http://www.vimeo.com/1223550
ENjoy
liveset with just a drummachine
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Leon Neon
- mnml newbie
- Posts: 77
- Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 10:16 pm
- Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A.
- Contact:
Man and I used to think I was fast on those MD controls... 
When I buy a new one I'll have to work on my speed. Of course I've always had a much more full studio to work with, so maybe that's why I failed to focus so resolutely on the ol' MD. I miss it...
As for the video-- not particularly interesting to someone who's used a MD before, and it's upside down, and you can't see the actual MD except the screen and a few minorly important buttons, but maybe it will help someone who's a newbie.
Keep up the good work and don't forget to sequence out some tracks. Waiting on the bleeps and blips.
When I buy a new one I'll have to work on my speed. Of course I've always had a much more full studio to work with, so maybe that's why I failed to focus so resolutely on the ol' MD. I miss it...
As for the video-- not particularly interesting to someone who's used a MD before, and it's upside down, and you can't see the actual MD except the screen and a few minorly important buttons, but maybe it will help someone who's a newbie.
Keep up the good work and don't forget to sequence out some tracks. Waiting on the bleeps and blips.
-
Leon Neon
- mnml newbie
- Posts: 77
- Joined: Sat Feb 04, 2006 10:16 pm
- Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A.
- Contact:
Finally listened to the stickam. Very good set. Some things a little too loud here and there and an awkward transition or two, but that all goes with the MD territory. I really think you should focus on putting a few releases out soon. So many of your loops just scream out to be tracked out. Don't make me fly over there and write the tracks for you!
Really busy lately, also playing a few techno gigs, but mostly work and stuff, so no big development on the liveset at the moment, except practicing and getting more used to feeling the dancefloor. However, I finally got a monomachine (MKI, used), and after trying out some stuff this morning, I have to say it is absolutely perfect and will complement the MD to make something really awesome. I think I have all the possibilities I will ever need now for my techno. Here's a pic of the setup:
http://bl0rg.net/~manuel/mnm.jpg
and here is my first jam on the monomachine (I'm a complete newb on the machine, so nothing extraordinary):
http://bl0rg.net/~manuel/mnm.mp3
I will have to delve deep down into both machines now and restructure the whole liveset, but I think what will come down will be really deep and funky and melodic at times and weird at others. I am completely stoked about the whole new world that is opening up now. Stay tuned
http://bl0rg.net/~manuel/mnm.jpg
and here is my first jam on the monomachine (I'm a complete newb on the machine, so nothing extraordinary):
http://bl0rg.net/~manuel/mnm.mp3
I will have to delve deep down into both machines now and restructure the whole liveset, but I think what will come down will be really deep and funky and melodic at times and weird at others. I am completely stoked about the whole new world that is opening up now. Stay tuned
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Edward_Molton
- mnml mmbr
- Posts: 254
- Joined: Sun Dec 25, 2005 4:49 pm
So you got a mono
That means we gonna hear soon more work from you. Still love your MD live sets
That means we gonna hear soon more work from you. Still love your MD live sets
Coincidence records
www.coincidencerecords.be
BLOG: http://zombeats.wordpress.com
http://www.myspace.com/sonderfallmuzik
www.coincidencerecords.be
BLOG: http://zombeats.wordpress.com
http://www.myspace.com/sonderfallmuzik
.... oh how crime could pay for them though :evil:
I put about 1 year of criminal effort into it to be able to finally get one
Btw, here is a recording of my gig on thursday at STFU heidelberg, which went down quite well. I originally had to play from 22h to 23h, and the venue would close down at 24ish, but I played from 23h to 1h, gathering some crowd, and gave over to the dj at 1h because as stupid as i am, I had forgotten to load most of my patterns on the drum machine.
The noise on the recording is the wireless microphone setup used to stream the festival, sorry about that:
http://stfumusic.org/music/STFU_Heidelb ... elberg.mp3
another backup url: http://memoryformat.net/stfuheidelberg/ ... elberg.mp3
The weird blank at about 3/4 is something really weird. on this one pattern, the machiendrum would just crash and reset itself, no way out. never had that before. After resetting 3 or 4 times I just switched to another pattern. Very weird...
I think you can hear in this recording I'm getting smoother about transitions, also being able to tweak sounds pretty intuitevely, but it all sounds pretty "dry" (which is good on the dancefloor, though, people seem to enjoy it). With the mono now Im going to be able to do 4 bar loops, adding a lot of synths and new kind of percussive sounds, which is gonna help a lot with what I have in mind I think.
Btw, here is a recording of my gig on thursday at STFU heidelberg, which went down quite well. I originally had to play from 22h to 23h, and the venue would close down at 24ish, but I played from 23h to 1h, gathering some crowd, and gave over to the dj at 1h because as stupid as i am, I had forgotten to load most of my patterns on the drum machine.
The noise on the recording is the wireless microphone setup used to stream the festival, sorry about that:
http://stfumusic.org/music/STFU_Heidelb ... elberg.mp3
another backup url: http://memoryformat.net/stfuheidelberg/ ... elberg.mp3
The weird blank at about 3/4 is something really weird. on this one pattern, the machiendrum would just crash and reset itself, no way out. never had that before. After resetting 3 or 4 times I just switched to another pattern. Very weird...
I think you can hear in this recording I'm getting smoother about transitions, also being able to tweak sounds pretty intuitevely, but it all sounds pretty "dry" (which is good on the dancefloor, though, people seem to enjoy it). With the mono now Im going to be able to do 4 bar loops, adding a lot of synths and new kind of percussive sounds, which is gonna help a lot with what I have in mind I think.
Last edited by wesen on Sun Aug 24, 2008 1:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Just reposting a post I made on another forum. I just got a monomachine, and am working to integrate that one into my music and setup. I can already say it helps me a lot to make all the kind of no-bullshit synth sounds I was missing. I am currently in a phase where I'm reconsidering everything I've done and trying to ponder about it all. Listening to "minimal" stuff like the mixes by cio d'or, which are minimal, but in that round synthie kind of way the richie hawtin mixes are not. Also getting a bit more trancey cause that's what my heart likes. I'll try to record a small set today (about 45 minutes) with both machines, which will be a bit of a challenge
Anyway here is the post with some thoughts about structure and some tricks:
Hey peepz,
this is gonna be pretty geared towards techno, but I want to know how you people structure your liveset. This question is more directed to sets where most of the stuff is "jammed", instead of performing existing songs. My set is pretty "dj"-like in that I consider every sonic element to be a "loop". I use only one drum machine (machinedrum by elektron), and have patterns (2 bars) with 12 different sounds. Obviously these 12 sounds are going to fit well together, and you could say that one pattern = one track. However there is progression whatsoever in the pattern itself, so to keep flow and structure I have to "play" the breaks and progresisons by tweaking stuff. The set is also based on the fact that I can resample one of the loops that is going, and carry that forward to the next pattern, a bit like having two records as a dj.
My question is actually pretty technical/detail-oriented, so here is a list of the things I found out that work well.
Here is an excerpt of a set of mine: http://inflection.bl0rg.net/~manuel/wes ... t-comp.mp3
Small tricks (for short breaks, microstructure):
- obviously, filter tweak, use a highpass on the entire pattern and tweak that to remove bass drum and bass or thin them out, then kick them back in after a multiple of 4 bars
- same trick with other sound effects: lowpass, sample reduction (those are the ones i have on the drum machine)
- AM (also on the drum machine) is tricky to use, cause it's very pregnant and not very musical. Also you have to repeat your tweaks in the exact same way because of the "tonality" of the AM. There is an example of AM tweaking at 1:30 in the mp3 above
- muting things on and off, especially effective with things like: soloing the bass, soloing bass and kickdrum, muting kickdrum, etc...
- reversing the sampled audio for 1 or 2 beats
- looping smaller parts of the sampled audio : looping 2 beats of the 4 bar loops, then 1 beat, then back to normal
- i almost always have a 3/16th delay. When sending a hat or another rythmic into it and cranking up the feedback, that element will play on every 16th, with some awesome rythmic loudness changes. I use that to quickly have a 16th hihat or 16th tom when there is none in the pattern
Longer break tricks:
- send something into the delay and then gradually highpass the filter, while turning up the feedback (like at 5:45 in the set), then kicking everything back and drying up the delay
- using one very specific element, soloing it, and starting to tweak into oblivion. Favorite trick is gradually turning up the decay of the sounds envelope, while kicking distortion and delay. Also for example playing a lot with the pitch ramp on sine sounds, playing with the attack. then after some heavy heavy tweaking (the weirder it gets, the better), kick everything back in. This is my favorite "crowd go mental plz" trick, people can go berzerk when you use weird weird weird sounds
SOund tricks:
- turning the delay into a mellow pad by turning up the feedback and simulatenously filtering out the high end. Works well with voices, chords, melodic stuff going into the delay. You can do it with bass also but watch the low end of the feedback loop, it will drown out the kick
- having a very soft pad-like sound (for example a noise floor) go louder and louder and more distinctive and more rythmic. One way I do that is to loop a sound very quickly (every 16th for example), but leave different settings for 1 beat, so when tweaking stuff i can suddenly "invoke" the 1 beat settings over the quick loop, which will change my sound from a fast subtle noise floor into a 1-beat rythmic sound going "woooOSH woooOOsh woooOOsh".
- having different offbeat hihat or clap sounds allows for a lot of flow inside one pattern by just changing those "iconic" sounds. For example oging from a short clicky like offbeat to a full on 808 cymbal sweep.
- You can achieve big flow effects with clap and hihat sounds, for example 6:00 in the mp3 above shows bringin in the clap and then a brutal offbeat hihat to make everything go "tssk tssk tssk".I love oldschool techno for that kind of thigns
- play a lot with chord sounds to make pads, big dub, stabs, etc.. by changing the attack and decay of a chord sound, you can go from hihat (very short click) to short funk guitar (no attack, short dec), to stabs (longer decay), to organ (short attack), to pad. add delay to taste for the dub.
- when resampling a pattern, it is mostly good to sample a "dry version" with just bass and some percussion, because that makes mixing easier later on. However it can be very nice to sample 2 bars out of a heavy dub moment, and kick that back in full blast later on after a dry moment. That will give a nice flowing loop later on (6:00 in the mp3 above).
Transition tricks:
- using offbeat (ska-style) patterns to bring back some funk and throw your hands in the air feeling. For example at 15:50 in the mp3 above. Offbeat patterns also can give a lot of flow to patterns which are a bit dry else (2:30 in the set above)
- Having the resampled version, start to filter tweak it. If removing low end, now is a good time to introduce either the new bass of the next pattern (if unsure what the bass pattern is, fading in volume wise is a good way to bring in drastically different stuff), or the kick drum for example.
- if removing high end, introduce th new offbeat hihat or the new clap. That can also be done without removing low end if the new pattern has a very disticntive offbeat hihat. I have to say the offbeat hihat is my favourite element ever
- when the foundation of the next track is in (kickdrum, mostly), start to introduce new leemnts. At the same time, start to transmogrify the previous loop, highpassing it, starting to distort it, etc... I love the BRR on the machine drum for that cause it will gate a lot of things as well when going to extreme settings. Lower volume and start to let the old pattern run along as a kind of rythmic noise. If at lower volume you can do some drastic reverb effects as well, or finally modify the old loop into a pad using the delay / filter trick above. (37:50 in the mp3 above)
Ok that was all for now, those are the things I use a lot when playing live. They're kind of "recipes" I have. I discover some all the time. After internalizing them it's very nice to jam because you have some kind of "structure" and know how to pick up a lame flow and things.
So, how do you do it?
Anyway here is the post with some thoughts about structure and some tricks:
Hey peepz,
this is gonna be pretty geared towards techno, but I want to know how you people structure your liveset. This question is more directed to sets where most of the stuff is "jammed", instead of performing existing songs. My set is pretty "dj"-like in that I consider every sonic element to be a "loop". I use only one drum machine (machinedrum by elektron), and have patterns (2 bars) with 12 different sounds. Obviously these 12 sounds are going to fit well together, and you could say that one pattern = one track. However there is progression whatsoever in the pattern itself, so to keep flow and structure I have to "play" the breaks and progresisons by tweaking stuff. The set is also based on the fact that I can resample one of the loops that is going, and carry that forward to the next pattern, a bit like having two records as a dj.
My question is actually pretty technical/detail-oriented, so here is a list of the things I found out that work well.
Here is an excerpt of a set of mine: http://inflection.bl0rg.net/~manuel/wes ... t-comp.mp3
Small tricks (for short breaks, microstructure):
- obviously, filter tweak, use a highpass on the entire pattern and tweak that to remove bass drum and bass or thin them out, then kick them back in after a multiple of 4 bars
- same trick with other sound effects: lowpass, sample reduction (those are the ones i have on the drum machine)
- AM (also on the drum machine) is tricky to use, cause it's very pregnant and not very musical. Also you have to repeat your tweaks in the exact same way because of the "tonality" of the AM. There is an example of AM tweaking at 1:30 in the mp3 above
- muting things on and off, especially effective with things like: soloing the bass, soloing bass and kickdrum, muting kickdrum, etc...
- reversing the sampled audio for 1 or 2 beats
- looping smaller parts of the sampled audio : looping 2 beats of the 4 bar loops, then 1 beat, then back to normal
- i almost always have a 3/16th delay. When sending a hat or another rythmic into it and cranking up the feedback, that element will play on every 16th, with some awesome rythmic loudness changes. I use that to quickly have a 16th hihat or 16th tom when there is none in the pattern
Longer break tricks:
- send something into the delay and then gradually highpass the filter, while turning up the feedback (like at 5:45 in the set), then kicking everything back and drying up the delay
- using one very specific element, soloing it, and starting to tweak into oblivion. Favorite trick is gradually turning up the decay of the sounds envelope, while kicking distortion and delay. Also for example playing a lot with the pitch ramp on sine sounds, playing with the attack. then after some heavy heavy tweaking (the weirder it gets, the better), kick everything back in. This is my favorite "crowd go mental plz" trick, people can go berzerk when you use weird weird weird sounds
SOund tricks:
- turning the delay into a mellow pad by turning up the feedback and simulatenously filtering out the high end. Works well with voices, chords, melodic stuff going into the delay. You can do it with bass also but watch the low end of the feedback loop, it will drown out the kick
- having a very soft pad-like sound (for example a noise floor) go louder and louder and more distinctive and more rythmic. One way I do that is to loop a sound very quickly (every 16th for example), but leave different settings for 1 beat, so when tweaking stuff i can suddenly "invoke" the 1 beat settings over the quick loop, which will change my sound from a fast subtle noise floor into a 1-beat rythmic sound going "woooOSH woooOOsh woooOOsh".
- having different offbeat hihat or clap sounds allows for a lot of flow inside one pattern by just changing those "iconic" sounds. For example oging from a short clicky like offbeat to a full on 808 cymbal sweep.
- You can achieve big flow effects with clap and hihat sounds, for example 6:00 in the mp3 above shows bringin in the clap and then a brutal offbeat hihat to make everything go "tssk tssk tssk".I love oldschool techno for that kind of thigns
- play a lot with chord sounds to make pads, big dub, stabs, etc.. by changing the attack and decay of a chord sound, you can go from hihat (very short click) to short funk guitar (no attack, short dec), to stabs (longer decay), to organ (short attack), to pad. add delay to taste for the dub.
- when resampling a pattern, it is mostly good to sample a "dry version" with just bass and some percussion, because that makes mixing easier later on. However it can be very nice to sample 2 bars out of a heavy dub moment, and kick that back in full blast later on after a dry moment. That will give a nice flowing loop later on (6:00 in the mp3 above).
Transition tricks:
- using offbeat (ska-style) patterns to bring back some funk and throw your hands in the air feeling. For example at 15:50 in the mp3 above. Offbeat patterns also can give a lot of flow to patterns which are a bit dry else (2:30 in the set above)
- Having the resampled version, start to filter tweak it. If removing low end, now is a good time to introduce either the new bass of the next pattern (if unsure what the bass pattern is, fading in volume wise is a good way to bring in drastically different stuff), or the kick drum for example.
- if removing high end, introduce th new offbeat hihat or the new clap. That can also be done without removing low end if the new pattern has a very disticntive offbeat hihat. I have to say the offbeat hihat is my favourite element ever
- when the foundation of the next track is in (kickdrum, mostly), start to introduce new leemnts. At the same time, start to transmogrify the previous loop, highpassing it, starting to distort it, etc... I love the BRR on the machine drum for that cause it will gate a lot of things as well when going to extreme settings. Lower volume and start to let the old pattern run along as a kind of rythmic noise. If at lower volume you can do some drastic reverb effects as well, or finally modify the old loop into a pad using the delay / filter trick above. (37:50 in the mp3 above)
Ok that was all for now, those are the things I use a lot when playing live. They're kind of "recipes" I have. I discover some all the time. After internalizing them it's very nice to jam because you have some kind of "structure" and know how to pick up a lame flow and things.
So, how do you do it?