Monthly Archives: April 2019

Is This Thing Live?

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I had been wanting to get more familiar with Ableton Live for quite a while and the 2019 Spring Concert was the perfect opportunity to do just that. While I love Logic Pro X for writing and production, I was intrigued by the idea of the scene based approach Live has for performance and wanted to see what I could do with it. 

Fortunately I found this excellent tutorial on Groove3: https://www.groove3.com/tutorials/Ableton-Live-10-Explained. It got me up to speed really quickly and before I knew it I was putting together the entire concert in Live.

I found Live to be a pretty straight forward (but deep) and well thought out application. It’s feels “fluid” in it’s workflow and very robust. I am looking forward to using it more in the future, particularly for coordinating music with visuals. Thanks Ableton!  

Logical

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I’ve been a Logic Pro X user for a few years now. Previously, I was a sworn Pro Tools devotee for years (in large part due to the amazing time I had working at Digidesign in the late 90’s). While the earlier versions of Logic felt anything but logical to me, I have really come to love the latest versions of Logic Pro X. I feel it’s a fantastic app for writing and production.

I love the layout, signal flow/routing, EQs, compressors, virtual instruments (especially Drummer), arrangement tracks, comp tracks, extensive MIDI and audio editing tools, Flex editing and (for the most part) Smart Tempo.

Now, I still have a few pet peeve’s here and there. One being that Smart Tempo doesn’t always do what you think it should with odd time signatures. Try to get the session time signature of 6/8 onto newly recorded tracks… Smart Tempo defaults to 4/4 and converting & getting everything to sync up can be a chore. Aside from that, most issues I’ve had were easily solved with a quick Google search.

I recently realized how much I enjoy working with Logic Pro X as I was preparing for the 2019 Spring Equinox Concert and album. Thanks Apple!

Omnipotent

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Absolutely love the sounds I can get out of Spectrasonics’ Omnisphere. Fat synth basses, warm pads, beautiful textures, fantastic rhythms from it’s arpeggiator, extensive synthesis editing and signal processing. With over 14,000 built-in sounds, audio import/processing, 500+ synth oscillator waveforms, wavetable synthesis, granular synthesis, 57 effect processors, FM/Ring modulation, 34 filter algorithms, performance mode (stacked or layering), 20 oscillators and 8 LFOs per patch, 12 envelopes and substantial HW synth integration it really does feel pretty limitless.

That being said, Omnisphere seems like a bit of a memory hog. It crashed a number of times when using it within Logic Pro X (crash logs submitted). It’s a bummer when it happens but to be fair it appears to be due to switching between Logic files that have a lot of other plug-ins instantiated as well.

I found a really useful course on Lynda.com that helped me get up to speed using it just in time for the Spring Equinox concert and album: Learning Omnisphere 2.

If you want to add an amazing sounding software synth to your set up then this is it!

Battery

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I’ve owned Native Instruments’ Battery for a few years now and hadn’t done much with it until recently. Partially because it was bundled with NI Komplete and I wasn’t really sure how it worked. But also due to the preconception I had that it was mainly for electronic/dance music and wouldn’t suit what I was trying to do. Then I stumbled onto this course on Lynda.com: Learning Battery 4 and it made perfect sense to me. I began to think about how I could use it on my songs.

It’s a fantastic plug-in that allows you create custom kits either using your own samples or from a large built-in library of instruments. It also has extensive editing, routing and processing options.

I ended up using Battery on a couple of the tracks for the Equinox Album – “Dew Drop” and “Frost”. One thing I loved doing was taking Drum MIDI files from Superior Drummer and pumping them into one of the kit presets in Battery like “Telefon Tel Aviv Kit”. This gave a humanistic style of playing to a drum machine sounding kit. Really great!

Superiority Complex

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I’ve had Superior Drummer for about 10 months now and I have to say it’s quite an impressive piece of software. Actually, it feels like the type of virtual instrument/drum library that I imagined having way back in 1999. That being said, it’s a deep and powerful program that can be intimidating at first, making it hard to feel comfortable with.

While I used it on a few projects (“On and On”, “Lost Thoughts”, “Nets”) it wasn’t until the the Spring Equinox Album that I really got to know it well. This is in large part due to a fantastic tutorial on Groove 3 that Luke Oswald put together: “Superior Drummer 3 Explained”.

The course is very thorough, clear and well produced. It not only helped me to understand the ins & outs of the software but to also appreciate how superior it truly is when compared to other virtual instruments I’ve worked with in the past.

It has fantastically recorded samples of a wide variety of kits with close/overhead/room/ambient/bleed/surround mic options. Extensive editing power for custom tailored sound design, getting instruments just the way you want them. A great groove library with excellent search and “Tap 2 Find” functionality (which I love) with a powerful grid editor. It’s fully extensible for additional sample and/or drum MIDI libraries. Has a built in mixer with extensive routing options, great sounding effects and excellent sounding presets (personal favorite is “Ludwig Classic Default”). All this makes it super easy to bring up a great sounding drum track rather quickly.

Even though I don’t see myself using Superior Drummer on everything I do I’m really glad to have it available to me.

Thanks Luke Oswald, Toontrack and Groove3!

Parallel Processing

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In the past, I was pretty much an “all or nothing” type of person when it came to studying, writing, recording or performing. Meaning, I would exclusively focus on one area, say studying, for an extended period of time, at the expense of the other areas that are important to me. The great thing about that is you get really focused on a particular subject. The bad thing is all forward motion in any other areas stops completely.

For a long while, I had been wanting to divide my time between study and production. Ideally studying early on in the day with some sort of production later.

So one of my main goals for the first quarter of this year was to do exactly that. Once I got a workable schedule in place, I loved it. It was tremendously rewarding to see progress being made in so many different areas that interest me.

I think the key to allowing all of that to happen was to limit how much time I gave any one area of focus. That made space for everything else.

For my studies I continued with my 5 minutes per subject approach for a variety of subjects: ear training, guitar studies (music reading and chords/rhythm parts), bass, keyboards (scales and chords), songwriting/chord progressions, notation and vocal exercises.

Along with that I started incorporating online studies with courses on Lynda.com (Photoshop, Omnisphere, Battery, Performing with Ableton Live) and Groove3.com (Superior Drummer, Ableton Live 10 Explained, Creating Realistic MIDI Strings, Creating Epic Cinematic Compositions). These were super helpful in preparing for the album and concert.

I also began alternating days of focus. One day of new material, with the next being review of what I had already done. This kept everything very manageable and enjoyable. So much so that I looked forward to studying every day.

For songwriting/production I would do something similar by only allowing 30 minutes per song per day. This helped keep the songs new and interesting throughout the process. It also helped get me “unstuck” when I felt blocked. As soon as the timer went off I would move on to the next song and get positive momentum going again. By the time I came back to the song I was having an issue with I was in a different space and usually found a solution within minutes.

Take Away(s)

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There were a number of things that I took away from the 2019 Spring Concert, but perhaps the biggest thing I learned was the importance of rehearsing with the full system set up for more than one day. I think the ideal amount of time would have been about a week.

I did rehearse every day over the last month and a half, but always sitting down, without microphones/PA and playing at lower volume levels. Also, it wasn’t until the day before the concert that I had Ableton Live completely configured (audio files, MIDI mappings, sound patches, virtual instruments, etc). Up until then I was practicing with Logic Pro X – the app that I did all the production in.

Other things that I learned:

  • Really need to use chains in Live to switch between virtual instruments as selecting the desired track via MIDI mapping for MIDI controller focus wasn’t always reliable.
  • Use audio stems instead of “minus 1” tracks next time. Would be nice to have more isolation of tracks in the future (particularly synth basses and drums).
  • Should coordinate visuals better. This time was more like a proof of concept. Going forward I’d like to have them tailored to each song in Final Cut Pro and then triggered in Live, which could take a considerable amount of time to do. Need to allot for that. Perhaps 2 weeks or more?
  • Would be great to have extra time with everything set up to get extra footage for song videos (e.g. multiple passes of each song during the rehearsals, close ups of the gear/lighting, abstract images, etc.)
  • Clip for one of mics I planned on using was missing. Ended up using a condenser mic with a mic pre, which sounded totally different.
  • Both mic stands kept drifting downward when positioned over the keyboard. Need to repair or replace them.
  • Performing with mic stand positions (especially when singing while playing keyboards) was awkward at times.
  • Disable notifications on my laptop!

Most importantly, having the extra time to rehearse will make it easier for me to get into the flow of the music.

Things that worked:

  • Practicing the songs regularly was a win for being prepared musically.
  • Using Ableton Live worked pretty much the way that I hoped it would.
  • The equipment set up and layout of the room was really good.
  • The contour of the concert provided a nice variety of styles.
  • Visuals added a lot of depth and dimension to the feeling of the space.
  • Using Guitar Rig for performance worked really well for maintaining balance of volume between instruments (vs using an external guitar amp).

Here’s a beautiful painting of the layout of the room that my wife made. I think it’s fantastic!

Road Maps

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I’m a true believer in “starting with the end in mind” as it can make all the difference in whether a project is completed or not. So when it came time to identify what I wanted to do for the 2019 Spring Concert I had a brainstorming session with my whiteboard:

For those that can’t read my scribbles, here’s what it says:

Spring Concert 2019
Location: Home Living Room
Duration: 30 – 60 Minutes
Theme: Spring, new life, budding, becoming, cycles
Genres: Acoustic and electric

TTD
Pre-Production:
Select Songs, Determine: length/arrangements/instrumentation/melodies/lyrics

Production:
Scratch Tracks, Determine tempos & keys, drums/percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, vocals

Post-Production:
Editing
Mixing (template?)

Visuals:
Photos/videos (fractal generators?)

Prep for live performance:
Bounce tracks to RC 500 or to use in Ableton Live?
Determine live rig
Determine visual projection system & how to sync to music

Looking back I pretty much did everything listed on the board. Granted I ended up creating various spreadsheets to go into greater detail:

I also created an outline of how I would like the contour of the concert/album to be:

Here’s the translation:

Contour of Concert (Songs/Album)
• String Piece ( string quartet -> symphony)
• African Drums Piece
• Spacey Lead Guitar Piece (using the Dark Side and Freqout pedals) <- use “Thaw” for the inspiration and title?
• Piano Piece
• Electronic Piece (“Crushing Minimalism”?)
• Acoustic Guitar Piece (“Tempest”)
• Tibetan Bell and Bowl (perhaps to begin and end with or to use in the middle

All of which ended up being what I did for the concert and album. The String piece became “Enchantment”, the African Drums piece became part of the middle section in “Signs of Life”, the Spacey Lead Guitar piece became “The Thaw”, the Piano piece became “Frost”, the Electronic piece became “Signs of Life”, the Acoustic Guitar piece is “Tempest” and I used the Tibetan Bowl for the beginning of the concert.

Best Laid Plans…

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One of the things that I was hoping to do during the first quarter of this year was to continue my studies while making an album (and preparing to perform said album) for our 2019 Spring Equinox Concert. I estimated all the timelines needed for studies, pre-production, production, editing, mixing, concert prep and setup. I thought I had a reasonable plan.

I had a good run for most of the quarter, maintaining a daily study schedule of ~4 hours a day with ~4-5 hours of production/prep all throughout January and February. It felt really good to be making progress in so many areas on a daily basis.

That was until the beginning of March when I realized that I had exceeded the amount of time that I had allotted for pre-production and production. I was supposed to be editing and mixing when a majority of the songs were nowhere near being ready. I had a strong feeling that I could get everything done if I abandoned the study regimen.

So that’s what I did. Throughout March, I focused 100% on the production/editing/mixing of the songs with some concert prep along the way. This went on until the _very_ early morning of the Spring Equinox (3/23). I met my deadline, all the songs were finished but at the cost of not meeting my goals for other areas of development.

Looking to the future, I hope to return to my days of studies _and_ production. This time allowing more leeway for production either in the number of songs or as to when I expect them to be done. Perhaps I will spread things out over two quarters. One being dedicated to writing and pre-production of the songs with a concert of the stripped down/basic versions. The other being focused on production/editing/mixing and concert of the fully arranged songs. As of now this approach seems reasonable, then again I thought the plan for this past quarter was reasonable… We’ll have to try and see what happens!

Spring Concert 2019

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Well, the first quarter of 2019 has come to a close. Before it was over we had our first ever house concert – the “2019 Spring Equinox Concert”. All in all it was a great night with a bunch of firsts.

It was the first time that I:
– performed all new material, written for a specific event
– used Ableton Live for performance
– coordinated visuals (lights and video) to go with the music
– played keyboards live
– used my Gretsch White Falcon for performance

I’m planning on writing some additional blog entries covering the various aspects of what went into the past three months. A lot happened. Some of it according to plan, other parts not so much. I’ll be highlighting what I thought worked and what could have been better. That being said I think the first quarter of 2019 was a very rich and fruitful one. It was full of learning, creativity and growth. Looking forward to the next one.