By now, people who care about the music of Richard D. James, aka Aphex Twin, know about how he dumped 175 (and counting) unreleased songs on Soundcloud. Like everything he’s done its a body of work that is at turns beautiful, frustrating, and obtuse. The majority of the tracks seem to be Aphex-esque techno and… Continue reading Unreleased Aphex Twin, Warped in Ableton Live
Tag: ableton live
Groove, Metastability and Randomness
[audio:http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-TestPercussionGroove.mp3|titles=test percussion groove|artists=chaircrusher] http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-TestPercussionGroove.mp3 This is a recording of two loops playing in Ableton Live. One is a percussion drum rack, the second is the U-He Bazille instrument run through several effects. This loop plays the same notes, but will never actually play the same one bar sounds twice, for two interlocking reasons. First, both… Continue reading Groove, Metastability and Randomness
Ableton Live — a Different Way to Swing.
I’m doing two posts in one day after months of silence? This just occured to me; I had to share. 1. Get a clip loaded. MIDI or whatever. 2. Click on the Groove hot-swap icon, and choose any groove: 3. Set Timing, Random, and Velocity in the Groove. 4. Set ‘Base’ to 16T. 5. Tweak… Continue reading Ableton Live — a Different Way to Swing.
The Hallway Samples as an Ableton Live Pack!
I previously had posted about a couple of sample sets I made by banging on stuff in the basement hallway, (Hallway 1 and Hallway 2) but today I went through the steps to package them as an Ableton Live ALP file. These are Sampler presets, so I don’t know if you can load them if… Continue reading The Hallway Samples as an Ableton Live Pack!
Using Random Processing in Ableton Live
There are two things that I’ve done consistently for 18 years I’ve been using a computer to make music is to experiment with random processes to generate something musically. EXAMPLE ENSEMBLE: http://www.cornwarning.com/xfer/AbletonLiveRandomizeExample.zip Ableton Live has a ton of effects. People spend a lot of time and money (or time looking for W4R3Z, which imho is… Continue reading Using Random Processing in Ableton Live
#Ableton Q: Start a track before 1.1.0?
Notice my clever hash mark — because my posts get forwarded to Twitter … I’m becoming a blog/facebook/twitter whore. My friend Dylan wrote “Here’s a problem I’ve been trying to figure out for a while now: say you want to drop a track in from the very start instead of fading it in slowly, but it starts… Continue reading #Ableton Q: Start a track before 1.1.0?
DJing in Live — Limiters are not the answer!
This is a common ‘helpful tip’ about playing live or DJ’ing with Ableton Live — ‘put a limiter on the main output bus.’ After recording a set last night (which you’ll hear about when I get approval from one artist to use a track) I have spent some time rendering, tweaking, and then re-rendering a… Continue reading DJing in Live — Limiters are not the answer!
Akai APC40 First Impressions
My APC40 came yesterday, and I spent a few hours fiddling with it last night… The build quality is impressive. Almost absurdly so — the knobs are big and solid, the faders are smooth. The hard rubber end cheeks are some designers wet dream — they seem to have no purpose except to enhance the… Continue reading Akai APC40 First Impressions
AudioMidi has APC40 in stock, shipping today
AudioMidi is one of those online retailers, like NewEgg that once you find it, becomes your vendor of first resort. I can’t recommend them highly enough — competetive prices, prompt shipping, and first rate customer service. I ordered my Akai APC40 yesterday, and called them to ask if they were backordered and when they’d ship,… Continue reading AudioMidi has APC40 in stock, shipping today
Ableton Live 8 Extracts Grooves from Audio
Groove Quantization was one of the ‘big deal’ features added in Ableton Live, and I suppose if I’d read all the marketing shiznit more carefully I would have figured it out before now, but as usual I only learn by doing. [audio:http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-LiveGrooveQuantize.mp3] http://www.cornwarning.com/chaircrusher/Chaircrusher-LiveGrooveQuantize.mp3 So what I did here: 1. Load the track “Amazon” by El-B… Continue reading Ableton Live 8 Extracts Grooves from Audio
How to make Reaktor Knobs Automatable in Ableton Live
So the target demographic for this post is the intersection of three sets: Ableton Live Users Reaktor Users People wonky enough to try and automate VST plugins with envelopes. Still with me? OK. I was contacted by an Internet acquaintance because he wanted to use the Reaktor Effect that emulates the Roland RE201 Space Echo,… Continue reading How to make Reaktor Knobs Automatable in Ableton Live