some stuff about knobtwiddling *its abit technical*

i posted this in response to a thread that was asking ABLETON LIVE users why they think its so good...
to convince them to give up using logic or cubase (these people are tooo upmarket to use fruityloops lol)

i really dont give a monkeys toss usually - but i was wound up enough by it to post a reply..ma reply goes into how i started makin music etc et so might be of interest to someone - somewhere - someplace

in summertime...


here goes..


i think live works best for people who come from using something like sonic foundrys acid - to me at first it was like a realtime asio version of that - back at live v1.0..

before acid i was sequencing everything on my yamaha rm1x sequencer - triggering a yam a3000 sampler - fatsystems 383 tb303 rip off - an1x synth and other crap..

pc came along and i'd be playing with loops and stuff in acid - then sampling the best results into ma sampler to run along with my midigear..


tried cubase a few times - i found it so longwinded.. logic was just as bad - so stuck to using pc for editing wavs and making loops for a few years - and ma rack with hardware sequencer for the midi realtime tweaking and all that...

live came along and was like an asio version of acid.. then v2 added rewire ( i think?) so the amazing reason was added then - realtime wav manulpulation AND midi style synth action in reason at the same time? wow - the reason for ma rack was gettin less and less



v3 u could rewire things like plogue biddule which could host Vsti instruments - i think it was v3 anyway ...

but V4 was the one - actually hosting all ya vst instruments in ableton? all on 2 simple pages with all ya info u needed - responding quickly to want u want it too do and all that.... adios rm1x and moi sampler - been good friends but needed no more..

hello shiny laptop and controlller - audio interface etc etc - - FAR more powerfull than ma rack ever was...





i know live's midi is rather limited - but - most of the time - i just twiddle knobs.... record loads of audio - hack out t he best bits... set up midi instruments to loop - then tweak the instrument...send the audio out too different fx etc etc .... generally i set up ma microkontrol's pads to be track mutes - scene selection switches etc etc....build up a pattern - then jam with the idea... then edit that......

sometimes i sit and mess around with the arrange page and sequence everything out section by section - it just depends on the mood...


i think its abit cruel to say live is just a sketchpad - or - what gets abit on my nerves is how when i say i use live, people assume i use it to DJ WITH...

i've never dj'ed in my life - i've allways made my own music since i was a kid - started out with ma first soundsampler on ma commodore amiga and soundtracker 1.0 when i was 15..

live's workflow does remind me of ma old trackers - and rm1x sequencer - which i think doesnt make it less of a sequencer than cubase / logic / sonar / reason etc etc

but with all this talk about it being such a great dj tool - i think that could make its primary function - of being a sequencer - more and more overlooked..


sorry too rant so much !


anyway - blatent plug time - crappy myspace page has a few of ma ableton live productions on www.myspace.com/tekkaz

there allso is a full 80 min live mix - recorded at a night called Monkee - in sunny stoke on trent last summer.... and y ah - its my trying to be a dj! lol

i set up 2 channels as a dj mixer type thing - which played whole tracks - filter on each - eq kill on each channel.... then had another 8 tracks running mostly audio loops which i would add to the dj style mix tracks - they'd go from being played linear - into loop based improvised live tracks - fx tweaking ontop of that - joystick set to crossfader for more dj style mixing ( i do sound abit of a spazz flipping it about sometimes tho ! ) - the whole thing was recording itsself as i was playing - and recording a live mic input too.... so when i had finished i could render the damm whole thing to a wav - and burn a cd - pretty much on the spot!



its easier to explain to listen to it - ya get too hear me abused by audience etc etc..


but yah.... i dont expect everyone to like it - and i'm quite happy to go along in ma own little world
but for me

live ROCKS