Ableton Forum

Personally I think the "it's got to be analogue" thing is hipsterism.

Of course, if you specifically want to recreate a specific sound you heard, say, of a 57 strat with underwound pickups through an orange amp head, or a MiniMoog through a Neve channel strip, then yes, by all means get that particular gear and make that particular noise.. But if you just want to experiment with guitar, then get the best guitar for experimentation, get modern effects, get a modern amp. If you want to experiment with sound, why limit yourself to what I had in 1985 ?

And if you are listening to Robert's experiments and saying " this sounds too digital for me! " then remember that Robert loves that sound, he likes MSP matrix shufflers, bit reducers and granular effects. Saying Robert sounds digital is like saying the pope seems a bit catholic. That's his intention! That is his stylistic choice.

If you want to sound less granulated and bit reduced then don't use those (very 2005 sounding) effects. A little thought can take modern equipment a lot further than any hipstertronic retro setup. You have emulations of every type of equipment ever, and you can define the parametric performance ranges to millinerd ranges, you have instant recall, and morphing.

No it will not sound like a '57 strat.

Note: my set up used to solely consist of various mixers, analogue effects, and tape delays. Stop looking backwards,

Angstrom wrote:millinerd ranges

Johnisfaster wrote:Im kinda chuckling at the no input being expensive notion. With a behringer mixer and 3 or 4 guitar pedals you could get a huge range of sounds going. On a budget of $300 you could get a set up comparable to many touring hipsters.

of course. i'm just saying that with infinite money you could build a very playable and musical sounding feedback instrument based around a matrix mixer and some really hi quality effects.

here's a guy who built a matrix mixer and is playing feedback thru pedals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw468qlDaAE

that's obviously a pretty cheap setup, and he's getting quite a bit out of it. But to be honest, i don't think it sounds as musical as Nakamura's stuff. I'm pretty sure that's because some of the processors he's are using are more expensive than a guitar pedal.


At any rate, i really think the best/most important part of a feedback setup is a matrix mixer, and live's sends and a controller will get you an extremely versatile one right now so just try it out.

Angstrom, thanks for wading in with the disparaging 'hipster' comments. No one is saying don't look forward or even to look back with rose tinted spectacles on a time where things were done the right way and all this modern digital music is nonsense. Hope we can drop this self-righteous train of thought and have a decent conversation about a pretty niche sub-genre without any name calling. I thought you were better than that.

My comments about analogue were purely based on my own empirical tinkerings at a time when I was experimenting with no-input feedback. That was a long time ago and I haven't touched it since, but at the time I was impressed with the sounds coming out of the system.

I considered the reason for this was the analogue nature of the faders and pots having a continuously variable signal, as opposed to a stepped signal.

Of course as soon as you start adding effects to the chain you could potentially be adding these stepped digital qualities but the analogue nuances will still be at your fingertips.

Am I still a hipster after this explanation or just some schmuck who's stuck in his ways?

I'm by no means a luddite (I work in one of the most progressive industries going) and love this digital shit, but sometimes new isn't ALWAYS better.

Hmm - hoping I have not provoked another shitstorm. (I've had my fill of that in the 'what does an idiot sound like' thread... )

I am interested in trying to play with delicate, subtle effects & don't much care whether they are digitally or analoguely produced.

I do find (after an evening of very dissonant experimentation) that the effects I am getting are very harsh. And dictated in very predictable fashion by e.g. how much look-ahead I dial up in the limiter / compressor.

For now I will continue playing around without hardware mixers. I am sure I will have a lot of fun, either way

Apologies if I came off too hot on the "lets do it analogue" thing. It's just that when I see suggestions of creating a setup involving a Behringer mixer on a forum for a DAW which I pretty much chose because of it's feedback routing capabilities, well - my mind asplode.


On compression and lookahead When doing feedback chains I never set any look-ahead because you'll get a "stuck flange" noise. When you activate Live's return channels to send back on themselves they no longer calculate PDC (for obvious reasons) because that loop can't rectify itself in time, and so you'll get a stuck flange rather than a nice feedback.
Actually I use saturators in series with compressors, by riding the balance between the two you can get a standard control on the inevitable screaming freakouts, and also add some body to the tone. Also, the saturator enables some waveshaping.

Any effect which requires some buffer offset tends to be a bad one to use in a feedback loop, because you'll start to hear the 'stuck flange/phaser' depending on what effect it is. It's worth remembering also that some effects don't work too well in parallel, in Live 8 this include the EQ8 in Hi-Q mode, although this was fixed in the L9 EQ8 update.

Thanks for all the links to the generative music threads and tutorials. Mucho respect

God forbid someone enjoy using analog.

Here's what I've been using as a tone generating feedback setup. Roughly.

and here's what it sounds like : I just whapped this out and uploaded it, so that's why it's representatively shit, complete with glaring mistakes and awfulness. (the mistakes let you know how it's made ) If you like your ears you can skip the bit between 4: 14 and 4:48

http://soundcloud.com/angstrom/s-AVigO

All these are return tracks with re-sends activated

Two tone generating tracks (pre fader send)
1: Vinyl Distortion > Saturator > EQ8 > chorus > freq shifter
2: Saturator > EQ8 > freq shifter

One resonator/ waveshaping track
Resonator > Saturator (waveshaping) > Saturator (waveshaping) > Corpus > Frequency modulator > Ring Mod

Two extremely long delays both the same
Simple Delay > Simple Delay > EQ8 > saturator > compressor

And a reverb track.

By feeding those back into each other I can get everything from chiming bells to low drones to ear ripping mistakes that sound horrific.

Johnisfaster wrote:God forbid someone enjoy using analog.

yeah, i think analog sucks and is stupid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwvHOXpgdjc

Theres nothing wrong with analogue, its great. Theres nothing wrong with a 57 strat, thats also great. Nothing wrong with trying to play like Jeff Beck in the Yardbirds with a perfect tone recreation either.

What is not great is thinking "how do I be creative like THAT guy ? I know, do it exactly like him. Wha's that a zoom multieffects unit, right I need one of them, what model number is that, OK so I need an edition 3 with the .75 firmware. OK, what else do I need to be experimental and original like that guy? What else does he have?"

Now THAT is wrong. It's not about equipment, no matter how good a '57 strat is - if you pick it up with the intent of recreating a creative - you are following, not creating. Nothing wrong with that, if that's your intent. But if you want to be experimental ... Experiment.

i agree 100%. I also think it's ridiculous that there are some who truly believe that analog is like black magic that will instantly sound better than software. It's just not the case and it isn't that simple. If it were, anyone with money could just buy the ability to make great sounding stuff. That doesn't happen. the musician is more responsible for their output than what they use.

I don't think analog is black magic. I use Ableton quite a lot and love it. I use all sorts of analog and digital tools. Can a guy not say he prefers hardware feedback solutions to digital ones without getting tagged as a hipster or an audiophile? Sensitive much?

I've done both software and hardware feedback. Both can be interesting and are useful.

@Leisuremuffin, I'm a eurorack dude myself.

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Hi!

I know I'm late on the subject but thought it would be interesting to see if The Finn has found any interesting sounds using the digital feedback.

Oh! and it seems to me that the discussion between analog and digital is somehow valid. They are 2 very different ways of creating feedback. Digital implies there is a latency between each recursion of the loop (introduced by the software buffer size). This means, digital feedback will certainly produce some kind of comb filtering and won't achieve the same sonorities.

I got to say I've been experimenting with feedback in Live for a while now and you can get amazing sounds, very different to the analog feedback stuff I get. All that to say that I find them complementary.

Best,