Category Archives: Ableton Live 8

New Song (Orbit)

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I haven’t posted any new tracks in a while due to traveling and other circumstances, but tonight I had some spare time so I sat down with a borrowed laptop and this little thing came out :).

I did not have any other means of input besides the laptop keyboard so forgive some of the rough edges please. Also, all I had for monitoring was my very cheap ear buds. Thus, levels and EQ is probably all over the place. There has been no mastering (yet). If any one feels up to it let me know and I’ll send you the original file.

I have to return this laptop tomorrow so there is no time left to work on this track, but it was fun working with only a (licensed of course) copy of Ableton Live and a laptop. Hope you like it!

BTW, the samples are from a public repo of NASA transmissions. My interpretation of the terms is that this use should be OK but if that’s not the case let me know and I’ll remove them.

Meeblip and MIDI (a fix)

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Last year I ordered a Meeblip (the easily assembled kit) and I’ve been in love with this little grey box ever since! It is simply one of the most affordable and fun hardware synths (that actually sounds great) that you can buy right now. I use it mostly for bass sounds, but it can just as easy do great lo-fi leads as well.

One issue I ran into some time back was that while the unit would respond great to MIDI from a keyboard controller like my Novation boards, I just couldn’t get it to respond predictably to MIDI notes when played from a clip in Ableton Live. I tried experimenting with channel settings, offsets and gate lengths but nothing helped. The box would only catch ever 20th note or so.

Yesterday I sold my Novation SL MKii 49 to finance a new reverb unit (Lexicon MX400, more on that later) and so today I was cleaning out some MIDI settings in Live. When I did, I noticed that the Meeblip was set to receive MIDI Sync (as in clock) from Live, with seemed unnecessary so I turned it off, and behold, the MIDI notes now trigger exactly as expected.

I double checked by turning the Sync out ON again, and the problem immediately returned, so I’m pretty sure this was indeed the problem. I’m not sure why the Meeblip isn’t just ignoring the Clock, but apparently it confuses the MIDI note / trigger / gate implementation in the box, so turn it off if your Meeblip is not responding as expected.

New EP (Fahrbahn II) released!

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After about 6 months of collecting ideas and materials, sequencing and recording, I’ve put together a follow up to the Farhbahn EP, named (surprise surprise) Fahrbahn II :). It’s available at Bandcamp via the link below. Please download and check it out :).

You can name your price (including $0).

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New Song (Cumulus 1 – The Engine Room)

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This is a track made entirely with my modular setup. There is no external sequencing or MIDI involved, but some effects like reverb and echo were added through Ableton during recording. Other effects, like the distortion you hear on some sounds, came from patched in guitar stomp boxes.

Each ‘layer’ was recorded separately with a XAOC Moskwa sequencer providing the clock.

New Song (With Your Eyes)

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!! This will be the last track for 2012!

There’s been a lot of things going on lately, so this track took a while to complete, but here’s my first attempt at something akin to Psytrance. Big shout out to Dave Brown who got me started!

Some interesting things about the track.

1. It was built entirely in Live 8. All leads, pads and basses, except for the sub bass that kicks in from time to time, are made with Massive. No presets, all custom made from scratch.

2. The sub bass that you hear a few times is played lived (overdubbed) on a Moog Little Phatty (custom patch).

3. The percussion is actually composed of 14 different samples and patches stacked and mixed. Building the kick was one of the most rewarding parts of this track :).

4. Don’t ask me why it ended up so long. I was originally planning a 5-6 min track but somewhere along the way it ended up being almost 10… It’s a bit repetitive but I wanted it to have passages long enough to give the listener a chance to get lost in some of the lead riffs :). Let me know if it works…

Hope you like it!