Fry Sums Up My Opinion on Dubstep in Under 10 Words

On sountracking

I just finished my first soundtrack project, and I learned a lot about myself, my music, and my ability to deal with both.

The film just premiered in Tijuana, and is set to have its Ensanada premiere tomorrow night.

More details to come.

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.