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.)

You might want to start off doing a few edits before you write your own material.

[b]ADSR ENVELOPES IN SIMPLE TERMS[/i]
I am putting these out of order, because they make more sense that way.

A = Attack = You trigger a note: attack is how long it takes the sound to reach full volume. A low value means it happens right when you trigger the note, like hitting a drum. A high value means it slowly builds / "fades in" to its full volume, like a synth pad.

S = Sustain = You're still holding the key and triggering the note: what volume does it STAY at? A low or zero value means the note doesn't really stay on -- like a piano or a mallet instrument. A higher value means the note continues, like we're used to with synths/organs.

D = Decay = This is the length of time between the peak "attack" volume and the "sustain" volume. A low value means the sound blips up to its peak and then backs off quickly, like the plucking of a string. A high value means the sound sits there swelling for a while.

S = Sustain = You release the key and stop triggering the sound: how long does it take to fade away? A low value means it stops immediately. A high value means it has a long, fading tail.

Has anyone got any advice for starting to program stuff myself in Ableton? So far I've just been relying on the presets and stuff with a lot of my own tweaking and dial turning.

I mean, what's the ground floor as such with programming in Ableton, do I open operator? Where to from there? I've read your guide to ADSR above Nabisco, I'm just not sure where to apply it or how to apply it really.

Also is it worth reading a book about frequencies and stuff? I don't really understand how to place sounds in different parts of the sonic field even though I know this is a major deal in making stuff sound professional. Any recommendations?

Sound on Sound is a good mag to read to find out about this stuff. The "Secrets of the Mixers" feature is good for learning about EQ, compression settings for drums and so on...

The best way to learn to programme synths and fx is just to fanny about with them. There are some good, free synth and fx VSTs linked to from this thread: VST freebies & cheapies, what do you like?

I wish I had the money for this kind of software... I'm too lazy to go to the trouble of stealing it.

I always used to make music with a dl'ed version of FruityLoops on a now defunct PC when I was a kid.

Fannying about is indeed a good way to learn, especially in the case of FX

fannying about can only get you so far IMO, you need to know what you're doing or have some sort of starting point to actually abandon presets.

i have a little book on subtractive synthesis i can send you (um, like i did the dvd oops)

but, you know this is where reaktor comes into its own

well, I am using absynth a little now.

reaktor is incredibly difficult!

Operator's interface is a pain in the butt, IMO. If you don't have Reason (I can't remember if you do or don't), and only have Operator, you probably want to start with a preset--in general, the curve on the screen determines the way the sound starts, continues, and ends. (sorry if this is basic.)

To make a sound that's hard-hitting (i.e. begins as soon as you hit the key or trigger a note--like a monosynth or a drum sound), like Nabisco said, you want to, you want to draw a curve like the picture I'm including.
http://www.sequencer.de/pix/ableton/FM-bass_tutorial8.gif In this picture, the attack is immediate (the "attack" marker is touching bottom left of the screen.) Then it peaks high, then decays slowly, and then there's a little release. If I saw this curve, I would say, ok, immediate attack, and then some sustain, and then it doesn't have a long release after I picked up my finger from the key or stopped triggering the note. So it doesn't work like a slow pad that swells up, nor will it ring out very long afterwards.

That's different than this picture:
http://www.futuremusic.com/news/images/abletonoperator.jpg
Here, I have no idea what sound it would make, but the attack is not immediate(the first marker on the left, is NOT touching the bottom left, so it may take some time after you strike the key before a sound is made.) I think I'm right, although, again, I don't like Operator's interface.

Anyhoo, tweaking is actually a good way to mess around--but nothing beats having to create a sound from scratch. So, the curve only tells you what the sound's path will be (does it swell, does it stop dead after you hit it, etc.)--depending on what oscillator you choose--that's the setting under "wave" under the curve drawing area.

Operator is weird 'cuz it has four oscillators that can be strung together in any number of ways, and so if you're not paying attention, you can be tweaking and tweaking, only to find that you're not tweaking the oscillator that generates the sound, but the one that multiplies or divides the originating source or even something else.

http://www.sequencer.de/ableton/fm_bass_operator.html is a good tutorial, but honestly, I like Reason much more for learning. It's much simpler and you can make stuff faster. Hope that wasn't too confusing!

Sorry, that should read, depending on what oscillator you choose (sin, sawtooth)that's the setting under "wav" under the curve drawing area--and how you combine them (under destination)--you can get different "sounds."

great info, jubalique!

Yup, exactly, that's the window that ADSR information is for. (And yeah, the Operator interface is a bit fiddly.) So yes, Ronan, just open up a preset and start playing some notes. Then turn those four oscillators off and on (the A/B/C/D buttons) to see which ones are doing what. Notice that each of those four oscillators brings up a different panel with a different ADSR envelope. Your best bet is just to read the Operator section of the manual to figure out what everything does, but here's some stuff to play with anyway:

1. Fuss with the envelope, per that ADSR explanation above, to sort out the shape of the sound.

2. Click the lowest box on the right -- "algorithm." Notice you can set up the four oscillators to feed into one another in a bunch of different configurations, each of which will sound very different.

3. The second box down on the right is the filter. A low-pass filter lets low freqencies through and cuts off everyone above a certain frequency; a high-pass filter does the opposite; a "notch" filter pulls out some center frequency. You can set the relevant frequency, the "resonance" (i.e., how much of the cut frequency gets through -- you'll recognize the sound this makes), and an ADSR envelope for the "shape" that filtering takes.

4. The top right box is an LFO -- an extra oscillator that can affect something else. Notice the "destination" section -- you can set the LFO to affect any of the four main oscillators OR the filter. You set the shape of it (a sine wave, a saw wave, random noise), the rate/speed, and the amount/width of the modulation.

Just toy with any of these things -- e.g., make a filter, then set up the LFO to modulate the filter. What makes this fun and easy, Ronan, is that you already listen to a lot of electronic music, so as you play with these things, you're likely to keep thinking "OH, that's what makes that sound" -- you've heard countless amounts of filter resonance and LFO sweeps in your life, so it should be somewhat transparent when you turn a knob and realize so-and-so is probably turning some similar knob in your favorite track.

One question: do you have a MIDI keyboard? It's not strictly necessary, but they're not really expensive (less than $100 for a two-octave one), and getting one with physical knobs can be a help here. If you have one, you can press the "MIDI" button in the top right to turn on mapping, click on any Operator value, and just turn a knob -- it'll assign the knob to that value. Then you can turn off the map and record yourself making the synths fluctuate in real time.

the behringer bcr2000 is your friend here

if you're starting out, i strongly reccommend you try using a program like fl studio. it's especially good for learning the basics of sequencing, automation etc.

Just a quick comment about this. I almost wouldn't recommend FL Studio at this point. It's gotten more and more complicated as features have been added over the years. I've recommended it to friends and they just walked away from it, confused and frustrated. People who have a background with the software have grown with it. To new users it probably makes less sense than an easier program like Reason.

I feel like FL Studio has made it harder for me to learn other programs, because it works in a pretty unorthodox way. It's more like a mod tracker than a Cubase/Logic/Digital Performer type of program. FL Studio made me lazy, really. The sound is inferior, but I knew it well, so it became a sketch pad. Only problem is that because it sounded like shit, and works so differently from other programs, I could never really figure out how to move my "sketches" to other software. So I used to have like 300 one-to-two minute loops sitting around instead of songs. I also hate sequencing whole songs out in FL, so I would tend to just listen to the loops over and over until I got sick of them and couldn't finish the song.

I'm no hater of FL Studio. I love it. I think it's gotten clunky with too many features, and the automation and full song tracking functions leave much to be desired.

Thanks Maccallan--just to add to that, FL Studios is def not the place to start, even though I love it dearly. It generates very different music, for me, than using Logic or Reason or Ableton or Reaktor. And I think it's safe to say that sexy software (i.e. Max and/or Reaktor) aren't always the easiest or the best software to make music with.

Ha, I'm not sure why my explanation keeps saying "and now, RONAN, you will see" like some kind of crazy old lady, RONAN.

heh, it's ok Mrs Nabisco, just can I have some chocolate if I make a track?

Great advice again above, from N and Jubalique also, thanks.

I have a decent Midi Keyboard yeah, I bought it about a year and a half ago and didn't use it until the last 2 months or so, am really glad I have it now.

This is great, I'll take a look at Operator now after printing out the above advice.

One last thing, when I asked about frequencies I meant more, is there a good book or webpage that will explain to me how to lay tracks out. I know with previous tracks people have said "this is good but all bunched together" or "try panning that sound" and stuff. I mean, on my latest thing I'm working on I've been basically panning everything except the kick, working on the assumption that if I don't pan them all in the exact same way or the same amount, everything will be in a different "place".

But I know that I don't fundamentally understand sound here, I mean you have bass, treble, mid, and panning left to right, but how or whether there is a relationship between any of these is a mystery to me (but something I feel is pretty important to know)

So any good resource or would a book on this just be insanely complex? Sorry for so many questions but I am not working full-time at the moment so figure any moment where I'm not doing an article I might as well spend time on Ableton.

I'd be interested in that too, but I feel most books specifically on frequencies would be fairly heavy on the science. I have a friend who's studying audio engineering at SAE in London, and I popped in last night to say hi (and get shown all this awesome, but basically obsolete gear, like a HUGE Neve desk). Some of the guys there were talking about this exam where they're played some sort of non-musical noise, then particular frequencies are boosted or cut and they have to identify them. They all failed.

Anyway, I'm useless at this myself, but when we were mixing stuff for our band at a friend's studio, he would do this: If two things were getting in each other's way in the mix, he would solo one of them, then put a very deep, steep cut in a parametric EQ (i think, you would use EQ4 in ableton anyway) and move it around until he made the sound pretty much disappear. He would then get rid of the cut and put a cut in the EQ of the other track at the same frequency, but obviously a lot less deep. That way, if you've got, say, a live bass drum, with a broad frequecy spectrum, you just take away the little bit of it that is getting in the way of, say, the bass guitar, or a synth bass line, without having to drop the volume or affect the sound of the drum that much.

This is probably "mixing for idiots part 1" to you lot, but it was a revelation to me. Similarly, if the cymbals or hats are sounding harsh, you can just put a big dip in and slide it around till you find the errant frequency, then make it smaller and adjust the steepness till it's sounding good.

Here's a couple of useful things about EQ, which is one of the main ways along with panning (space) and reverb (depth) to get things out of each others way:

http://www.recordingeq.com/Subscribe/tip/tascam.htm

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1995_articles/mar95/eq.html

Synth 1 is a good free soft synth that would be nice to learn on and will provide an alternative to Operator. I wouldn't fuck w/Absynth or Reaktor too deeply just yet. You can get it here:

http://www.geocities.jp/daichi1969/softsynth/index.html

That sound on sound article is really good, although like my witterings above, it is aimed at live recorded stuff. If you're using all electronic instruments, it's a LOT easier, or at least the difficulty is making it sound great, not just in stopping it sounding awful. (Although you can create some wild synth noises that need taming)

Is there any free equivalent to that Synth 1 for Mac? All these free synths (and plug-ins generally) are for windows, it seems.

You can do a search here for free Mac synths (and effects):

http://www.kvraudio.com/

I don't know if there are many though as I don't use a Mac.

KVR is worth a general poke around for anyone who makes computer music, if only for links to hoover up freebies.

I've searched before (although I'm not sure if it was there) and drawn a blank, but thanks.

There are some:

http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php?mode=results&st=adv&soft=i&type%5B%5D=0&f=0&fe=0&osx=1&free=1&sf=0&receptor=&de=0&sort=1&rpp=100

Crystal is good!

free synths I enjoy using:

- Green Oak Crystal (very complicated, but still fairly intuitive. as with any synth, studying how the presets are set up is the key to learning your way around it, and once you do that, you can make some pretty interesting sounds.)
- alphakanal Buzzer2 and Automat (I think these may be only available as Audio Units. they sound good, though. Buzzer2 is a pretty straightforward subtractive synth. Automat I haven't really gotten into yet, but it seems to have lots of modulation possibilities, which I'm a sucker for.)

oh man, I forgot about u-he's Zoyd. that's a weird one, kind of a pain to work with IIRC... but Urs makes good stuff, so I'm sure it's worth a shot.

Cool!

I have to say I am amazed how enjoyable this all is.

Hi Ronan, no problems. I remember learning how to use electronic music software 3-4 years ago, and it was really confusing! And it really helps to have people explain things, as opposed to tutorials, as inevitably something weird occurs, and the article glosses over it.

Quickly on frequencies--mixing is all about energy and how much energy a frequency sucks up. The more energy is used, the less energy you have for other sounds. Energy is volume in my head (which I'm sure is totally wrong--this post is from a user's, not engineer's, perspective.)

Usually, your goal, after aesthetics, is to make sure that the aeverything is clear to hear, preserve dynamics, then make it nice and loud. (Many will disagree.) In general, my shorthand is, usually I make a track, and it's kind of muddy, so I'm frustrated. What I'll think about is, after having divided the frequencies into 4 buckets (high, middle, low middle, low)--ok, high frequencies (like cymbals, tambourines, high pitched synths) suck up not too much energy, so I can have those, and sometimes I like to pan them left or right.

Then I get into the middle range of the curve, where vocals are, and I def want to make sure I don't want to have too many things competing there.

Then I get into the lower middle range, where things usually clump, so I'll listen to each sound and make volume adjustments, 'cuz panning doesn't always help there, and then I'll do eq adjustments.

And usually the culprit is having like a really deep bass drum and a deep bass synth, which drown each other out, and so in order to hear them, I end up turning both up waaaay too high. There are some solutions that are normal, like making trade-off's and/or using very very sharp EQ (an EQ that only affects a narrow band of frequencies) to make sure that the "key" frequency of the bass drum and the bass synth are not sitting on each other. Otherwise, you can almost always cut some of the superlow frequencies from your bass drum or bass synth, synthesizers are "perfect" and will generate some low-ass frequencies that suck up volume despite being nearly inaudible unless you're in a club. Then you can also use a compressor across both (don't ask how to do that with Ableton, but you can if you look online)--a compressor can allow you to "balance" both.

Panning is great to make sure that you have the ability to hear everything clearly, but if you have too many things in the same frequency, panning won't help. Also, general rule for me is, kick drum and deep bass should be down the middle for mixing and dj playback reasons, everything else is up to you.

Btw, there's sometimes no rhyme or reason to why things work--some tracks we make are nice and clear and sound great, others' mix is like crap. I kind of assumed that I need lots of great equipment to make music when I started, but you really don't, necessarily. When we finished our album, which, granted, may still be panned when it comes out (no pun intended,) but it was pretty amazing to see our producer, who's quite seasoned, and his friends, cut up and remix our stuff on Cubase 3, which is about 7 years old, along with an old tape delay, a 303, two non-built in synths and a set of old speakers. He did an edit for the Int'l Pony single that literally was just Cubase and the original track, and it was totally different--so it really is more about just getting comfortable with the tool and then imagination. Ok, no mo ramblin'.

Sorry, that should be some tracks we make are nice and clear and sound great, other songs mix are like crap

I feel like I'm just starting to get an ear for eq, even if it's just basic stuff like cutting some low end out of hi-hats and snares where it's not really necessary, just taking up sonic space. I have a book at home that has some good basic advice on frequencies for different instruments, can't remember what it's called but I'll check.

I'm not sure if this counts as "making music" but I think I spent upwards of an hour today in Live tweaking knobs while running a repetitive Glass-style electric piano arpeggio through a couple delays

so incredible (and I didn't even take any drugs)

Try it again with drugs and report back.

Also, part of what Jubalique was getting at is often called "complementary EQ." The classic example is with a bass guitar and kick, you might decide to bring out the kick at 90 Hz, so you want to cut the bass equally at 90 Hz, then boost the bass somewhere higher like 180 Hz and cut the kick there (or vice versa).

so I've made a track over the last week or so, in ableton with absynth as a vst and one or two other vsts. yet when I render it it keeps popping and sounding weird, seemingly in various different places each time it's rendered.

is there any reason for this or way to fix it?

My favorite thing to do with Ableton now, is to have it warp all sorts of different files to the same tempo, and watch what mistakes it makes as it tries to line up two things that don't really match. I've gotten some really interesting results.

ronan, you may need to increase the size of you audio buffer. sounds like latency issues.

how do I do that?

i don't know, i've never used ableton. it's usually in the preferences for whatever program you're using.

ronan
in ableton
options >> preferences >> audio.

there's buffer size that (in my case) was detected automatically
and there's the input latency that is adjusted in your audio interface.
and lower there's the cpu usage simulator that will let you test the different settings of audio buffer.
increase the cpu usage to like 70% and put up the buffer until the tone sounds passable.

so yours might be the case that
a) buffer is not big enough
b) (as i had) some version of abfuckingsynth that was handicapped in some way so that it refused to work ok with ableton and i had to remove it at all.

(more likely than no the buffer size is adjusted in your audio interface, not in ableton)

Over the weekend a friend and myself finally got together this weekend to jam on ableton but nothing really materialized. No inspirato :(

Can anyone share some things you do to jump-start a track making session or break out of a creative funk? We tried beer fyi.

Take a walk.

I tried changing to ASIO to reduce latency and it seemed to work for a while, the track rendered without errors. But in general ASIO seems slower and stuff is popping more within Ableton.

I'm using the sound card that came with my laptop so probably not great quality, does that have a bearing?

an external (firewire probably, or usb2) sound card, or i guess PCMCIA as well, would definitely cut down on latency and clicks

plus you'll probably get better (cleaner) sound

its win win really, except for the cash yr gonna shell out to get a good one

Ronan, the track will always render without errors, since it's just processing at its own rate, not playing in real time -- the latency errors you're getting come from slip-ups in getting the sound processed, converted, and fed to your speakers/headphones at the proper rate, so they're just a playback/recording thing.

this is true

My GF went out of town this weekend so I had lots of time to spend working on production and I had some really positive results that I thought I'd share with you guys. The track isn't finished yet, it's around eight and half minutes long and needs a better 3rd act, but I had a mini breakthrough about how to use follow actions to arrange a track in the session view.

Previously I would write some basic progression and a beat and then run into a road block of how to make a song out of it. I could click loops on and off or write a new part but it tended to create all these dissimilar sounding pieces that didn't really work together. Everyone always says "just keep at it and you learn arrangement" so I did and have a good 30 attempts at tracks that ended this way.

So this time around I did something different, admittedly it's very linear, and produced something that follows a more traditional format for dance music. The key to whole thing was using Ableton's legato mode (follow actions) to turn session very into a very powerful step sequencer.

Roughly, the layout is dividing the session window into groups of 4 or 5 rows skipping a row to separate clips so follow actions don't accidentally trigger new sections prematurely. On the far right of Live I have labels for INTRO, PART 1, PART 2, BREAKDOWN, BREAKDOWN 2, FILL A, FILL B. For my main drums I have a 15 bar part that triggers 1 of 4 1-bar fills that return to the top of the section which is where I keep the main loops. The same technique of is repeated with other instruments like bass and lead. With everything laid out this way I hit record, fired the intro line and worked my way down through clips and when I was ready fired the next part of the song.

On the very bottom of each section I could have transitory clips that are set to do something (change the midi note pattern, hit a delay, go silent) and then flip down into the next section. Hmm, I just thought of that while writing this... I'm glad I posted this and hope it helps you out!

It's a lot of left-brained preliminary work setting up follow actions and that's sort of distracting from the "fun" part of making beats and melody lines. It's tempting to save the layout for future use but that might lead to very cookie-cutter sounding tunes.

loling at my bolded typos, btw

I'm getting a lot of problems with channels just going haywire and making loud earsplitting high pitched noises.

Is this (a) the fault of the pirates (b) memory/latency problems (c) individual programmes/vsts a bit faulty (c) all of the above.

I'm making stuff of headphones and once or twice I've had to scream in pain from these noisy glitches.

i can't diagnose that problem because i've never used these programs but maybe you could mitigate it by setting up everything to run through a clipper right before the digital to analog conversion. set it to clip at 105 or 108 decibels or something like that and use your eyes by watching the level meters. instead of your ears.

i will venture a guess and say that earsplitting high frequency noise is typical of uncontrolled positive feedback loops.

Well so I sprung for a Behringer BCD3000, which is the new "mac compatible" version of the BCD 2000. It's a little wonky but after a few hours I finally can make sound & cue stuff with it in ableton, which is totally great! Just thought I'd post about my accomplishment. There's a lot of weird stuff about this mixer -- you get the feeling that the mac drivers are very primitive (The wrong lights come up on the hardware for one, i.e., when pressing buttons I've assigned to, say, killing an EQ frequency the light for, say, FX 3 comes on, etc. I suppose I can work around this by just paying attention to what I'm doing.)

Behringer stuff is fairly well known to be extremely cheaply made in China with a fairly high failure rate - but somehow they always manage these extremely attractive feature lists. I guess like any other cheap or less-than-touring-quality equipment, you'll get good at it and then be amazed at how fantastic you are when you finally get your hands on real performance gear, like an Allen & Heath Xone:3D or something.

SwitchSpeedXP

This is a handy shareware utility for you folks running XP on a laptop. Those Microsoft bitches didn't bother to code in direct controls for speed scaling/power management in XP. This app will allow you to have direct control over your processor in both AC and battery modes. Now that I have installed this, Reaktor ensembles that used to use 50% of my system resources now take about 20%.

here's my sub-girl talk mainstreamish mash-up happy danceparty if anyone would like to hear that sort of thing, and maybe dance to it. it's kind of fun.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/x60n9g

does anyone know if i can add a midi keyboard to a Traktor setup? what i want to do is integrate FM8 (an NI product) with Traktor. The NI forums haven't been any use. Could I run them side by side? (would that get into soundcard issues? it sure would get into pain in the ass switching back and forth issues)

Question: I've been making tracks for some time on my now 6+ year old computer using Fruity Loops (FLStudio4) (using that as I got it for free) on my relatively small computer speakers, and have, in recent time have started taking things slightly more seriously i.e. making demos and stuff. My problem is, how can I get the tracks to sound like they, well, weren't made on an old computer with a low quality soundcard and encoded with fruity loops, which for some reason is incapable of exporting tracks at volumes that aren't incredibly low. Is there anyway I can possibly yield tracks that will be mastered properly, I'm totally lost with these sorts of things, or am I mad for having the audacity for trying to make music seriously with fruity loops on computer speakers with old computer speakers.

id like to know the answer to that too. do any well-known remixers or producers or music-makers out there use FLS?

Heh, I remember Dominik Eulberg once made a track entirely out of preset cheesy FL samples. I read once that Deadbeat uses it just as a basic sequencer, but then runs his tracks through something else.

I also hope that these tracks aren't unsalvagable, like, if wouldn't be able to get the samples (with effects etc.) without encoding them first. Hmmn.

I use FLS all the time in my music.

One of the ways Ive found to make it sound less corny or cheap sounding is that I don't use any of the stock sounds or instruments. For all the drums or percussion I usually slice up samples from rap songs or old rock songs and most of my instruments and effects are VST.

That and I often don't just use FLS. I'll sometimes save all the individual tracks and load them into Ableton and mess with them more, or more often, program a few basic things in FLS and then go back and record other stuff on top of that live.

But the type of music I'm making usually leans towards noise or experimental.

The beat slice is what makes FL worth having

what's the pc equivalent for logic 8? can logic 8 run on a pc?

fd, what does ableton enable you to do a track that fl cannot?

better interface, better workflow, better effects, better sound quality.

Use it and you will notice the difference in 5 minutes or less.

The effects and sound quality are both better in Ableton, although to be honest I prefer the interface of FL Studio.

Anyone tried Reason 4 yet? It looks lovely.

The problem with FL is that it's really really fucking awkward to string all the little parts together to make a song. Ableton, and most other sequencers, are better at this part. Sound quality should end up the same in either if y're using external samples/VSTs.

Logic is Mac only coz they bought the brand. Cubase is yr PC equivalent.

xpost
reason 4 is in the mail right now, can't wait for it to get here. i'm mostly excited about the new sequencer, i can take or leave the arpeggiator and groove thing. thor looks neat. hopefully there will be some decent new sounds in the factory bank, but it looks like it will be worth the price for vector automation, tempo/time automation, virtual tracks, tools panel, etc.

FL's rendering engine is garbage. It makes everything sound small and tinny. I was using Waves Platnum to massage the audio before rendering and I couldn't get passable results.

I switched over to Ableton and just used to built in effects and with enough work I was able to get decent results. Good enough to have a lot of people assuming that I was rocking a hardware set up. It takes a lot of work to make it not sound like ableton, but it can be done.

The real secret is to stop rendering your mixes in the first place.

Also, don't think I am just hating FL because it isn't a "real" audio program. There are a lot of things that I did like about it. I used it for a long time, but I had to give it up because I could only push that engine so far. I wasn't having any problems actually getting my ideas into the program.

I couldn't get those ideas to *sound* the way I wanted them to sound. It was the program itself that was the problem, it wasn't my lack of skill.

The real secret is to stop rendering your mixes in the first place.

Eh?

which for some reason is incapable of exporting tracks at volumes that aren't incredibly low

Not to get all Nick Southall on you, but it's too easy to get this feeling now with ANYTHING you're making, because the CDs you buy in the store have been mastered to be very loud. Before you fall into the trap of trying to make your mixes compare with someone else's masters, play them on decent-sized speakers with the volume up. Maybe they sound good like that. (If it makes you feel any better, I have seen a Renowned Electronic Artist send someone a remix to play out somewhere with that caveat: "this is straight off my computer and not mastered, so it's quiet, and you'll have to play it louder," etc.)

That said, there are loads of mastering effects for use with this kind of software -- compressors, limiters, and EQs -- so you can give your tracks the finished feel of a "hot" master. (You can use them on individual tracks as you're working, or just use them as global effects to master your finished mix.)

You also say you're mixing your tracks on small computer speakers, which would mean of course they come out tinny and quiet -- that's how you're mixing them!

I haven't used FL -- if it's particularly bad at rendering stuff, well then yeah, you might be better off switching to something else, rather than trying to bulk up your finished mixes with compressors and such. But don't necessarily imagine any other software is just automatically as loud as the hot-as-hell mastering you hear on people's albums.

Oh, PS: if you really like the workflow, etc., with FL, you can always build things there, then export each track/instrument individually as a sound file -- then import them and lay them all out in some other program, and use THAT program to do the mixing, adding of mastering effects, etc.

that is the bitch of it, Nabisco. I had the same bright idea but you can't polish a turd. If the loop sounds weak and tinny in the first place, processing the hell out of it isn't going to help.

Robt Henke of Ableton (and Monolake) did some tests on the rendering abilities of all the major sequencers and came to the conclusion that although some were slightly better than others, that the differences were so infinitesimal as to be not worthy of consideration. There's info about it on the Ableton site somewhere but I can't find it anywhere.

IIRC, Imageline, the company behind FL, did the same thing a couple of years ago and came to the same conclusion.

I think if people have sound problems, rendering is NOT where it's gonna come from.

x-post.

Yeah, basically -- "if the loop sounds weak and tinny" = this sounds like a problem with the loop, you know?

I've done that track-by-track outputting in the past, mostly because Reason didn't do plug-ins: I'd have to load the tracks and add all the mixing/mastering effects elsewhere. (These days, thankfully, I can just wire it straight into Ableton for plug-ins and mixing.)

sort of related -

If people talk about sound quality they should listen to, say Pink Floyd recordings from 1980. Even the cheapest low cost mixer nowadays has a more linear frequency response and even the cheapest soundcard today has more headroom and less distortions then the most expensive mastering tape recorder 25 years ago.

Robert Henke

The volume thing was the biggest source of problems, so hearing that that is common is a great relief. The problem for me is that I''m so used to using FL I could make a track with the sound off, I tried using ableton and reason demos and couldn't even know how to make any noise with them let alone work out the fine details.

That Robert Henke quote is a half truth at best. Robert Henke has a vested interest in promoting the idea that computer music is the end-all-be-all of music technology. If you want to talk about sound quality talk about a Pink Floyd recording from the early 70's. Using The Final Cut as an example of something we have progressed from is misleading. If I had to choose between that and the last Monolake album, I will take the old stuff.

I would be very interested in seeing his methodology for those tests that claim there isn't a difference. It doesn't jibe with my experiences. If there is no difference why did I see an immediate jump in the quality of my productions when I moved to Ableton? Why did I immediately hear the difference? It wasn't like I was using stock VST's and effects in FL, I was using NI and Waves stuff and still not getting solid mixes.

If there isn't a difference, why could I hear it? Why did my mixes in ableton sound instantly warm and full and my FL mixes from a month earlier sound tinny while using the same VST instruments and effects while mixing, programming, and EQ'ing basically the same way?

Also, if rendering isn't an issue why do a lot of dudes use analogue summing boxes for their mixes instead of just doing automation inside the box?

http://mixguides.com/consoles/product_features/consoles-strictly-summing-1204/

Why did my mixes suddenly sound way better when I stopped rendering and recorded my mixes in real time on outboard recording gear? Why was there a difference between recording the rendered mix and recording the song as it played back? I wish I didn't hear a difference, rendering is a hell of a lot cheaper, quicker, and more convenient.

I'm at work so In can't poke around the Ableton forum but there is a thread about it somewhere. (There's a thread on KVR about it too.) There's a press release as well but I dunno if it's on their site.

Obviously if you record to outboard gear then that gear has an effect beyond what the sequencer/computer is doing, esp. if you were going to tape or suchlike.

If there is a difference between recording a rendered track as a stereo pair and recording the actual output of ableton as a stereo track in real time on the same gear then there is something going on in the rendering.

When ableton renders audio it makes things sound like ableton. The first rule of recording is that you can't fix anything in the mix. If it doesn't sound good in the first place, it will not sound good with heavy EQ and dynamics processing.

You can avoid that distinct sound by capturing the audio during a live playback. If ableton doesn't have a characteristic sound, how come I can tell that certain records across different genres were made in it when I flip through the racks? How come I can hear ableton across a room when I am out at a club? I am not the only one who can do this.

can you describe that sound? do all audio programs have this?

Yes and no, I have synthenesia so sound is more of a visual experience than an auditory one. When I remember or write music in my head, it is a visual experience. It is as much shapes, colors, and patterns as it is sound. I am not saying this to be pretentious, it is just the way my mind works.

When I write and program parts with digital synths I get them to sound as full and solid as possible. I usually mix things very close together with aux reverb so that my sound field is more like a solid surface with elements moving towards or away from the main surface like if you were looking into water and seeing objects in and out of water. I do this because digital sounds aren't as immediately pleasing to me as analogue ones, so I do a lot of massaging and layering to hide the weakness of last generation vst instruments. It makes the elements seem a lot fuller than they actually are. I am pretty good at coaxing decent results out VST's because I have surprised a few names when they asked me how I made my demo.

When I play these mixes in real time they sound like I intended them to sound, and when I render them they sound different. It is like taking a solid object and making the object look semitransparent with a glassy sheen coating the surface of the audio. Ableton does this in a particular way that is unique. I can hear that glassy sound on other people's records.

FL Studio 5 is a different story. It can sound decent when you aren't directly comparing it to other audio, but it comes up real short when you try and mix with anything else. I can't really explain what FL sounds like with a visual metaphor, it just sounds small, brittle and tinny. I never could make a space that sounded solid and rich. I wrote decent stuff that worked floors because the writing was solid, but they would have killed if the same musical ideas were expressed in a better environment.

The one thing I really liked about FL was that the sequencer made the drums feel good. My best drum parts came out of FL, They sounded like shit but they brought the funk. I gave up on computers earlier this year because I couldn't get a solid drum sound out of ableton. I loved the way ableton handled VST's but I never got a drum sound that I liked. Due to straight up poverty I use a record player and an MPC to make tracks these days and I have few complaints. It isn't as quick or convenient as a computer but I don't have to fight hard to make it not sound like a computer either.

Other programs I cannot talk about because I don't have personal experience with them. I have read other people talk about cubase, sonar, and logic and they say they all have a particular sound of their own. I assume they would. I don't buy the idea that any of these programs are transparent. The people that are trying to sell you these high dollar programs would like you to think so, but I don't think so.

I am not completely against computers. I think the technology is getting better all the time and that computer music sounds a lot better than it did five years ago. I think Native Instruments is making some very solid products. I DL'ed the demo of Reaktor 5 and I was extremely impressed with what it could do. I am very interested to see what will be available 5-10 years from now. The technology will be very solid by then.

is ableton a good program for a beginner to use for their first remix? the tutorials don't seem to cover this, are there any guides anywhere for remixing using ableton?

you can use it to remix, absolutely. you should look at the warping tutorial and fiddle around with the new 'slice to midi' feature. great way to chop up loops into interesting sounding pieces.

if you are a total beginner then this:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51LfbQZD%2BoL._SS500_.jpg

oops, my head hurts
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51LfbQZD%2BoL._SS500_.jpg

just play around with it you'll get it eventually

"slice to midi" is ruling my world.

i clearly need to spend more time with ableton

note to everyone: midi with pro tools is an unbelievable freaking nightmare, so i'm assuming since i've mostly learned how to work with it everything else must be a breeze

thanks macallan! is the buskirk book particularly good? i have the ric snoman book here which seems great, if a little lofty
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dance-Music-Manual-Tools-Techniques/dp/0240519159/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203415831&sr=8-1

what does 'slice to midi' do?

which tutorials should i go through on ableton to get the gist of how to remix a track?

...the manual. if you don't have two screens then print it out. when you come across a feature that you don't understand, make a little excercise for yourself to try it out.

the ableton manual is less than 400 pages and full of big dumb writing.

if you're looking to remix a simple stereo recording and really don't know where to start one way of getting into it would be to read up on warp markers and then clip envelopes.

re slice tool:

"Mark my word, this feature will become the basis for a new production sound in 2008"

1)arggghhhhh noooooooo

2) LOL 2001

also, stirmonster, what is this new nudge tempo feature all about? do you guys use ableton in your dj stuff?

the nudge feature slightly increases or decreases the bpm momentarily. it's the equivalent of slightly speeding up or slowing down a turntable with your finger.

I'd forgotten about this thread.

xpost

What Crackle Box says is right, but the tutorials are really good, too (although it's an awful piece of music that they use).

You need to get familiar with the session view and the arrange view and how they relate before you do anything, and then learn how to use warp markers, or how Ableton autowarps. That should be enough to get started, then you can decide how you want to work and look stuff up as you need it.

Have you got all the different parts on separate audio tracks or are you going to work on a whole song?

A "remix" covers a multitude of sins, so which bits of Live you need to be able to use will vary depending on what you want to do. You could load up all the tracks in the arrange view, and apply eq, compression, reverb to each track, change the stereo mix, the levels and so on but leave the basic song arrangement the same, in which case you'd use Live just like a traditional mixing desk, or, at the other extreme, you could just use bits of the song as sample sources and then build up your own piece of music using those clips or playing those sounds in impulse or simpler or whatever, in which case you can have tons of fun with all of ableton's sound-warping features and automation and stuff.

Out of interest, what are you going to remix?

So I have a question. If I record a clip, I can then change it's pitch easily, but is there any way of changing the pitch of an audio track as you play into it? (I want to experiment muck about with singing in a helium voice or whatever).

what does 'slice to midi' do?

it slices audio into small chunks and then assigns each one to a midi note that can be manipulated and effected. i guess it's a a little like ableton's version of recycle.

I get that Ableton tutorial tune in my head all the time. Including now. Gah!

So I have a question. If I record a clip, I can then change it's pitch easily, but is there any way of changing the pitch of an audio track as you play into it? (I want to experiment muck about with singing in a helium voice or whatever).

AFAIK not using the pitch control in ableton, this only affects recorded clips that have been warped. The way I do this is to run the track through an external VST. One of which comes as an effect (not ensemble) in Reaktor, "pitch shifter" the other I made in Max/Msp (but is buggy as fuck in Ableton for some reason).

Doing pitch conversion on the fly is a bit funny, because diff sounds have diff harmonic content, you really need to analyse the recorded sound to choose the best type of algorithm to use. Altho the characeristic chipmunk sound is a result of bad pitch conversion, so any pitch shifting VST would work okay. The best software package for doing this kind of thing is celemony melodyne, incredible bit of software, can hear it all over recent pop vocals.

(Side note, has anyone got their pluggo plugins to be stable within Ableton?)

thank you jamie, that's really helpful. i have all the separate tracks (with drums all on one wav). the kind of remix im aiming to do is chop out the best vocal hoooks and use those, use a similar template to the original songs but with different drum patterns and synth sounds and melodies. that might be overreaching myself though as i've mucked about with a few audio programs before but have zero knowledge about music theory or playing an instrument. i do have ideas in my head though! as for the song i'm remixing it's a pop synthy track with female vocals, i'll say on this thread when i've finished and i'll email you the original and my remix if you like.

stirmonster, i think you've answered this already on ilx somewhere so sorry for repeating but what program do you use for your own remixes? could you feasibly do everything on ableton alone? the editing, mastering, etc.

that celemony program sounds fascinating, what do you use it for CB?

http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=melodyne_theidea

what program do you use for your own remixes?

i use ableton and then everything is dumped into logic for the final mixdown. it is however totally feasible to do everything on ableton alone.

when i was at uni i used it to do just intonation/microtone stuffs. you can adjust the pitch very accuratly, as well as how the pitch changes over time.

another great thing to try is to improvise single note solos, bring into melodyne for pitch/amplitude recognition. then export the midi information along with all the little pitch bends and amplitude envelopes and use it with yer favourite synth. you can really make a synth sing this way.

note: it only recognises pitch from monophonic sources.

i have 8 different wav files, and two with vocals. both wav files have chunks of vocals i want to chop out and use, what's the best way to do this on ableton? will it involve setting up a new instrument rack?

are you taking the piss? hehe, don't set up an instrument rack, read the manual. just the first few chapters. a few hints to help you along.

hint: you dont really chop audio in ableton. make a duplicate copy of the audio in ableton then find the bit you want to use and loop it. repeat for the rest of the wav files and you'll end up with lots of loops. arrange as needed. easy.

hint2: to loop audio in ableton use the controls "position" and "length" under the loop button. if you find it isn't looping in time (you can check against the metronome) your warp markers arn't set up right.

read the manual!

thanks, haha sorry, i've just spent hours going through tutorials and i couldn't find anything about it. i've got the manual up too and *will* go through it, just wanted a short-cut for this!

I really want to start using my own tracks in mixes and stuff, but they come out way to quiet, and with kind of uneven levels, so turning it up a lot is out of the question because the low ends will get really distorted. Anyway around this?

invest in a decent pair of monitors?

do some ghetto mastering? bounce down to one stereo track and do some normalization or compression? and cut some lows if it's still distorting/overpowering on most systems?

is it synth based? sample based? or actual real life recording?

synth based stuff is usually poor synth design. i hear this a lot these days with people wanting to get bell like tones and so they use simple sine wave kinda stuff. with most soft synth kinda stuff you need to beef up the sounds a fair bit. clever layering of sounds is key with purely synth based stuff. booka shade are pretty incredible when it comes to this sort of stuff.

i could go on forever with this sort of thing, if you have conflicting frequencies/tuning issues with bass notes/kick drums- you can get some confusion down below.

dont bother with compressors and limiters and shit like that except for special fx. i only ever use compression/limiters right at the end and its less to do with loudness and more about bringing out some colour by re-enforcing certain frequency ranges, then some real valve compression to make that colour less digital... if you want a rounder sound.

quite the opposite with sample based stuff, you have to be clever with filtering to find some space to add some new stuff. interesting article in sound on sound a few months back on kanye's HBstongerfaster thing, they had nightmares making space in the track to add new stuffs.

if you want some proper advice maybe start an IMM thread and link to a track? i'm sure there are peeps over there that know more about this sort of thing.

monitors shouldn't be massive issue, a decent home stereo system is fine for most stuff, especially if you're really used to listening to stuff on them.

http://sonictransfer.com/tag/utility-plugin/
http://sonictransfer.com/tag/utility-plugin/
http://sonictransfer.com/tag/utility-plugin/
http://sonictransfer.com/tag/utility-plugin/
http://sonictransfer.com/tag/utility-plugin/
http://sonictransfer.com/tag/utility-plugin/
http://sonictransfer.com/tag/utility-plugin/
http://sonictransfer.com/tag/utility-plugin/
http://sonictransfer.com/tag/utility-plugin/
http://sonictransfer.com/tag/utility-plugin/
http://sonictransfer.com/tag/utility-plugin/

but then again based on srose's questions that might be a little advanced.

just start here:

http://sonictransfer.com/tag/ableton-live/

rolling imm ableton live tips tricks sturm drang and beat repeat saturator thread

I think Fruty Loops likes to boost up all the lows. Just turning the kick down made a big difference.

Hooray!

so i'm trying to run Live 6 on Windows Vista and it is sloooow. are there some settings i'm not aware of that i should change?

yes. uninstall vista and install xp instead

http://www.gearwire.com/ableton-warns-vista-problems.html

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58575

I was going to say the same thing but strictly for zing purposes

eghck that's what i was afraid of :(

but thanks for that. v.7 is out now right? does that address the problems w/Vista?

just don't vista

the problems wont stop, ive heard 7 is better but still rubbish. i transfered the license from my old xp to my new laptop and regd it with microsoft over the phone. if you have to chat to an advisor say your tech mate upgraded the components on your old pc and theyll give yu a new password. I literally couldnt believe how rapid my new laptop was once i ditched vista, its handy enough to get all the correct drivers before you reboot. as long as you do a mask disk beforehand you should be able to upgrade to vista in a couple of years when need be (ie theyve sorted all the bugs). If you actually want to use it live you dont have a choice unless you buy 4gb of RAM

Why the hell does the reverb sound more powerful when I play my tracks on itunes?

are you playing the aiff or converting the tracks to aac/mp3 and then playing them in itunes?

it's a wav.

check your EQ settings in preferences

also do you lowpass your reverb?

Not to my knowledge, come to think about it, I'm almost now certainly sure that's it actually, because my problem before was that the lows kept getting boosted up.

so i just got a brand new macbook with logic express but i keep getting this system overload message. i'm not doing anything even remotely taxing, just 4 channels open, and i more than meet the system requirements (i got a second gig of ram installed) the thing is BRAND NEW, literally arrived today. although i'm new to logic i am familiar with pc software of the same level, any idea what is happening? is the laptop fucked?

That's a weird and very irritating bug with Logic - nothing wrong with your laptop. Only thing you can do is set your buffer size larger in the audio preferences, and cross your fingers.

What do people use for their horn sounds? I'm looking to not sound quite so synth-y. Sample packs? Softsynths? (I'm using FL.)

increasing the buffer size doesn't seem to help much. anyone else experience this problem and have tips on getting around it? i'd hate to think £130 worth of software is practically unuseable :/

Give this a go too: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=88777.

trying to do a remix in ableton - i've got a wav of the vocals, a drumbeat set up, a few chords sorted from a soft synth but i'm having trouble putting them all together. i've had a look through the lessons and the manual but there seems to be a LOT of stuff that is irrelevant to what i want to do, i'm at the beginner stage so it's really confusing (if only there was a button to press that pared it all down into a fisher price ableton).

could someone point me towards the relevant lessons, tutorials and sections of the manual for putting a bunch of noises together to make a 3 min song?

ok dude are you serious?

if you send me the files I'll just do it for you

have you ever used music software before?
if you have, you might find that staying in the arrangement window (the one with tracks and bars) and avoiding the session window (the one with columns of buttons) helps. if you haven't, then you should just go through the tutorial. all of it. I am not really kidding.

^^ Tombot might seem like he's being dicky right now, but honestly, there's this line between asking for advice and being like "I don't know how to make electronic music, please tell me how" -- it's a bit like posting to a classical music forum and going "I want to play violin next week, please tell me how" -- and dude, some of your questions really do seem to be toeing that line!

I don't mean to be Mr. Pay Your Dues Guy, but my advice is that if you've never worked with the software before, don't go thinking you're just going to leap in and find some tutorial that explains how to make a remix: you're going to have to start off small, fiddle around, learn how to work with different aspects individually, and so on. It might not even sound that good for a while, but you kinda have to. I've been playing with software like this for nearly a decade, and my stuff doesn't sound nearly as good as Tombot's, but what're you gonna do? You've to sit there playing around with stuff until you figure out how it all works, and no tutorial or scrap of advice is gonna skip around that process.

kind of the worst thing about ableton/logic studio-in-a-box software is that you can go out and get a copy and not even have to take a quiz on what compression is for, what gain staging means (ok not that much in an all-digital environment but definitely so when using more than one dynamics processor in a signal chain), how different studio sounds are achieved with fx staging and returns, AABA, ABABCBA, how to tune a sampled drum by ear so it's right on time, why to cut at zero crossings, oh god.

I will explain any and all of these things but you have to ask about them one at a time

actually don't ask about what compression is for because I misplaced my kiln suit

I'm not really asking 'pls for you to talk me through theory of electronic music and do my remix for me', I just want to know which sections of the tutorials/lessons are most relevant for arranging and putting a song together. I'm sure to you guys this seems like the most basic and idiotic thing in the world to ask as you've been using the program for years. At the moment I'm at the very early stages of understanding Ableton so was hoping someone could help steer me towards the most relevant parts.

I've been using various sound editing programs for years now, mostly DJing live, I have a good knowledge of these programs but Ableton is a step up from the ones I've been using and contains a bunch of new terminology. My situation is that I've been asked to remix a song, which needs to be done in about a weeks time for digital release. I've got the idea for the song in my head, got all the relevant sounds, beats, loops all set up, arrangement scribbled down - it's just the placing them all together that I need to read up about.

I've been dipping into the program constantly over the last month or so, learning bits here and there - if anyone else starting out would like a walkthrough of how to set up a soft synth such as Massive in Ableton then just ask, this took hours to work out but can be achieved in minutes with the right guidance.

I'm sure I would learn how to arrange, and much more besides, if I went through every tutorial, every lesson, read the entire manual, but this would leave little time to stick all the stuff together and I figure I don't really need to learn how to record audio into the program or how to set up midi controllers, I can save that for a later time. As with most programs there is a lot of extra info in there that isn't suitable for me right now and I just want to be able to cut through that.

I do apologise for appearing so clueless about this, perhaps this thread is too advanced for questions like mine. If anyone could recommend a beginners forum that might be best.

This advice of Tomboto is what you need then -----> "stay in the arrangement window (the one with tracks and bars) and avoid the session window (the one with columns of buttons)"

I don't think the tutorials take that long even if you do them all.

Maybe taking the commission was a mistake.

just go through all the tutorials at once, it won't take long at all as they are very succinct

patrick don't say that, i'm already freaking out about it! but yes my plan is to spend all evening going through the tutorials (i've been through most of them already over the past few weeks) and look over the manual. it was probably a silly idea to look for a shortcuts, esp when the tutorials do seem so user-friendly

Learning to use the "Consolidate" command effectively made my first remix in ableton MUCH easier, I can say that.

as far as arranging goes, actually, I can probably honestly state that most of it is setting up the full loop - what generally winds up being the fade-out A section at the end or wherever - and then using cut, paste, consolidate, and just clicking and dragging. That's like 90% of the arrangement work (if 5% of the work on the whole track, since mixing and effects and sound design take much more effort and time).

(the other 10% of the arrangement work is little touch shit like fills and fade-ins/outs and writing the bridge)

informal survey: how many of you do full-track listens of your work in progress far more often than is healthy? *raises hand*

oh I wait until it's finished and rendered to disk and then I listen to the goddamn things over and over and over in iTunes like a pathetic fanboy. I hardly ever listen to a track all the way through before it's done

I think because the only way I know a track IS done and no longer in progress is when I can listen to it all the way through. otherwise there's going to be something I have to stop and fix.

I try not to listen to things too much at one time. It distorts your perspective.

The trick is to get the general idea down and then let it sit for a couple weeks. I find that I make better decisions when I have a bit of distance from the music. It doesn't feel like it is mine anymore and I don't have any ego/emotional attachment to the music.

It is the same reason why you don't mix a record immediately after tracking.

^^^OTM.

This thread makes me glad I'm in a heavy live playing phase.

Sometimes sitting around mixing or feeling guilty for doing something else while I should be editing tracks is about as fun as writing college essays.

struggling to find a good bass sound for a discodancepop track, can anyone recommend a good thick rich one built in to ableton, or as a vst?

the operator DX100-alike is a good start. chorus/saturator/delay is all on you

thanks tomboto.

another problem - ive got a 2 sec sample up as a midi clip. playing at c3 gives the original sound but when i go to d# the increase in pitch makes it speed up so its 1.5secs or so. how do i get it to increase in pitch but remain the same length? can ableton do this or is it something i need to do in an external sample editor?

can anyone reccommend some fm soft synths, i'm looking for some tasty bell sounds

if you just drag your sample into an audio clip instead of playing it back as a hit in impulse or whatever it'll let you stretch it, pitch it, and I think 7 has also allows pretzel knots

lol can't write today. too early for me

r1o n.: operator. operator. operator.

Some free FM VSTs:
http://www.digifreq.com/digifreq/download.asp?ID=71
http://www.oxesoft.com/
http://rekkerd.org/gtg-synths-releases-gtg-fm-4-and-updates-gtg-k-1-and-gtg-dpc-3/

Never used any of them though.

Native Instrument's Massive has some amazing sounds on it, great layout too.

asked about this on here: what drum machine did prince, sheila e and colonel abrams use?
but i figure here is probably better, is the Linn LM-1 available for ableton?

and if not as a kit to load up directly is it straightforward to convert a bunch of wav samples of the linn into a drum kit?

the linn lm-1 isn't available for ableton as far as i know. i can email you the lm-1 soundbank if you like?

aw damn, is there some legal reason why it's not? but yes the soundbank would be great, thanks a lot! ( nicheian AT gmail dot com )

I like the ILM threads where peeps are still dead helpful.

ok i made a remix and im pleased with the sounds used and the layout but the resulting mp3 sounds dreadful when set next to proper songs. how do i make it sound so much louder, bigger, cleaner, crisper, sharper? i understand this is all in the mastering but what are the main things to work on? i keep hearing about compression being very important. anyone know of a good online guide to mastering an mp3 in ableton?

for starters, you don't master an mp3.

for seconders: http://www.tweakheadz.com/mastering_your_audio.htm

for thirders, compression and mastering might make your final mix louder, but if the mix is crappy then it won't help it sound clear/clean/etc.

4therz

Spend time learning how to EQ. That is how you make things sit in the mix

5therz

don't work with pre-mastered audio when you are just starting out. It is a bitch you make all that sit in a mix correctly and then try to master it again.

Make some of your own loops and try to get them to sit in a mix with nothing but EQ. Don't mess with compression and limiting just yet.

Don't worry about making it huge or loud, just make it sound decent in the first place and go from there.

EQ in the master channel is for mastering engineers trying to deal with something that's already mixed down IMO. when I've got every part of all my signal chains two clicks away in live I just go back and adjust the filters on things etc etc.

my mastering channel usually just has the Apple AU multiband compressor with some custom tuning, preceded by a very dry Saturator with barely any drive at all.

Anybody else ever stick their hand out in front of their monitors' bass ports to check if the drums are doing what you want them to? My speakers are too close to me to really be able to hear the long wavelengths right

the correct volume of air displacement being very necessary for proper jacking of the house obv

I have done that a bit but it doesn't really help that much. The thing that really helped me the most was making friends with the people that run the local dance club and a set of DJ with their own rental sound system.

There was a time where I used to wait outside of Plush and walk through the doors the second they opened. The staff was very cool with letting me play a few different mixes of my stuff on the system full blast before people showed up.

I recently played my first live set off a laptop through a set of 1500 watt mackies and that was a nightmare. The last time I did a set was in the 90's and I was using hardware through a mixing board and there was a great deal more control. I made the mistake of rendering and mastering my loops ahead of time and dumping them into a playlist. This really hamstrung me because I did all my mixing and compressing on a set of alesis monitor speakers and I lost a lot of control over the sound because of this.

I also did not have a decent set of monitors and this made doing a live mix a hell of a lot more difficult.

If I have learned anything from the experience it is to not even mess around with multi-band/single band compression. I think my life would have been a lot easier if I hadn't compressed the shit out of everything.
It sounds great at home, doesn't sound so great through a system. That is the big thing, learning how your music reacts to big systems. Your studio monitors are not an accurate representation of what will happen in the real world.

I think the real key is a residency at a club and weekly refinement of your material.

i dunno bout that. club systems are rarely accurate. club rooms normally sound pretty horrible when they're empty. the 1500 watt mackies you're talking about were probably those active pa speakers, they make most music sound shite.

to everyone talking about compression and crap like that, unless you're using it as a special effect, why bother with it? if stuff is coming out too quietly, especially if you're working with soft synths, it'll be your synth programming and layering thats rubbish, work on that. a quiet weedy kick drum won't become big and fat with some compression, you need a new kick drum! or two!

i don't even think about eq and compression until i've mixed everything down to individual audio tracks. and even i'd only use them very carefully. the only time i'll compress something is when i want it to sound warmer, so i stick it through an external valve compressor and record it back in.

the only way you'll get that big studio sound is if you go to a big studio and work there with the outboard equipment. it *is* possible doing it all digital but you'll need a fairly flat room and a decent amount of controllers to play with. you really need to be hands on, ears on, eyes off when doing that sort of thing.

for monitoring i use some studio monitors and a sub. this is also the system i use for listening back to any music. if you can listen to, and enjoy good sounding music on your system, you should be able to mix to that same standard. i used to mix on a pretty average hifi that i knew had this sweet spot where if i turned it up enough it would distort in a pleasant way and i could hear everything and it sounded nice. so when i mixed i just made sure my tracks did the same thing

use as many outputs from your soundcard as you can. route into a mixer.

...when playing live, don't do any mastering or mixing, use raw material and mix it live.

(pressed submit too early!)

CHALLENGING OPINIONS

I have to admit I love the idea of compression as a "special effect" in 2008. this is what happens when you raise kids on Justice

Anybody else ever stick their hand out in front of their monitors' bass ports to check if the drums are doing what you want them to?

describe to me what wavelength means, subwoofer man

or maybe you just mean people who make music in bedrooms shouldn't post here

i dunno if i get what you're on about, need some sort of lol/zing filter on ilx. but the justice sound you refer to surely does use (over) compression as a special effect. earlier i was on about people using it on all of their sounds to make them louder/better. its like what happened when reverb went digital. 'just stick some reverb on it'.

well, the wavelength is the length of the soundwave. most decent pa systems can reproduce 35hz fairly okay which'll be about 10 meters.

challenging opinions, listening with your hands

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.