Amateur Audio

I'm back!

2010-10-30T15:22:00.000-07:00

I've been gone for a week, my trusty old Macbook's broken. It took a while, but it seems I finally have my old laptop working, so I can blog again. To make up for my absence, I found this awesome link: AudioFree v3. This is a blog that basically links you to tons of free samples and other downloads. It's good to be back, hope you missed me, I missed you!

Links!

2010-10-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

Every now and then I will round up some links to tutorials, reviews, discussions and just generally any kind of article I suspect may be of some use to all y'all. Welcome to our first instalment!

Discussions:
Earlier this week I posted a list of DAWs out there with a short comparison of features. MusicRadar did the same thing a few weeks ago; here's their version: How to choose a DAW

Tutorials:
This is list is a collection of MusicRadar tutorials they've published.

Next time, I'll try getting a wider range of materials from more sources, but this is it for this week, enjoy!

Choosing Your Audio Software

2010-10-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

I've been getting a lot of questions about what software I recommend for audio manipulation, so I've decided to write up a guide to choosing your software, or DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) as it is called.
The problem with choosing a DAW is that there are only a few things you want your DAW to be able to do. You want to be able to record things. You want to be able to comfortably manipulate audio samples. You want to apply effects to audio tracks. You want to export your work. That's it. In essence, every DAW needs to do this, and every single one does. They differ in workflow, in lay-out, looks and only marginally in features.
Now that we have established this, I'll run down the main options you have here.

1. Logic Studio/Express (Mac)
Once a cross-platform DAW, Apple bought Logic and made it Mac-exclusive. Logic has a reputation of being a all-in-one package, that does everything in a very intuitive way. Express is a stripped-down version of Studio that is still very rich in features. Most studios use Macs, and most of those Macs run Logic. It used to be really expensive, but with the latest update, Apple made the wise choice of making it affordable, with some amazing value for your money.

2. Steinberg Cubase (PC/Mac)
This is the DAW that introduced VST plug-ins, which caused a major turnabout in the DAW world. Many producers switched to this DAW because of it, and it has a reputation for great cross-platform support. The downside is that it has a notoriously difficult interface.

3. Cakewalk Sonar (PC)
The fact that Sonar only runs on PC has made it a very strange little piece of software. In a market dominated by Macs, choosing only to release on PC comes with a very unprofessional image. I have never worked with Sonar, but it's not very expensive, and there's still a good number of people who swear by it.

4. DigiDesign Pro Tools (PC/Mac)
The cross-platform powerhouse. Comes with a PCI card for its DSP technology and output. I've never used it, because it's really really expensive, and is most popular among professional producers.

5. Cockos Reaper (PC/Mac)
I already had a discussion on Reaper here. Basically, it costs next to nothing and works like a charm. Very safe choice for anyone entering the world of digital audio.

6. Ableton Live (PC/Mac)
My favourite, by far. Live does not focus on offering a complete package, it focuses on making making music fun. Comes with a good set of tutorials that will have you feeling like a DJ in no-time. Live is based on looping samples, which makes it extremely accessible and allows you to easily experiment with different ideas. There was a time when Ableton was considered unworthy because of its poor sound engine and choice of fun over power, but the latest versions have addressed those problems.

7. FL Studio (PC)
Another strange little DAW that does everything in a slightly different way. Like Live, it focuses on fun rather than features, but like Sonar, is considered slightly unprofessional. Not only is it PC-exclusive, it also does not allow the use of VST plugins. Still, there are plenty of productions made by this program. One of the top DnB producers in the world, Spor, uses this for most of his tunes, which I think is all the evidence you need.

8. Propellerhead Reason/Rekord (PC/Mac)
A very hands-on approach. Probably the most intuitive DAW of the lot. Not very feature rich, but still offers a few things that other DAWs don't, especially in terms of interface. It's clearly oriented towards electronic music production, and therefore lacks some features that I find essential, but I still have it on my computer. Why? It is very easy to integrate with other programmes. I can use Reason's output in Ableton, which combines their functionality.

Note

2010-10-17T04:51:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated in a few days, because these weekends are for partying and that's just what I did. Expect a new post later today!

Computer Music's Pro Remixing Tips Discussion Part 2

2010-10-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

Tips 10-18, in this second and final part of Computer Music's remixing tips.

10. Improvise and innovate

Can't find that critical sound? If you haven't been supplied with a part that you feel is necessary to retain some of the original vibe, you have nothing to lose by setting out to create something similar. It might seem to compromise the integrity of the remix, but you've got to be realistic about your circumstances and do the best you can. Who knows - you might end up with something that works better than the original sound would have.

It took me a while to get what they even meant here, but they're absolutetly right. Say you're doing a typical trance remix of a song. Chances are, it won't include the big epic detuned saw riff that you want to include. Make it yourself.

11. Push the limits

Rejuvenate the original track's musical ideas by extending or hyping up the existing parts. Play with faster rhythms and new variations on the main theme. An unexpected element can really help your mix to stand out. Reinvent parts that didn't formerly sound exciting enough in your new genre. Push every idea as far as you can take it and see where you end up. On a practical note, when working at a faster tempo, it might be necessary to extend a loop to prevent grating.

The area I notice this most in is sampled hip-hop beats. They often take the tiniest bit of music from the original song, and repeat it over and over in a whole new way. Example; this is Gang Starr's Full Clip. Listen to that beat. Now, here is the song it was sampled from: Cal Tjader's Walk on By. Try finding that beat in there. No? It's at 0:25. Someone with a keen ear listened to that, suddenly realised that looping that specific part would sound really cool, then did, and it did.

12. Substance abuse

When you're stuck, look to the original track for inspiration. You should always consider abusing the original elements! Try completely changing the context of a part. Why not make a string motif your new bassline, or the original bassline your new synth riff? There are no limits to the potential of any idea if you let your imagination run wild. Something that might have seemed useless on first glance could turn out to be your saviour when you need a quick idea later on in the mix.

I can't think of an example off the top of my head, but I can imagine this having some really neat results. One problem is that using a part in a completely different area requires some serious beat-wrangling, but if you feel you're up to the challenge, fire away.

13. Cut and extend

If you're forced to cut a sample short and it sounds abrupt, extend it artificially with the crafty use of a little reverb and/or delay. In some cases, a 100% wet version of the end of the sound can be crossfaded with the abrupt tail of the original sound to create a seamless extension. At other times, a gentle, tempo-synced delay will do the job.

These are some basic ideas when working with samples, but yes, they can occasionally save your life. You have to realise, this will often have the best effect on something like a synth line, which turns out to be the kind of sample that some smart slicing in the right areas will have the best results on, and will often sound much better. What I'm trying to say is that you should try at least two approaches and see which sounds best.

14. Hide and seek

If you find there's a bad sound you can't get rid of in a sample that you need to use, try masking it with new sounds. Drown out unwanted ambience with a huge wash of reverb on another part. Strategically place clicky, percussive parts to distract the ear from annoying crackling in a loop lifted from vinyl. While it might be difficult to eliminate a particular sound from the mix, it can take little effort to hide it behind something else.

Great idea that I never really thought of before. I'm not sure how well this works and what sounds work best for hiding the original, but some controlled messing about will probably give me an answer. Keep in mind, there are plenty of sound restoration tools available that might be a more subtle solution to the same problem.

15. Push it real good

Play to the strengths and weaknesses of the original track. Ask yourself what you can fix that was lacking in the first version. What can you improve? Does it sport an extremely funky bass riff? Find ways to go even funkier. Do the drums lack power? Work out a way that you can create powerful drums that do the job. It's good to be ultra critical of the original version when deciding how to approach your remix.

This requires you to stay pretty true to the original track, I think. When you have your remix that sounds little like the original, it's pretty obvious that you're gonna have to alter all the original pieces so they both sit in your mix properly and have some extra punch.

16. The simple life

Keep it simple. Simplicity is pure, bold and memorable. Don't overcomplicate your remix with too much random stuff going on. It's OK to intricately work in a lot of elements, as long as you keep in mind how they all work together. That takes skill and a lot of patience, but it's definitely better than confusing the listener or distracting them with inappropriate things going on all over the mix.

Definately does not apply in every genre of music. Particularly in big beat tracks, you often have towering drums combined with tons of small little synths, a bassline, sometimes a guitar hook, and trumpets maybe? But, in most cases, especially dance music, this is a good thing to keep in mind.

17. What's your goal?

Be creative. A remix doesn't have to mimic its original in every way. If you happen to have an idea that's not particularly relevant to the original but that you love, why not just go for it? Sometimes you have to ask yourself where your values lie, though - do you specifically want to produce a good rework of that particular track, or are you using the remix as an excuse to use those parts in your usual quest for the perfect production?

If you're not creative, music is not something you should waste your time on. I think these are some very strange points altogether, they seem to contradict each other, and relate very little to an actual remix.

18. Free and easy

Look out for free plug-ins and keep them all in a folder where they're easy to access. They need not be the most commonly used effects, nor of the highest sonic calibre, but when it comes to processing sounds beyond recognition, sometimes quantity saves the day where quality falls short. You never know - you might be surprised at how high-quality some of them really are.

Be aware that a ton of plug-ins, even if you don't use them might slow down your DAW. Also, be aware that applying a huge amount of lower-quality plug-ins to a sound because a single good one doesn't sound well enough is probably the worst idea I have ever heard. But who knows, maybe you get some really cool results.

Computer Music's Pro Remixing Tips Discussion Part 1

2010-10-13T04:02:00.000-07:00

Computer Music, the UK-based magazine about computer music, has released a comprehensive article on how remixes are done. I don't receive CM at my current address so I haven't been able to read the full article yet, but luckily MusicRadar has digested the essentials for us.
I thought it might be fun to quote the ideas they present and offer some thoughts of my own on them, and enable some discussion on each tip by numbering them. You can read the original article here.

1. Chop and choose

If some ideas from the original song aren't working, try leaving those bits out. You'll have to make a real effort to decide which parts you can truly afford to lose, but if you've chosen the right genre for your remix, you should be confident that the main elements of the original will work in your new style. Typically, a modern dance remix of a heavily vocal-lead track will discard most of the vocals, only keeping a key phrase or chorus.

This is something that I think everybody that listens to the radio more than once a year will know, but it's always useful to have it written down so you don't forget about this idea.

2. It's not the right time

Sometimes you might want your resulting remix to work in a genre that dictates a whole different time signature. If, for example, you were to try to force a waltz-like 3/4 ballad into a trance track, you'd be in trouble. Rather than forcefully superimposing one time signature onto another, try keeping the approximate melody and changing a few notes to adapt it to the new time.

From my own limited experience remixing tracks, I found that things with different time signatures lose a large part of their charm when they're put into another time signature. This doesn't mean it can't be done, but it requires you to use the original material in new way that's not apparent to everyone.

3. Breakdown cover

Although you've got to remain faithful to the genre you're remixing into, you can use breakdowns as an excuse to make more liberal statements. These are also useful places to respect the original content. For example, an electro house track needs its drop, but there's nothing to stop you from breaking down to a completely different tempo in order to wedge in a sample of a metal or hip-hop record (or whatever you happen to be remixing).

I guess this is all true, but just like changing a song's time signature, changing its genre, especially half-way through the song, is something that should be done with great care. You might discover a new genre altogether, but there's a greater chance that you'll have a song that's just not right.

4. Speed kills

Statistically speaking, dance remixes tend to be a lot faster than the original tracks. If you're working with a particularly slow song, remixing into a super-fast genre or both, try running the sample at half-speed, relative to the genre you're doing. For example, it might be easier to use a 110bpm hip-hop sample in a 200bpm breakcore remix by first slowing down the hip-hop sample to 100bpm.

I hope you knew this was a good idea before you saw it written here? One note I would like to make; Nowadays you can change a sample's tempo without changing its pitch (or vice versa), but be aware that you will often get the best results if you accompany stretching with lowering the pitch (if possible) to some degree, and compressing with a higher pitch.

5. Out of concert

Is your sample in concert pitch? If you've ever struggled to find the right tuning of a sample - ie, you're never able to find the same key with your sequencer - you might have a recording that's not in concert pitch. Essentially, this means that the pitch is offset by less than a semitone and thus will always sound detuned against in-tune instruments. The solution is to fine-tune it using cents. Make sure you tune all samples so that they're in concert pitch before you start your remix.

If you start working with a sample and realise only halfway through the remix that it isn't in key, you have worse problems that the fact that you need to tune your sample.

6. Timing is everything

If you're having trouble with a loosely timed sample, try cutting it up into sections first. Once you have the sample in manageable chunks, you can experiment with a range of different methods to tighten the timing up. For example, timestretching can sometimes be appropriate, but other times it just won't sound right. You might find certain phrases can be cut into sections that can be sequenced into time, or that brushing up just a few dodgy edits with timestretching does the trick.

This is a good point, but as far as timestretching is concerned I like to leave my samples in one piece if at all possible. All the clutter that comes from chopping them up too much and its implied strain on your CPU just disturbs my workflow. I generally do it when polishing a song that's nearly finished.

7. Love the big picture

Be careful not to lose the charms of the original mix. It's easy to get excited about a remix or become fascinated by a particular aspect of the original track - just don't get completely fixated with the most obvious elements. Often it's the very fine subtleties of the mix that make a song work in a certain way. Spend some time getting intimate with the original version and all of its parts, and pay close attention to how they work together to make a remix that's really special.

Here I would like to point to a song that you probably already know, We No Speak Americano. If you notice the electronic part of the song, with the straight 4/4 beat, it might sound like a simple synth blasting a note on every beat. Listen more carefully, and you'll notice it's a trumpet sampled from the song, where they've found just the right balance between making it sound electronic and authentic. I don't like the song too much, but I thought this was very well done.

8. Identity crisis

Try to put a part of yourself into the mix. Sometimes you know whose remix you're listening to from the moment it starts, because it's inherited some of the remixer's personality. Merge your signature sound with that of the original track, bringing your ideas and vibes together into a unique musical cocktail. Just don't go too far!

Not much to say here, other than that I always love it when a remixer does this. Good examples are remixes done by Chase & Status and Noisia.

9. Bang up to date

If you're using a lot of old-fashioned sounds, it's easy to end up with a mix that sounds dated. If this is a problem that plagues your remix, make it a high priority to spend time experimenting with modern production techniques - particularly when it comes to processing audio. Also, make use of the audio restoration tools at your disposal. These days it's totally possible to transform a scratchy old sample into something new and vibrant.

I personally don't agree here. Let's refer back to We No Speak Americano. Where would that be without it's authenticity? I think capturing an old sample's vintage charm is something that adds to every sample-based song. But maybe, they're right, maybe too much will make your song lose its appeal. I guess this is something you'll have to judge for yourself when you're in this situation.

That's it for part 1 of this discussion, come back tomorrow for part 2! And remember, thoughts go in the comment box!

Where to find your free music software

2010-10-12T04:12:00.000-07:00

Short on money? Luckily, there are many excellent free plug-ins available, either made by small, amateur developers, or bigger ones that think it's good advertisement to release some stuff for free. All in all, you can now have a huge top-quality plug-in collection for free, without any of the guilt associated with piracy.

Every week, the music tech site Musicradar releases a list of free music software for that week. They've been doing it for a year and a bit, which means they now have at least 500 plug-ins rounded up. Articles are per week, but don't worry about starting with the last ones, they're recent enough not to be obsolete.
Music Radar free music software round-up

Then there's KVR Audio, a site dedicated almost exclusively to music production software. They have an amazing database of free and commercial plug-ins and other software, that you can easily access here: KVR Audio Database Search

I will add articles on free plug-ins that I think are special enough to merit their own article when I come across them as well, but these two sites are great starting points. On a final note, I think everybody should check out the amazing Independence Free, a free sampler with a 2.5 GB sound library, and for anyone wanting to know what plugins to look into, KVR Audio also has these ranking lists.

Native Instruments Komplete 7

2010-10-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

What was the last time €500 was worth €3000? Native Instruments Komplete offers you 24 essential production tools for the price of a microphone.

You could say the only thing missing from Komplete is a DAW, but you could also say everything missing from a DAW is Komplete. Not only will you get the definitive, 90 GB Kontakt Sample Library, no less than three synthesizers, a huge drum library and so much more, the price makes it a no-brainer for everyone. I can honestly say that about 100% of my productions include something from this set. Which makes it almost the text-book definition of something essential.

Native Instruments Komplete 7

P.S. Don't you love this way of combating piracy? Just make it incredibly large, way too large to download?

LennarDigital Sylenth1

2010-10-10T17:13:00.000-07:00

If you ask most pro's about LennarDigital's Sylenth1 they'll tell you that it has less features than almost any other soft synth available. They'll tell you that it's terribly difficult to program. They'll tell you that it has no very few distinguishing qualities.
Sylenth1 has little that other synths don't. You could say it's only merit is the ease with which you can make oscillators sing in unison. And you'd be dead wrong.

Imagine this; one guy, with a passion for music and a lot of technical experience, decides he wants to program a synthesizer. He continues to work for 18 months, over 50 hours a day, and when he is done, he releases a synthesizer that doesn't even look any different than anything else we've seen. Imagine then, that with virtually no marketing, over the course of 3 years, without any significant updates, Sylenth1 struggled into every producer's arsenal, just by sounding that good. How good? Its filters scream like a pig, it's oscillators are richer than Oprah and its drive knob makes everything warmer than the sun.
Going through the list of excellent factory presets, you'll come across several sounds that you'll recognize straight from the radio. That's right, some of the big hits of today have synth hooks and riffs that use Sylenth1's presets, without having changed a thing; something virtually unheard of in most synthesizers.

Sylenth1 is no longer the underground hit it once was, now it is the gold standard for soft synth sound, and at €135, you're getting some great value. Warmth like this used to be exclusive to an analog synth, which could easily cost you 10 times as much.

EDIT: Download the demo here

2C-Audio Aether

2010-10-08T06:37:00.000-07:00

Finding a good reverb plugin can be very tough. They range in prices from free to a £2500, and in quality from horrifying to great. Aether is at the lower end of the spectrum in terms of price, costing a good £350. You might think this is still a lot for an unknown developer with yet another reverb plugin, but once you listen to it you'll realise you're getting awesome value for your money.

Aether calls itself a self-randomizing algorithmic reverb plugin. Now, I don't now exactly what that means, but what I do know is that dragging Aether onto a track will drown that track in spaciousness. Put on a pair of headphones, and have a listen:
Aether demos

Unfortunately, there is a downside to all of this. Aether is ridiculously hard to program, with a huge array of controls that are barely explained. This is however compensated by a large amount of presets, all ready to be used out-of-the-box, and basically provideing you with everything you need.
A demo version (for both Windows and Mac) of Aether is downloadable from the 2C-Audio website here:

2C-Audio Website

Essential Plug-In Rundown

2010-10-06T03:40:00.000-07:00

I will spend the next couple of days covering some plug-ins that I think are essential for any electronic music producer. By covering, I don't mean reviewing, I mean describing what they do, telling you why I consider them essential and why you're gonna want to take a look at them.

2C-Audio Aether
The single best reverb plugin there is. In fact, it's so good, you'll want to throw it on every single track you have, simply because it sounds so freakin' gorgeous.
LennarDigital Sylenth1
The gold standard in soft synth plug-ins. A few years ago, nobody had heard of this plugin, but now everybody uses it. Why? A big marketing campaign? No. A enormous amount of features? Definitely not. No, Sylenth1 made a name for itself just by sounding amazing.
Izotope Ozone 4
The only mastering suite you have to bother getting. It does everything and it does everything really well. What more could you want?
Native Instruments Komplete
There is no better value-for-money to be gotten in the world of audio applications. 500 Euro will get you every sound ever conceived by man, and so much more.

These are the 4 plug-ins that I use most. I have others, not many, but still a few, that I could include here, but I'm just not sure about. Auto-Tune has saved my life quite a few times, but its appeal is limited. Spectrasonix Omnisphere and Trilian are both all-in-one solutions for amazing sounds but I thought I already have enough sounds at my disposal to spend full retail price on these. Anyway, it is quite possible that I decide to add more plug-ins to this list. Look out for my first article, on Aether!

Thoughts on the Cockos Reaper demo

2010-10-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

If you follow the world of computer music and audio, it's hard not to have noticed the stir Cockos Reaper has been causing. Where software DAW's (Digital Audio Workstation, your piece of music creation software of choice) are almost exclusively bulky, bloated applications, that have one useful feature for every 100 that you never use (but you do see reflected in the price!), there now is Cockos Reaper. The creators and fans of Cockos seem to have conspired to make sure everybody hears about how their new DAW can do anything the big ones can, while being smaller, more stable and, best of all, cheaper.

After seeing another "Best DAW" poll raided by Reaper fans I decided to have a look. There can surely not be this much commotion over something that does not at least merit some of it? At the Cockos website you can download the Reaper demo, which currently weighs less than your average song at less than 6MB.

The first thing I noticed was the sleek, black interface. I personally like my software good-looking It gives it a feeling of polish and a nice first impression, which all reflects back into your user experience. The second thing I noticed, after playing around with it for a bit, is that, while everything that should be there was there, was that there was little innovation to be found, at least at first glance. I had hoped that the Cockos revolution was about more than just price, stability and size, but my first hour revealed little to believe that was the case.

I think that Reaper probably is an excellent DAW, but too traditional for my tastes. If I wanted to record a band, it would probably do exactly what I wanted; record multiple inputs, mix them, add effects and some general polish, and then produce a file. When I open my DAW, I mess around with samples, virtual instruments, loops and whatnot for hours before I have the vaguest idea what I want to do. Reaper and me don't work well together, but I can imagine a whole lot of people falling in love with it, and I can, if anything, appreciate a small developer entering a very competitive market dominated by a few powerhouses, and then starting a revolution.

Ableton Live Tutorial: Setting up a Clicktrack

2010-10-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

This tutorial will show you how you can set up multiple audio channels so that one will play a click-track.

In my band, we have our drummer play along with Ableton's built-in click-track, so that our whole set will always be properly aligned. It's not difficult to do. Ideally, you'll want a soundcard with multiple stereo outputs, but I am going to show you how you can set up your computers stereo out so that only the left channel will play a clicktrack.

1. In Clip View, take a look at your Master channel strip. If you can't find it, press the black circle with the gray M in it in the bottom-right corner.

2. As you can see, both the Master Out and Cue Out are assigned to 1/2. What this means is that both the Master Out, which is the output that all audio tracks in Ableton send their output to, and the Cue Out, which is a separate, customisable channel that is used by the metronome, both use output 1/2. If you have no special sound card set up, this means that they both use the stereo output on your computer. This step is simple. Click the drop-down menu, select output 1 (Left stereo channel) for Cue, and select output 2 for the Master Out.

3. If you activate the metronome and press play, you'll notice that the output will only come through the output set up as cue.

More Sampling in Ableton

2010-10-04T03:47:00.000-07:00

If you want some inspiration regarding sampling, check out these two amazing videos that show recreations of two classic Prodigy songs in Ableton Live:

Smack My Bitch Up (Youtube)

Voodoo People (Youtube)

Ableton Live Tutorial: Sampling a Drum Beat

2010-10-04T03:17:00.000-07:00

This will be my first tutorial on using Ableton Live. What I am going to teach is how to sample the world famous drum break from the song Amen Brother by The Winstons. It will cover the basics of warping and sampling.

1. Let's start by downloading the song. I got it from here. Note that I am working with the whole song, not just the drum beat, which you can download separately in tons of places as well.

2. Open a new Ableton Live file, and drag the MP3 into the Clip View screen (Default screen when you open Ableton), like this:

Ableton will then start warping your song. What this means is that it analyzes the so-called transients (peaks in the volume level) and uses them to guess what the rythmic pattern is for that song. For most electronic music, Ableton will often get the warping correct but with a more complicated piece of music like this, with an intro and people with no perfect sense of rhythm, it can occur that we have to help ableton a little. Don't worry, it's not difficult.

3. Double-click the clip you just dragged into Ableton. At the bottom of the screen, you will now find the Clip Overview screen for this particular clip. Hover your mouse over the timeline at the top. See it change into a magnifying glass? If you now click and drag, you can navigate around the audio waveform displayed below. Left/right moves it left and right, up zooms out, down zooms in

4. Click the triangle next to the clip in the clip view to play the song, and click the two dots in the top left part of the screen to turn on the metronome. You will notice that Ableton probably didn't do a very good job of guessing the rhythm of our song. Press space to pause the song, and let's get warping. The way I start is by carefully listening where the first beat of the first measure of the song is. Find this and zoom in on it like this:

5. Once you have it, mark it as 1.1.1 (First beat of the first measure) by right-clicking the transient, and selecting "Set 1.1.1 Here" from the pop-up menu.

6. Now, if you press "Warp From Here", Ableton will retry warping the song, this time knowing where the start lies. Usually, your song will be properly warped. Make sure you've activated the metronome, and play the clip.

7. That's better, right? There is still a problem, though. Around the 10th bar, Ableton loses track of the song again. Seems like we'll have to help it out a little here. Search for the exact start of the 11th measure/bar in the song, and you'll notice it doesn't lie on the 11 indicated by Ableton like in the picture below, but rather just before it. All we have to do is adjust the 11th bar in the song so it coincides with where ableton thinks it should be.

8. Zoom in on what you think is the start of the 11th bar/measure and double-click to insert what is called a warp marker.

9. Now, zoom out a little and simply drag the marker from here...

...to here, right on the start of the 11th measure.

10. Again, now that we've helped Live a little, let's see how the rest goes. Click the warp marker you just placed on 11 and choose "Warp From Here". The rest of the song should now be perfectly aligned with the metronome.

11. Now that our song is warped properly, we can easily take bits and pieces from it. The drum loop that we're going to want to use starts at the 43rd bar, and lasts until the 47th. Find them, and select them by dragging your mouse across them.

12. Now, if you press CMD-L on a Mac or CTRL-L on a Windows machine, you will place the so-called Loop Brace around the selected parts and activate looping. If you now play the clip, it will loop the drum break.

13. Now, let's focus on the parts we want. Adjust the loop brace to just loop the 44th measure. Do this by simply clicking and dragging the topmost arrows of the brace. Congratulations! You just sampled your first drum beat.

14. All that's left to do is rename our clip. If you press play now, it will start a drum loop, so select it by clicking it and then press CMD-R or CTRL-R to rename it.

Gear

2010-10-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

This is a list of the gear that I am currently using for my home productions. Text will become links if I decide to write an extensive review for that piece of gear.

Macbook, White 13-inch
I got this as a present two years ago and have not yet had a reason to want anything else. Some people have suggested I get a MacBook Pro, but the one I have now works fine in my opinion. I definately won't write a review for this one guys ;) no real reason to now is there?
Line 6 Toneport UX1
This is my one and only audio interface. It's a bit small and feature-lacking (1 stereo in and out), but it works and I have not wanted to record multiple tracks at the same time or needed more outputs. I have had this thing for years and I love it deeply.
Novation Remote Zero SL
This is the MIDI controller I use for live performance. Decent piece of gear, nothing spectacular but it won't let you down.
M-Audio 49-key MIDI keyboard
I have some gripes with this thing, coming from a build quality that really is below M-Audio's high standards, but it still mostly does its job.
Korg R3
The centerpiece of my setup, it makes most of the sounds I use, can double as a MIDI-keyboard and it just looks cool.
I have a decent collection of instruments, but they won't really matter for the things I will discuss here so I won't list them.

EDIT:

Almost forgot, I use Ableton Live. Tried some other things, but they never really managed to replace the workflow I've adopted in Live.

Introduction

2010-10-03T16:48:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

My name is Derek, and I am an amateur audio producer from the UK, currently living and working in the Netherlands. I made this blog in order to share some of the things that I do, post some tutorials and other articles, and hopefully learn some things myself from your guys' input. My plan for now is to post a couple of reviews on the products that I am currently using, post some links to resources that I found helpful, and we'll see how it goes from there.

Cheers,

Derek