The application that changed making music…

By

Robert Henke

When we started working on Live, and finally showed a first Version in 2001, the big music software companies did not take us very serious. “A laptop on stage? You must be crazy!” or “This interface looks horrible!” were reactions we got often. However, we are now the most successful music software company out there, with an incredible number of customers all over the world, and our software massively changed the way electronic music is created and performed.

It became very easy to make music. And this is bad. Everyone can make a boring uninspired piece of music in a lunch break, and it will sound good and ‘professional’. It became really very, very easy to make music with our software. And this is great! Because it not only allows highly musical people with limited budget to create fantastic and complex music, it also allows those folks like me to dive deeper into the creation and exploration of music, sound and structure than ever before. I never spent less time thinking of technology and more time making music with it. Well, apart from my engagement with the company.

. . . part of Music Mondays

Edited: March 8th, 2010

Vibrasphere Remix – Wasteland (firewire coldplaysucks re-edit) download

Download an mp3 of my remix of Vibrapshere’s Wasteland. I have uploaded it to zippyshare, for the time being. Download Vibrasphere – Wasteland (firewire coldplaysucks re-edit) here.

You can also check out a video of the remix in Ableton here:

Edited: March 5th, 2010

The XX vs Alan Fitzpatrick & Reset Robot – Silicone Shelter – King Unique Bootleg download

I’ve been listening to this for a long time now, and I really love this song. While this zippyshare download isn’t a release quality link, it does allow me to play this song out to more people who can love it too via iTunes or Ableton!

You can download this song here: The XX vs Alan Fitzpatrick & Reset Robot -Silicone Shelter (King Unique Bootleg) on zippyshare

Here’s proof that our future is not becoming less free.

Edited: February 3rd, 2010

Afrojack – Bangduck – DJ Firewire re-edit for coldplaysucks.com

This is my version of a song I’ve been hearing a lot on the BBC this month. The major problem is that it isn’t released yet (oh noes!)

I put in some work destroying it in Ableton Live so that I might be able to play it in a set or loop it properly, enjoy!

Afrojack – Bangduck Coldplaysucks.com DJ Tool loop by coldplaysucks

Edited: January 25th, 2010

I cannot get enough King Unique “The XX & Alan Fitzpatrick & Reset Robot — Silicone Shelter” these days

As I wrote about recently, I cannot stop listening to this bootleg! It is totally one of the greatest productions going on through my head right now. It’s just so raw . . . sounds like a live remix . . .it would be wicked to see musicians start to go in this style live. Doing mash up remixes via Ableton Live . . . the future of music is exciting!

On a similar note I’ve been listening to a lot of “The XX” especially their “Florence + The Machine” remix!

Edited: January 24th, 2010

Fiducial Midi Controller for Ableton

Cool Ableton Live triggering system!

This is a quick demo of the Fiducial Midi Controller, a tangible controller built using ReacTIVision software with OSCulator to send midi signals to Ableton Live.

via gabeshaughnessy:

My DJ skills need some work, but you get the idea. One thing you can’t see in this video is the cards are color coded. They match the Ableton Tracks.

My ableton live mapping is not very sophisticated. Each clip has a card that triggers it, and you can rotate each card too, effecting something different on each track. The drum track, for example, changes the note duration, or time, when you rotate the card. On the bass track, rotating the card changes the vibrato, and for the bleepy melody, rotating the ard changes the auto-pan rate.

I’m using the free, open-source fudicial library called ReacTIVision. The folks who thought up the Reactor Synthesizer released ReacTIVision.

I’m using OSCulator to route the OSC signals from reacTIVision to Live as MIDI notes and CC values. I’ve also been messing with Quartz Composer patches using the OSC TUIO patch from Kineme (http://kinime.net).

Edited: January 20th, 2010

Ableton Live Webcam Music Generator

By Alex Massaad

This is a demo of some of the powerful stuff you can do with Max 4 Live, the new Max API for Ableton Live 8. This is some very unique and exciting human-computer interaction.

The video demonstrates a webcam plugin that turns on-camera movements, quantizes them to pre-defined notes, and then further adjusts them to a preset musical scale. the result is an instant midi note generator that is controlled by your movement in front of a camera.

Is it musical? Maybe not, but it certainly is cool, and has some definite applications for sound design.

m4l.lab.videomusicbox from liubo on Vimeo.

I wonder what this does to the artistic merit of music. If a great song gets composed using any of this technology it takes a lot of human design out of music. Theoretically your robotic vacuum cleaner can compose a symphony while you’re at work, provided you set up the software correctly before hand.

Edited: October 9th, 2009

Ableton Live by 11 year old

Having some problems hooking up your Ableton Live rig together? Take a lesson from this 11 year old who picked up his brothers Ableton rig and taught himself to do this in 30 minutes:

This video just speaks to the easy concept within Ableton. It is not necessary to be a computer scientist to operate this software (although if you are . . Max for Live offers some wicked coding opportunities!). You can be a musician, and in fact the session view speaks to this side of the brain very intuitively.
This kid was able to pick up his brothers Ableton hardware and software and dive right into this set after 30 minutes of set up and probably a basic understanding for the form of drum and bass from hearing his brother.

Can Pro Tools do anything close to this? I doubt it.

Edited: October 8th, 2009

Reasons to become a DJ

Fuck work, where IS your life going anyhow?

If you’re like most people you spend your days waking up, and working for SOMEBODY ELSE. Wake up at this time, then go to that place in order to fill out those reports for that GUY. Maybe you should consider a career change that would make you “THAT GUY”.

Here are a few good reasons:

1. You’ll be making some big bucks. Paul Oakenfold is reportedly makes $7.5 million dollars a year and there are plenty of DJs who charge as much as $50,000 for one gig (Tiesto, deadmau5). Not bad for playing out pre-recorded music.
2. You don’t even need to be a musician. You might be a champ with ‘guitar hero’ but learning to play real guitars or keeping time with a live band on with drums is actually hard work. DJing is the real trick to playing a party with no practice.
3. All DJs are sexy. It doesn’t matter if you are a boy who loves girls, a girl who likes boys, a boy who enjoys boys or a girl who prefers girls. DJing is probably one of the sexiest jobs and you will never be short of a bed companion.
4. Enjoy VIP treatment. You don’t have to be a big name superstar DJ to get a taste of the VIP treatment. Being a DJ gets you the connections and peer respect that makes VIP treatment fall into your lap.
5. Get lots of free stuff. You’ll soon be receiving offers of free music, clothes, booze and DJ equipment.

All you need to do now is create an impressive mix CD (not suck at it) and get yourself some bookings. Wishing you luck in your new career!

Edited: September 8th, 2009

Deadmau5 “For Lack of a Better Name Tour” Ottawa September 23, 2009

In four weeks Ottawa clubs are getting a revolutionary change; deadmau5 returns!

Often found in the creative lab known as the ‘deadmau5 disco den of despair and inequity’ this creative genius is comparable to no other. For the last two years his releases have steadily GROWN from the first time I heard him featured by Tiesto.

deadmau5’s magnificent stylings have a captured an audience that moves with him and his sounds. Ranging from electro to progressive one thing has become synonymous with deadmau5; consistent quality.

Currently working with the group 24twentyfour, the future is powered by the sounds of deadmau5. Now with his own label ‘Xfer records’ and ‘mau5trap’ the house of mau5 is a powerful force on the dancefloors of the globe.

It has been over a year and a half since this Canadian has graced the clubs of Ottawa with his presence. One of the best things about his live show is that he performs part of it in his mouse head! (I previously saw him at Stereo over a year ago in Montreal) He also is able to perform it as a “concert” through the use of Ableton Live. Check out an article I wrote earlier this week on how Depeche Mode uses Ableton Live.

On September 23, 2009 I hope to be in the crowds, with my camera phone, and ipod, blogging and taking pictures to post up here as soon as I’m within wifi range of home! For any locals feel free to use the link below to purchase tickets for this show.

http://www.wantickets.com/affiliates/EventDetail.aspx?id=495&e_id=68050

Edited: September 1st, 2009