Yup, that’s right, I’m thinking of moving back to Cubase.. I can still get back to it with the modest $200 upgrade cost.. it looks like.. …so I’ve been sorta evaluating the new version: Cubase 5. The last version I worked on was Cubase SX3… so its a few versions beyond…

Comparing Cubase with Digital Performer

I haven’t really been on Digital Performer, in a serious way, for all that long.. lets say a year maybe.. So I don’t really fully understand DP… and DP is.. arcane in places.. I’ll give you a for instance…

DP gripes

Workflow and the Arcane 

In Digital Performer.. you have two modes a plug in can run under.. ( I wasn’t even aware of this till the other day ).. one way is the new fangeled way… err, don’t even remember what they call it.. but essentially DP will render out what’s on a channel.. into an audio file.. and swap stuff around.. in order to save on CPU loads.. This is a groovy thing.. of course.. but seeing as my main computer has 8 processors in it.. it’s not a feature I actually need.. and the negative of this operating mode is that it can cause some plugins to go unstable.. which would explain a lot of the frustration I’ve had on recent projects.

The other mode is a “real time mode” where.. well.. plugs work in real time.. here things are stable..

But.. you know.. DP is a strange beast.. on mix down.. according to something someone said in a forum.. you have to separately mix down real time plugs.. Why? And um.. further more.. ReWire.. only works in real time.. and is a pain in the freaking ass.. at least in my experience.. to mix down via DP… which means Ableton Live and Reason.. in my case.

It may very well be that all this makes sense once one gets a little more advanced then I am.. but for me.. it’s just a pain in my butt.. 

Effects 

Why yes, it is true.. DP does come with a number of effects..  but how many of them would I use if I had a choice? Umm.. probably Master Works EQ, MW Limiter, Proverb, Delay, and the Master Works Leveler, are the effects I’m regularly given to using.. out side of that there’s a few that are ok.. but after that the rest are rather crapy.. and those that are good are.. not really all that exciting.

Instruments 

Frankly.. if you are the sorta person who uses virtual instruments.. or is interested in such things.. Digital Performer is NOT good enough unless you invest in other instruments. They are not wholly without merit… they are just.. well I turn my nose on them anyway.

[editors note: None of the DAWs out there, really, come with instruments that you’d want to be limited to using.. the point is Matt almost never uses and of the instruments in DP] 

Beyond all that

I’m not really sure what I can say about DP.. I feel as if… well I’m not as good with it, as I need to be, to really judge.. there’s a lot of things I don’t like about DP… and I think a lot of it is just where I stand on the learning curve… I’m slow with it.. not as productive as I like.. I find myself fighting the tools.. which has got to be some sort of an issue.

Onto Cubase

Effects

It’s a little hard to talk about Cubase’s effects as I haven’t really used them… but I’ll give you my presumptions anyway… and mind you I’ve been using cubase since.. I want to say version 3 or 4? That is way back in the OS 9 and earlier days! So.. I know my way around a bit…. and some of the older, more legacy effects, I do indeed know.

EQ

My impression is that DP’s Master work EQ probably beats out Cubase as far as EQing for color is concerned.. but then I don’t know really.. [Editors Note: Its pretty safe to say you want one good transparent EQ, and then as many for color as you can afford, so you probably wouldn’t rely on the EQs that come with you’re DAW, at least not entirely ] Cubase has 4 EQs.. one of which, the channel EQ, I have used before.. What I like about it is its just there.. as a part of every channel.. you don’t have to bother adding a plug in.. and I just sorta like that design better. I really like the user interface to.. good for making EQ adjustments. I also like that Cubase comes with a graphic EQ.. well actually 2 of them.. as sometimes.. don’t just want to work with a graphic EQ instead of a parametric?

There’s also a high pass low pass filter with resonance.. which to me could go under the EQ category.. this is probably where we are talking about color… but I have nothing to judge on.

Compressors and Dynamics

Cubase offers basically 3 Compressors… what looks like a standard compressor.. a multi band compressor.. and a vintage compressor. [editors note: In compressor speak, vintage usually means color.. and are often modeled off of one or another “famous compressors” again, you probably want lots of color orientated compressors]

What I will tell you is DP has a multi band compressor.. that I don’t much like using.. and there leveling amplifier.. which counts as a vintage compressor.. (though it does have “modern” modes to) I’ve generally liked the interfaces of Cubase’s compressors better..

Beyond this Cubase ships with a number of dynamics shaping effects that Digital Performer lacks.. including transient shaping, expander, and maximizer.

Distortion

DP has one distortion unit and.. well.. it leaves much to be desired.. its ok in one mode.. but try and push it hard and it turns into.. well.. bad sounding crap…

Cubase has DaTube.. which.. it’s not the best thing in the world.. but you know.. its not terrible.. for adding a certain sorta warmth… I actually kind of like it more then I would usually admit.

Since I’ve been away from Cubase, it looks like Cubase has added an amp simulator, tone boost, distortion, and soft clipper… some of which might be old stuff with redesigned interfaces but.. at the very least its more options then you ever got with Digital Performer.. and I’m guessing its better.. well.. it is a low bar to be better then but… and some of Cubase’s offerings in this department are purely for color.. and you know.. can never get enough of that sorta thing.

Reverb

Cubase offers 2 reverbs… really.. room works.. an algorithmic type reverb and a new convolution reverb. The convolution comes, by default. .with stuff that will give you the sounds of various speakers and analog gear as well as reverb sounds.. which… is more then you get with DP.. though I understand you can load, if you can find them, such things into DP’s pro reverb.. and I understand its not too difficult to find… but ether way, I think Cubase has to have the leg up.

I can’t say much about this room works.. accept that I was happier with Cubases reverbs when I left Cubase.. then I was DP’s reverbs.. when I went to Digital Performer..  so again.. points to Cubase.

Delays

It looks like Cubase has this area going on a little better then DP..

There’s lots of other stuff.. but I’ll leave it here, as this is sorta what I care about.. so.. onto instruments.

Instruments

Its hard to say much about Cubase’s Instruments without using them.. I’ve never been big on Cubase’s instrument.. but tend to like them better then Digital Performer’s.. And my impression, admittedly based of marketing materials.. is that Cubase wins this area by a land slide.. though.. it doesn’t have too much of a bar to get over.. and I’m certainly intrigued by the newer stuff.

But do I really care?

In my studio is Komplete, Kore 2, Omnisphere, Reason, Ableton Live, the Audio Ease all in Bundle.. and a bundle from VirSyn.. plus Cantor… oh yeah, and Native Instruments Machine plus Liquid Mix, never mind Melodyne…

My point is that the quality of built in effects and Instruments.. when looking at a DAW, is not really the most important thing to me…. as the level of stuff in my instruments and effects plug in library is several orders of magnitude better then what I could possibly expect to find in a DAW.

I love having lots of options, so I look forward to having a new set of options.. but it’s not as if I’d actually be relying on them or anything.. well.. unless they turned out to be surprisingly good… and I do think there’s some chance of that.

Other things

I prefer the way Cubase works with surround sound mixing.. I prefer the way it works with ReWire.. I have a lot more experience with Cubase.. so I expect to be more productive and to produce better work.. I hate the dongle key Steinberg forces on you.. and I hate there tech support.. and the way there company treats me.. It seriously feels like, from time to time, that they are penalizing you for paying money for there software instead of using pirated copies..  and not only that.. but in there videos where they explain there new features.. they have the balls to suggest offering a 9 week demo on another product of there’s constitutes “a feature.”

..Though they do, apparently, offer you the upgrade from the demo for “a special price”.. which.. I don’t know.. if the price is good enough.. the other product is actually quite good according to reviews.. it being there sampler.. I mean its no Kontakt but.. it does offer a good sample library.. and that combined with it’s Cubase integration.. probably makes it worth something to me.

Other odd thing is they only support sample rates up to 98kHz? Umm.. why? DP def wins that one out.. though I usually only work at 44 kHz because liquid mix’s instance count goes down once you go beyond 48 kHz.. so.. it’s not something that’s normally an issue for me.. but still!  

I kind of have the impression.. and I couldn’t easily explain this to you.. that digital performer is a lot deeper then Cubase.. and that much of my frustration comes from not having yet mastered those depths.. That MOTU, Digital performers developers, seems to treat me better.. and are not insulting in there marketing material.. is a big deal to..

Oh yeah.. um… just the way Steinberg uses hyped up marketing language..  I mean..  

1. Stienberg has always been an innovator in a lot of ways.. but they also have a habit of putting out lemons.. throwing at you VST instruments that suck ass.. that get repealed in the next version.. or two versions into the future.. and then sometimes they repeal stuff you actually like! So when they’re hyping it.. telling you how golden it all is.. you kinda look at them like “um.. what’s that smell?”
2. A lot of the features.. they hype as if to say “look how freaking innovative we are with these wonderful new features” when the reality of the matter is that in many situations they are playing catchup with there competition.
3. They have no credibility.. just because of how much they hype.. you get the feeling they are targeting new users whom are new to music production and kinda.. don’t yet know the ropes.. and are sorta trying to take advantage of you on that front.. where as with MOTU and DP.. you feel like they sorta care about you.. there customers.. And it may be interesting to compare this with a company like Ableton where you feel like “wow, these guys are really hip.”
4. Please Steinberg.. don’t try to convince me you got the best stuff since sliced REX –I mean bread.. Anyone with a brain knows there’s pros and cons to all the DAWs out there.. all I want from you is.. well I’d like information that didn’t feel like manipulation.. tell me, “what’s the virtues of you’re product in the current technological climate?” ..and do so honestly.. you know “authenticity?”

A light speed look at other DAWs

To be honest.. if I were to buy a new DAW.. and was starting from scratch as far as investing in stuff… I’d be looking Logic, Ableton, and maybe Reason… The one really stand out feature of Cubase is that it’s cross platform. .which means.. if you’re a Mac Guy.. you can also boot into windows and use Cubase over there.. with software that doesn’t run on the Mac..

My sense of DP is that its strong suit really lys in.. well.. post production.. working with Film..

Ableton’s biggest strength is just.. creative composition process.. but it’s super weak in terms of conventional sequencing.

Reason, of course, doesn’t do anything with recorded audio.. it’s basically a virtual instrument work station.. totally modular.. or pretty close to totally.. all be it a closed modular system, right? It’s very good.. emphasis on simple.. a few weaknesses here and there.. but very good..

Logic.. I couldn’t tell you.. I think it’s biggest strength is all the content it comes with.. loops, samples.. its effects and instrument library.. I think you can’t beat it for the price.. it probably has other places its strong to.. Although I must say, fooling around with it in an Apple store not to long ago.. I wasn’t all that impressed with the effects it came with… seems like it could use some updating.

I can’t really speak to Cakewalk on the PC.. but I hear good things.

FL Studio.. if you’re on the PC.. and if you do electronic music.. I think it’s pretty much a must have.

Pro Tools.. ProTools is a standard in a lot of places.. and if thats important to you.. I’d go that route.. but.. there’s much I don’t like about it.. just that its a closed system.. and I really want to choose my own control surfaces and audio interfaces… its expensive.. and.. I have no idea why I should even consider Pro Tools.. oh.. and not only that.. but you have to be very careful about updating your OS with Pro Tools.. it has some strange conflicts with Avid of all things.. 

Some final reasons I’m considering Cubase

I have a lot of old projects produced in Cubase.. many of them being very good I think.. all be it with some flaws.. the ability to go back into them.. fix the flaws.. well.. that could really make all the difference.. and probably makes it worth a lot more then $200 to me. 

I regard exploring new possibilities, as an artist.. stretching into new things.. as being one of the most important things you can do.. and it’s probably true in most other walks of life. Generally it’s a kind of oscillation.. between that area where you are really strong.. and the new areas you’re just starting to explore… It’s about integrating these two things.

In some of my newer directions.. I have some fear that what I’m doing might be nieve… The reason being because I am venturing into areas that are more conventional then my work normally is.. so that if you’re taking you’re first few steps on a very well trotted road, how excited can you be about what you find? I mean.. sure, you’re excited.. but maybe for everyone else its “Ho hum, I’ve seen that before.”

Still.. it is still me making the music.. still a product of my aesthetic thinking.. my aesthetic sensibilities.. still something that largely comes from within..  still my process.. etc. So whatever it is I’m doing.. it’s still inescapably me.. still has a certain.. I’m not sure what.

Ultimately.. where I see the future in the new stuff is finding ways for it to be more and more imprinted with.. whatever it is that’s unique in me.. and integrating it with the older stuff. 

Into the New Music 

If  you’ve been listening to my stuff for any length of time.. you’ll note that this new track is basically an evolution of some of what we heard on ZarMattAThustra’s Deep Space Adventures:

Glitchy Goodness mix (As of yet untitled early mix) by Matt Searles

What we hear here is what we were hearing in Deep Space.. but now arranged, mixed, and sorta composed around.. in a kind of new way. It’s been said that the Deep Space stuff was like exploring out into space.. and now we are listening in on Alien conversations..

It’s a crazy kind of dark and harsh ambient.. or that track is, isn’t it? Makes me feel like a journey into the shadow side of the soul.

About this direction

The direction opens up a whole lot in the way of possible possibilities… err, so let me describe the process of the above track.

Inside Reaktor 

I started out in Reaktor.. with a sound source by which you can make music / sound / whatever.. via twiddling some knobs with your mouse.. by twiddling the parameters of sequences, synthesizers, sound generators, effects processors, and mixers.. you can only adjust one parameter at a time.. and you tend to not do it too abruptly most of the time.. you spend a lot of time navigating the interface just to get so you can get the thing you want to tweak’s parameter…

Controlling one parameter at a time.. sorta slowly.. with gaps between where you can tweak.. has the effect of making for a somewhat slowly organically evolving sound.. and because we are talking about parameter tweaking.. its as if the resultant sound is.. well it sounds like its coming from the same device who’s pattern and behavior is shifting over time.. and expressive in that way.

Parallel Compression  

So you do this over and over again.. generating a few sound files.. and you take these sound files and submit them to an automated process of what is called “parallel compression.” Parallel compression means.. you have a sound source.. that gets thrown through many compressors working in parallel.. and you mix the outs of the various compressors.. indeed I mix the sends into the compressors as well as the sounds out.. The idea is that the various compressors you’re dealing with all color the sound in different ways.. in relationship to things like.. the dynamics of the audio.. and they also effect the dynamics of the audio differently..  

So we are both colorizing the sounds and shaping there dynamics.. the latter of which will allow us more control once we get to the mixing and arrangement process.

The Mixing and Arranging Process

Next I take the audio files and load them into my DAW.. Digital Performer. 

There’s certain interesting aesthetic issues that pop up about this point. Because each sound file was generated independently of one another.. there’s no “design” to there interrelationships accept that they were all created at the same tempo… There relationships of timber and pitch (counterpoint, harmony, orchestration).. are.. in essence indeterminate.. which kinda brings us into John Cage Country…

What is similar is that.. in many cases the effects treated to the instrument are the same.. or at least some of the effects are the same.. and they are all created via the same process.. so the way they evolve over time is very similar: Process dictates a probability distribution of attributes.. so that its as if there’s a systems level interrelationship of stuff.

The process of mixing and arranging is then our chance to insert a little design into the production.. For now I’m not doing anything much more sophisticated then deciding when an audio recording should be inserted into the arrangement, choosing additional effects for that instrument.. effects of the general mix.. and mixing the instruments.. –Although I have been creating custom stuff with say.. Native Instruments Machine.

The Mixing

In my conventionally unconventional music.. harmony is at least in part conceived of as 3 dimensional..  What I mean is.. the issue of overlapping frequency ranges is a central issue to the mix engineers stock and trade.. and some of how this is dealt with is panoramic positioning.. and just where a sound should be located in a virtual sound stage. Because in my music the mixing and the composition are integrated.. harmony is conceptualized in a context of spacial relationships.

So if you think about it.. the process of mixing.. can be like a process of contextualizing material.. which means embedding meaning into it..  and um.. that kinda thing.

What you end up doing is listening to the material of the audio.. the various audio files you have.. and asking questions.. What you do is making decisions about.. what to highlight at one moment or another.. what should be dominant in the mix.. how the sounds should interrelate.. how to make things interesting in terms of how the track evolves over time..

So in essence the mixing is the composing.. moving things around in space.. automating effects.. and all this kind of thing.

Where Maschine fits into all of this?

Maschine is in essence a pattern based percussive sequencer.. and a little bit more. You compose in it various patterns.. and then in your DAW you tell it when to play what patterns..

So, at the very least Maschine represents the possibilities of pattern based sequencing.. to my music.. something that’s very good for real time music production.. and based sequencing is a big part of what’s going on inside of Reaktor in much of this production.

Machine gets mixed in like any other element.. though its the one element where we have conscious control of.. so that it works to somehow.. fit things together.. I guess.. another layer of it..

Where to go from here

It seems to me that there’s an incredible number of possibilities moving forward from here.. I have an obvious interest in working out how to create a kind of music that is similar to this.. in a live scenario.. and then there’s all the kind of possible mutations of this…

With Kore [ and hands on controllers more genearally ] 

Kore, shown here:

represents one obvious set of possibilities. You can load up various software instruments, effects, and what not.. into Kore.. and control them via its buttons and knobs.. which you map to various parameters of the instruments / effects in question.. You have various pages of mappings that you can then move between.. allowing you real time control.. without a mouse.. and in a way were you can control multiple parameters at once.

Real time control of software, in this fashion.. radically changes the way you think, and how you work with.. the software.. it’s really awesome.

 A day or so latter:

Implications 

The full implications of real time hands on control of software in this fashion, and relative to this sorta production style are really.. well more then I can really lay out in full for you here today… but I can throw a bit at yea

Manipulating multiple parameters at once

As mentioned earlier… mousing around single parameters at a time produces a certain kind of organic evolution of the sounds.. hands on control is a very different beast.. we are not talking about… well there’s a certain artistry of performance.. kind of more power.. and with that power comes the need to know how to temper it.. and anyway.. there’s a good deal to explore here.

Beyond this.. things can get a little complex.. especially is we are using multiple controllers.. and the idea that we can now play with interrelationships on the performance level.

Recording Automation rather then Audio

A significant difference between the way I was tweaking away in Reaktor.. and tweaking away with controllers in a DAW is that we are now recording automation data of a performance.. and not simply the resultant audio.

This means we can go back in and edit the performance.. we can perform on one set of parameters on one take, and another on another take.. so that the results can become a good deal deal more complex in how they evolve over time..

There is a kind of negative.. which is.. well has to do with most modern music.. that you don’t really have to make choices.. when you can alway edit / adjust things latter… this is a kind of long conversation.. but basically it has to do with.. the creative process.. and being pushed into situations where you have to work your way out of the hard way.. and in so doing.. often that’s how brilliant things happen.. But without going to far into this topic.. I will say that ultimately its up to the artist, in how to relate to the technology on this level. 

Taking it to Ableton Live, and the joys of patterns.

I imagine the next phase of things is to take the whole production, and bring it into Ableton Live.. creating patterns.. using MIDI effects to tweak the patterns.. and make it so the whole production is produced this way…

Here we really get to thinking deeply about how to take this into the live arena.. also… we are getting out of Reaktor.. and using the rest of my instrument library.

This is sorta like.. “lets go do stuff in the usual studio” stuff. It’s hard to say too much about a path you’ve yet to walk but.. An Ableton Live based… pattern based.. compositional process.. can actually lead you into a world of more control.. more.. lets say design developed.. stuff.. then traditional linear sequencing… 

Basically.. you have a bunch of patterns.. and you play with how the different patterns play together.. this can be how you think of production and composition in the real design sense.. or it can be like the design of a framework for improvisation.

There’s perhaps more to say here.. but I’m tired..

Integration

The final subject is really integration.. to integrate this stuff with the stuff that I’m actually good at… or maybe the better way of putting it is where I’m already strong..

I see this kinds of hands on.. tweak it.. kind of organic evolution of sound.. as having certain elements that my more programmed.. crazy attention to detail music lacks.. In case you haven’t heard this stuff.. a reasonable example might be this remix of the Cobert Report Interview with Lawrence Lessig.. I did recently

BSO Steven Cobert Lawrence Lessig ReMix by Matt Searles

This track took me about a month to do.. there’s a hell of a lot more attention to detail then you might notice at first..  ( including a fair amount that doesn’t really come out when listened to streamed).. the problem with this track is perhaps mostly how short it is.. as so much of this sorta thing for me tends to be about taking a little trip.. and its hard to go that far in a couple of minutes.. In some ways you can listen to it as a prototype for the new direction of what we are calling my conventional work..  Even with whatever it’s flaws might be.. it does represent a step forward on that trajectory… 

I love the idea of taking a whole month to do a single track.. I mean just the level of detail you can achieve that way… that much love and attention to every moment.. of course it’s a little on the unrealistic side.. but still!

The integration can probably happen along multiple axises

1. If you create a music form where it literally takes a month to finish a couple minutes of music.. to have this along side music where in a day’s work can give you twenty plus minutes worth of music.. well.. now the month for a couple minutes is realistic.. 
2. I have this notion of a whole album that is of the tweak kind.. where via creative mixing.. the super programmed detail stuff.. sorta comes out of that world.. where in you’re really considering the album as a whole. ( which may not make a lot of sense for custom play lists )
3. The Tweak-age stuff could be an element inside of the super detailed programed sequence stuff.
4. There’s a lot of stuff I’m thinking about where.. you have.. say.. a kind of tweakage space reverb and delay inside of a deeply programmed mix..  

A Concluding Statement

Stretching is important.. and that’s really what this is about.. What’s slightly strange about this post is that it seems to almost emphasize the.. let call it objective facts.. over the sorta internal organizing principles that would be.. what is actually known.. the facts.. we must.. as Hunter Thompson would say.. buy the ticket, take the ride.. to really get at.. so it is a strange synthesis.. and we’ll have to see what happens.

In any event.. in the end.. this is just like a confession of one tiny piece in a much larger puzzle

Editors note [ brother new Ape V was like “yo, when we gonna get a new blog post from ya” and seeing as I had this one in draft form.. figured I’d finish it up and post it.. this is really a kind of subject point of view on the subject of remixing but.. with any luck, you can dig it ] 

So Evan’s suggested I get into remixing.. which on the surface sounded like.. well something interesting to try out.. it’s not something I’ve really done before.. so I haven’t been too sure that I’d be any good at it.. or.. how much work it would take to get good at it.. as a part of this.. he suggested I take a look at entering this contest to remix Empire State Human….

First Impressions

I started by listening to the Melancholic Afro track.. featuring Wofgang Flur.. a part of the original Kraftwork group.. and started to try and figure out what I was supposed to do.. that is “what is remixing anyway”.. what’s it all about.. and where could I take this music.

The early ideas where not so much the ideas of someone doing remixing.. as they were those of a mix engineer.. and when I download the original session material..  I somewhat freaked when I realize all the effects they used had been printed on the tracks  provided for the remix. 

When a mix engineer builds up a mix.. he or she uses a whole lot of effects.. mostly EQ and compression.. reverb, delays.. that kinda thing.. in such a way to make the tracks fit together in a certain sorta way.. into a mix.. if the effects are printed.. meaning  you get audio tracks.. with the effects in the recordings.. you loose a lot of flexibility in terms of how to mix them… cause there’s no getting those effects off the tracks.

First directions 

My initial reaction was… “well, I have some audio to midi conversion abilities in my software” which translates into software analyzing the recordings.. and creating MIDI performance data.. that can then be performed by various digital instruments.. thus allowing you to use your own sounds, more or less as if played by the band.. Besides this it also allows me to rearrange the melodic and harmonic material.

It turns out.. my project studio at this point, in terms of electronic music production tools, is very strong.. by professional industry standards. The areas where I feel the need to invest more in tend to be mix engineering and recording.. 

The result of all this is.. I probably have the tools to create a kind of new version of the track.. that is perhaps more to my aesthetic sensibilities.. and probably realize it on a very high level.

But then a strange thing happened

Direction shifts into Ableton Live

I’ve been haunting the local guitar center.. doing gear research and picking up a few things.. and generally shooting the shit with the sales staff. In one of those conversations one of the guys suggested that Ableton Live was a very good tool to do remixing with.. and of course I own Ableton Live.. 

Ableton is a loop sequencer with.. somewhat immature MIDI, recording, and mixing tools.. Because of the way I usually work.. I don’t really use Ableton that much.. and don’t really feel like I have a great mastery of it..  I, along with many other musicians, feel that Live has a kind of.. different paradigm for how you work with it.. and thinking in that paradigm doesn’t feel totally natural.. at least not yet.

But of course lots of people LOVE Live.. is it just that they are more the type who works with pattern sequencing as a pose to linear sequencing? I wonder this.. and yet, though I’ve always been more the one to go the linear sequencing route.. so much of my music is actually about patterns…

Jumping in

So I started out by loading the Melancholic Afro session into Live.. taking the tracks and creating loops out of them…

The process of creating Loops is.. interesting. You could create a loop that’s just like a normal repeating riff..  or you can create loops.. where based on where the start and end points of your loop is.. basically creates something very different then the original music.. like creating a glitch in it or something.. So, for instance.. I quickly created a drum part from what was originally fairly synth pop-e, and turned it into something more Slayer-esk.

Loop Envelops 

Ableton is very powerful in how you can work with loops.. even if I do crave more power… in that you can use “looping envelopes.” A looping envelop.. well an envelop is.. it controls a parameter.. So.. pan, volume, pitch, effect send, any element of how an effect unit is processing sound.. the envelop can control and automate.. and a looping envelop simply loops that parameter automation.

Also worth noting is that the envelop loop lengths do not have to conform to audio loop length.. and that you can have many envelop loops going.. that are all of different lengths.. which allows you to work with a kind of polymetric textural evolution.. that’s, say, awesome for ambient music.. and has a lot of creative compositional applications.. 

How things look from where I’m standing now

I have a kind of vision, along with a road map for getting there, for what sorta remix artist I might like to be.. and some sense of what I’m probably capable of.. and so it is that I see remixing Empire State Human’s Melancholic Afro as a one step in the process of getting there… lets see if I can kind of describe this a little bit.

All the software tools at my disposal have there own individual strengths and weaknesses.. and so you want to work in such a way as to maximize there strengths and minimize there weaknesses.. which ultimately brings us to the subject of workflow.. and workflow is currently the real challenge for me…

Working on a remix in Live.. I start out making loops.. loops that will allow me to reconstruct the music as it was.. but also loops that are like experiments.. explorations.. “lets try this.” And for each track.. of the original sessions.. we’ll have a whole number of loops. 

The next step is to arrange the loops.. this is really the compositional part.. It starts out by fiddling around playing different loops together.. and playing with possible orders for how we could move around from loop to loop.

It strikes me that there are some interesting things that could be done during this process.. We can take our loops.. or sections of loops.. or other material.. and convert them into REX loops.. perhaps for use in Reason or Kontakt.. sections could be treated as samples in Kontakt.. and different parts could be bent around in different ways to make sense in our evolving arrangement mix.. and of course things like audio to midi conversion.. or different pitch shifting technologies.. could be used to further manipulate things into a new form.

Next Day Some Time

All of this is basically “manipulation vocabulary” or tools of facilitating that.. the process of arranging is basically composing.. this in combination with mixing..

The way I plan to move forward on this project is to finish creating loops.. play with loops, arrange loops, mix loops..

This post is starting to wander around a bit.. so how about I talk about what I think is special in how what I’m doing.

Earlier today, as a part of working on another blog post, I swung over to the old Youtube, checking out various tutorials on various music production tools.. What I was sorta astonished by was.. well, how bad all the tutorials that I happened to bump into.. were. This, of course, would be what we call in the biz “an opportunity.” I could attempt to make tutorials that were actually good.. I mean, just imagine, right?

What sorta tutorials would I make?

One tutorial I checked out was on the Masterworks EQ in Digital Performer.. accept it didn’t really show off very much more then “press this button, turn this knob, it does this,” and there were a number of features to the Masterworks EQ that it didn’t bother to even touch on. So, that got me to thinking what I’d do if I were doing an EQ in Digital Performer type tutorial.. Here’s a basic list.

1. What roll does EQ play in mixing: Coloration, and Frequency Shaping
2. A talk on EQs in general: Why would you use the Masterworks EQ versus other other EQs in DP, what other EQs might you think of adding to you’re studio, and why? Because any tutorials I’d make would be based around what’s going on in my studio.. I’d of course talk about Liquid MIX. But we’d also just basically talk about different types of EQs.
3. Typical EQ Applications and Guide lines: Various instruments.. including the human voice, take place along very particular frequency ranges.. and EQing those instruments in different ways have different effects.. for instance there are certain frequencies, relative to the human voice, which are the frequencies that are important to figuring out what the hell someone is saying.. 

That pretty much covers you’re EQ 101.. and really, that’s a conversation that applies no matter what production environment we are looking at. Indeed I could see.. showing EQs in other apps like Reason, or filters in synths.. 

But one assumes the subject of EQ would probably have to take place over multiple videos.. or once you start talking about filters in synths it does….

I could imagine doing so many videos on so many subjects that I eventually take you up to the level I’m at.. which, I’m starting to realize is.. actually not that bad of a level at all. Normally I feel like my music production skills aren’t really that great.. or I’m always thinking about how much more I have to learn.. how far away I am from the real masters of the Art.. but.. I’m starting to get the picture that.. if you take a look at all the people whom are involved in working in music production.. and learning it.. I’m probably in the upper half… which is a little astonishing to me as.. it doesn’t feel like I’ve really been at it long enough to make such a claim.

This has always been a part of my strategy.. even if I’ve never gotten around to it.. and I suppose its some of the strategy of this blog. See.. growing up I read a lot of guitar magazines.. and in them you’d have little tutorials or whatever.. created by all these guitar heros.. and it was clearly a part something that worked to help the guitarists careers, as the people coming up as guitarists.. well we looked up to those guys, you know? And we evangelized those guys. 

I guess the idea is really.. well my ideal teacher would be someone who shows you the stuff, and gives you some context for it.. and in the process.. you realize that you’re teacher is “A Real Artist” as a pose to someone who fits under the category of “those who can’t teach.” Frankly.. I’ve had very few true artist teachers in my life.. or true in a sense that corresponds to my ideals anyway. So.. I guess we’ll see how well it works..  

So I want to talk about my progress on this here project to try and make an album in a month… as a part of the NaSoAlMo thing..

In terms of my vision for my work, in terms of where I want to take my work.. The work I’m producing is not on the level I want.. You simply can’t give stuff the love and attention needed to bring this vision to full fruition.. not in a month.. not a whole albums worth of stuff.. 

All that said.. Some of the new work is reaching, at least in certain senses, levels that I don’t believe my work has reached before.. Getting some distance from some of this stuff provides me with a new insight.. on the quality of some of this stuff..  It’s really quite good I think.

I’m at a place where I’m generating about a minutes worth of audio a day.. The goal, the rules of the challenge.. is that you need to make a bit more then 29 minutes worth of stuff.. On my current trajectory I don’t think I’ll make it.. So I’m going to have to try some somewhat radical experiments to get there..  

It certainly hasn’t been helping that I’ve been really sick..  

Waking up sometime the next night: 

What seems to be happening is.. you have this question of “how long does it take to do X.” X generally represents a fairly simple idea.. Lets say we’re part way through making this musical piece and we say “I’d like to have some kind of a shimmering pad come in here like this.”

“Like this” might mean… well.. we’re going to automate pan, 4 reverb sends, volume.. we’ve got to give it some notes to play… there could be some pitch bending going on.. modulation… synth patch parameter tweaking… 

In practice..  The music I’m making does have a very high detail level.. and it is amazingly complex.. There’s lots of places where I was struggling up against one or another thing.. sections I thought were quite problematic at the time.. but then, once I have some distance from it.. wow, it’s actually quite good. 

But.. the detail level I’d like to get to.. for certain things, isn’t totally there.

Let me see if I can begin to explain.. I know this is probably rambling a little bit.. When you have one of those “basic ideas” for how something is to work.. nested in it are.. the considerations.. almost like “best practices” for achieving a given result. We are always trying to push on it.. to make the results better.. but we find that in the interest of time.. we are instead asking “what is good enough?”

So, in your mind.. you have this notion of “a simple idea” and then you have “what needs to be done to achieve this simple idea.” What happens as we get more and more into a project where time is the most important thing.. and now how much work it’s going to take to do a thing.. is going to effect both the choices you make, and how you implement those choices.

In the end, of course, the music is nothing but an end product of a lot of choices.

The tension is.. you want to make it as good as is possible.. what seems to be happening is.. we become less detail orientated..  and we look for “can we repeat that riff over here.” 

Trying to get concrete

Issues of a hacked together a mix 

Right now I’m working on a project that is sorta Jazz esk.. It features a Jazz organ, upright base, violin, drum kit, and trumpet. The organ is via Native Instruments B4, and everything else comes from the Kontakt sample library.

The first issue we run into is.. Well.. this is the one project in our over all project where instruments aren’t moving around.. things stay static.. because they’re real world instruments. The time it takes to set Kontakt up so that all of it’s instruments come out into DP on different channels.. and we automate stuff via those channels.. is more then I feel willing to deal with… thus we have some potentially serious issues.

Kontakt has a built in mixing environment.. so you can mix whatever is made via Kontakt.. into a stereo out and leave it at that.. but we do end up with a couple serious issues.

#1 We’d really like each instrument to be in it’s own place in space.. and we’d like all our instruments to be in roughly the same space.. We’d like to have it sound coherent.. This is easy enough inside of Kontakt.. Kontakt even has convolution reverb.. so it sounds like we’re really in a a convert hall, but what of our organ? We can’t put the organ in the same space as the other instruments!

What I end up doing is creating an aux channel in Digital Performer, with a convolution reverb in it.. and put a little of the Kontakt out into it, and put a bit of the organ into it.. and.. the results are “good enough for government work in the Bush administration.” 

#2 In Digital Performer, though this is a feature I almost never use, when you send an channels audio to an aux send.. you can also set it’s pan position in that send. For most of how I work this is both unnecessary and would create a tun of extra work… But.. if you’re creating a static mix..  and you have an instrument on the left side of that mix.. having its effect go to the opposite side.. helps with symmetry, helps with making the mix sound coherent.. helps in a lot of ways.

Well ether I don’t know how to do this yet, or Kontakt doesn’t have this feature..

So I really have a kind of difficult mix situation..

Sample Instrument Performance Programming 

To further complicate matters.. we’re talking about some fairly sophisticated sample based instruments.. some of which are from the esteemed Vienna Symphonic Orchestra Library..  These are really amazingly expressive sample instruments.. where via the magic of MIDI programming.. you can make sound quite real. But it does mean that you have to spend a lot of time programming key velocities, sample switching, modulation and pitch wheel bends, and sometimes midi volume moves… so that we can control the violin’s bowing, or the trumpets blowing.. in somewhat fine detail…

Conclusions 

So suddenly we end up in a situation where we need to try and be subtle! Where the time it takes to program things is.. a good deal.. even though, by making the mix static, we’ve removed the need to worry about mix automation programming.

As I write this, I question myself as to if I’ll keep working on this the way I’ve described here so far, or if I’ll finally go “yeah, we need to bring all the Kontakt Instruments out onto individual stereo channels so we can mix it properly…  which is probably more crucial for a static mix!

In any event.. this is some of where I’m at.

But anyway.. how it’s feeling:

What is kind of amazing is.. I do have all this new work now.. it is starting to look likely that I’ll have a whole album by the end of this process.. And I do think the album is of a very high quality..  And having that is a kind of amazing feeling. 

Now if I can just finish the damn thing! 

I figure.. even if I’m totally consumed by other things.. I ought to try and at least get up a post a week or so.. so here goes

These posts might be getting repetitive on this point.. but allow me to describe for you the first track.. as it stands

Lyrics

It’s based on some lyrics I tweeted.. I don’t have them handy.. but I’ll probably post them in good time.. kind of surreal / dada-distic, so to speak.. a strange style of writing.. pretty out there.. extraordinarally deep.. though there depth lys in a place that makes them difficult to understand.. seems almost like gibberish in places.. 

If I were to try and put it in a sound bit.. its as if it’s blaming our current economic problem as an effect of extroversion in the modern situation..  but I’m not sure if that’s what it’s really doing.

Vocal Performance

The performance is to be realized via VirSyn’s Cantor.. which is a vocal synthesizer.  I’ve really only fiddled with Cantor thus far.. so I’m not entirely sure about.. well if I’m going to be able to get an acceptable performance out of it.. not sure how it’ll end up working.. not sure if the work flow I’m attempting is realistic.. so this remains the big question mark.

The way I’m working it is to write out a synth line.. that’s the vocal line.. a kind of stand in.. and to take that performance data.. and put it into Cantor.. and basically fine tune it from there.

The frequency space of Cantor, versus the synth that’s doing the mock up.. will be different.. so.. a part of the process will be trying to make Cantor intelligible with all the other stuff going on in the mix..  well its actually slightly more complex then even this.. Basically.. we have a tun of instruments.. that I’ve brought down into a few groups.. the plan is the put EQ and Compression on the different groups individually.. via Liquid Mix 16.. also put something on the master buss.. and kinda automate the EQs as needed.. 

I also expect that.. once the performance data gets brought into Cantor.. I might start messing around with it.. and possibly there’ll be stuff like backing vocals.. and who knows what.

The Music

The music is pretty insane actually.. I’d say it’s sorta Indra’s Net-esk.. only more so.. taken to a whole new level. 

What goes into it

So far the production features about 30 instruments.. and about 8 auxiliary effects.. We’re talking 2 instances of Digital Performer’s convolution reverb.. 2 delay orientated Guitar Rig Patches, one EVerb from Digital Performer.. 2 reverbs from Kore 2… and I’m not sure what else.. 

To appreciate the insanity of this.. For each instrument.. besides simply telling it what notes to play when, and how hard to play those notes.. you have the automation of Pan position, volume, 8 auxiliary sends.. very often pitch bend and modulation.. and some of the instruments have other performance parameters that I might play with over the course of a track. So.. that’s what..  12 times 30? So that’s 360 parameters you’re programing.. never mind the notes.. So the production is very time consuming.. And though I’ve put in a lot of labor.. it’s currently only about two thirds of the way through… and only a little more then 3 minutes long.

Results thus far

As I was saying before.. It reminds me quite a bit of my Indra’s Net stuff.. only more so. The things I felt critical of in Indra’s Net.. well.. it overcomes those problems and limitations.. There’s more instruments, more effects.. more advanced software, way more powerful computer.. What all this means to the music is… well I’m not really sure.. but I think it’s something kind of big.

While we’re at it, I might as well share with you one of the question marks it presents me with…  Because the amount of instruments, and what not, are so much higher.. things are way more complex. Structurally, my music is not big on repetition…  at least not in a conventional sense..  One of the reasons repetition is important to.. say pop music, is it assists the digestion of the music… it is, after all, “the hook.” When my music was a few order of magnitude less complex then the current project.. I think the simplicity made it easier to digest.. So one of the things I worry about is.. well.. how difficult it might be to appreciate / digest / whatever… So… that’s like a design consideration question.

If we just listen to the music and try and appreciate what it is..  

Well its like a first step into a new world. I think it might be some of the best stuff I’ve ever done. It is full of amazing moments.. flying between a kind of symphonic like aggression kind of LSD trip.. to adventures in ambient space.. where we feel the contraction of space its self.. beneath our feet.. Along the way we travel through so many different sonic spaces and environments.. experience so many different sonic phenomenon.. From classical to all out electronica..  I just think its amazing.

On Lyrics and Music

Now.. beyond all that.. the music is actually a kind of score to the lyrics.. so the music moves through space in such a way that.. it in some way comments on the lyrics.. There’s a line “to creep the reaper out” and we feel the darkening of the space around us…. 

It seems, in a certain way, that both my lyrics and my music are like “adventures in run on sentences.”  It’s all stream of consciousness stuff..  we can go anywhere at anytime.. for any reason.. but..

The spirit of the lyrics is playfully subversive.. seeking to express truths that.. are somehow how in our collective shadow.. My lyrics are very often dark.. living in the abyss.. some of there darkness has to do with there.. transcendence of conventional.. limitations.. which is it’s self an expression of freedom.. all be it free to give satan a bare hug, or something.. freedom  to be monstrous… 

The music is another matter.. A music that is programmed.. note by note… where we’re probably programing something like.. well how many parameters per note? A lot…  That’s a slow a methodical process… It’s not really free as the breeze in quite the same way the lyrics are.. It’s more “free to exert influence over the momentum of the flux in question.” 

So the free as a bird lyrics becomes the central axis point of the whole production.. It’s like a stream of consciousness construction that’s.. somehow taken to this very extreme point of being realized.. via a slow and methodical process? The slow and methodical process is stream of consciousness to.. just that it’s a stream that takes place for days.. as a pose to a couple of tweets on twitter.. 

Going Deeper Into It.

It may sound like I’m just throwing a lot of random inane facts at you… that’s because I’m fumbling in the dark to try and express something I’ve yet to articulate… ok.. read onward for the break through.. or stop here.

We have streams of consciousness that happen at different time scales, what does that mean? Look at your self..  at some point.. and try to become mindful of all the thoughts as they stream past your consciousness.. We could be talking about.. “lets smell this flower” to “I think I shall now turn my head to find out what that dog is barking about.” 

You can look at it in such a way so as to see many thoughts as being made up of smaller thoughts.. and.. if you could imagine your thoughts as grains.. that made this kind of gass.. that filled a space.. you could say “show me all the grains that correspond to this theme” and you would start to see patterns in how various smaller thoughts where components of multiple larger thoughts.. 

I have a kind of pscyho-philosophy that has explored the dynamics underlying how all this works.. Why we think of what when.. what drives our attention.. and how this related to our concepts of reality and life, and what not.. And as it turns out.. this psycho-philosophical blah blah blah.. underlies my thoughts on aesthetics.. and is a major part of my the conceptual framework I use in making my art and music.. 

The idea that we’d be, essentially.. scoring streams of consciousness.. with streams of consciousness.. in a rather operatic way.. The idea that its sorta all on a lark.. that we then become committed to.. if for no other reason then to.. see what might happen.. that in a sense the whole production is nothing but a little experiment to see where all these thoughts lead…

Well that’s my problem with trying to articulate something.. how do you articulate an intuition? 

Well I guess that’s all I’ll write about on that track for now…  lol, but wait.. there’s more.. there’s also a Reason project in the works

The Reason Project

I was starting to feel a little burned out on the huge sound project.. so I thought I’d go take a stroll through Reason..  This project had me starting out via programming a couple Thor patches.. 

I don’t think of myself as terribly talented in the field of sound synthesis.. but.. sound synthesis is.. well I’ll end up with something.. and that something will probably give me something unique to try and go explore as a part of the larger production.

This project also had me loading up REX files..  Ages ago I blogged about how I had invested in ReCycle.. and used cheese open source voice synths to realize some lyrics.. and how I’d processed the hell out of those lyrics.. and then chopped them up into REX files.  Well.. I decided to take one line from that project.

This gets into another whole set of ideas I was playing with.. at the current stage… The idea is that we could eventually put together a track that would be.. that whole song.. with all the lyrics to it.. but for now we have one sentence.. going into this new project.. or one sentence.. cut up.. distorted.. processed.. rendered FUBAR.. played for it’s textures.. not even meant to be recognized as the sentence it is..

Here the vocals become.. a strange texture explored.. we emphasize a few words.. out of context.. as it turns out.. the word we are emphasizing in this project is the word “context.”

In any event.. there will be more to be talked about latter.. I’m over tired here.. what I will say is there’s some very interesting things coming into play with how I’m starting to play with lyrics and how they relate to the structure of the music I’m making….  leave it at that…

NaSoAlMo: What it is and why we like it

This month, or November actually, I plan on participating in NaSoAlMo, other wise known as National Solo Album Month.. This is a thing where various musician / sound artistic types.. decided to participate in a challenge to create a solo album in a months time..  Basically.. it’s an excuse to get serious.. for a month.

Last year, as long times followers would know, I created ZarMattAThustra’s Deep Space Adventures.. for NaSoAlMo….  This, I must tell you, was one hell of an adventure. There’s nothing like working your ass off on something, if you want to grow by leaps and bounds… and at the end of last years National Solo Album Month’s thing..  I felt like I had made a giant jump in my music production / etc skills..  And so now, we embark on the next adventure…

On the Stategery and tactics of taking on such a challenge

Generally speaking.. if I’m working in my conventional ways.. and didn’t have a lot of other stuff to contend myself with.. was very focused.. I could maybe spit out about a track a week.. which might be around.. oh lets say an average of about 6 minutes a pop…. which comes out to what, like 24 minutes of music? Well.. the challenge is to make an album of at least 29:09 minutes.. so that’s not quite going to cut it.. and seeing as I have other things to deal with in life.. and seeing as last year I only found out about this about half way through the month… one must develop alternative strategies and tactics.. which is perhaps another interesting thing to deal with… 

So, lets take a look at last years strategies.. and this years strategies.

ZarMattAThustra’s Deep Space Adventures Production Strategy 

I found out, as I said before, about this challenge, about half way through the month.. but had already begun work on a few tracks.. so figured I could still make a go of it.. If I tried something radicle.

My radical process started with.. working with different types of sound generating type programs.. where you improvise via tweaking various parameters and record the results. This instantly creates a whole lot of music.. but then you have the question of “is this interesting music?” So the next challenge is “how do we make this interesting music?” This became the jumping off point for an experimental sonic adventure. For the most part, this involved the following approaches:

1. Lets Process the crap out of these audio files.
2. Lets mix stuff together different versions of processed audio into a kind of composite audio file.
3. Lets slice up the audio file into discreet loops n stuff
4. Lets sequence the loops
5. Lets integrate this with our usual way of working 

 Well, that’s the broad outline anyway.. 

Tools Used

1. Ableton Live
2. Arturia Storm
3. Native Instruments Komplete (mostly Reaktor)
4. A Wimpy G4 Mac
5. Reason
6. A guitar
7. A Zoom H4 field recorder 

Ok, so that’s the basic broad brush stroke outline of it.. You can read more of my writings related to this project here…  That would be the full list.. The writings where I wrote during the production are as follows: Off In Reaktor Land, Red Rum Re Drumed, and finally Gonzo adventures in music production.

Should you like to hear the album in it’s entirety, you can find it on over here at mattsearles.com/music. 

At the time I created it.. I wasn’t real sure of it.. but since then I’ve gotten a lot of good reviews from people.. and now figure.. well, it’s probably a pretty good album.

The New Production Adventure

Tools likely to be used:

1. The Bad Ass 8 Core Mac Pro
2. This here new MacBook (2GHz Due)
3. Komplete 5
4. Kore
5. Ableton Live
6. Reason
7. ReCycle
8. A Tascam 16 channel Mixer as a MIDI controller
9. An M-Audio DJ like MIDI controller
10. A Guitar
11. A Slide Bass
12. Digital Performer
13. Liquid Mix 16
14. Couple of budget Condenser Microphones
15. Zoom H4

In addition to all that madness..  I’m looking to add VirSyns Cantor Vocal Synth and… VirSyns “Take Five FX bundle” which includes Bark, Matrix, Reflect, TDesign, and VTape. Indulge me as I talk about these a little, won’t you?

1. Bark is a pretty interesting looking  27 band filter / EQ and compressor
2. VTape is a set of analog tape emulation plugs that emulate tape based saturation, delay, and flange. I’m very much in need of a tape delay type effect.. and very much wanting some sort of analog tape emulation warmth.. 
3. Reflect is an Algorithmic Convolution Reverb. Even in the current version of Digital Performer, I’m not feeling like my reverb bases are covered quite enough.. and I expect Reflect to really help out along these lines.. and the integration of Algorithmic and Convolution technologies into a single reverb unit is a quite attractive thing.
4. TDesign is a Transient former.. I don’t know too much about this sorta effect.. but it does give you control over your dynamics / transience.. and there are quite a few production folks out there whom are very into such things
5. Matrix is a Vocoder, and according to a recent issue of Sound On Sound, a very impressive Vocoder.

 So… as you can no doubt see.. We’re talking about a massive upgrade from last year’s project.. studio wise anyway, so, what of the plan off attack?

Plan of Attack

I have lots of music ideas, and I’m pretty sure this project isn’t going to be able to explore them all.. but, we’ll certainly see how far we can make it.

• The first thing I want to do is.. See if I can’t jam out some stuff using Kore to control various Reaktor beatboxes, sequenced instruments, and sound generators..  This will effectively create one box full of building blocks.
• Next I want to experiment with a somewhat traditional-ish approach to sequencing.. where you play around on a keyboard, quantize stuff, and put together stuff that way..
• I want to use ReCycle to create REX files out of some of the results.. to use as building blocks that way.
• A rather central thing I want to explore is.. vocals. These vocals will probably be ether.. me speaking into microphones and vocoding the hell out of it.. / Melodying the hell of it.. or Cantor stuff.. somehow creatively mixed into the music.
• I’m actually thinking of the possibility that this album project could feature some sort of a narrative / lyrical whatever.. that might sit at the center of the album.. which would be a really huge jump for me to take.
• I see a part in the process where I jam away on guitar and bass to construct.. well… something or other.
• I imagine a part of the process where I have all kinds of content loaded up into Ableton Live.. and use the MIDI controllers / Mixers to kinda improvise out something…

 Of course, in the end, all this stuff must me integrated into one giant process… so, wish me luck…

After quite a hassle.. Digital Performer 6 is finally running on my system. The first thing you noticed about DP6, versus 5, is you got a new interface.. This new interface has 3 main implications:

1. How do you make a wheel again?: You have a new interface to learn… you must learn new ways of doing whatever it was you were doing before.. 
2. There is a Psycho Acoustic principle via which software with new shiny interfaces always sounds better then the old ugly ones: More then anyone ever wants to admit.. our perception of audio is influenced by suggestion.. and so it is that if the software you’re using looks pretty.. well you think it sounds a whole lot better. From the point of view of someone producing music.. this is a nice feature.. as it inspires you on your adventure..
3. Stuff is Streamlines, or at least that’s what MOTU would have you believe: For the period in which you can’t figure out how to do what you used to take for granted.. stuff isn’t streamlined…. But I must say.. there’s a lot of stuff about Digital Performer that I really thought was.. well ways in which DP wasn’t exactly making sense in a modern production context.. and what do you know.. they’ve worked out much of that.

Beyond this grooviness.. we got other new grooviness.. but none of this is what’s really striking me at the moment.

Matt, what is really striking you? 

What’s really striking me is a sense of Awe of what I’m able to do in my studio now. On the sonic software side of things we got Digital Performer 6, Ableton Live, Reason, Native Instruments Komplete, Kore 2, and Liquid Mix 16… plus a couple other odds and ends. There are gaps that still need filling, which I could go on about ad nauseam… some of which I’m looking to rectify in the short term, others more long term.. but however you want to slice it.. there’s a lot of power under the hood.

Why are you struck by this now?

This is a complex topic but.. There is this sense that “software tools are not as good as hardware tools,” or at least that would be a simple way of putting it. It’s quite a bit like some people feeling that vinyl records are better then CDs… That vinyl is somehow “warmer” then CDs. This is a complex topic that can go into subjects of sample rates, ramifications of particular mastering issues for vinyl… and on and on and on. In the world of music production technology the topic is even more complex as that the technology of production is much less static then the issues of Vinyl and CDs.. which, lets face it.. people are choosing low quality MP3s anyway…  so what does it really matter?

My production tools acquisition process has always been one where issues of “price versus performance” plays the key roll.. If hardware tools are 1o% better then software tools, but cost 40% more.. I’m probably going with the software.. But in the world of serious sound engineering.. it’s the finally 10 or 5 percent that separates the men from the boys.. Most of what makes a good record are the people making it, not the tools.. but tools are very important.. and if you don’t have the right tools.. you’re probably not going to get there.. 

All of this talk is somewhat abstract.. until you actually start listening to the gear… In the last few months I’ve been going through a few years of Sound on Sound magazine.. reading reviews, interviews, and whatever.. trying to get a better picture of what gear is out there.. production techniques.. and all sorts of related things.. as well as scouring the internet.. and listening to all kinds of samples of all sorts of tools.

Somewhere in this process I began to think “hmm, maybe my tools aren’t so great?” But then DP6’s new look and feel came to the rescue.. and I started to perceive differently.. and started to discover how amazing some of the tools I have really are.

So I mean it was a kind of subjective shift that brought a new perspective.

Where the Artist Plays

As I tried to get to before.. the most important thing is not your tools.. it’s you. And it’s not even really your skills so much as your spirit.. for it is, after all, the spirit who employs said skills.. and even said tools!

There is something to be said for habit.. I find myself approaching my music making in more or less the same way as I always have.. In the last 9 months or so.. I’ve gone on all manner of fun little experimental adventures.. exploration of process alternatives.. and what not… But even with all that.. as I approach the music making today.. I do so in the hum drum of habit.

Habit?

For many, habit is a state inside of which growth doesn’t really happen. However.. if there is sufficient anarchy in your habits.. that anarchy is always going to be putting you in varying positions which you will have to wrestle your way out of.. and that’s often where the interest in my work comes. Or that’s one way of putting it.

Still.. I’m not without desire to get out of my usual habits.. it’s just that.. such ambitions are not really the most important thing.. the most important thing is getting the damn ball rolling.. and if that means playing to your preexistent strengths, so bit it. 

Getting the ball rolling? 

Yeah.. getting the ball rolling is the most important thing. As we speak the ball is in motion.. Wether I’m working a way on music, screwing around with photography, working with video, computer graphics, web design, whatever.. at the very least.. each day.. I do something.

The end goal is to have as much of your energy as possible pouring into this work.  The more of you you can put into it.. the better the work will be… By which I don’t necessarily mean that you should “be in your work” but.. well thats complicated.

Next Day Sometime

My work is a strange beast!  In someways, going about what I’m going about.. I feel like I’m working on Indra’s Net version 2.. Indra’s Net was a project I worked on sometime in 2004… and at the time the laptop I was using.. well the screen was freaking small.. which effected things in a number of ways.. the processor, even for the time.. was very much on the budget side.. I never had enough RAM.. some of my software wouldn’t even run! And we didn’t even have enough hard disk room to save what we were doing in anything other then MP3 files!

Now of course.. we’re using 2 24″ HD displays.. We only have about 2GB of RAM but that hasn’t been a real issue in the music production department.. We have software that’s 2 generations beyond what I was using on Indra’s Net.. We have ridiculous amounts of processing power…  and we have more disk space then we’d ever use for music production. Finally, instead of Cubase we are now using Digital Performer.

Beyond all that we are 4 years in the future.. 4 Years more mature.. whatever I’ve learned about music production since then.. and 4 years evolution in my work. 

So.. The implications of all this.. are actually kind of big.

Implications on habit

I don’t think I spoke elegantly about this last night.. and now that I’m a little further along in my production.. new things are growing clear.

Habit, in a certain way.. is like a path you’re walking down.. habit being an act that keeps you on that path.. and so it is that we see our selves evolving further down a path.. There are certain things we add to our bag of tricks.. certain things that change things a little bit.. lets explore in the context of the current production.

New to the new studio.. is a lot of new Reverbs. Digital Performer gives us a convolution Reverb.. and Kore 2 gives us a whole number of other sorts of new reverbs.. besides new reverbs there is, for me.. new ways of thinking about how to use reverbs.. varying .. and how I might EQ them… all of which has to do with creating a sense of space inside of which our music is happening.

My music, of course, is about space.. moving through space.. more psychic space then real space.. and music production in general.. creating a sense of space is important..

project specifics 

I think of the music as something like a buddhist meditation.. it is something like thoughts flowing through consciousness.. consciousness is our stage.

The use of Reverb and delay, and how I’m mixing stuff.. can transform.. or contextualize something that would normally be thought of as aggressive or rocking.. into something more ambient.. something we don’t think of as aggressive or rocking.. and in a fluid sorta evolving mix.. with respect to our sense of space.. the context can give us different shades.. where the aggressive bits can be more like textures.. to being.. something to rock out to.

This production is very much like this.. about this..  We have this rather industrial type percussion.. which rises in intensity over several measures.. and also moves from very far away to closer.. It repeats.. with gaps between repeats.. and it isn’t until it’s second repeat that it ever gets close enough to us that we feel it as heavy in anyway.

The sound elements that start off far away, and move in closer to us.. are all simply repeating the same lines.. no variations at this point.. accept in how they play against the other repeating parts.. and with respect to there location in the mix.

Everything has this ambient like feeling to it.. Until part way through.. We have a rather lead synth sound.. it repeats twice.. but then.. when it might repeat.. in comes a church organ.. which though it does start of a little ways away from us.. it doesn’t start off in audible.. and it’s repetitions are variations.. and it becomes as if the repetitions of the different instruments are now kind of.. playing against each other in a new kind of way.

It’s during this stage of the music’s evolution that I’m now bringing in a string section. The string section will not be playing a repetitive part.. but will instead be playing in ways the plays off the harmonic ecology of the mix.. repetitions we do find in it.. will be to echo other instruments.. and to create a move clear coherence.. in the material.

For now the music is moving into a place where it could be quite a bit more aggressive.. to be heavy and rocking.. but where we are at now is still a bit of a dream. 

How this Compares to Indra’s Net 

What I failed to mention about the Indra’s Net Project was that.. I had just bought Komplete 2.. (5 is my current version).. and I was really just started to explore the tools.. and a new version of Cubase.. Now I actually know the tools..

What we are seeing now is subtleties.. between the new reverbs, the larger sound pallets… and the mix has a much greater kind of.. quality to it.

[Editor’s note: Matt doesn’t know what the hell his problem is..  yes he reads folks like Chris Brogan and has some appreciation for the value of writing brief entries.. and though Matt would argue that long can be good to.. if at least well written… surely this entry must fall short on both fronts!!!] 

[Editor’s Note part 2: This blog entry was originally written about 3 months ago… and thus represents a now out moded point of view.] 

So I just bought DP 6… well actually I haven’t bought it, but before I finish this blog entry I will have… as we speak I’m going through the feature list on motu’s website. This is an exciting development.

I’ve been doing a lot of research into sound studio type tools. The trouble, of course, is that these tools are expensive.. There’s a lot of questions around this stuff and the best… at least conceptual solution I’ve got.. seems to be to try to move forward organically.

Latter:

Let me see if I can explain the problem:

There’s a whole variety of “tools” one needs when on tries to do what I’m trying to do. For the purposes of this blog entry, we are talking about “plug-in effects related to mix engineering applications.” In the magical land of DAWs.. which is to say “Digital Audio Work Stations” there are.. market forces at work that would seem to have big long term implications to DAW developers. 

I’m thinking of Apple’s Logic. Assuming I’m not miss remembering anything..  the current Logic costs about $500 or $600… and is really the most complete DAW, right out of the box, in terms of digital instruments, effects, and sample / loop libraries. If I were to advise someone on what DAW to get.. for most folks, I’d say Logic.

This is not to say there aren’t pros and cons to all software of this type and class.. from my understanding of the subject, there are many ways you could argue that Digital Performer is a superior product to Logic (and perhaps vice versa)… but from the stand point I’m talking here.. I probably wouldn’t be thinking of spending as much money on effects if I was starting from Logic, as a pose to DP.

Digital Performer actually has a pretty good library of effects, with respect to the mix engineering job. DP has a great EQ… but.. beyond that really.. you kind of have a range of stuff that’s.. really old technology that doesn’t really stand up to modern scrutiny…  or I should say that some of the stuff in that range is in need of updates. The new DP doesn’t solve this problem, but it does take us a few steps forward.

Ok, let me back peddle a little… The instruments and effects I’m looking at are.. of a very high quality. Logic may ship with tools that cover many of the bases of the tools I’m looking at.. but do they do so at as high of a level of quality? There are areas of subjectivity in here.. but I think you’d have to come down on the side of no… even though I’m largely speaking out of my butt on this one…. do to not being a Logic user… But.. come on.. there’s no DAW that ships with EQs and compressors as nice as Liquid Mix.. and no DAW which ships with a convolution reverb half good as Altiverb… 

I seem to be getting side tracked by complicated philosophical topics.. Let me come out of this rathole with just one line of thought: Generally speaking, you don’t want to use the sounds “directly out of the box,” if we are talking about effects, synth or sampler patches, loops, whatever.. The reason being is that everyone else who has those tools has the very same sounds you’ve got so you’re probably not going to be all that distinctive in your sound.. if you just go with what’s in the box. The more you’re box of tools is comprised of tools from different places..  different companies, different whatever.. the more distinctive your sound will likely be..  So there’s something to be said for the path I’m on… not to mention that we all have different needs, and building a tool set custom to your needs is, of course, a huge advantage.

Of course I must confess that I’m lazy and often do use the sounds straight out of the box.. with little to no tweaking..  but as soon to be released blog entries will show.. this is a trend I’m looking to curve.

Back to a more direct rout into the idea of an organic studio evolution:

There’s a kind of question as to if you should invest in tools in bundles, or piece meal individually. My shtick on using tools from different companies, and what not, supports the piece meal path… but often when you buy a bundle you get more for less.. however you don’t really get a lot of say in what’s in that bundle.. and if some of what that bundle offers is something you don’t need.. well that’ll effect you’re calculous.

The big new effect in Digital Performer is a convolution reverb. DP has sucked for reverb.. and now it looks like it might just rock… The thing of it  is that there are two bundles I’m looking at that have convolution reverbs in them… so the question I have is.. is the DP convolution reverb “good enough” so that I might not want to go spend a lot on Altiverb? Or perhaps might not need to? It’s impossible to tell till you get to go play with it.

What I will say is that DPs new convolution reverb does look… interesting. As near as I can tell it’s a long way from Altiverb, but it does have some very nice things going for it… lets explore:

•  Surround Sound! For the bundles I’ve been looking at.. the included convolution reverbs do not support surround sound… or, as in the case of Altiverb, you have to pay a lot more for surround sound.. 
• Dynamic ducking? I frankly don’t understand why it would have a feature like this but.. basically as the dry signal gets louder, the amount of reverb applied to the signal lessons… the result of this would be that quieter sounds will sound further away.. which you may or may not actually want.. but it’s not a bad feature to have.. at least not from the stand point of my production style.
• It looks like you can make you’re own convolution samples.. or load samples from other libraries?

The Down Sides:

MOTU’s site raves “includes dozens of preset acoustic spaces.” If they had said “over 100,” well, I’d be digging it…  I should say that convolution reverb is to other types of reverb what a sampler is to a synthesizer… and though there are samplers that will in some ways behave like synthesizers in how they can modify a sound.. generally you get what you get.. which is true of convolution reverb to.. that there’s not really much you can do to modify a sound..  

It might also be worth pointing out that convolution reverb isn’t really the end all be all of reverb effects..  In part because you can’t really modify sounds all that much.. you end up loosing some control of your ability to place sounds in space. This is not to say that convolution isn’t great… just that it has it’s pros and cons.

Ok.. lets step to the side here.. One of the bundles I’ve been looking at is from Waves. There Natives Power Pack is… strangely enough… both very powerful for the cost, and very well tailored towards my interests and needs.

This Natives Power Pack bundle includes a convolution reverb that is in many ways better then DPs.. the “over 100 presets” immediately comes to mind… though waves’s IR-1 does look a little neutered when compared to the ‘fuller version,’ which even then doesn’t support surround sound…What makes comparisons down right impossible.. from just reading stats is.. what makes a convolution reverb sound good has to do with the quality of there samples..

In any event.. of the sorta mix needs I have.. having a good convolution reverb fits very high.. and is currently my most pressing need… Much of my excitement about the new DP comes down it’s inclusion.. and the feeling that it will, if nothing else, lesson that need.. which in tern allows me to spend more time plotting an organic studio upgrade map. We will, after all, see if Motu’s ProVerb is indeed good enough…

All of this said, as near as I can tell, the Atliverb looks like its by far the best convolution reverb going.

[Editor’s note: Matt Should have ended this entry around here, don’t cha think?] 

I do feel the need to wind things up here.. but..  DP comes with yet one other new effect.. Masterworks Leveler. Perhaps it’s my design / arts background, but I hate the interfaces on a lot of DP’s effects.. which causes me, if nothing else, to further think they aren’t all that great.. well, the Leveler’s interface looks pretty darn cool.

As near as I can tell the Leveler is a kind of automatic limiter / compressor… and it looks like it’s pretty sweet at that.

The compressors DP has ships with.. I’m not a big fan of, though I’m not really all that big on compression anyway.. and the limiter DP has shipped with.. well I think it’s pretty good.

As far as compressors goes.. my eye is now on liquid mix 16, or Liquid Mix. Liquid Mix, as near as I can tell, is really the ultimate place to go to for EQs and Compressors.. which are the most important tools for anyone doing mix engineering type work.. though where Liquid mix starts to break down is in the area of fast attack times.. as compressors with fast attack times.. well, those are limiters, aren’t they? But its something to do with using convolution to sample a compressor.. that when you get short attack times.. things start to not go so well.

The last downside to Liquid Mix, at least from my point of view, is that it runs off of hardware.. which sets limits on how many instances you get.. In Liquid Mix you get 32, and in Liquid Mix 16 you get.. yup, you guessed it, 16. These numbers represent “mono” instances.. if you’re applying this to a stereo channel.. you get half the count.. and if you increase the sample rate, you also get a cut in your instance count.

Another problem you get with Liquid Mix is latency: You play a note on an instrument.. and latency is the time between when you play it and when you hear played back to you through you’re speakers / headphones. Liquid Mix must send the signal out from your computer via firewire, to its hardware DSP processors, then back to the computer via Firewire.. all of which adds a lot of time to your latency… The result is you wouldn’t want to use Liquid Mix in any situation where hearing things back in real time is important.  

With software based effects running on your processor.. you get as many instances as you like.. limited only by you’re computers horse power… So for someone on a Mac Pro with 8 processor cores.. do I really need software running on special hardware? Further.. you probably want EQ on every channel in your mix! (I don’t currently do this, but trust me, I’m moving in this direction).. 

Summing up the effects:

In practice DP 6 sorta makes “making do” more viable.. but that’s about it.

That was a quick summing up, wasn’t it?

But Wait, there’s more!

(God Help Us!)

1. New Interface: Um.. in someways DP’s old interface felt a little like we were living in the dark ages, compared with other software of this type.. and from what I can see… things look pretty good this way. 
2. Final Cut Integration: One of the areas where DP is very strong in is when it comes to scoring film and video. Today, among independent film makers, Final Cut is kind of the standard… and it’s big all around. Indeed, I own Final Cut Studio.. so the integration features look rather nice to me.
3. Burn to Disk: Just as the CD format goes down the drain.. MOTU decides to make CD Mastering that much easier…  go MOTU? Here’s the deal: You can export to CD, with markers and all that, directly.. which is pretty awesome actually…
4. There’s other stuff.. indeed this old blog entry feels like a little bit of an echo of this entry.. So read that if you still want more…

To sum up my feeling of the over all situation: 

I used to feel like getting a big waves bundle.. like say Gold, Platinum, or Diamond, would really cover all my basics. Mind you.. the price for Gold is..  $975, Platinum is $1,575, and Diamond is $2,850. Now when I look over there product lines I see… that they do indeed cover all the bases.. but not quite well enough for me. They do have software that is.. similar to Melodyne.. which has the virtue of being simpler to use.. but the vice of less depth.. they do have software that would cover some of my vocal processing bases.. they do cover the reverb bases and many others… blah blah blah.. but.

Well I will say that they have a lot of different bundles, and if I were to go that way, at this point, I’d probably be looking at ether the Power Pack or the Renaissance Maxx bundles.. both under $500… (I now lean towards the latter)… 

I guess the thing is.. if I’m going to spend $1000 or more on plugins.. I really want to feel like I’m both getting a lot for my money and covering all my basic bases. If not that I want to feel like I’m kicking serious ass in a few departments to such an extent that its worth not having all my bases covered.

So for instance, a bundle with Altiverb, Speakerphone, and a couple other do-dads.. You feel like you’re getting the best of breed Altiverb.. Speakerphone is such a unique sound design type tool with so many different applications.. I feel like they set the bar in what I should expect, and Waves, at there best, doesn’t really come close enough… and the same holds true when we compare waves to liquid mix. While Waves does offer some tools to compete with Melodyne…. If, as I’m starting to suspect, Melodyne will start to play a central roll in my productions.. that’s just not an area where I can skimp.

Out side of the world of these expensive tools.. there are lots of “little things” to look at.. 

[editors note: this was written a few days ago] 

I’m sitting here going through old libraries of old sound projects of mine.. Projects that in someway anticipate a project I plan on venturing forth on in the not too distant future: The Fresh Meat Project. Music To Freak Out Stoners, or MTFOS, was created in what we call “The JP years.” This was back in the days when “The Doctor” and “Mr. Sketch” where living off in JP MA… lost years if you will.. lots of chemicals in there brains.. and I’d visit on weekends.. MTFS somehow had to do with the psychology of those circles.. and my reaction to them.

This had to have been in.. the very late 90s… I was still on a G3, had just gotten my MOTU 828 audio interface, and started F-Ing around on it… I’d just kinda Jam out a bit.. didn’t even bother mixing the Jam sessions.. which took place on guitar and synths.. this was total experimentation.. just to enjoy the sound quality of the 828. 

Around this time period.. my thought was.. I should like to make music that came out of extended jam sessions. The problem was that these jam sessions where.. I’m not sure how to characterize them. They had a kind of out sider art mentality to them.. there were a lot of levels on which they were probably very flawed.. whatever they were, they were so far out there.. that I wasn’t really sure how to turn them into something interesting..

Well now we enter a very different period in my musical evolution where I’m at least entertaining the notion of going off in radically new directions and I wonder if I could facilitate those older directions now.  Today I am both a lot more sophisticated musically / production wise.. and I have a lot more sophisticated tools that allow me to work in very new ways, and I wonder if these new possibilities might facilitate the older zeitgeist.

New to my studio.. in particular, is a fretless bass and ReCycle.. Ableton Live has been in my studio for sometime.. but I haven’t really used in the way I’m thinking now.. And of course there’s Melodyne…

////// 

I pick up my bass and start playing.. kinda all the time. It seems not at all infrequent that I’ll get into a mode where everything I play I think sounds good.. sounds interesting.. these little jam sessions. I think about taking them into my computer, recording them.. composing with them.. where might I be able to take them?.. what could I do musically?

While I have many ideas.. one idea I find quite appealing is the notion of repeating exactly what I did with MTFS.. accept.. when working with a synthesizer.. record only the MIDI.. when working with a guitar.. make sure there’s no transience recorded with it.. Between Melodyne and MIDI I could take the results and sculpt it into something. But what?

Part of the idea is something along the lines of capturing a raw moment.. How differently you think when you’re thinking in real time.. improvising, versus composing my usual ways..

I feel that this is a path I must go down.. a journey I must make.. even as I don’t really have a lot of confidence in it.. It seems like its important for the completion of a musical style I have yet to totally create….

Let me see if I can get serious in talking to you about this stuff.

What do we have thus far?

• Electronic Music Composed: I sit in a sequencer and program the sequences and the Mix. This method is the most sophisticated / mature.. of my processes.. I mean I’ve taken this method further then any of my other methods.. thus I tend to want to stick to it simply because its something I can rely on for good results.
• Electronic Music Improvised: We are talking about some sort of a process by which.. via tweaking various parameters of some kind of a sound generating device… music results. These results could be further processed, or edited, or whatever.. in order to be used as building blocks of a more programmed music.. we see this sorta thing Starting in Zar Matt A Thustra’s Deep Space Adventures.
• Guitar based song writing: I sit down on my guitar, or perhaps now even my bass, and I play, come up with riffs, put riffs together.. create a song idea.. produce it.. 
• I improvise out some sorta performance… on real instruments.. wether we are talking a keyboard to control synths.. or we are talking about guitars and bass.. maybe something going on with a microphone.. and we sorta do something with this.

So these are our basic processes. The question then becomes how do we integrate them.. how do we bring them to some level of maturity.. where there possibilities become great; a sum more then the parts?

The answer lys, no doubt.. in continuing to work on each of these processes, going down each path..  taking it to its logical conclusion… building a library of raw material.. and playing with making stuff out of that raw material.

As near as I can tell this is a long term project.

A couple days latter:

I think I’ll just post this as is.