Analog’s Shape menu offers four choices: sine, sawtooth, rectangle, and noise. Notice that I referred to the waveform highlighted above as “rectangle” rather than “square.” This is because this oscillator has adjustable pulse width. By default, the rectangle waveform is not configured to be a true square wave, instead it’s a wave that looks more […]
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 […]
ANALOG: 4 OSCILLATOR SYNTH
At first glance, Analog appears to be a simple two oscillator synthesizer: One important trick for getting really thick sounds out of this instrument is to take advantage of the Sub oscillators. The Sub is an extra oscillator that generates a note an octave below the main oscillator. To acess the Sub oscillator, first highlight […]
VOLUME AUTOMATION: UNSPEAKABLY EVIL
OK, a bit of an exaggeration perhaps. But here’s the thing: sometimes, as you’re producing a track there are spots where it’s important to automate the volume (fading parts in and out for example). The problem is that later on when it comes time to do a final mix, adjusting the level of tracks with […]
THE GO-ANYWHERE VOLUME CONTROL
Hello from Montreal! Banging out a couple of tips at the hotel (finally all caught up!), then it’s off to get my Mutek started with Mouse on Mars and Nathan Fake. Sweet. So: One problem with using a wet/dry rack to host a Ping Pong Delay is that you can’t control the level going into […]
SIMPLE WET/DRY RACK, pt. 2
Not only do I find myself using Racks to add wet/dry control to devices that don’t have it, I’m often using it to manually control the wet/dry balance with devices that have a built-in control to handle this. The problem is that, in many cases, the Dry/Wet knob doesn’t do what I want it to […]
SIMPLE WET/DRY RACK
When I produce tracks these days, my sets are chock full of Racks. The number one reason I find myself using them so much is for Wet/Dry control. For example, I’ll often use the Redux effect but want to be able to blend the original signal in with the sample-rate reduced signal. The process looks […]
DROP THE WARP
Another way to make tempo jumps is to simply turn off the Warp switch on a clip that is currently playing back. For example, bars 89-105 in the song below are a perfect place to jump to a new tempo because the song drops down to an ambient interlude. So, when the song gets to […]
UNWARPED TRANSITION CLIP
Live’s ability to match the tempo of all clips to the master tempo is obviously a wonderful thing that enables us to do all sorts of things that weren’t possible before. But conversely, it makes some things that are really simple with a traditional DJ setup slightly more complicated. I’m speaking here of big tempo […]
MAPPING THE ACTIVATOR
Hey folks! Sitting in a cafe in Austin having partly recovered from an incredible weekend. Bassnectar show was really special – totally sold out, great energy crowd, and our set seemed to go over pretty darn well. Haj and I then headed over the Barcelona club to play a late night set for the afterparty […]
