users just do it differently. this is fucking great. thanks for the personalized reply... also the video is fine. actually you're pretty effective at communicating without text or voice, just mouse. haha. make us some more videos.

 

R-NOCC is a sweet modulator.. I don't have max4live but I would give it a shot if I did. i'm checking out RMsounds now.

it's sooooooo incomplete right now...i shouldn't even have it up. unless you're talking about the old blog in my sig, that's just...old i guess.

also sorry i should have checked the vid before upload, sync is way off...rush job.

bump?

aww, ive been off watmm for a while, sad this thread has died.

  On 8/5/2010 at 3:38 AM, Lube Saibot said:

But my greatest secret to making what i make is being me.

This is a good thought, and one more people should spend a moment with.

I thought about writing a technical tip, but that doesn't really seem honest, considering how I tend to work. So I'll try to describe the fun part of my process instead.

Something that has helped me a lot is using other parts of my imagination to supplement the musical side. I'm really uneducated, or 'self taught,' so what really drives my music are the visual interpretations I make of what I hear while composing. I've started thinking of songs I make as something like a room in my mind, a place to lay inside, watch, and feel. I picture standing liquid masses shifting with color, embossed with patterns and textures, all around me. The music provides it a loose script. I design patches to make this room reach out at me, wiggle and blur. Static noise appears as fabrics(when overlayed with tones) or gusts of lint and dust(when isolated). Reverb turns sounds to blurry auroras or luminescent fog, and so on. Recordings I make of voices serve as guests to keep me company or inject some familiarity for a moment. All this imagery guides me through a song, from the patch level, to post-production level, and suggests a story of moods, intensity, density, space, and even more conventional scenes project themselves on the surfaces of other sounds (field recordings do this for me). I'll never visualize quite the same scenes and sensations, so as I get deeper into the song, it begins to suggest new things, new directions, until I've got a feedback loop going for a few weeks or months.

It's difficult to word all of this in a satisfying way, because it's a bit more inspiring for me than I could possibly put into words. I hope there's something useful in there.

Carry something you can record sound with at all times.

  On 8/24/2010 at 11:07 AM, Adjective said:

  On 8/5/2010 at 3:38 AM, Lube Saibot said:

But my greatest secret to making what i make is being me.

This is a good thought, and one more people should spend a moment with.

 

I thought about writing a technical tip, but that doesn't really seem honest, considering how I tend to work. So I'll try to describe the fun part of my process instead.

 

Something that has helped me a lot is using other parts of my imagination to supplement the musical side. I'm really uneducated, or 'self taught,' so what really drives my music are the visual interpretations I make of what I hear while composing. I've started thinking of songs I make as something like a room in my mind, a place to lay inside, watch, and feel. I picture standing liquid masses shifting with color, embossed with patterns and textures, all around me. The music provides it a loose script. I design patches to make this room reach out at me, wiggle and blur. Static noise appears as fabrics(when overlayed with tones) or gusts of lint and dust(when isolated). Reverb turns sounds to blurry auroras or luminescent fog, and so on. Recordings I make of voices serve as guests to keep me company or inject some familiarity for a moment. All this imagery guides me through a song, from the patch level, to post-production level, and suggests a story of moods, intensity, density, space, and even more conventional scenes project themselves on the surfaces of other sounds (field recordings do this for me). I'll never visualize quite the same scenes and sensations, so as I get deeper into the song, it begins to suggest new things, new directions, until I've got a feedback loop going for a few weeks or months.

 

It's difficult to word all of this in a satisfying way, because it's a bit more inspiring for me than I could possibly put into words. I hope there's something useful in there.

Neato. I usually think of my songs as stories or characters.

  On 8/24/2010 at 11:07 AM, Adjective said:

Something that has helped me a lot is using other parts of my imagination to supplement the musical side. I'm really uneducated, or 'self taught,' so what really drives my music are the visual interpretations I make of what I hear while composing. I've started thinking of songs I make as something like a room in my mind, a place to lay inside, watch, and feel. I picture standing liquid masses shifting with color, embossed with patterns and textures, all around me. The music provides it a loose script. I design patches to make this room reach out at me, wiggle and blur. Static noise appears as fabrics(when overlayed with tones) or gusts of lint and dust(when isolated). Reverb turns sounds to blurry auroras or luminescent fog, and so on. Recordings I make of voices serve as guests to keep me company or inject some familiarity for a moment. All this imagery guides me through a song, from the patch level, to post-production level, and suggests a story of moods, intensity, density, space, and even more conventional scenes project themselves on the surfaces of other sounds (field recordings do this for me). I'll never visualize quite the same scenes and sensations, so as I get deeper into the song, it begins to suggest new things, new directions, until I've got a feedback loop going for a few weeks or months.

 

It's difficult to word all of this in a satisfying way, because it's a bit more inspiring for me than I could possibly put into words. I hope there's something useful in there.

that is more into that mode than i have gotten... i certainly get a sense of space and scale, especially from time-delay fx and ambientish noise. tracks about platforms moving through lit tunnels. i am usually more of "write a story as a song" type... if i am planning it out at all. as often as not i just muck around until something starts to happen, then cut away the rest.

here is an interesting one: music as a dance routine -- the track describes a series of body motions. the first 2-3 minutes of the track "volcan veins" by chris clark give me this with fucking intensity. i've been trying for ages to get the dance right, but i look like a dweeb. there is also a track by varia, body circuit -- makes you do a robot dance as vocoders are all OPERATE MY BODY

How To Make Your Music Sound Vintage in Ableton

[youtubehd]

9jcFQs2ZhCo

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ooh, that delay trick near the end is wicked! Nice one man. you have a good voice fer vids too.

Don't get me wrong: I don't eschew software in lieu of hardware. In fact, I've recently fallen in love with the drum kits in Ableton Live

  On 8/24/2010 at 8:15 PM, hahathhat said:

  On 8/24/2010 at 11:07 AM, Adjective said:

Something that has helped me a lot is using other parts of my imagination to supplement the musical side. I'm really uneducated, or 'self taught,' so what really drives my music are the visual interpretations I make of what I hear while composing. I've started thinking of songs I make as something like a room in my mind, a place to lay inside, watch, and feel. I picture standing liquid masses shifting with color, embossed with patterns and textures, all around me. The music provides it a loose script. I design patches to make this room reach out at me, wiggle and blur. Static noise appears as fabrics(when overlayed with tones) or gusts of lint and dust(when isolated). Reverb turns sounds to blurry auroras or luminescent fog, and so on. Recordings I make of voices serve as guests to keep me company or inject some familiarity for a moment. All this imagery guides me through a song, from the patch level, to post-production level, and suggests a story of moods, intensity, density, space, and even more conventional scenes project themselves on the surfaces of other sounds (field recordings do this for me). I'll never visualize quite the same scenes and sensations, so as I get deeper into the song, it begins to suggest new things, new directions, until I've got a feedback loop going for a few weeks or months.

 

It's difficult to word all of this in a satisfying way, because it's a bit more inspiring for me than I could possibly put into words. I hope there's something useful in there.

 

that is more into that mode than i have gotten... i certainly get a sense of space and scale, especially from time-delay fx and ambientish noise. tracks about platforms moving through lit tunnels. i am usually more of "write a story as a song" type... if i am planning it out at all. as often as not i just muck around until something starts to happen, then cut away the rest.

 

here is an interesting one: music as a dance routine -- the track describes a series of body motions. the first 2-3 minutes of the track "volcan veins" by chris clark give me this with fucking intensity. i've been trying for ages to get the dance right, but i look like a dweeb. there is also a track by varia, body circuit -- makes you do a robot dance as vocoders are all OPERATE MY BODY

i also tend to write way more than i keep, for every minute of song there was probably 5-10 minutes it was condensed from or cut away from.

i've had a similar thought about music as a dance routine. usually picturing a vague body with sections of the body tethered to certain elements of percussion, for example:

kick->pelvis (back/forth, side to side movements)

bassline->thighs - chest(rotation, twisting movements)

shaker->wrists (twists)

etc

i have too much trouble trying to see all those elements in concert when using that sort of imagery, so it's usually a 'one at a time' kind of thing. it would probably look very spastic anyway. might be cool to see an animation where a human figure accepts input at different nodes on its body. i'd love to see what aesthetically pleasing yet humanly improbable dances people could come up with.

well, with volcan veins, i don't really have to concentrate much. it isn't 1:1, one noise doesn't tell the arm what to do or anything. it's more a gestalt -- just something that comes together when i hear the whole track. it follows the vocal very closely, but i think it is more about the timing/tension than the vocal!

  On 8/30/2010 at 7:48 PM, ryanmcallister said:

How To Make Your Music Sound Vintage in Ableton

[youtubehd]

9jcFQs2ZhCo

[/youtubehd]

Very nice. You rock Ryan :) You should use that at the end of an epic song with a nice mono pad mixed in. Very dreamy.

  On 8/30/2010 at 8:15 PM, sneaksta303 said:

ooh, that delay trick near the end is wicked! Nice one man. you have a good voice fer vids too.

haha actually that delay trick was originally the only thing i wanted to show in the video, but naturally i blabbed on and on about everything else. thanks for the props though dude, brandi as well.

I also agree your voice is good for voice overs.

Anyway, a few things I'd like to add to making vintage sounds while we're on that.

- Mono of course, is the best way, and I whole heartily agree with ryan that it can be very powerful. I think he demonstrated it very well, especially with the spectral visual. V. nice.

- And of course the band limited EQ, but it isn't always that crucial.

- Vinyl noise and crackle can be very useful, but like ryan noted, just a tiny amount. I used to use it often, but have fallen out of favor with it as I found a lot of stuff in the hi and mid hi range that were just noisy artifacts, that always distracted me in songs I used it with. I'm sure this can be avoided with eq and careful tweaking and listening while applying the effect, but it just doesn't appease my taste buds these days. Again though, it's certainly still very useful, and I encourage anyone who's never tried it to do so.

1. Using guitar rig (or any other cabniet simulator) you can get some fantastically vintage sounds by tweaking around with all the parameters of mic's and cabinets. Quite often, the right combo will do the eq'ing for you. I usually end up blending the original dry drum loop, or synth, a tiny bit with the "wet" cab sound, as it makes it a little fuller, but it ebbs and flows.

2. Taking it a step further something I do when I feel bored with the "sounds" in a song is send a single track out, some times a drum break, other times a synth line. And I'll send it through my guitar amp. Turn it up just loud enough to get the "room" sound as you desire. Toy around with different mic's, I like using my condenser mic, about 3-5 ft away. Sometimes in the other room or kitchen if I'm going for that far away sound. But a Shure sm 58 or better yet sm 57 will do great just as well, if not a little more vintage than the "clean" condenser sound. Although once the sound is dirty enough, I quite like the clean recording source.

3. Certainly the latter has been used for decades in recordings, and isn't really an unknown thing by far, but it's something that I had read about for ages and never tried until recently, fearing the sounds would just be too mid rangy. But it's a great mid range that a lot can be done with. However cutting the mid and boosting the hi and low on my fender amp (may not work well with marshalls or mesa's, though my amp is 75 watts) sounds great. The amp is powerful but fender is renowned for having that crisp solid state clean channel that I absolutely love (so does my strat). The added benefit of my tube driven OD channel and spring reverb makes for some really great options. I bought the amp for 100 dollars used and it's become far more useful than a lot of fx plugs. Izotope trash used to be a fav of mine, but now using this method, with a good compressor, and some audio damage stuff works out a lot better.

- One thing to note though when doing this with drum loops is if you are relying on the bass drum from that loop to be your main bass drum for the song, it may be better to cut a chunk of the low end and use something else. Although I have had it work out favorably a few times, but it's never quite that low nicely lying bass drum a simple 808 or 909 can give you.

/wordy

I think the best way to make your stuff sound vintage is to buy vintage equipment, just buy the cheap stuff at a thrift store, doesn't have to be all the super rare and wanted gear. For example a cassette deck can be had for about 10-15 euros, get some cassettes, they are about 1 euro a piece, and you've already got yourself another FX unit basically. Nice distortion, you can make tape loops (and even tape delay I think) with cassettes if you want to (there are a few webpages on this), haven't tried it myself yet.

Or get a cheap reel-to-reel and some tapes, again, doesn't have to be expensive if you're mainly using it for FX / roughening things up imo.

Yeah, spring reverbs add a lot of vintage feel as well, they can be cheap as fuck.

Really lots of great advice in here so far btw

great video ryan, maybe in your next video you could duck the audio behind your voice when you talk? It was hard to hear you during some parts. It's cool to see you doing real time tweaking of delay time. That's an effect I toy with a lot when I am in the patch phase but I forget to ever record it

I went on your blog and checked out a post about "Save Your Sounds!" That's a really useful tip. I'm going to start exporting old ideas and see if i can assemble a track..

Brandi_B, nice ideas for processing stuff through amps or guitar rig.