FAWM Frustrations and Progress

I'm doing the FAWM thing again this year, and it's been great. I've posted two songs so far, and it's the 4th, so I'm on track.

However, tonight was a bit of a mixed bag in the studio. I managed to get a great idea recorded, but just when I was getting ready to figure out the final sequencing, Live stopped pushing audio to the Audiofire8.

Long story short, I installed the most recent driver, turned off the Audiofire8, rebooted, turned it back on, nothing.

Somehow, I think Windows XP got mixed up on what the audio device was. I have no idea how, I was in a session in Live when it decided to just stop working.

Ah, well. Fuck it, it's working now.


This was my first track from this year, check it out:

http://www.looprication.com/tracks/flower.mp3

P.S. I am sick as hell. This FAWM is going to be extra tough.

Evolution UC-33e and Ableton Live 8 (or what I don't know about MIDI could fill a library)

I've had my Evolution UC-33e MIDI control surface for some time now, and I have to say, I've loved it since the moment I opened the package. There's nothing quite like finally getting something you've thoroughly researched, coveted for a while, and then finally you're the first kid on your block to have one.

After the wildfires that devastated southern California back in 2007, I made a resolution to celebrate life. One of the first things I did was to finally kick down for this little beauty. I figured it would change the way I produced, and I was right.

However, I never took the time to really LEARN the manual. Sure, I read it, but I didn't PRACTICE with it. I can't stress how important this is to all the producers out there. If you don't RTFM, you don't deserve all the functionality it offers.

Now, having said that, I have to defend myself a little bit. The UC-33e comes with a layover for Ableton Live. However, there's nothing out of the box that allows you to just get up and running with it. You not only have to program the thing yourself, but you have to know HOW you need to program it, and WHY it's acting weird when you just try to automatically assign MIDI notes to it.

Here's a brief description of what worked for me (see page 12 of the advanced manual):

1. I selected preset #31 by clicking RECALL and then typing in 31.


2. I assigned the faders and knobs as usual to Live (I'm using version 8.1).


3. I clicked "launch button" #1 on the template, then hit ASSIGN, and then typed in 146 (for MIDI CC (on/off), see page 18 of the getting started manual).


4. Then hit DATA MSB twice and entered 127 (the value to be sent to the button when you press it).


5. Then hit DATA LSB twice and entered 000 (the value to be sent to the button when you stop pressing it).


6. Hit Ctrl-M in Live to bring up the MIDI Map screen


7. Clicked on the scene launch button for scene 1


8. Pressed "launch button" #1


9. Repeated this process for the other five launch buttons and the stop all clips, launch clip, clip up and clip down buttons


10. Viola!

The same process works for the transport stop and play buttons, but you should assign 147 to the record button, as it works best with the Note (on/off) MIDI CC (velocity off /velocity on setting - see page 18 of getting started manual).

You actually may not have to do steps 4-5 for each button, I didn't actually have to. Those values were already assigned (you can tell when you click DATA MSB twice fast or DATA LSB twice fast - the number that appears on the display after that is what's assigned.

Special thanks to rictheobscene on this post for guidance:

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?t=13538

Happy producing!

Cheers,

-ix

monome - i am soooo wanting one of these

feignroom from stretta on Vimeo.

New Tracks Written for 50/90

Each July 1st, a worldwide collective of musicians, producers, lyricists and music fans gather on the innernets to create music for a project called 50/90. The idea of the project is for each group or individual to create 50 songs in 90 days. This year, it's being run by the folks from FAWM, who bring you February Album Writing Month.

We knew this was going to be pretty much impossible, but creating 50 songs for us wasn't the goal. The goal was really to participate in the community aspect of it all - to interact with friends made in February, hopefully get some inspiration, and write some music.

Well, so far, not bad. We've finished a total of six complete songs, contributed to djx's excellent Solar Sails track, and have made and received many comments.

Here's a link to our work:

http://5090.fawm.org/fawmers/looprication/

The only bad thing is that 50/90 shuts down after a while, so the whole thing disappears sometime before the end of the year (we're guessing). All the demos will probably live in perpetuity on looprication.com but it's cool to see all the constructive criticism on the 50/90 site.

You can go to the site to see who we're following, but if you're lazy, just check some of these links:

djx - a frequent collaborator, excellent electronic producer, and fellow r-hole (Reason) dweller
caterwauler - we're hoping to collaborate with this ethereal voice soon
heavyhedonist - not many demos (which we have razzed her about endlessly) but the lyrics stand on their own quite nicely

Latest track as of now - Abduction - get it here:
http://5090.fawm.org/songs/3579/

or here:

http://www.looprication.com/tracks/abduction.mp3

The whole thing ends October 1. We'll do our best to keep the music coming.

Native Instruments Komplete 6

I knew it was coming. Native Instruments has announced Komplete 6, which is as they claim the best value ever as far as the Komplete bundle is concerned.

I'm pretty much ready to line up for this one, if for only the Absynth 5 update. I pretty much swear by Absynth 3 for my basslines, and I've used A4 for a lot of ethereal sounds, so I'm curious to see what they do with this one. Also, I think Absynth is the only product they have that's not built on Reaktor. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just sayin'.

As far as Kontakt 4 and Guitar Rig 4, I'm not as excited. I'm sure they've done amazing things to those two applications, but I don't use them much. Just GR for some send effects through Live, which has actually been a great thing. OK, yeah, I should be more excited for GR4. And as far as my lack of enthusiasm for the next version of Kontakt, I plead ignorance.

So yeah, here we go. And for the suggested upgrade price of $169 (US, which isn't worth shit these days but it's alls we gots), that's a fantastic investment.

Mastering

so i'm starting to do final mixdowns of the tracks i wrote in February for the FAWM.org project. if you haven't been following along, that's ok, i'll catch you up to speed.

FAWM stands for February Album Writing Month, and it's about the most amazing thing i've worked with. better than any software, processor, ram, anything. it's just a community of people, all over the world, who get together online and try to write 14 songs [each] in 14 days. i guess in leap year you get an extra day, but this wasn't one, so i'm not sure.

i ended up writing 13, then did a collaboration with djx from alaska, then went back and finished another one on the 28th that was giving me problems [my ailing DAW is over six years old!] so yeah, a total of 15 songs, almost doubling the number of tracks i've actually called 'somewhat finished.'

i've decided to release these songs as a cd sometime this year. for those of you who know and love me, this will be your birthday and christmas presents, as the cost of mastering and releasing this thing will cost almost as much as a brand new, top-of-the-line DAW would. as always, b.weber is doing my artwork, the amazing jim grant has offered some of his stunning photography nearly free [thanks bamoe!], i think cd baby will be doing the duplication.

now i'm looking into mastering, the most critical and expensive part of the process.

i'll keep you posted.

Daft Punk in LA - 21 July, 2007

Daft Punk continues to amaze me. They really do have this sort of control over the crowd that few electronic acts (outside of Underworld) have had to date.

We got to the venue just in time to catch the last 20 minutes of the excellent Ratatat. I tell you, these guys have really got something unique. Two guitars and a guy that does keyboards, sequencing and programming. The sound is just massive live, and people were screaming for them. It was one of the best crowd responses I've seen for an opening act. I'm not sure if the other two openers were the first DJ and the one that spun between Ratatat and Daft Punk, but the bill said four acts, and when Ratatat left the stage, they said, "Daft Punk's up next!"

After Ratatat, we stood in line for over 30 minutes to get two beers (not too overpriced at $7) and a water (at $3). We were pretty amped from all the Monster and Skyy we'd been drinking, so we should have really snuck in a pint of something to balance ourselves out, but eh. Lessons learned. We got out of line just to get a spot for Daft Punk, who started promptly at 11 with the Close Encounters of the Third Kind riff. Nice. They went into Robot Rock, then Technologic through a bridge of something from Homework (Oh Yeah?). The set was banging, and the entire crowd was on its feet and DANCING the whole night. Even the upper deck. ESPECIALLY the upper deck. Daft Punk actually sold out this gigantic venue. I think people are finally starting to "get" electronic music after all.

My one slight disappointment is that the set was almost identical to the one they did at Coachella. There were a few different bridges between songs, the tracks themselves were tweaked differently in a lot of places, but the order was pretty much exactly the same, so no surprises. I just went with it. They really did tear the roof off the place, yet again. When they got to Da Funk, near the end of their set, the whole place was pulsating as one giant, throbbing arm, pumping a fist in the air to the beat. I never saw anyone get pushed or anything like that during the entire night. It was a very respectful crowd.

After it was over, we started walking. We asked our friendly neighborhood police officer for directions to Hill Street, where our hotel was, and he pointed us in the right direction. We decided it would be too tough to fight off the other 16,000 in attendance for a cab, so we hoofed it up Hill. We asked a few musicians who were packing up if we'd be safe. They said, "Yeah, just stay positive." We soon knew what they meant. This was skid fucking row, people, rats, cockroaches, the homeless, you name it. But we really did feel pretty safe, all things considered. You can take the boys out of Detroit...

We ended up walking from the Sports Arena all the way to 818 N. Hill in Chinatown where our hotel was. Sadly, we didn't pass a single convenience store on the way, so we ended up beerless when we got back at around two. The excitement and lack of alcohol made us sit up and talk for hours, and when we finally realized it was almost 6:00, we decided to scrap the idea of sleep in favor of getting an early start home.

I finally got to sleep around ten Sunday morning, four hours of nearly-uninterrupted slumber. I'm calling it an early evening tonight. My one regret is that I didn't know if I could bring my camera in or not, so I only got a few pictures with my cel phone.