THE ABLETON COOKBOOK

Let me get technical with you:

Most music has a whole bunch of crap going on simultaneously.

Think about it. Even the most mickey-mouse, basic music has at least two melodies going at the same time, a drum beat, a bassline and some chords. It’s a mess.

And the human ear, as we’ve discussed in the past, is an idiot. It is difficult for us to hear all of these elements simultaneously, so we find it more enjoyable if one element is foregrounded in some way. Thus, we have to find ways to emphasize the most important element of an arrangement at any given time.

Haven’t thought about what part of the track is the most important yet? Haven’t figured out if that lead is supposed to be on top of the arp, or vice versa? Now would be the time to think about that.

Confession time. I love The-Dream. I really do. I love him because he is a master arranger.

Think about it, do his songs ever have “cool sounds”? No. “Interesting effects”? No. He basically uses what appear to be the presets on a Triton and still makes great jams that transcend pop&B gym-music (I call that stuff “gym-music” because that’s the only place that I hear it).

One of my favorites is his song Rockin That Thang, where he uses emphasis to guide your ear towards the most important part of the song at different points.

Rockin That Thang – The-Dream

The first, and probably most obvious way to add emphasis to a song is with volume. Since, like I said, our ears lack subtlety, we’ll gravitate towards the loudest element of a song. This means that, if you’d like a song element to have some presence and to figure into the listener’s profile of the track, you have to allow it some time when it is the most prominent sound. You can hear this at the beginning of Rock That Thang

The-Dream has an accompanying melodic element that he introduces during this intro. Coincidentally, it is basically the same notes as the chorus, something that we will discuss next post. Since he starts this element before the melody comes in, it is foregrounded and can play, quietly, through the rest of the song and mirror the melody. You can see here that the emphasized element doesn’t have to be loud, it just has to be “the loudest.”

The-Dream also emphasizes certain portions of the melody using two different techniques: volume and harmony.

In this little portion, The-Dream cuts out the other elements (accompanying melody, bass, drums) in order to let the vocals stand alone. This makes it the loudest, giving it the emphasis. He also doubles this melody with other, simultaneous vocals which sing different notes but in the same rhythm. This method of sudden harmonic doubling calls attention to the melody and makes it stick out from the rest of the track, which in turn highlights the drop back into the pre-chorus. Pretty awesome, huh!

I hope that this post has made you like The-Dream a little more. Let me know if it worked in the comments!

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The second most common question that I get about the Ableton Cookbook Live Course is: What is arrangement?

The first most common is: Does this cover Dubstep?

Well, I thought that it might be a good idea for me to shed a little light on the second question, on the subject of arrangement, since it seems to befuddle almost everyone. Here it goes:

Arrangement is the process by which a musical sketch becomes an entire piece of music.

To whit: A quote from an old dead guy.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel once claimed (in his boring and almost unreadable Lectures on Aesthetics) that, just as the material of painting is paint and the material of sculpture is stone, the material of music is time. What makes music music is the way that it unfolds and changes over time. Break even the greatest track into millisecond snippets and it sounds like garbaggio or an Alva Noto track.

And so, how we divide up the 3-7 minutes of our track (12 if you’re making a Larry Levan disco edit) is extremely important and merits real thought. This, opposed to the increasingly prevalent practice of making a 16 bar section and copying it and pasting it to fill 4 minutes. Of course, making every bar entirely different would also be totally unlistenable.

As you can see, the question becomes complicated very quickly. Luckily, there are a few guidelines that we can look to before we dive into how to actually lay out a track in Ableton. If you have ever studied graphic design, you might recognize these principles of composition or arrangement. I’ll be laying out one principle of arrangement (with examples) per day over the next week.

Unity

We have all heard a breakcore song that really appears (or maybe is) not really one song, but 17 bits pasted together. This violates the principle of unity, in that the pieces do not cohere into one unified whole. The last 20 seconds of a Shitmat song could be the first 20 seconds of another Shitmat song, it doesn’t seem to matter (disclaimer: I love Shitmat). So, we need to make sure that the different elements of a track are unified in some way. The different ways of doing this are what distinguishes a great composer from someone who is good at generating new sounds, but doesn’t flesh them out. One very common unifying element is to have a melodic fragment that recurs.

Amen Babylon – Shitmat

The most popular (and best) Aphex Twin and Squarepusher tracks are extremely varied and bizarro, but there is always a little melodic element or rhythmic figure that ties them together and provides unity. Listen to the way that, through the rhythmic minefield that is Windowlicker, the recurring, sampled melody keeps coming back. Even on the outro (about 4:30 forward), the same melody is retained, but dropped a few octaves, modified a bit and given to a different instrument. Kind of sounds like a disorted guitar, but that seems too normal for Aphex.

Window Licker – Aphex Twin

Finding new ways to add variation while preserving the unity is a difficult job and requires some creativity. Check out this James Blake song. While most people use a unifying background element (like a break, chord changes) while varying the melody or at least the lyrics, James decided to flip it. The melody of this track is repeated like 9000 times. But the instrumentation behind his voice keeps changing. I think that this song is boring, but I like his fresh approach to the problem.

Wilhelm Scream – James Blake

Do yall have any other examples of good unifying principles in electronic music?

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I’ve made a terrible mistake.

Few people know me as a hopeless romantic. But I am, it’s true. And Valentine’s day brings out the romantic in me and causes me to do irrational, grandiose things.

It could also be the crushing pressure of society.

Definitely one of those two things.

And this time I’ve really put my foot in it. I booked a last-minute getaway for myself and my ladyfriend. I’m taking time off work, booked a spa and bought some fancy flowers that have an exotic name I can’t pronounce. All this for the low low price of…a crapload of money.

So, in the grand tradition of feverish, all-caps Craigslist ads and pawn shops, I am hawking all of my (digital) belongings in order to get some cash quickly. And you, my dear friend, are the benefactor.

I hereby declare that, because of Anthony Arroyo’s financial ineptitude, you will be the recipient of a mindboggling 50% discount for the next 5 days or until midnight of the 19th. This can be applied to anything and everything in the webstore. Just put in the discount code: VDAY

CHECK IT OUT HERE

If you were waiting for a time to grab the Ableton Live Course…your day has come. Instead of paying the list price of 297 dollars, you’ll pay less than 150 if you sign up today with the discount code VDAY!

Wowzers.

Well, I’m going to go fire up the scented candles and the Sade CD (joking. I always make out to Cardopusher and Venetian Snares [also joking]). I hope that some of yall who haven’t been able to get the money together for the Live Course are able to grab it now! It would definitely be a good investment.

Have a great Valentines Day and remember to spend a foolish amount of time/money on your loved one. It’s why God invented credit cards!

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This the second part of my post from yesterday about how to make a Step Sequencer in Ableton Live. See the first part here. You can also DL the Live Pack right here.

My goal for this exercise was to make the step sequencer using only Live’s inbuilt MIDI FX and be able to rack it up for easy usage with any instrument I’d like. I’m glad to say that I’ve accomplished my goal and the results are in this here video here.

Here was my strategy: I had to make one MIDI FX Rack chain for each step and I had to trigger them in sequence. Once I had one note playing in each chain, I needed to be able to pitch them up or down. I did this using a Scale effect on each Device Chain.

Here’s the steps

1) Make a seed clip, a MIDI clip with one whole note. NOte doesn’t really matter, but I use C.

2) Drag an Arpeggiator onto the track to subdivide this MIDI Seed clip into steps as you see fit. Use the “Sync Rate” to change the step size.

3) Put a Random effect on the track. Set the mode to “Alt” and the Sign to “Add.” Make the Chance 100% and the Choices correspond to how many steps you want to have in your sequencer. I use 8.

4) Create a blank MIDI FX Rack. Create a new chain in the chain view. In each chain, put one Scale effect and one Note Length effect.

5) Set the Scale effect so that all of the LEDs are in the bottom row. This will force any incoming note into a C.

6) Duplicate this chain (Cmd+D) as many times as you’d like. The number of chains should correspond with the number of steps in the sequencer.

7) Change each Chain’s Key Region (in the Chain view of the MIDI Effect Rack) to correspond to just ONE note. These should be consecutive. This way, each chain is triggered one by one in sequence.

Map either a macro or a MIDI controller to the “Transpose” parameter of the Scale effects in each chain. This will now control which note plays on each Step of your sequencer.

9) For bonus points, map a MIDI knob to the “Note Length” effect in each chain. This will allow you to change the length of each step.

10) I also like to put a Scale effect after the Step sequencer to make sure that things dont’ get too free jazz up in this!

I hope that you found this helpful and be sure to check out the Ableton Live Course for all kinds of tricks like this one!

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Step sequencers truly divide the people…like Glee or some other TV show I don’t watch. Some people consider Step Sequencers to be a crucial part of the electronic music workflow. Some people (like, myself) don’t really see what all the fuss is about.

Correction: DIDN’T see what all the fuss was about. Now that I’ve figured out how to make a Melodic Ableton Step Sequencer without Max for Live, I have to admit that I’m pretty taken.

My goal for this exercise was to make the step sequencer using only Live’s inbuilt MIDI FX and be able to rack it up for easy usage with any instrument I’d like. I’m glad to say that I’ve accomplished my goal and the results are in this here video here. I’m splitting this baby into two posts because people lose it when I post something over 10 minutes. So, the other half of the video will be forthcoming (tomorrow). Check this video out and check back tomorrow for the exciting second act! CLICK HERE TO SEE THE NEXT POST

Here was my strategy: I had to make one MIDI FX Rack chain for each step and I had to trigger them in sequence. Once I had one note playing in each chain, I needed to be able to pitch them up or down. I did this using a Scale effect on each Device

I’ve also uploaded the Live Pack of the step sequencer that I made in this video. Feel free to DL here and leave your comments in the, erm, comments!

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE NEXT POST

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Dunno this guy but he's awesome

What, exactly, is so awful about Live 8? Or I should say, Is there really anything wrong with it that’s a total dealbreaker? Probably not, or else we wouldn’t be reading or writing this blog.

TBH, I really don’t think that being able to render directly to MP3 would make me the next Four Tet. It would save me exactly 20 seconds that I would probably use to watch stupid Youtube videos.

Not that this kind of complaining and speculating is limited to Ableton. It seems like a lot of writing about electronic music is actually a kind of gear fetishism: trying to get you to buy or try a new software, plugin, synth, stompbox, DIY controller kit, etc. and so forth.

Anything but sit down and make some actual music.

Now, as someone who spent most of his youth drooling over Bass Player magazine (what’s up, Victor Wooten!), I can tell you that this is not a phenomenon exclusively related to making electronic music. Not at all. But I think that Electronic Music is especially susceptible to this kind of thinking.

Part of what makes Electronic Music so exciting IS the fact that it is closely linked to new developments in technology. An instrument that makes up a key part of your sound could have been non-existent 5 years ago. See: The rise of Auto-Tune (for better or for worse) and AfroDJMac’s Justin Bieber rack. That is really exciting and it would be ridiculous to want to limit that.

But I think that it easy to verge (as I do from time to time) from “keeping up with the newest technology IN ORDER to make music” into “keeping up with the newest technology IN ORDER TO NOT make music.”

That’s right: I mean to say that much gear fetishism is actually just procrastination.

Let’s face it, making art is an act of courage (I’m quoting Steve Gutenberg here, which is telling). It is an act of courage in that it requires commitment. The difference between a schlub and an artist is that an artist puts his or her neck out. An artist has to commit. And sometimes, we’d rather worry about the technical details than jump into the abyss. The abyss is scary. And if your tools are faulty, then you don’t have to commit 100%. I understand this because I myself am guilty of it about 9 days out of 10.

All I’m saying is: keep an eye on yourself and be tough on yourself. We don’t have the luxury of totally closing our eyes to new technology. But we can also easily get sucked in by the newest and the shiniest. Make sure that your tools enable you and don’t limit you. It’s tough, but it can be done.

To quote Flying Lotus, apropos of his extremely rinky-dink production setup (just laptop): “To find something new, I don’t have to update my shit; I just have to update my brain.” [Quote taken from the new Peter Kirn book, The Evolution of Electronic Dance Music]

I’d be interested to know what you guys think: Am I totally off-base here, or do you think that sometimes we focus on our tools to avoid doing real work? Let me know in the comments!

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In this post, I’ll show you how to make a MIDI Effect Rack that will generate random rhythms on command. Oh, happy day!

“But Anthony,” you say, “why in the sam hell would I want to generate random MIDI rhythms on command?”

Because, although Ableton seems to have the creation of randomized pitches pretty much covered, these pitches are played with whatever rhythm you feed it. And while, 9 times out of 10, that’s what you want, sometimes it isn’t. And that’s where the random rhythm generator comes in handy.

I use this rhythm generator in a whole bunch of contexts: I use it with the Random effect to create cool generative music (see the vid), I use it with percussion tracks to make randomized drum beats, and I use it with Slice to MIDI and the Random effect to mix up a Slice to MIDI rack into something totally novel.

So, now that I’ve got you in a lather about how to do this, let’s get started! You’ll want to start with a new MIDI track with a simple MIDI instrument on it.

First of all, you’re going to want to make a MIDI “seed clip.” This is just a one-bar clip with one whole note in it. It doesn’t matter what note. Really.

Second: Put an arpeggiator on your MIDI track. The only parameter that concerns us right now is the “Sync Rate,” so don’t worry about the rest. This should generate a steady stream of notes at the pitch of the MIDI seed clip.

Third: Put a Velocity effect after the arpeggiator. Turn the “Random” knob up all the way. This should randomize the velocity of each of the notes that is coming in. Things should be getting really annoying at this point.

Fourth: Put ANOTHER velocity effect on the track. Change the “Mode” of this baby to “Gate.” Now, raise the “Lowest” parameter to something around 40. This will basically block any MIDI note under the allotted velocity (40 in this case). Now, you should here breaks in the steady stream of MIDI notes. This is where a poor little note didn’t make the cut.

Finally: Put a Note Length effect on the track. This will allow you to lengthen and shorten the length of the notes, making your new rhythms that much more interesting.

Now, select all of the effects and press Cmd+G to group them together. Save this baby and put it in front of a Random effect to create all kinds of cool rhythms!

This video is excerpted from the MIDI FX Module of the Ableton Live Course. In the Module I go further in depth about how to maximize this instrument rack. If you’re interested in learning more, why not sign up now?

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Do you remember that Lady Sovereign track, Random?

Random–Lady Sovereign

Yeah, this post is not about that.

This post is, instead, about the Random MIDI effect in Ableton Live and using that bad boy with a Slice to MIDI rack.

As I’m sure you know, the purpose of the Random effect is to shift an incoming MIDI Note either up or down by a pre-defined range. Whether or not the incoming note gets shifted is controlled by the “Chance.”

Well, usually, you can use this with a normal MIDI instrument like a Simpler, Operator or what have you. In this case, you might want to use a Scale effect to make sure that the randomly incoming notes are not just a total mess, or what I call “note salad.”

But in this video, I discuss using the Random effect with a Slice to MIDI Rack (a technique that a reader reminded me of! Thanks guys!). The benefit of doing this is that, for the most part, every cell in your slice to MIDI Rack will sound pretty good, so there’s no cells that are off limits, so there is no need to use a scale effect or worry about things being in key. Assuming that the original Slice to MIDI sounds good, then you can go nuts!

In the Ableton Cookbook Live Course, I cover all of the MIDI effects in-depth, so if you’re interested in learning more about that, why not sign up?

Let me know in the comments if you have any other cool uses of the Random MIDI effect!

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Then I have some good news!

As you know, I’ve had the Ableton Cookbook Live Course open for about a month now and I’ve been really, really pleased with the feedback I’ve gotten. And as you know, I looove feedback since it helps me tweak things and constantly make the site and products better.

There’s only one problem. I’ve gotten a boatload of email from people asking me if there was a way to pay for each module separately, or for a payment plan of some kind. It seems like a lot of people are hard up after the holidays, or after the start of the semester (I know I am). So it got me thinking…

Well, now, after a few logistical fixes and tweaks, I’m proud to say that I’m offering the next Module of the Ableton Cookbook Live Course for sale…by itself!

GET IT HERE

This module will cover the Drum Rack, the Impulse and the Simpler in-depth and then discuss how to optimize these Devices by grouping them together into Racks of different kinds. It’s a great way to continue your studies if you’ve already finished the Clips Module. I’ll also cover how to make MIDI and Audio multi-FX racks to totally personalize your sound in Ableton.

And as you know if you’ve grabbed the Clip Module in the past, I’m always going back and making these videos better and responding to your feedback.

So, now you have two options: You can either buy the whole Live Course for $297(which is a better value in the longrun), or you can purchase the Device Rack module for just $47.

And, since you are a member of the Ableton Cookbook family, you are eligible for a 25% discount when you enter the discount code TACLIST. Keep in mind, though, that this discount will only apply until the 31st at midnight, so grab the module today!

GET IT HERE

P.S. When you purchase the Module, make sure that you click on the link that says “Registered Members click here,” if you’ve already bought the Clip Module. That way, you can keep the same login info.

GET IT HERE

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The Ableton vocoder effect is a complex and powerful beast, full of surprises and probably responsible for millions of poorly executed Luke Vibert knock offs. I don’t want to talk about that. Nor do I want to talk about its one-bajillion parameters (although the Ableton Cookbook Live Course covers that nicely). I just want to talk about putting it on a Return track.

I Like Acid–Luke Vibert

I like to put the Vocoder on a return track because then I can vocode very specific parts of the signal, instead of making everything sound like Roger Troutman (I know he was using a talkbox, it’s a joke). And, since the Return track is its own track, it can be affected separately: you can put a delay on it, let it ring on into infinity or do whatever twisted thing you’d like to do it. That’s between you and the Return track.

Here’s a few tips and a video to get you started.

For God’s sake: Turn the Wet/Dry knob to 100%. This is true for all FX on return tracks. Think about it this way, the Send knob is basically a Wet/Dry, so don’t complicate things by making it redundant.

For the most part, when I have the Vocoder “inline” (meaning on the vocal track that I’m trying to “Mr. Roboto”), I have to keep the Release time kind of low. Why? Because, if the release time is too high, the vocoded vocal (or whatever rhythmically clear signal you’re vocoding) the results will kind of slop into one another, the previous phrase overlapping into the next phrase and give you, well, something messy.

Automate the Send knob. The maneouvres (isn’t that how the British spell it?) get pretty specific and automating the Send knob will allow you to apply the vocoding to a single word or phrase. I’d suggest the cuss words!

BONUS: Check out this list of the Best (and Worst) Vocoder Tracks Ever

Let me know in the comments if you have any other questions about putting a Vocoder on the Return track!

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