Even though this is a Degree in the understanding of sound and its applications in different technological contexts, it is especially nice to do some work with music from time to time instead of simply making noise in the guise of music. It is interesting that we’ve just spent the last two weeks trying to program MIDI tracks to make them sound like naturally played real instruments and now we’ve gone to looping real audio to sound robotic and repetative. Just thought I’d mention that observation. :)
Live is bloody awesome. I’ve had it at home all this time (an LE version came with the 002) but never installed it as I figured it was ‘some toy’ like Frooty Loops. Wow, how wrong was I. It is just so quick and easy to create a great sounding song. The only problem, as I mentioned, is the repetativeness of music created this way, but that is easy to rectify. In future, I’ll be creating my loops in Pro Tools, importing into Live, creating the basic song, exporting and importing the song back into Pro Tools to record live playing with the track to get away from the robotic sound. This may seem completely obvious but I don’t think enough bands do this when creating songs via looping, NIN being the obvious one. Every rhythmic track, (and melodic for that matter) doesn’t need to be created with loops. It’s interesting that the Scissor Sisters recorded their latest album this way[1], although Scott Hoffman uses Battery not Live, (along with recording digital tracks back onto 2” tape and mixing on a Neve but we won’t go there) and even though it’s an electronic album it doesn’t sound overly robotic like electronic music of the past, or even some that have been released recently.
Live is bloody awesome. I’ve had it at home all this time (an LE version came with the 002) but never installed it as I figured it was ‘some toy’ like Frooty Loops. Wow, how wrong was I. It is just so quick and easy to create a great sounding song. The only problem, as I mentioned, is the repetativeness of music created this way, but that is easy to rectify. In future, I’ll be creating my loops in Pro Tools, importing into Live, creating the basic song, exporting and importing the song back into Pro Tools to record live playing with the track to get away from the robotic sound. This may seem completely obvious but I don’t think enough bands do this when creating songs via looping, NIN being the obvious one. Every rhythmic track, (and melodic for that matter) doesn’t need to be created with loops. It’s interesting that the Scissor Sisters recorded their latest album this way[1], although Scott Hoffman uses Battery not Live, (along with recording digital tracks back onto 2” tape and mixing on a Neve but we won’t go there) and even though it’s an electronic album it doesn’t sound overly robotic like electronic music of the past, or even some that have been released recently.
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I mucked it up around 1:35 as I missed the beat so it stuffed up for about 7 seconds, but after trying about 30 times to get it spot on I settled for it as is. I assure everyone this is all done live without automation, even though there are automation dots in the pic. They’re from playing it live then rendering the file after. This mix would have been easier to do with more tracks but I thought I’d keep it to four with four slots so we’re all even. Nice me eh. ;)
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Haines, Christian. 2007. “CC1 – Performance Sequencing(1).” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide, 6th September.
Live. 1999-2007. Ableton AG.
[1]Tingen, Paul. “Recording The Scissor Sisters.” In Audio Technology – Issue 51. A. Stewart and C. Holder eds. Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd 2006. pp37-40.
Haines, Christian. 2007. “CC1 – Performance Sequencing(1).” Seminar presented at the University of Adelaide, 6th September.
Live. 1999-2007. Ableton AG.
[1]Tingen, Paul. “Recording The Scissor Sisters.” In Audio Technology – Issue 51. A. Stewart and C. Holder eds. Alchemedia Publishing Pty Ltd 2006. pp37-40.
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