Tao, pinch me please, let me know this isn´t just a beautiful lucid dream. I remember many years ago when still working for the man, up early one morning frantically forcing my breakfast cursing the time, loathing the thought of having to go to (to quote Bill) "a job which did not inspire me creatively in any way shape or form" when I could have spent that valuable 10 hours creating music. The TV was on as the days mass media corporate sponsored and approved messages were being regurgitated and suddenly after a flick to Channel 4 a voice grabbed my attention and Jinny´s.
I looked at the TV increasingly mesmerised by the words, who was this guy? He was rapping accapella stylee but this was no East or West coast shit. This was spiritual, trippy, far out, positive uplifting and English. But the guy had such a voice, like liquid chocolate. And yeah his rap wasn´t rap like Biggie, Snoop etc it was more of a Terrence McKenna rap. But the voice, the words, the message;, hit home like a thunderbolt on steroids. Then after a far too brief a time we were back to News Land and Jin & I stared at each other and I´m sure the words "What the fu*k" were uttered incredulously by one or both of us.
"Who was that?"
"Barefoot Doctor.... " frantic search for words.
"Unbelievable"
Who would have thought that a few short years and a move to the most amazing island and a million coincidences later he´d be our good friend and I´d be producing music with him? I remember thinking I´d love to sample that guy and yet today there we were. No sampling required. Live & Direct. Is it a coincidence that the length of audio fit perfectly with an instrumental track I´ve had ready just waiting for a killer vocal. I´ve stopped believing in coincidences, all is now. Quantum physics and all that.
It´s sounding fine, the track that is, a couple more hours work should finish it then off to Ibiza Global Radio we go. Produced and Mastered in Ableton Live 8 so far, usually Logic handles the main work but not in this case. I´m really liking Live 8 so far, the midi editor is a hell of an improvement and it runs as slick and processor un-intensive as ever.
Still can´t believe it.
Thanks Tao.
Love to all
-
Showing posts with label Sequencer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sequencer. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Logically Speaking
So where to start? Well, for sure it's been awhile so let's cover positive, important stuff first. Anyone that knows me also knows that I love technology, in particular technology that helps me create. My relationship with my technological kit can puzzle innocent bystanders and leave them slightly baffled nay bewildered and confused. I make no apologies for this, having long ago realised that I have a passion and enthusiasm for what I love doing (and the things that help me do it). Over the last few months 4 other stunning bits of kit have joined the list of technology I have loved.
First up and chronologically ordered, the amazing upgrade to my favourite sequencer, now as I've stated many times on these pages the job of the sequencer is to allow you to make music, it is an interface between your creative ideas and your creative output. It needs to be as seamless as possible. In reality the interface shouldn't feel like an interface, it needs to be intuitive yet powerful enough to capture your ideas. Having spent many years learning various sequencers, both hardware & software, it's a real joy to report that the upgrade to Logic Pro was painless and relatively cheap and more importantly so ridiculously powerful & intuitive that it's a real joy to use. The Channel Strip settings are a stroke of genius and the ease of adding extra Aux, Bus and Rewire inputs makes my creative life so much easier. The media, loop and preset library is again simplicity itself and creating / saving your own customised settings so simple it's almost a joke. Sidechaining is now also easier than ever which makes for tight, fat, professional sounding mixes. I'm also digging the new Compare function which for me is a real Godsend.
I love creating my own sounds, it adds an obviously personal level of detail to a track. Most of my own sounds (but not all) usually start from a preset that is then fairly heavily edited. It's just how I tend to work. Get a sound that's somewhere close to what you want then make it exactly what you want. This maybe a simple case of adjusting the characteristics of the sound itself, passing the sound through some mind disturbing effect units or depending on exactly what sound I'm after - building a sound from scratch. It's here where a good Compare function comes in useful. Logic Studio has that nailed. One click allows a quick before and after comparison - essential for a soundsmith. Save your new creation as a Channel Strip setting and it's available in the new media browser only one click away. Genius.
All in all it's a great upgrade, there's lots more to it but I've gotta cover three of the baddest Soft Synths known to mankind yet so excuse me while I slip into something more comfortable and lay these monsters out on general display.
All I can say to start with is Native Instuments! Stop now you're scaring me!
Those crazy creative Germans have done it again. Not content with launching the careers of thousands of Minimal musicians with the insanely inspirational Reaktor and it's Nuskool plugin (the sound of which has systematically destroyed dancefloors from Ibiza to Brazil and beyond), their rapidly growing Soft Synth catalogue has three absolute monsters that I'm now the lucky & proud owner of:
FM8
Massive
Battery 3
I think FM8 has stolen the title of My Favourite Synth, this prestigious award used to belong to the ES2 (closely followed by Rob Papen's Albino) but I can honestly report that FM8 is the synth that I find myself going to again and again. It's received rave reviews in the tech music press and after using it for only a few days I can already see why. Try it - you'll like it. NI offer demos of most of their synths and once you start playing them you'll be hooked.
When Yamaha released the DX7 it was a milestone in Synthesiser history. Only a few synths are good enough to be called classics, the DX7 was one of them. I remember the first time I heard one (in a little music shop in Bingley, West Yorkshire, England) it sounded like no other Synth I'd ever heard. It was the sound of 80's synthesis. Up to that point analogue was God. After the DX7 was released FM synths became the new "must have" sound. An interesting fact here - FM synths became so "fashionable" and analogue synths so "old hat" that I remember seeing a Roland TB-303 for sale in the same small music shop for £35. I was the proud owner of a Korg MS-10 which I couldn't even swap for a guitar effects pedal (and I tried!) both these classic synths now change hands for hundreds of pounds. Technology eh? Everybody wanted the clean FM sound. Analogue was tired and old and fuzzy sounding, the synths were notorious for going out of tune (as they warmed up), drum machines suddenly used "Samples" to make their sounds. Whatever next?
But "fashion" has always been the same, and as in all things fashionable it's a cyclic phenomena. Technology on the other hand always marches on and the new FM synthesis offered by NI is so far ahead of it's ancient cousin it's frightening. When NI released FM7 it caused quite a stir, FM8 is no ripple on the pond, it's a tsunami. One of the weak points of "old" FM synths was their lack of "warmth" (a yearning for the halcyon days of analogue - which of course led to the analogue sound becoming fashionable again - do you see a pattern here kittlings?) FM8 has no such shortfalls. It does all the things the DX7 and its offspring's were capable of but then shows us that nearly 30 years on FM synthesis has grown into something almost unrecognisable.
Oh yes it does "Warm". It does "Fat" it does all the things you want a synth to do. It also reads all the old DX7 (and later models) soundbanks so should you want to sound like a Bronski Beat revival band you can. But it also generates sounds you can't even begin to describe, sounds that twist and undulate then rip the bass cones from your monitors and shred the shirt on your back. Stupidly fat leads, ridiculously rich pads, effects that spin your cerebrum into a gibbering monkey mind mess.
FM synthesisers are notoriously difficult to program and edit, not so NI's latest offering. They offer an accurately named "Easy" morph mode in which you can tweak and twist recognisable parameters (timbre, harmonics, attack, decay, release etc) and a mind meltingly complex "Expert" mode where you can modulate those sine waves and algorithms till your eyes pop and you have a beard as long as Noah's.
All in all 10 out of 10. NI we salute you! :)
So grab yourself the demo and see what you think, better still let me know what you think, I'll cover Massive and Battery in the next post, until then, happy creating Kittlings!
Hasta Luego
Peace
Migz
First up and chronologically ordered, the amazing upgrade to my favourite sequencer, now as I've stated many times on these pages the job of the sequencer is to allow you to make music, it is an interface between your creative ideas and your creative output. It needs to be as seamless as possible. In reality the interface shouldn't feel like an interface, it needs to be intuitive yet powerful enough to capture your ideas. Having spent many years learning various sequencers, both hardware & software, it's a real joy to report that the upgrade to Logic Pro was painless and relatively cheap and more importantly so ridiculously powerful & intuitive that it's a real joy to use. The Channel Strip settings are a stroke of genius and the ease of adding extra Aux, Bus and Rewire inputs makes my creative life so much easier. The media, loop and preset library is again simplicity itself and creating / saving your own customised settings so simple it's almost a joke. Sidechaining is now also easier than ever which makes for tight, fat, professional sounding mixes. I'm also digging the new Compare function which for me is a real Godsend.I love creating my own sounds, it adds an obviously personal level of detail to a track. Most of my own sounds (but not all) usually start from a preset that is then fairly heavily edited. It's just how I tend to work. Get a sound that's somewhere close to what you want then make it exactly what you want. This maybe a simple case of adjusting the characteristics of the sound itself, passing the sound through some mind disturbing effect units or depending on exactly what sound I'm after - building a sound from scratch. It's here where a good Compare function comes in useful. Logic Studio has that nailed. One click allows a quick before and after comparison - essential for a soundsmith. Save your new creation as a Channel Strip setting and it's available in the new media browser only one click away. Genius.
All in all it's a great upgrade, there's lots more to it but I've gotta cover three of the baddest Soft Synths known to mankind yet so excuse me while I slip into something more comfortable and lay these monsters out on general display.
All I can say to start with is Native Instuments! Stop now you're scaring me!
Those crazy creative Germans have done it again. Not content with launching the careers of thousands of Minimal musicians with the insanely inspirational Reaktor and it's Nuskool plugin (the sound of which has systematically destroyed dancefloors from Ibiza to Brazil and beyond), their rapidly growing Soft Synth catalogue has three absolute monsters that I'm now the lucky & proud owner of:
FM8
Massive
Battery 3
I think FM8 has stolen the title of My Favourite Synth, this prestigious award used to belong to the ES2 (closely followed by Rob Papen's Albino) but I can honestly report that FM8 is the synth that I find myself going to again and again. It's received rave reviews in the tech music press and after using it for only a few days I can already see why. Try it - you'll like it. NI offer demos of most of their synths and once you start playing them you'll be hooked. When Yamaha released the DX7 it was a milestone in Synthesiser history. Only a few synths are good enough to be called classics, the DX7 was one of them. I remember the first time I heard one (in a little music shop in Bingley, West Yorkshire, England) it sounded like no other Synth I'd ever heard. It was the sound of 80's synthesis. Up to that point analogue was God. After the DX7 was released FM synths became the new "must have" sound. An interesting fact here - FM synths became so "fashionable" and analogue synths so "old hat" that I remember seeing a Roland TB-303 for sale in the same small music shop for £35. I was the proud owner of a Korg MS-10 which I couldn't even swap for a guitar effects pedal (and I tried!) both these classic synths now change hands for hundreds of pounds. Technology eh? Everybody wanted the clean FM sound. Analogue was tired and old and fuzzy sounding, the synths were notorious for going out of tune (as they warmed up), drum machines suddenly used "Samples" to make their sounds. Whatever next?
But "fashion" has always been the same, and as in all things fashionable it's a cyclic phenomena. Technology on the other hand always marches on and the new FM synthesis offered by NI is so far ahead of it's ancient cousin it's frightening. When NI released FM7 it caused quite a stir, FM8 is no ripple on the pond, it's a tsunami. One of the weak points of "old" FM synths was their lack of "warmth" (a yearning for the halcyon days of analogue - which of course led to the analogue sound becoming fashionable again - do you see a pattern here kittlings?) FM8 has no such shortfalls. It does all the things the DX7 and its offspring's were capable of but then shows us that nearly 30 years on FM synthesis has grown into something almost unrecognisable.
Oh yes it does "Warm". It does "Fat" it does all the things you want a synth to do. It also reads all the old DX7 (and later models) soundbanks so should you want to sound like a Bronski Beat revival band you can. But it also generates sounds you can't even begin to describe, sounds that twist and undulate then rip the bass cones from your monitors and shred the shirt on your back. Stupidly fat leads, ridiculously rich pads, effects that spin your cerebrum into a gibbering monkey mind mess.
FM synthesisers are notoriously difficult to program and edit, not so NI's latest offering. They offer an accurately named "Easy" morph mode in which you can tweak and twist recognisable parameters (timbre, harmonics, attack, decay, release etc) and a mind meltingly complex "Expert" mode where you can modulate those sine waves and algorithms till your eyes pop and you have a beard as long as Noah's.
All in all 10 out of 10. NI we salute you! :)
So grab yourself the demo and see what you think, better still let me know what you think, I'll cover Massive and Battery in the next post, until then, happy creating Kittlings!
Hasta Luego
Peace
Migz
Friday, February 09, 2007
New Album: Track Complete - "Abre Los Ojos" (Original Mix)
Abre Los Ojos: It came to me in a dream. I awoke with the melody, the bass riff and the rhythm all crystal clear in my mind and nagging me (urging me) to bring them into reality. This is the first time I've ever written / produced like this. My friend Andy (I-Nerve) and I both compose in a very similar way. Andy calls it "Organic composition" and I think that usually sums up my writing. But this, ah this was oh so different.
I attribute my new creative "buzz" to my new life style which I constantly give thanks for (it's important to do that I feel). Abre Los Ojos is a case in point - the hook is burned into my cerebrum - I almost can't believe I wrote it, but it is mine and that makes me so very happy.
Knowing my "set up" is proving invaluable, it's a given and an obvious one at that but it's something that can quite easily pass musicians by. Technology being what it is and todays instruments being what they are it's quite easy to get "lost in the machine". By that I don't mean that the music sounds "mechanical" (Squeeks and Bleeps eh Reg?) I mean it's all too easy to get distracted from the creative process and get bogged down with the technology bullshit. Any budding muso's please take note - it's the music that's important - don't lose yourself in the technology. That said and this is my point, you have to know your technology.
When you have a bit of kit you are completely at one with your writing reflects that, both in the quality and the ease in which you complete the writing process. If you're spending too much time "messing" you lose the thread of creativity (well I used to anyway). I've been using my new sequencer (which is really a self contained studio in a single bit of software) for a few months now and having spent a considerable amount of time with it, and it's rather fat manuals, I can pretty much get it to do what I want.
Every single sound in Abre Los Ojos is my own. Every drum sound has been crafted (Ultrabeat what a monster of a Drum Machine!) every synth sound built from the ground up, every effect patch created from scratch, only Ms Cruz has not been engineered by me :)
"Ramirez Ain't No Square" has to be one of my favourite synth sounds ever - and it's mine! It's built from a basic Square Waveform (hence the name) but twisted and modulated with some very tasty envelope & velocity action which makes it sooooo playable and so very very fat.
Abre Los Ojos remixes coming soon, I may well work on those next but "Curious Yellow" "English Voodoo" "Forgotten Friends" "One 2 Eight" "Dorkin" "Layers of Reality" and "Talamanca Dreaming" are all part complete and now shouting for attention.
Abre Los Ojos is Track 7 from the album "Civilization 2012"
Peace & Love
Migz
I attribute my new creative "buzz" to my new life style which I constantly give thanks for (it's important to do that I feel). Abre Los Ojos is a case in point - the hook is burned into my cerebrum - I almost can't believe I wrote it, but it is mine and that makes me so very happy.
Knowing my "set up" is proving invaluable, it's a given and an obvious one at that but it's something that can quite easily pass musicians by. Technology being what it is and todays instruments being what they are it's quite easy to get "lost in the machine". By that I don't mean that the music sounds "mechanical" (Squeeks and Bleeps eh Reg?) I mean it's all too easy to get distracted from the creative process and get bogged down with the technology bullshit. Any budding muso's please take note - it's the music that's important - don't lose yourself in the technology. That said and this is my point, you have to know your technology.
When you have a bit of kit you are completely at one with your writing reflects that, both in the quality and the ease in which you complete the writing process. If you're spending too much time "messing" you lose the thread of creativity (well I used to anyway). I've been using my new sequencer (which is really a self contained studio in a single bit of software) for a few months now and having spent a considerable amount of time with it, and it's rather fat manuals, I can pretty much get it to do what I want.
Every single sound in Abre Los Ojos is my own. Every drum sound has been crafted (Ultrabeat what a monster of a Drum Machine!) every synth sound built from the ground up, every effect patch created from scratch, only Ms Cruz has not been engineered by me :)
"Ramirez Ain't No Square" has to be one of my favourite synth sounds ever - and it's mine! It's built from a basic Square Waveform (hence the name) but twisted and modulated with some very tasty envelope & velocity action which makes it sooooo playable and so very very fat.
Abre Los Ojos remixes coming soon, I may well work on those next but "Curious Yellow" "English Voodoo" "Forgotten Friends" "One 2 Eight" "Dorkin" "Layers of Reality" and "Talamanca Dreaming" are all part complete and now shouting for attention.
Abre Los Ojos is Track 7 from the album "Civilization 2012"
Peace & Love
Migz
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