• Music

  • the production thread

hugopal …fair enough, you’ve played it, I haven’t. Maybe it’s because it seems to have a higher percentage of the type of sounds I’m after in its presets than some of the options, and the arps/sequencer look really versatile and fun.

303abuser …I know how there are real devotees of the Elektron gear and hear so many positive comments on here and elsewhere, but I’ll be honest, it all feels a bit like learning ANOTHER way of working, and I think a common factor in the kit that interests me is that a lot of the manipulation happens via the knobs on the front (certainly a lot of people say that about the Peak), and I don’t get that impression with the A4 etc.

Lusted after a Sub 37 for ages, but I do find some of those options a little less versatile (and yes, techno!) for my purposes. Went through a phase of wanting the Deepmind 12D, you can pick them up on eBay for crazy cheap and they seem incredible value for money, but watched loads of tutorials, and was ultimately put-off by the amount of menu deep-diving.

        Unbroken1 menu diving can be an issue, there’s a bit of it with the a4. the elektron learning curve is as much hype as anything else, it’s really not that bad, but that’s your call. if you want one function per knob, it probably isn’t for you.

        the moog stuff has got my attention. if i can sell a few things, the dfam is probably my next purchase. best thing to do really is find a shop where you can spends some time trying out different synths and see what clicks. although that was probably easier pre covid.

            just a little shameless self promotion here. i’m getting this K102 project off the ground and need to rebuild a following. if you like my other stuff and want more techno leaning dub music, you can follow pascal and in the usual places. we’ll have tons of new music out very soon and we greatly appreciate the support (feel free to share with other people you know too). 🙂

            https://k102.bandcamp.com/
            https://soundcloud.com/k102techno

            …amazing production again, can really hear details in the frequencies/textures around the perc/low-end. Sounding terrific on the big speakers.

              Unbroken1 thanks, that’s what i want to hear. pascal is really good at keeping me from making tracks too dense and cluttered, i’m really looking forward to seeing what we can come up with.

                Re production in general: absolute kick in the nuts when you don’t really know what you are doing and you know the only remedy is to spend more time poking yourself in the eye.

                  Amps it’s a constant learning curve, there’s no way around it. i’m 5 years in, 3 years of real effort, and the last year i’ve worked my ass off. now i feel like i’ve learned the rules about how to start making music and can start to be creative by breaking them. in april i thought i had it, by september i had writer’s block and felt completely useless, and the last 2-3 weeks i feel like i’m back in a flow state. i couldn’t begin to tell you what the difference is.

                  the best advice i can give based on what i’ve gone through is to finish as many tracks as you can and get as much feedback from knowledgeable people as you can (that’s the tough one). finish everything you start. even if it sucks, finish it. get in the habit of finishing records because it’s a muscle you need to exercise, everything else is secondary until you really know what you’re doing.

                  • Amps replied to this.

                      …very interesting FB studio livestream with Nico from Kollektiv Turmstrasse (why did I not know he did these?)

                      Raved about the versatility of the Novation Peak… might have swung it for me!

                        303abuser Yeah, it’s beyond painful. Currently little point in me trying to finish anything, I can barely get the keys in the car, let alone start the engine.

                            Amps it’ll take you forever to finish something at the beginning and it’ll probably not be very good, but that’s ok. you’ll learn techniques along the way that you need. if you only focus on sound design, get really good at it, what happens when you try to arrange a track? the answer is you’ll be starting again. then you master that and you have to learn how to mix, so you start again.

                            trust me, finish everything, even if it’s complete shit.

                              Unbroken1 everything i’ve seen regarding the peak has been pretty cool. watching demo videos is a horrible idea, makes you want to buy everything when you watch someone who really knows what they’re doing.

                                  Unbroken1 i only watch stuff if i’m actively in the market. broke that rule last week and now i want a dfam. 🤣

                                    …I’m in the market, and change my mind what I want twice a day

                                    haha that’s another problem. i’m actually going to sell some gear in the new future to make room for some new gear, as my workflow has changed and some stuff just doesn’t fit anymore. it’s a constant process.

                                    Ableton heads… Once I have laid some tracks out in Arrangement view, how do I go back into the Session view without triggering the Arrangement view? Once I have ‘recorded’ into the Arrangement can I not then go back and use the Session view as I was doing???

                                    On that same point, once something is the Arrangement, I can double click it and edit it, but those edits and changes are not then applied to that track in the Session view, it just becomes its own instance within the Arrangement view? Any way to change that?

                                      Amps not sure if this will exactly answer your question, so let me know if it doesn’t.

                                      my workflow is to do initial sound design in session view, then once i have enough sounds that fit together to create the foundation for a track, i put together a skeleton arrangement (in arrangement view), and then do all future editing in arrangement unless i need a new sound. in that case, i go back to session view, create the new sound, paste it into the arrangement, rinse and repeat.

                                      i’ve tried several different ways of arranging, but simple left to right chronological order works best for me. i find it easier to conceptualize the track and keep in moving toward the sound i’m looking for that way, plus it helps place fills/risers/transitions for me (as a side note, i usually create all my transitions by resampling existing sounds, i find everything sounds really glued together that way).

                                      specific to your question, once you’ve edited it in arrangement, the clip in session view is essentially separate. i like that as it allows me to create a base, dry sound, then use arrangement view to add pattern variations, automation, etc.

                                      • Amps replied to this.

                                          Amps First question - play a clip in the session view and it will override what is ‘playing’ for that track in the arrangement view. If you toggle between the two the track in the arrangement view will be greyed out. Click on the orange icon in the top right to switch back to the ‘recorded’ arrangement view track.

                                          Second question - no the clips are separate. But you can create a further clip with in the session view with the now edited clip and move that to the session view. You can use '‘capture and insert scene’ in the create menu to do this in bulk to create a scene of clips from the arrangement view (a scene is a row of clips in the session view).

                                          • Amps replied to this.

                                              303abuser Cheers! That creation of a new instance for the Arrangement once I have edited feels really alien to me. If I make lots of changes in Arrangement and then go back to Session to make new sounds, how do I see how the sounds next to my latest versions in Arrangement??? Do I have to keep pasting them up into the Arrangement? I’m starting to wonder what the point of the two views is? May as well just have the Arrangement view?

                                                  apyssjw First question - play a clip in the session view and it will override what is ‘playing’ for that track in the arrangement view. If you toggle between the two the track in the arrangement view will be greyed out. Click on the orange icon in the top right to switch back to the ‘recorded’ arrangement view track.

                                                  Thanks, but not quite the issue I am having… my Arrangement is all drums at the beginning, no synths or anything; when I go back to the Session and hit play, it just plays my Arrangement from the start, rather than playing my session which has all the channels at the same time, drums, bass, synths etc. so I sit there in Session listening to just the drum part and then hear all the other bits come in exactly as they are in the Arrangement… it’s just playing back the Arrangement even when I’m in Session. Make sense???