B(l)eating on about rhythms

Meanwhile – while I was waiting to get Irene into the studio I created some beats and fills and other bits and bobs, trying out what might go with the sort of sound I had in mind.

 

I used Impulse (one of Ableton’s instruments – a drum machine basically) and imported some of the preset drum sounds, swapping individuals rather than just using the fixed kit.

 

 

Using the various controls, I tweaked the sounds to get them how I wanted each one to sound and then made adjustments for the overall set. You can pick a drum to play about with by clicking on the pad it’s located on (above the E-Kick is highlighted in grey showing that’s the one that’s being altered). Then I used the start (like attack), stretch (length of sound), transpose (pitch), drive (force, or how hard it’s being hit), decay, volume, frequency and resonance to set each one as I wanted.

 

I also used the pan to set some of the drums slightly to left or right speakers to give the sound some more interest and add a little bit of a ‘live’ feel (to the right).  I left the one shown above centred as it’s the key beat in each bar and represents the kick drum which would be the most central sound.

 

Then there are a set of keys which affect the whole kit, such as overall volume - which are best to tweak once you think you’ve got each individual drum sounding right. I found making nice sounds was great but one of the things to be sure to set right in the context of the whole kit is the volume of each drum.

 

If you find you don’t like one of the drums you are using either in a preset kit or one you’ve put together you can click on the bottom right it’s drum pad and two arrows in a red circle appear - this is ‘hot swap’. Then if you go into the browser and find an alternative you just click it and it jumps right into the slot. You can also hear the sounds of each drum solo or mute one drum you don’t want to hear by using the small rectangles at either side of the play symbol on the individual drum pads (and of course you can use the play symbol to play the drum sound - which you can also do in clip view if you’re wanting to check which sound to add another beat to or something by clicking the headphone symbol at the top of the list of drums (same works for the browser menu) - see screen grabs).

 

Using the record button on one track I recorded in a drum pattern using the computer keyboard. Once it was recorded I clicked on the clip to see the track. Then is quantized the notes (shortcut – Ctrl U), dragging the odd one to the right place if it had jumped out of time (well, where I wanted it to be – I’m sure a drummer may question whether they’re in the ‘right’ place). Then I copied the clip several times (Ctrl D)

 I used the cursor and mouse to amend the different clips to give a selection of patterns based on the original by clicking in some extras hits, on other drums and adding some more of the same,  removing some beats and modifying the length of some of the beats by dragging the block symbol marking them in or out making them longer or shorter. I also used the lollipop stick symbols beneath the beats track to change the velocity of the hits where appropriate.

See the lollipop symbols across the bottom of this image - they are the velocity controls. Here I’ve got one selected (in blue) and you can see the hit it relates to has also turned blue.

I put all the beats variations on one track using the same drums, but I also created some drum fills (see one below): 

 

Then some extra drum bits for highlighted sections like the beginning of the intro or the middle of the chorus (see below):

This one’s ammended from something I found and lots added in - I called the clip ‘bonkers’ as it is a bit!

As you can see above the normal drum loops I used with most of the piece are a little more ‘normal’. Here you can see how it triggers the next clip in the track with the launch section - this one triggers the next after two bars. It must have been used in either the intro, chorus, or finale - in the verse sections the drum loops were set to trigger any other drum loop clip in the track - and the time before triggering depended on how long I’d decided it should play.

Hmm a bit complicated and yet tuneful

 While I’ve been waiting for my singer to come into be recorded I’ve been thinking how this piece is going to play - I’d like the sung lines to trigger each other in a to and fro way (like questions and answers) but they normally only trigger down one track and I’d like them to play randomly - but alternating between the two types of lines at the same time …. Oh yes I forgot mention I’ve written my poem - Bank Holiday Monday laid on the lounge floor plonking out notes to go with the words on my out of tune upright piano. If you’re good I’ll share the words with you later (it’s a diatribe about being a woman …. that’s it boys, I can hear you all switching blogs now - I did warn you I wasn’t doing dance stuff!).

 

IRENE’S ARRIVAL - Irene Pirrera’s a folk singer from Holmfirth with a beautiful voice - I’m very lucky she’s such a good sport to come in and do this for me (she’s doing the digital graphics course that I’m also on and I know she had hoped to get on this course but couldn’t because of the timing so no doubt you’ll be able to read her blog on Ableton when the next course runs.) 

 

I’ve recorded Irene’s voice – she was very patient, I’m sure with her being used to singing ‘proper’ songs, this seemed like somewhat of an experiment – but THANKS VERY MUCH IRENE  - I owe her a drink (a large one).

 

Anyway wiring up and selecting the right mic etc was all something I had to get to grips with but since I have to draw a diagram of how it all went (which will need scanning in) and I cannot add that to the blog right now I shall put in full details later on …

 

Oh yes I promised you the poem words:

 

So this is (real) life … 

Making it right          -  No end in sight

Mother and wife             - No question whose life

Keeping house neatly         -  Tricked so sweetly

Four-wall security            - Birdcage immaturity

Time of your life          -  Echo inside

Tick all the boxes           -  No outside chances (choices)

Flying high                 - False hope cries

Mountains to climb          - Years tick by

No time to think twice          - Barely a life

One of the tribe              - Anyone left inside?

Yes Mrs Jones, I’m doing alright      - Turn out my light

 

(dunno how real musicians do it but I marked out the syllables of each word and gave them a note (or more) each for Irene to sing - plus we improvised a little too during recording.)

 

Now I’ve got all my voice recording in (Irene’s call and response lines, my call and response lines) there’s a lot to chop up and turn into clips.

 

All to be warped and renamed and then I can decide which ones sound best etc, find some effects that may go well with them and probably mess around with some to alter how they play and sound (though I think Irene’s voice sounds too nice to muck about with – maybe I’ll just loop words and things with hers and mess with mine!)

 

THEN I’LL NEED SOME MUSIC !!!!

 

In the beginning there was music tech

I’m doing a music technology course at Beaumont Street Studios in Huddersfield, UK. It’s teaching me to use Ableton Live - a performance programme that folk use mostly for creating and playing back samples in nightclubs and the like. Not being the most musical person it’s going to be a bit of a challenge, but hopefully I’ll be able to create something cool and entertaining at the end. I’m into creative writing, so I decided I’d write a poem and use the lines (sung and spoken) as the core of my piece. Then I’m going to add some rhythm, tunes and sound effects etc. Hopefully it will all knit together making it more than just a poem with music behind it - BUT we’ve got to perform it live using a keyboard to trigger various bits and bobs that we’ve created and all I can say is I think that will be very interesting!!!!

To begin with here’s a few of the basic parts of the programme that you can see in the display:

Clips – a clip holds sa piece of audio or midi sound and information on how that has been edited. It can be copied so a new variation can be made. You can rename and change the colour of the clip appearance to make it easier to organise your project.

A clip (with a play button) and a clip slot (with a stop button - this can be removed - as clips play down the tracks often fired in scenes, see below, if there is a blank clip slot like this in the slot below a clip the stop button will end the playing clip).

Scenes – a scene is a row of clips in midi and audio tracks. There may also be effects in return tracks. These can all be fired at the same time using the scene play button on the righthand side, or brought in individually using the play buttons on the clip

A set – is a group of clips organised into scenes that you can play, for example you may have rhythms, melodies, sound effects etc that work well together and variations of each of those.

 

 

 

Session View:

 

This is the view we have been working in mostly. It shows your clips and the spare slots, the scenes you’ve created and the pan, volume, record, track on/off buttons etc.

 

 

 

 

Arrangement View:

 

This view shows your audio when you haverecorded/are recording a set (using the overall record button along the top of the Ableton display). In here you can edit it again or save the audio out as a .wav file. (Below see the global recording buttons and below that the arrangement view)

 

 

 

 

 

Clip View: When you click on the coloured part of the clip you get to see what is in it with a clip view in the big box at the bottom of the display. This shows the audio, or midi notes, and also various controls such as the launch panel – giving options on how the note is triggered, and the envelope panel which allows you to section off various parts of the clip sounds to be effected, to alter volume, pitch etc. This is also where the warp controls are and loop on/off button. (below is an audio clip in ‘clip view’ - so you can see the controls I’ve cut most of the audio waves off the page - but you can see where they appear - to see this in more detail look at the warping and using envelopes entries).

 

 

I’ve just shown the controls here so they can be made big enough for you to read them:

 

 

Browser View – down the left-hand column of the display is the browser (this can be turned on or off using the triangle symbol at the top left). This allows you to search in Ableton (it’s library, instruments etc) and the whole computer to find audio and effects that you may need. You can also preview sounds using the headphone symbol at the top of the column – when this is on you can click on clips in the browser and they will play there before you drag and drop them into the project.

 

Info View – this is found in a small box at the bottom left of the display. When this is switched on you can hover over most sections or controls in Ableton and the info panel will tell you what they do and sometimes how to operate them, and shortcuts to use.