Ableton Forum

Hello all!
In an effort to build up my chops in Live, and to try out a few live effect things I started work on a track on friday.
I had set a 2 hour deadline for this, and I actually stayed within those limits. It's a big beatey track with loads of tweaks and funky details.
Wetterberg - Fly Trap

After that it wasn't late, so I did another one - a downtempo hiphop thing with one of my favourite voice samples of all time.
Wetterberg - Ordinary

...And then yesterday morning my mate called and asked for a background for a corporate video thing he was doing. I didn't have anything in stock, so I once again did it from scratch. Nice and mellow, I believe un-obtrusive is the word:
Fremtidens Kontor

I love this quick way of working. Each track took two hours or less to produce. Please have a listen!

Cheers
--A--

I am glad u are happy with it.
I can hear that u made it in just 2 hours, its just random mangling, no offence but did u even think when u made it?
I did not like it sorry.
Just random stuff.
But my opinion is not that important then your own.
So like i said, if u are happy with it and had fun making it, that is the most important thing.

'Office of the future' - ha!

The style of music isn't my cup of tea, but there are good ideas and the speed of the workflow involved is impressive (which is what you wanted to hear, right?).

How much of these are operator? I think htereis great potential here. I especially like Kontor, but i'm into unobtrusive. Keep up the good work.

I am down with Kontor too. Drop the bass a bit lower. I could totally hear this in some Discovery Channel office of the future deal lol. All minimal with computers and stuff popping out everywhere and silding glass doors that shade up when you want privacy. Good stuff.

Thanks for the comments all.. good and bad. It was mainly a self-therapy excersise, now that i think about it.. It really does feel good to churn out stuff.

krank wrote:'the speed of the workflow involved is impressive (which is what you wanted to hear, right?).

hehe, thank you! But no, that's not what I wanted to *hear* that's what I wanted to *say* if you know what I mean?

Ishi and udp, thanks! Glad you liked it. On the kontor thing there is one reaktor synth line (the first deep reverbed sounds you hear, pretty much) and the rest is all operator. The bass as well. The master has been chucked through some serious loudness multi-band stuff, since it's likely to be played on a sub-par computer speaker setup :-/ (yet another reason not to spend ages tweaking the mix... the recipient won't give a toss!)

Thanks again!
a.

Well, you're putting to shame most electronic musicians Machinate, I was expecting some non-sense noise, but there is truly something there, that most people would take days to achieve.
Keep going while your muse is on your shoulder.

Remember : An album a day keeps the doctor away !

Chris J wrote:Remember : An album a day keeps the doctor away !

haha, thank you Chris! LOL! That pretty much sums me up! teehee!

hey machinate. really nice tracks you made..
i like ordinary the most....

Not as good as your earlier effort when you created a track using only Operator. I think that track was called Rinse something or other. I liked that a lot, but these efforts which took you only 2 hours each were not up to the same standard. The best of the 3 was in my opinion Fremtidens Kontor, but lacking oomph (in my opinion).

I remember a while ago that I criticised a track by some twat called DJRetard I think, which was by the way constructive criticism on my part, yet he took it extremely badly and a minor war broke out! I hope this doesn't happen with you.

Just in case you are overly sensitive to criticism please remember that when you put your work up for scrutiny you have to accept the good with the bad. Excuse me for saying that, but I just want to cover myself. But on a more positive note, I liked your track with Operator only. With some development it could be a GREAT track!

Here are my thoughts on it while listening. If I say something offensive, I am just sharing my observations, but I'm sure that goes without saying.

Thanks!

I'm listening to fly trap right now. I really like the composition. The twinkly sounding notes feel like the can use some variances, especially in contrast with the stuttering drums. THe reverbs and delay on some instruments creates a stark, almost too cold contrast with the some of the cleaner sounding breaks.

I think if there is one think exciting about this track, it's the sheer amount of different percusive/rythmic sounds. The melody is straight out of an early Hal Hartley movie, which i Love.

O.K. I am listening to it again now, and I love the first break so much. The first several strings of glitched beats are very successful in an Aphex twin windowlicker sort of way.

However, the bass-meandering-thing around the first mentioned break is slightly disjointed, especially when contrasted with unnecessarilly low, continuous piano loop.

Right before the two minute mark is some great stuff.

Even afterward, the glitch out of it into more window licker stuff is great, and the bassline works, though perhaps some gradual tone tweaking a little earlier on might be cool.


Now I'm listening to ordinary. The drums are nicely contrasted with everything else. The effect of the sporadic, grating drums against bouncing, pillowy, renaissance women synths is nice, but I don't like the drums as much as I want to. For the same reason I own, but don't listen to the newer Sonic youth albums.

I am seriously considering starting up a Ping-pong-delay-anonymous group. I have a real substance abuse problem with it.


O.K., fremtide has started and I like it the most already.
While the components are impressive in flytrap, and the study of constrast and technique in Ordinary allude to some of your considerable skills, this tracks mixdown seems to be the focus, as it's hot.
I love how the bass moves through the trails of reverb, the piano is beautiful, the synth is lush, and the drums cut through the thick of it like cranberry sauce on turkey.

I wish they played shit llke this at the winebar/lounge I used to work at. It's so relaxing and yet not offensive to me like so much lite electronica.

Alright, paraphrase: Like fremtide and Flytrap alot. I wish I could see how you did your fills, as there are infinite methods, but it seems like given the amount of time you spent, you have a really good disciplined approach/system.

I wonder how well it can be improvised in reatime:

When are you coming to the states man?

Here are my thoughts on it while listening. If I say something offensive, I am just sharing my observations, but I'm sure that goes without saying.

Thanks!

I'm listening to fly trap right now. I really like the composition. The twinkly sounding notes feel like the can use some variances, especially in contrast with the stuttering drums. THe reverbs and delay on some instruments creates a stark, almost too cold contrast with the some of the cleaner sounding breaks.

I think if there is one think exciting about this track, it's the sheer amount of different percusive/rythmic sounds. The melody is straight out of an early Hal Hartley movie, which i Love.

O.K. I am listening to it again now, and I love the first break so much. The first several strings of glitched beats are very successful in an Aphex twin windowlicker sort of way.

However, the bass-meandering-thing around the first mentioned break is slightly disjointed, especially when contrasted with unnecessarilly low, continuous piano loop.

Right before the two minute mark is some great stuff.

Even afterward, the glitch out of it into more window licker stuff is great, and the bassline works, though perhaps some gradual tone tweaking a little earlier on might be cool.


Now I'm listening to ordinary. The drums are nicely contrasted with everything else. The effect of the sporadic, grating drums against bouncing, pillowy, renaissance women synths is nice, but I don't like the drums as much as I want to. For the same reason I own, but don't listen to the newer Sonic youth albums.

I am seriously considering starting up a Ping-pong-delay-anonymous group. I have a real substance abuse problem with it.


O.K., fremtide has started and I like it the most already.
While the components are impressive in flytrap, and the study of constrast and technique in Ordinary allude to some of your considerable skills, this tracks mixdown seems to be the focus, as it's hot.
I love how the bass moves through the trails of reverb, the piano is beautiful, the synth is lush, and the drums cut through the thick of it like cranberry sauce on turkey.

I wish they played shit llke this at the winebar/lounge I used to work at. It's so relaxing and yet not offensive to me like so much lite electronica.

Alright, paraphrase: Like fremtide and Flytrap alot. I wish I could see how you did your fills, as there are infinite methods, but it seems like given the amount of time you spent, you have a really good disciplined approach/system.

I wonder how well it can be improvised in reatime:

When are you coming to the states man?

thoughts on flytrap:

love the builds and drops. there are some sections where you're doing filter sweeps that affecting the entire mix but they sound too... too much i guess. if the drums kept pounding as the filters changed the feel, it might feel like a more cohesive break from the synth rhythm.

i'm jealous because, as simple as it sounds, it ends up pretty far away from where it starts and i find that's one of the hardest things for me to do. i usually create a groove and just explore it and it never goes anywhere different.

ordinary:

good groove. took a while to get going but my tracks usually start off that way too. i'd listen to it again, that's for sure.


fremtidens kontor:

awesome. mellow vibe but the drums cut through the mix very well. its one of those "soundtrack of life" tunes. i can imagine walking through a vegas casino at 7am with this in my ipod after a night at the club. i think i actually like this one best because of the vibe it creates.


keep posting this stuff. much respect!

h.

Wow! Thanks for all the very nice and constructive comments. I am definitely *self-aware* when putting my stuff out there, but by no means will I take criticism personally - constructive or otherwise.

LOFA wrote: I am seriously considering starting up a Ping-pong-delay-anonymous group. I have a real substance abuse problem with it.

oh man, you're too right! I love that thing. Stick it in a send, add saturator and filter and feed that f*cker back into itself....

LOFA wrote:Alright, paraphrase: Like fremtide and Flytrap alot. I wish I could see how you did your fills, as there are infinite methods, but it seems like given the amount of time you spent, you have a really good disciplined approach/system.

I wonder how well it can be improvised in reatime:

When are you coming to the states man?

I've accumulated a few things for fills and such. My main tool ATM is a heavily modified Reaktor ensemble, and FlyTrap is actually a more or less unedited live performance (CAVEAT: I did about ten takes of it, I'm not Superman;) I really wish I had the energy to do more gigs, but I more or less can't be bothered contacting venues and such :-/ I was planning on going to the States to play a looping festival, but life kind of got in the way of that one. I hope to get back in shape soon and start doing some more on-offs but they probably won't be in the US, LOFA

pretty sweet

flytrap sounds like BT meets mike post meets hybrid and they all have a garden party while drinking pims and roller skating. but then a wasp attacks and they need to escape through the marsh and become stuck with gloops.

keep it up