liveset with just a drummachine

[Red Kite]

Listened to the first set. There's some very nice, funky loops in it, but the arrangment is way, way too hectic. You have about 60 breakdowns in a 20min mix! (I counted ) That's too much by almost ten times! It sounds like you don't really have trust in your music and try to change it all the time to artificially keep it exciting, but you commpletel ruin the flow of your music that way. As listener/dancer, you're completely robbed of the possibility to get into your groove, which is a pity, since the music behind it is really fantastic.

Have more trust in your music! You don't need to change something every 10 seconds, and you don't need to take out the kick every 20 seconds. I suggest you not only listen to some live pa's (Mikael Stavöstrand is recommended for some good flow) but also some tracks you like, to get the feel how they work with breakdowns in productions. You have enough material in the set for about an hour live pa, just get it one a little less hectic!

[hydrogen]

Listened to the first set. There's some very nice, funky loops in it, but the arrangment is way, way too hectic. You have about 60 breakdowns in a 20min mix! (I counted ) That's too much by almost ten times! It sounds like you don't really have trust in your music and try to change it all the time to artificially keep it exciting, but you commpletel ruin the flow of your music that way. As listener/dancer, you're completely robbed of the possibility to get into your groove, which is a pity, since the music behind it is really fantastic.

Have more trust in your music! You don't need to change something every 10 seconds, and you don't need to take out the kick every 20 seconds. I suggest you not only listen to some live pa's (Mikael Stavöstrand is recommended for some good flow) but also some tracks you like, to get the feel how they work with breakdowns in productions. You have enough material in the set for about an hour live pa, just get it one a little less hectic!

mmm... i see your point but what do you think about live at the liquid room?

[wesen]

I spent a lot of time analyzing closer to the edit (my inspiration really), and in fact it's even more complicated than I first thought, he really is changing stuff every 4 bars. I think that's near to impossible to achieve on the machinedrum, so I will rethink my approach. Thank you for your advice to trust my music, I think that really is the main problem I have. I will try to record a liveset with just the MD today with the loops I have, after some preparation, and try to get myself to feel a good vibe while doing it. I've got about 32 full patterns now (set above was 10).

[hydrogen]

I spent a lot of time analyzing closer to the edit (my inspiration really), and in fact it's even more complicated than I first thought, he really is changing stuff every 4 bars. I think that's near to impossible to achieve on the machinedrum, so I will rethink my approach.

While anything is possible, it is unlikly you'll be able to do something on the level of DE9 in terms of flow and change ups. That album is so carefully constructed and arranged, but his advantage is that the parts have already been written and have great sound. So I would say it may be an easier approach if you sampled records like this album. but this does not fit your goal.

What about getting an extra machine drum so you can queue up sounds on an external device. You might have better luck if you had sounds to merge with and cut over with a dj mixer. an extra machine drum would be my suggestion. this way you can dj your sounds and do awesome cuts to the next parts.

Good luck sir.

I think its great that you are analyzing a master work like de9 and building your concepts off of that. But take note that this album is a little dated in terms of sounds and loop length. Many of the good minimal records now have 32 to 64bar loops. Which are quite different than some of the quarter/half bar loops that are used on de9.

[wesen]

Thanks hydrogen. I know that de9 is a bit dated, but really I don't care, its sound fascinates me and it's still something I'd like to dance to and I think other people would enjoy in the club. Also, I have my own background of doing big funky basslines, which will flow into this set as well, it's definitely not gonna be a closer to the edit ripoff (that would be impossible anyway for the reasons you stated). I'm starting to realize that a lot of the things going on in de9 also have a big impact because of the good sound and mastering he has, giving it a very organic quality. Not something I'm gonna be able to do on the fly with the MD as well.

here are my notes for closer to the edit (only gone like 15 minutes in though):

http://bl0rg.net/~manuel/closer-to-the-edit.txt

Regarding the second machinedrum, that's just not possible right now, they are to expensive. Also, I have the old one which makes more than 32steps pattern a bit of a pain (the new one can do 64 steps, still quite limited). So, I will mostly focus on 1 bar / 2 bar patterns. I'll add stuff on my micro nord modular as well, which may enable me to escape that a bit (haven't tried that yet).

What I'm doing right now is writing down the loops I have, and starting to look at which sounds I can really tweak live, modify to change the texture of the loops, write that down and see how I can do the transitions. It's a very intense and time-consuming work though, so I haven't got to recording a new set for now.

However I have discovered a lot of things, for example I can pretty easily tweak a sound, modify the character of the whole loop, resample that, take it over to the next pattern, start to fade in new stuff while having the old tweaked loop running the background, then fade that old loop out and modify it into some kind of rythmic noise background which will then faint into subliminal land and then get cut on the next break.

I know this may all sound stupid, but it is having a deep impact on me, and also the way of how I approach my hardware and my music, namely making me really craft and put alot of efforts into the details.

Also that kind of moronish restrictions I'm imposing onto myself for this set (it would all be so much easier with just ableton) is exactly to make me learn things like the above. Once I've discovered and mastered all that, I'll be happy to go back to ableton, but then I'll know much more what I'm doing than if I'd start to cut records now.

[jgb]

Instead of getting a second machinedrum, you could just add a sampler. Controlled by midi from the machinedrum. Routed via the inputs on the machinedrum. That way you can use the RAM-machines and input-machines on the incoming sound.

[wesen]

That is an idea, yes. I have no sampler though and no money to get one until then, and ultimately if I'm going to do this I could as well use ableton coupled to the machinedrum (which is definitely where this is going). For now though, i'm maybe gonna use a minidisc with some ambient tracks and route them through the machinedrum. Also, vocal tracks (by the beatles, or norah jones for example) work really really well when routed through an envelope machine on the machinedrum.

[hydrogen]

That is an idea, yes. I have no sampler though and no money to get one until then, and ultimately if I'm going to do this I could as well use ableton coupled to the machinedrum (which is definitely where this is going). For now though, i'm maybe gonna use a minidisc with some ambient tracks and route them through the machinedrum. Also, vocal tracks (by the beatles, or norah jones for example) work really really well when routed through an envelope machine on the machinedrum.

a sampler could be more fun than ableton live... no laptops get their props.