Take a look at this

..
GET YOUR OWN BLIPBACK!

6:59 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

So you want to be an Ableton DJ?
Current mood: amused
Category: Music

This post came about because of a discussion on CDM's article about Live's new API. A poster on there expressed what they felt were several shortcomings of Live, which really are nothing more than lack of experience with the program.

Apparently, unbeknownst to me, visually lining up tracks in Live is the holy grail of digital djing. Wow - how could I have been wrong all these years? ;)

Seriously if you want to line up audio for a dj set using the waveforms (which is the wrong way of doign things in Live regardless), you could potentially do it in the arrange window, and using markers to jump around the track. While playing some clips of course. And setting the quantize to something sensible like 8 bars.

Ultimately, if you want to live out your "wikki wikki wack" dj fantasies, you could use soundflower on a mac (or some other virtual audio driver on the PC), run Traktor or whatever other DJ program into Live, and satisfy pretty much any silly thing you might want to do. Works great for Richie Hawtin.

Another point that was mentioned was running 2 instances of Live. Which is pretty pointless. I can't think of a single thing you could accomplish that you couldn't do more effectively and easier with one copy. Aside from satisfying some obtuse desire to "see 2 waveforms". I should get 2 cars - one for turning left, and one for turning right. Maybe I can tow them one behind the other? ;)

See the little radial indicator in the channels in the session view? that tells you where in the clip you are, and how long it is. If you prepared beforehand, you don't need to see the waveform - unless you want to. And that's a simple matter of double-clicking on a clip.

If you're resistant to the idea of pre-warping, then enable auto-warp, and let Live do it for you - it will do a reasonable job with minimal 4/4 electronic music. Of course, results are much better if you do it yourself, before hand.

With a little bit of practice, you can warp most dance tracks in less than a minute. You ONLY need warp markers every 8/16/32 bars depending on how steady the tempo is.

But then again, I wouldn't know anything about this stuff, since the over 200 people who have paid me to learn about Ableton Live and who take my classes must all have been fooled by my charm and good humour. :)

In the spirit of always trying to offer something of value in all my posts on teh internets, here's a quick breakdown of how I set up my live sets for DJing:

I pick my music, then convert it all to aif or wav if it's mp3. Live CAN play back MP3s, but it's actually just converting it to wav in a directory somewhere. Once that directory fills up, it starts deleting some of the older files. Also, it's much quicker to analyse uncompressed audio. And guess what, I keep a folder of uncompressed, analysed, and warped files ready to go. Considering a 250gb HD is about $100 these days, it's not a big deal.

Once I have my wavs/aifs, I import them into live. I usually disable auto-warp, and instead do it by hand.

I set up my performance environment. This means that I figure out the minimum number of channels that I need to play back everything I want to play. You really dont need too many if you're DJing/mixing complete tracks. Of course you can add as many as you want to play back midi clips, samples, etc. If you have to scroll horizontally, you got too many. ;)

Think of each channel on your Live set as a virtual deck/turntable/etc. Think of how many decks a vinyl DJ can realistically use. 3 if they're good, 4 if they're PHENOMENAL. And 4 complete tracks playing on top of each other is a lot of noise. Too much even, unless that is what you're looking for.

My preferred way of working at this point is to use a multi-channel audio interface (Presonus FireBox if you want to know) and run at least 2 pairs of high-quality audio cables to whatever DJ mixer the club provides, or I happen to have on hand.

Using an external DJ mixer gives you some nice options - easy cueing, EQ/Kills that are not dependent on a plugin, and more importantly, if it's the mixer that the OTHER dj's are mixing from, it gives you the same visual relevance to your audience as the other djs.

A good controller is pretty useful too. I use an x-session, with a couple buttons mapped to move the scene selection up and down, and a couple buttons to trigger the channel playback of my "a" and "b" channels in the live set up. I map the knobs to do things like sweep high-cut and lo-cut EQ on each channel, and control a couple of sends.

I should say that I am not a fan of doing all the mixing in the box, as there is always latency and the poor performance of the xfader in Live. Also, its better to use multiple D/A converters instead of forcing a bunch of loud signals through a single pair. Yes you can make it work in the box, but it will always sound better if you mix out of the box. :)

So - what I like to do is break up songs into pieces. Intro, verses, breakdowns, etc. This allows you to control the structure of the song, and move ahead, or back. I dont always split a track into multiple clips - actually a lot of the time, I just set it up as one, and adjust the loop points and playback offset in real time. One thing that Live newbees are usually unaware of is that there is no penalty for using LOTS of scenes. But there *is* a penalty for using lots of channels. I find that when there are lots of channels in someone's live set, they've usually been using live for a short period of time. My rule of thumb is never have more channels than you have fingers - and that has to include the sends, and the master. The human brain isn't really wired to keep track of that many things during a performance. Just because you can pull it off in the studio, it doesn't mean you can do it Live. remember, there's no undoing sounding like a rank amateur, and wandering around muting and unmuting trying to find where that annoying sound is coming from. ;)

I like to have a controller mapped to the tempo - not a huge range, but something so that when I want to really push the set, I can slowly work it up.

One last important and oftern overlooked detail is that you should make sure all your tracks start on a sensible beat - meaning that if there's a 7.3 bar intro, you add some silence to the beginning, or cut it off and make sure it all rounds out to a nice even number.

If all your tracks are multiples of 2/4/8/16 bars in length, then they will automatically loop and fit with each other. For the most part, unless you are mixing more free-form music. Of course someone is going to pipe up about how they only mix Northern Maximal Vocal Tribal IDM at this point and it cannot be divided by even numbers. ;)

6:13 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Updates
Current mood: busy
Category: Life

So the big news is I'm moving to Portland, Oregon on July 1st. I've been incredibly busy launching a new company, and preparing for my move.

Most of my other projects have had to take a back seat at the moment, but once I get up to Portland, and get settled, I will have time to do some of the things that I've been wanting to do.

• Work on music.


• Repair my broken analogues - TR808, TR606, Poly6, Mono/Poly, Jupiter 6


• Exercise more


• Work reasonable hours

6:50 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

been a while
Category: Life

I haven't had much of a chance to update my blog in a couple of weeks! Been extremely busy with work and life in general.

So I dug up a few old tracks, which I'm posting for your enjoyment. These are all from 1997-1999 or thereabouts. Have a listen, and let me know what you think.

Pacifica Blue (Garage Mix)
Concorde
Zophe (Near East Mix)
Junglesin (Jungle Mix)

Ah... those were the days. Playing in front of thousands of frenzied kids at raves all over the place. :)

I kind of miss breakbeats sometimes, but I can't go there anymore.

9:00 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Thomas Dolby tonight & other info
Current mood: awake

Welcome, new readers. If you're looking for pics of Dolby's controller, scroll down the page. And if you're in San Francisco, Come see me play live this next Thursday at Lucid. I will be playing a set of techno/electro, all 100ardware based, no computer. Just sequencers, synths, and drum machines.

If you're not in San Francisco, I'm actively looking for bookings to play anywhere in the US. Especially NW or East Coast. Check out my tunes, drop me a line, and I can send you my demo. I play cheap, and rock the party like crack cocaine. ;)

I'm excited to go see Thomas perform tonight at the SF Independent. I just heard back that even though he is using the controllers in the show, he will not be soloing with the last one because he didn't have time to rehearse it. Damn... my bad for not finishing up sooner. :(

Anyways - here's a couple of interesting pics. You can see the last controller on the left bottom of this pic:



And here's the Logic environment that goes with it:



Funny - a few people have been HORRIFIED that I gutted a working impedance bridge to make the controller. Yeah... guess what... next I'm gutting a 303! ;)

12:12 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Hahahah... listed on CDM - and my snake adventure
Category: Life

Somehow my Dolby controllers made it onto one of my daily reads. And almost 400 folks have cruised by to take a look. Hey - check out my tunes and leave some comments.

Anyways - walking back from breakfast yesterday, my friend Bradley and I found this little fellow:



Looking a little bewildered, lost, and pissed off. And maybe just a little hurt. He was TOUGH to catch, but I wasn't about to leave him in the middle of the sidewalk on a busy street. So, finally, after avoiding his frenzied bites and quick moves, he was aprehended, and released in a nearby big overgrown yard.

The picture does no justice to the beautiful colors and patterns on this little fellow. I did not realize until I came home and looked it up that he was endangered - a recent estimate places the total population of San Francisco Garter Snakes at ~1500! If I'd known then, I'd have brought him home and tried to find a better habitat for him.

Well, at least he escaped getting run over or hurt... and I'm crossing my fingers he's doing good, and will live to a ripe old age and have lots of snake babies.

10:30 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Been a while... lots of stuff...
Category: Life

Ok, so I'm finally really on the road to recovery. My health really suffered the last couple of months - and man, let me tell you, I'm taking good care of myself.

Work has been hectic as usual. I'm really getting to the point where I need a vacation. But nothing new there.

A little bit of exciting news - I finished the new midi controller for Thomas Dolby. He was extremely kind and patient to put up with the delay - I got completely overwhelmed with trying to stay afloat as my health brought me down. Nothing like a couple days in the hospital to make you productive, right? ;)

Anyways - here's some pics:






















And this pic is from a kitty that I always see on my way out. He lives around the corner from me, and is always super sweet and friendly - although he's always behind a window, and I have never actually hung out and got acquainted. :)



I' also dug up an old ambient/dub live set I played. It was really more of a DJ set with all original tracks I've written, with the exception of a couple of excerpts from a jam that my good friends Mark Camp and Todd Mellors did. I dropped it in by accident while playing, and it worked well. Happy accident!

Enjoy: Gustavo Live at Chillits '02

11:38 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

funny
Current mood: amused
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Nothing more needs to be said.

10:28 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

V for Vendetta
Current mood: thoughtful
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Just got back from seeing it. Awesome. Go see it now.

It is a bit more driven by dialogue - specifically by V's monologues - but it is an excellent film. Hugo Weaving is excellent in the role, and manages to convey a lot of personality and character, even though you don't see his face once.

Natalie Portman I had some reservations about originally, but she handled the role well, and I believed her portrayal or Evie.

Funny, my friend TJ who I saw the movie with fell asleep. He told me that he was bored by the dialog and wanted more fighting and action - and that he thought the heavy-handedness of the allegory between the movie and present day politics was tiresome.

He wasn't aware that the story was written over 20 years ago, and the Wachowski's version is very faithful to the comic. They took very few liberties. :)

The movie has a strong message, one that is hard to look at and accept without feeling something. Most people will ignore it, even though it is as real as anything else could be.

Change is inevitable. Our way of life cannot continue as is. Changes are coming. There's always a price to pay. A serious message for a movie based on a comic book.

How close are we to the fear-driven, media controlled totalitarian regime portrayed in the movie? Much closer than any of us cares to admit. I'm not a believer in political action, being as I am unable to participate in it due to not being a US citizen. I think the only power the public has for change is financial. Not being a consumer is the most effective action you can take.

8:24 PM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Friday afternoon madness...
Current mood: nostalgic
Category: Music

I am doing everything I can to avoid working. Including wasting time here. But I had to post... the song "I want to Fall" by Single Cell Orchestra - which I haven't heard in years - is so incredibly bad-ass. Listen for when the melody starts coming in about half way through the track, after the tom break... holy shit. That is epic when you hear it on a soundsystem at a good party.

Kids these days... cocaine and emo got nothing on bad-ass tech-electro pounding out on a system in a dark club while you're out of your gourd on E. I like rock for hangin out and maybe drinking... but when I want to dance... I want 808s & 303s. And fuck all of ya alls.

One of the most intense and happiest memories I have is being at a UR party in detroit, in a pitch-black warehouse, with an incredible soundsystem, listening to Rolando play Knights of the Jaguar. And that is closely followed by playing a battle set with Single Cell Miguel at the Galaxy club about 4 years ago.

Currently listening : Single Cell Orchestra By Single Cell Orchestra Release date: 30 May, 1996

6:03 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment