New album completely produced in Ableton Suite 8

[toph]

Hi,

I'm not sure, if this sub-forum is the right place to post this, but as the album is completely written, arranged and mixed in Suite 8, I think it should fit:



Soehngenetic - Pseudolectual (Chill-Out / Ambient / Dub / IDM)
I started to call the style "headstrong chill-out", because the term "chill-out" to me sounds like very clean functional lounge music, what I think my music isn't (hopefully).

You can give it a listen at my Bandcamp-page:
http://soehngen.bandcamp.com/album/pseudolectual

I also did a little ad-hoc-video for one of the tracks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pAPsliz_co

Some words regarding the production process:
Compared to others I do most of my music work in the arrangement-view from the start, because I always tend to run into "nowhere" when jamming in session-view. I use Live as a traditional DAW and many VSTs and VSTis are included in my production process. Beside those I tried to make more use of my older days synth-hardware (like Nord Lead 2 and Nova) again on this album. All hardware was included by using the external instrument and effect plug-ins of Live and hardware was patched to my ten years old Motu 24i/o. I missed that comfortable way of working for a long time and used to record external sound-generators to audio in the past, but it worked really well by using the external instruments/effects plug-ins. First I was worrying a bit about latency, but it wasn't hearable to my ears at all. Production system was a Win7 PC running Suite 8.2 / 8.3 without any mentionable problems, some controller support by APC40 and touch-able. Beside many other plug-ins, 112dbs Redline Reverb and VoS's NastyDLA very in heavy usage on the "room-side" and many Simplers, Samplers, some Operaters, some Zebras, some SQ80s and some rare (because I bought it in a late state of the production) Alchemy. And last but not least some Wurlitzer Piano, e-bass and a-guitar were recorded through an old Bass Pod and an as old Mackie 1604 VLZ and the MOTU into Live.

I'm thinking about doing a little "Making-Of"-video, if I find the time, but this will take a few weeks, if it will happen anyway.

I really would appreciate any kind of feedback and support. Thanks in advance,
Christoph

[Ub373NNN]

my honest opinion on this is i no like the album. sorry all about that me friend.

[toph]

Watched the video, good stuff. Why do you say completely made in Live if you use all that other stuff? Seems a bit contradictory to me.

Yes, you're right, the topic is misleading if you expected the whole sound-generating also to be done in Live. - I was looking at it from the DAW-side and wanted to make clear that I didn't use different applications to record audio, arrange and mix. I think quite a lot of people still use Live only as a part of their production process in the studio and team it up with other DAWs like Logic, Cubase, Reaper. Maybe I should have written "completely produced with" and not "in".

my honest opinion on this is i no like the album. sorry all about that me friend.

Hey, you don't have to be sorry about that. Just avoid visiting my resources and you'll be fine.

[Mage2k]

Nice stuff. I'd definitely put it in a chill out category, even as far as Aphex Twin era Selected Ambient Works style ambient.

The video reminded my of playing in and near a lake that my grandfather had a house on when I was kid. Music and accompanying material evoking memories is a good thing...

One thing, though: I honestly thing 10 euros (~$12.50) is a bit steep for an indy produced and distributed chunk of music. If you really want to make money from your music you should drop the purchase price and work out an interesting live show that you can get paid for.

[toph]

Hey Mage2k, thanks for your kind feedback!

Surely I'm aware of the misrelation for potential US customers because of the Euro - Dollar relation. But the making of the covers is really time-consuming and even if I sell on CD-R today and the covers are mostly handmade, anyhow I have to consider costs for material and printings. So maybe the CD versions are some kind of special interest products, but there are people buying them and my experience from further testings is, that cheaper CDs doesn't lead to more sold units in the end (in my special case).

In the end I developed my own philosophy on this whole musik-marketing thing over the years. And I think I'm doing that long enough to be aware of what I'm doing. In times of file-sharing/hosting and upcoming streaming services money can not be ones main intention in doing music like the music I do. But that doesn't neccessarily have to lead one to give away his music for free. I'm sure that people who really like my music are willing to pay the "my" price and some of them pay even more than I ask for. And people who don't like the music or think it's too expensive aren't forced to listen to it or to buy it (as I'm not with music of others). So I don't see a real problem there.

Building a live-show and playing live is a question of time (I have a family, I have to work) and probability of really getting paid gigs then. - I think my music isn't predestinated to get a huge audience live willing to pay a price that makes it possible for an presenter to pay me and the musicians playing with me, the collection-society fees and all the 100 things a presenter has to pay for in Germany when presenting a show.

And don't get me wrong: I don't write that to offend your opinion, just to show you what is my very subjective view on your topics.

[Mage2k]

Doh! My bad, I read that price as being for the digital purchase. I'm not sure how.

[Froggy22]

that's real nice, man. i'll be buying soon.

[wald]

I loved your stuff on Electrolux back then!
Clearly your "signature sound" is there - no matter what equipment...

Daniel

[starving student]

i watched the video, sounds nice may I ask what is your album about?

[toph]

Hey, thank you all for your kind feedback!

may I ask what is your album about?

I'm not sure, if I understand your question. - The only thing I can answer is that the album is first and foremost about me. - So a very self-centered background.
But please feel free to ask more precise and I'll try to answer.

[synnack]

I like your stuff. It always cracks me up though when people post about their music as "made with Ableton" to the Ableton forums. I should try that. MADE WITH MAX FOR LIVE OMG!

[toph]

Ok, you got me, tempus3r! - But this may result from the early discussions about Live being a nice tool, but not a real workstation. And as I tried to explain above many people still seem to use Live as some kind of a tool beside their "real DAW" (Logic, Cubase, Reaper) whatever. And the audio quality / mixing aspect still is much discussed topic in this forum. And even if my music isn't (and doesn't want to be) highend hi-fi, the feedback of many people is that it sounds warm and organic (the opposite of what many of the "Live sounds bad"-guys constantly post over here).

And btw I'm really looking forward to your Mad with M4L album. I own M4L too but rarely use it, because it doesn't really fit my personal way of making music.

[synnack]

oh I understand why you'd post it that way to OTHER forums where people believe Ableton live is not a "real DAW" or something.

But you are posting it here. Most of us do our music entirely in Ableton Live on the Ableton Live forums.

For your friends who think Ableton Live sounds like shit, send them here http://cdn1.ableton.com/download/d40129 ... eet-en.pdf

[toph]

Maybe I've a bad focus on topics I'm reading here, but in the last year there were many discussions of Live not being a good choice anymore (because of missing 64bit aso) and many people were looking for other DAWs and comparing Live with those. So, I'm not sure if most of us are doing their music entirely in Live. But we don't have to make a big discussion out of that. I see and understand your issue with this thread.

I had some hard times with Live 8 myself (partly influenced from the ongoing discussion and some features a was badly missing) - but the making and finishing of this album opened my eyes again, how much I like working with Live and that many of those feelings came from just being uninspired and not creative at all (what was a very personal thing and didn't result from any tool, software or instrument).

Btw I don't have "friends" thinking that "Live sounds like shit", I read that here in the forum regularly.

[starving student]

i haven't listened to other songs of yours yet but I like how warm and provoking the one I heard was, I was just curious what your music was about, kind of like you know what a beatles album is about or eno or …. not that it has to be about anything but I guess thats still something. I wish there was more of this type of production in hiphop music.