If you’ve been doing all of your audio processing “in the box” lately, today is a reminder to try sending audio outside of your computer to process it, even if you don’t have fancy studio hardware. Guitar pedals are a great way to go here: if you don’t have any, borrow a few from a […]
RENDER IT REALTIME
When using Live’s Export Audio/Video command, the default behavior is to render offline, faster than real time. In most cases this works just fine, however, there are some cases where you’ll want to force live to Export your song in real time, playing the audio as it goes. For example, very often, I want to […]
SAMPLE IT ALL
The next time you sit down to play with some new effects, or an old synth, or pretty much anything that can be expected to make some crazy sounds, try this: sample everything. Record the entire sound design session into a new audio clip. Say you’ve gotten inspired to check out some of the Max […]
RE-RESAMPLE IT
If you use one of the many techniques that introduce randomness into your productions (such as in the previous tip), you’ll find that it’s generally a mixed bag. One moment you’re getting great results, the next not so much. My solution to this is another round of resampling – recording the output of the randomness […]
CROP AND COLLECT
A lot of the preparation for my upcoming Austin gig is happening remotely, so there’s a lot of sending files back and forth. In particular, we’re sending Live projects containing audio loops. Sometimes these loops are short and homemade, and sometimes they are loops taken from entire songs. Unfortunately, this remote collaboration sometimes has to […]
OPEN THE ENVELOPE
A lot of great synth sounds can be created with simple waveforms, filters and effects. Analog is a great synth to experiment with classic subtractive synthesis techniques. It may appear complex at first, but in a lot of ways it’s a fairly simple instrument. When Analog is loaded in its default state, you’ll hear a […]
MANY MINI SETS
I just can’t say enough positive about Live’s ability to export sets using drag and drop. My approach to live performance is to continually add material, so my sets have a tendency to get very large over time. The beauty of this is that your sets can get extremely dynamic as the material gets more […]
WARPING 101: TURN OFF AUTO WARP
Hey folks! There have been a number of requests for some warping tips. Well, here they be. First off, let me say that (like most things) there is no one “right way” to warp your audio files. There are different methods, many good ones, and the best one is usually determined by the type of […]
REFLECTIONS FROM THE ROAD
Hey everyone! As you know, the summer schedule has been a bit hectic and the tips have been coming on a somewhat more erratic schedule than usual. Well, hopefully that will improve a bit over the coming weeks…I played my last date of the tour on friday (which included a tag-team workshop with the unstoppable […]
PRODUCING FOR THE GIG
Lately, I’ve been doing a fair amount of “speed production” while on the road. This just means producing tracks with only my live set in mind. Rather than try to create something that develops over 4-7 minutes and is ready to release, I’ll create material that works really well for two minutes during a performance. […]
