It’s a record(ing)

Anyway before I forget to mention it all together … recording, one of the key elements of my piece with the recording of audio from myself and Irene to make the sung and spoken clips from lines of my poem.

RECORDING

The first thing I had to think about was choosing a microphone to record with. There are dynamic and condenser microphones. Dynamic microphones are good for stage work as they are very robust and do not need their own power. But as we were recording in the studio I went for the higher quality condenser microphone This is a sensitive mono microphone that is particularly good at picking up high frequencies (I had to remember to turn off the air conditioning in the studio before recording!). The power came from the mixer ‘Phantom power’ but you can also use batteries in such microphones.

After wiring up (see diagram) I got Irene to sing in a few sample lines to set the levels. I watched the levels below the track – if you use the cursor to pull up the bar across the top of the audio level view this reveals the peak meters on each track. These lock at the highest level (turning yellow if it clips). The master level (at the right hand side) also locks off at the peak. I used the gain on the mixer to adjust the microphone levels. You can double click on the peak meters to reset them, ready to try again and see if the altered levels are right.

TO SET ABLETON UP FOR RECORDING

Go to Options – preferences – audio first. Set to Asio (Asynchronous input/output) driver – this stops echoing (so you can listen back without delay from when the audio triggers and when it is heard). This specially created driver helps lower latency (compared to inbuilt ones on most computers). You can change hardware setting to change the latency – I went with 2 during the recording session, a good quality level which ran fine on the computer I was using at the studios (some computers may struggle with the lowest levels and you may have to compromise – try the lowest and work up listening to see). Human hearing ranges from around 20hz to 20,000 hz and it was discovered that sample rates in multiples of this maximum worked best. The standard rate on Ableton on the studio computer was 441000hz/44.1khz this was plenty high enough quality for our performance. The higher the sample rate the better the quality (rates can go up to 96000hz but this is rarely used.

Then go to Options – preferences – record. Here you can set the type of file it records (wav, aiff) into, the count in etc. You can also set the programme to automatically create a loop and warp your vocals – this would be used if you were creating clips with a live microphone in a live performance (see more below).

INPUT CONFIGURATION

Use the I/0 buttom to the bottom right corner (above the send and return show/hide buttons)to show the input options on the channels. To set up input options – go to the audio section and select ½ stereo. I had a stereo input from the mixer (though a mono signal from the mic so both left and right levels were the ssme). You can dedicate numerous inputs – which you can assign to the channels using the I/0 settings.

WIRING

I wired the microphone into the mixer and the mixer to the computer (see the diagram). I used two track input in order to be able to monitor what Irene was singing via the mic and through Ableton (when the button was up I was listening to the mic and when it was down I was listening to the singing through Ableton). I also wired a keyboard directly into the computer and opened another recording channel on Ableton (ctrl and click on a second record button on another audio track) so I could play notes of the melodies I had written for the various lines directly before Irene sang them as this was the first time she’d seen the words or heard the notes (the keyboard wasn’t recorded it was just for demonstration purposes).

TERMS AND CONTROLS DEFINITIONS

100hz Roll Off button – button on top of track on on mixer to stop rumbling or low level noises such as knocking mic stand etc

Clipping – is when the volume levels go over ‘0’ and can distort. ‘0’ is the target you aim for your peak levels to hit.

Resolution – this refers to the division of the volume scale. The better division of the volume scale the higher the resolution this is important if you have big variations of volume. For example a CD with a 44.1hz sample rate has 16 bit resolution (you can get higher resolution eg 24bit, 32bit quality on a computer).

Sample rate – this is mainly relevant when you are dealing with high frequencies.

XLR – refers to the microphone connector which has three pins inside it and three holes on the socket (male/female connection).

Phantom power – In may case this is provide by the mixer for the mic (+48 volts).

USING A LIVE MICROPHONE AND RECORDING IT DURING A LIVE PERFORMANCE

You can put a live microphone on to an Ableton channel in the same way as we did for our studio recording and have effects and processors already in place so you can affect the sound as it is spoken (or sung, or played).

I recorded my clips of Irene one by one in the studio and then sat down to tidy them up. But you can record sound from a microphone while doing a live performance. You would have to ensure the microphone was behind the speakers to avoid feedback.

With a recording channel already set up on the track you can record in what you have live and put it straight into a clip – if you are very adept (and you would have to have these controls assigned to keys on the computer keyboard or midi keyboard) you can record and stop recording a clip at the right times.

You can have the record preferences set up to automatically warp and loop your clips (or you could endeavour to do this while performing – rather difficult though). You could have effects and processors already set up on that channel and therefore be able to affect the sounds which came in through the microphone straight away.

I think this would be a fantastic skill but take a great deal of practise and expertise simply to use the mic and start and stop the recording clip is hard enough!

You would have to take care as I did with Irene’s clips to start speaking as the bar changed because the clip will not start recording until the start of the next bar. (I used the same set up to record my own voice and as the microphone was on the other side of the desk to the computer and mixer my tutor kindly recorded in my clips, watching the levels, as two long samples which I then went through and selected the appropriate bits from).

Clippety clippety clips

Once you have a clip you can make all sorts of variations very simply in Ableton:

The first move is to copy your original (unless you want to change that too) with Ctrl D or right click and go to the ‘duplicate’ option in the drop down menu. Then click on the coloured part of the clip to reveal the clip view at the bottom of the display.

Here you will find a wide range of controls. You can;

WARP: (already covered) your clip into time, or to create a different sound by squeezing and stretching the sounds; (see previous blog entry - Going into warp drive)

LOOP: simply place the loop brace around the area you want to repeat and switch the loop button on (should turn yellow then) - the loop brace runs across the audio or midi notes pane and has two triangular flags at either end (see below).

MOVE THE START/END POINTS: In addition to changing the loop you can change where the clip starts and ends - these points are moved just like the loop brace and live just underneath it above the audio or midi notes panel (see above).

CHANGE HOW IT LAUNCHES - these dictates how a clip starts when it is triggered, it may begin at the start of the next bar, or you may choose to be able to drop it in on any sixteenth etc. You can have it so it toggles on and off with a key rather than having to seek out the off button. You may also want it to run within a gate etc. You can also have automated launching (see earlier post). You may also want to use the legato selection (button on the launch panel) which means this clip plays where the last clip left off (good when you are introducing variations to drop into a longer clip). Below you can see I set the launch to toggle (to trigger on and off with the same keyboard key as I wished). I used this for the melodic pieces that I had running over the poetry lines so I could use them sparingly so they did not overshadow the words.

REVERSE: Which is operated using the button saying REV, and it does simply that - reverses the sounds in the clip (see the ‘rev’ button in the sample section below).

PITCH SHIFT: This is done by altering the transpose control (a circle with a line through it) moving it round to the left or right will take the pitch up or down (see above the circles with a line halfway through it in the sample section. This is the transpose dial).

APPLY AN ENVELOPE: To apply an envelop you need to look to the bottom left of the clip view settings panel for a button with an ‘e’ on (next to one with musical notes on - which shows the notes for midi clips and one with ‘L’ on which shows the launch settings and controls. With the envelop panel up you can draw an envelop around parts of your clip to control a huge range of things, there are defaults there such as volume (I had to level out the volume between some of my sung and spoken clips and also used this to bring down the volume of a set of melodic pieces to run under the spoken words meaning I did not have to turn down the track volume while performing live or save the clips on another track to the rest of the melody pieces). You can also put an envelope around lots of other controls such as the send controls to allow an effect on only part of a clip or only on some clips in that track. To do this set the send to full on. Then turn down the send with envelopes in clips you don’t want effected and turn it up on those you do.

This shows a clip with the send A being allowed to effect the clip in an envelope (the pink bit - you can pull it up and down by double clicking on the pink line - it turns blue when you are over it - to create a round handle. This can be pulled up or down to bring the whole line up or down - or double click next to it, or further along to create the kind of arrangement above where there is a pocket of the clip encapsulated in the envelope).

To the left of the audio pane you can see the envelope control panel, beyond that would be the sample panel - with the effects such as transpose, warp, loop on and to the left again the launch panel.

In my piece I used this envelope to apply a simple delay and using the envelope I was able to get the delay to repeat just one word from the clip. I used this on several clips by putting the effect on Send A. I turned the Send controller up and then applied it to the clips in the track where I wanted to use it with an envelope. Here how it worked on this the line “Tick all the boxes” here: http://sharebee.com/895a8dd0

Below I have shown how I used one clip in different ways…
I used the line “Yes, Mrs Jones, I’m doing alright” in several ways.

First I extracted “Yes, Mrs Jones”, by putting the start and end point around it and loop brace:

Secondly I selected the “I’m doing alright” section by moving the start and end, and loop brace:

Then I applied an envelope to allow delay over the world alright so it would repeat:

Key to the whole performance thing

To get ready to perform my project I have had to assign certain elements of my piece to a midi keyboard (you could use another midi controller of some form - our aim was to dispense with the computer apparatus of a mouse and normal computer keyboard).

 Ableton makes this really easy - all you have to do click on the top right ‘midi’ button (you can do the same with the computer keyboard just by clicking key- in the same area as the midi button). You will notice pink layer appear over the display - this is just showing it is ready for you to assign keys. Then all you have to do is use the mouse to manipulate one of the controls and then press the key or other control which you want to assign it to on your midi keyboard (or computer keyboard) - that’s it. Obviously, faders, sliders and knobs are good for controls which range up and down and the keys are good for on/off functions. If you are controling something which has a range of settings (such as volume), while the programme is in this mode you can set the range (max-min) in the panel to the left (where the browser view is normally).

 Here’s how it looks when you are assigning keys to the computer keyboard - note the red button is on in the top right corner.

 And below is how it looks when you are assigning keys to a midi keyboard - this time it is the midi button that is on in the top right corner.

Below (and above) see little white tags over some of the clips and controls this shows they have been assigned and the code number of the key they are assigned to. You can assign more than one clip/control to a key if you want it to fire at the same time, for example.

The image below that shows the panel which appears in place of the browser section when you are assigning keys - this allows you to set max and minimum levels on your alterable controls (it also lists what has been assigned where).

 

My live performance laying out the set and assigning keys

In my project I am particularly making use of the launch settings to enable me to make the call and response elements of a poem to run in random order as the two ‘verses’ of my piece.

I will be using the midi keyboard to trigger several sections of my piece which will then trigger the other scenes within that section themselves

There’s an intro piece (running down the scenes quite simply), the first verse (beats with sung and spoken lines running randomly), the chorus, the second verse (as with the first) and then a two part finale (requiring two launches). During the intro, chorus and finale I have included a wind effect – this will be altered live (it is an Operator creation) by allocating the resonance and frequency in Operator to two knobs on the keyboard. 

For the verses I have written five variations of the main theme tunes. These will be triggered by five keys and have been set to toggle launch so I can set them on and off when I like. Also during the verses I have Irene’s sung and my spoken ‘calls’ and Irene’s sung and my spoken ‘responses’.

(Toggle launch setting)

This would become too cluttered with the lines running over each other (even though I have set the responses to start to beats into the bar so they never start quite at the same time as the calls). So I decided to use the track on/.off buttons so I could manually select which track was heard during the performance. This is great as it means by watching the display at the bottom of the track showing when the audio is running (a bar filling with colour and what looks like a pie chart filling up with colour showing to its right the number of beats in the sample – and in other circumstances, to its left the number of times it has played) I can turn them on and off to optimise the lines heard without them crashing over each other – or just allow a short quiet break. 

I am also going to be using a live microphone and have compensated for that in my finale by setting one scene to come in at a quieter level – but I will also put the master volume on a knob so that I can speak during the intro and chorus at any point I like.

I have also assigned ‘stop all clips’ to one key. Just so I can stop the audio if necessary though the whole set fades out at the end of my finale (again with the wind sound which I will be affecting live.

 

AFTER THOUGHT- I also assigned five more black keys (alongside those to left of keyboard listed to five more pieces of incidental music to go over the first verse - I used the same musical pieces, but copied them and set them out alongside the verses in which they were to be played as this solved my problem of the screen scrolling down - previously it was jumping to where I was playing in the supporting music, and by the time I had got on to the second verse this meant the screen jumping back to the first verse - this resolved the scrolling down issue as noted at the bottom right of this sheet above).

A small aside… creative dilemma … nothing to do with assigning keys – all to do with laying out my project for performance

I did toy with the idea of having a plain non-random unaccompanied version of the poem run quietly at the end (which would have required another launch key!) -  but then would I use the sung lines with their delay and such, or the spoken lines, or a mix… but I decided that I liked the project as it was without this addition. 

Bringing it all together

In my piece I created some rhythms using Impulse, recorded Irene’s and my voice for audio clips, created some sound effects using Simpler and Operator, found some suitable sounds for melodies (mainly using the string machine – see below) and amended the tunes to fit my piece – using the clip view and notes – then I had to thinking about how it would all run together.

 

I have already decided that running all the voice pieces in one ‘verse would be too much for the audience. So I have split them into two verses.

 

So I am going to have an intro section which will basically trigger itself once I launch the first scene. Though I will alter the resonance and frequency on the Operator generated wind sound and use a live mic to speak some lines (I don’t know at this point if that will be running through Ableton - ie on a track with the record button pressed - if so I can then add an effect or processor to alter my voice and that may need a live controller on the keyboard) - I will have a master volume control on my keyboard so I can turn down the music to make my voice clearly heard.

 

I had to overcome the problem that all my scenes did not have all the same elements in - ie there may be drum fills come in later on which would mean a new track triggering - but with no clips playing above them there was nothing to trigger these fills etc - in midi tracks you can just ‘click’ in an empty slot and it will create an empty clip which has all the launch capacity of a normal clip. In audio tracks you have to duplicate one of your audio clips and then turn the volume off using an envelope (and to make it easier to use I tidied it up when I’d finished and made all the empty clips - the ones with no name on - a dark grey so they weren’t so confusing).

 

 

I will then launch in the first verse - which will play beats and sung/spoken lines randomly - I will trigger melody clips with keyboard keys and turn on and off the tracks to allow both mine and Irene’s calls and responses to be heard - I will know when it is appropriate to open the tracks as at the bottom of the track there is an oblong box which fills with the colour of the clip being played as it is playing - so I don’t turn on a track when a clip is halfway through - I will also be able to see which track is due to play next as the clip about to be triggered’s play symbol flashes before it starts.

 

There will be an instrumental chorus over which I will again speak in the live mic (this will be triggered with the first sequence and play automatically - the first scene will stop any remaining audio from the verse. Again I will use the master volume to make myself heard). I will have to tweak Operator’s controls to effect the wind sound.

 

Then I will trigger the second verse - same style as the first.

 

Then I will trigger the first part of the finale, again effecting the wind sound and speaking live lines over the end of the first part (this I have turned down in volume using envelopes). Then finally trigger the second part of the finale, ending with more wind (Operator’s controls effected using knobs on the keyboard).

 

Anyroad for a more interesting look at how it all works see ‘key to the whole performance’ - shows how to use keyboard to play it all live.

 

Instrumentally speaking

 

When you use a midi way of recording (an Ableton instrument for example) you can play in your tune or beats with a midi keyboard, or the computer keyboard (middle row of letters – z and x move the octave up and down).

 

Set up your instruments, and select or create a sound. Then click record at the bottom of the midi track (button below track number/on/off button). You will then be able to hear the sounds played. When you are ready, click the record button on the clip slot and play away –then press stop at the bottom of the track when you are finished.

 

You can edit this in the clip view where you will see the notes running along from a keyboard layout showing which notes they are (or in case of drums they will be opposite a list of the relevant drums). Once you have your recording (especially beats) you may want to ‘quantise’ them (Ctrl+U) which puts the notes/beats to the nearest beat in the bar. This works well but you have to check – sometimes it does get it wrong.

 

You can also click in more notes, stretch out the notes that are there and move them (singly or as a group if you drag a box over them). You can apply envelopes etc using all the clip controls as normal.

 

I’ve already described how I created beats with Impulse, Ableton’s drum machine. Here I’m going to tell you about Operator - a complicated sythesizer in which you can create your own sounds from scratch, and Simpler - a ’simpler’ sampler where you can change sounds you already have.

 

I used these to make my Wind, and Weird Bells (these are supposed to sound like eerie wedding bells - though I’m told that it also sounds like an eerie fairground organ - either would give the effect I wanted ie something that’s supposed to evoke happy thoughts with an eerie overtone suggesting all is not as it seems ooohhhahhahaha - just a little manic laughter to add to the ambience there - that’s the sort of feeling I was looking for anyway). I’m going to attempt to add in some before and after audio clips below to demonstrate so you can judge for yourself - I’ll take a straw poll - wedding bells, fairground organ, something entirely different!

 

(Oh and if you’ve read the earlier blogs you might notice a change of plan here - in the end I swapped over and used Operator to make my wind and Simpler to do the bells)

 

In our tutorials, I was given Operator to look at and present to the class with fellow student Alan Gaunt (check out his blog on here too - I believe it’s alangaunt.wordpress.com - try a range of capital intial letters etc if you can’t find him).

 

Here’s the summary we came up with:

 

OPERATOR

This is an advanced and flexible synthesizer. It combines frequency modulation (FM) with classic subtractive synthesis. There are four multi-waveform oscillators – these can modulate each other’s frequencies or be used individually. There is a filter section, an LFO and global controls as well as individual envelopes for the oscillators, filter, LFO and pitch. (The full version does not come with Ableton but you can buy this separately).

EASIEST WAY TO GET STARTED

Load up the presets and then alter them to suit your needs. You do this by clicking on a preset selection and dragging it to the title bar of the midi track that your Operator is running on (otherwise you are starting with a blank canvas and you begin by putting levels up on the oscillators playing the sounds in from the keyboard – something to look at when you’ve got the hang of it!).

KNOBS, SWITCHES AND PARTS

The display is surrounded by the shell. The shell is divided into eight sections. On the left are four oscillator sections. On the right from top to bottom are the LFO, filter section, pitch control and global parameters. The display in the centre will show the changes you make to these. The oscillators can ouput their own signal directly or be used to modulate the others.

There are 11 preset formats for the way in which they affect each other (click on the structure icons in the global display – these appear in the bottom left of the global section of the shell and once selected a variety of layouts will appear in the display screen. The best to start with is the line of blocks laid out horizontally – when laid out like this they all operate individually/in parallel and don’t affect the sound the others make). You could try the one with all the blocks vertically – in this case that means you start with a sound in A and then B C and D all affect it – but you can turn their levels down or up as desired (take a look at the other layouts to find something that suits your needs).

THE MAIN CONTROLS

To the left of the display you will see A B C D – these are the separate oscillators. Next to each of those are coarse, fine and level dials – thesecan be adjusted to affect the sound and then with the levelyou adjust how load or how much the oscillator will affectthe others. These affect the individual oscillators. You can also go directly into the display to affect the sound of each oscillator. Click and drag the squares along the sound wave:– at the beginning to affect how the sound comes in/attack– the second square to affect attack and peak– the third to affect the decay and sustain– and the final square for release.(or affect the individual settings on the display under the headings attack, decay, release – also the wave form etc)

Here in the display you can also decide how many voices/notes will play at once (for example if you wanted to play chords). To get to this control click on the icon showing the layout of the oscillators (as before) and once the variations are on the display screen you will see the voices option in the bottom left. Too many voices will give your computer a lot of work to do and slow it down.

This is where you will select what sort of curve and original sound the oscillator will work on or make eg Sine or if you want Noise, Square etc. If you check the fixed box on one or more of the oscillators that fixes the pitch of the sound and so it will only play that sound (ie it will not be possible to play it up and down the keyboard – this would be good for drum sounds). To the right of the display you can add LFO or filter – and adjust the rate and modulation (for LFO), frequency and resolution (for filter) with the dials there. You can also affect the sounds with the ‘global’ tools – that’s the set of dials to the bottom right of the display. When you alter these they affect all four (or however many you are using) of the oscillators.

OPERATOR IN MY PROJECT:

- For my Operator sound I picked a preset sea sound and ammended it to sound more like wind particularly altering the resonance and frequency (but also the coarse/fine controls to make it sound more hissy than grainy to make it sound more like wind) - I also plan to assign the frequency and resonance controls to knobs on the midi keyboard for my final performance in order to be able to make the wind hiss, howl and swirl as I present my set.

Once I’d got the right sound I played it in on the computer keyboard and messed with the notes in the clip view to give this nice continuous sound which could be altered well with the resonance and frequency controls.

 

Listen to the wind here:http://sharebee.com/ff823567

GETTING SIMPLER:

Then I moved on to Simpler (and I have to confess stumbled on a sound rather by accident … and seized the opportunity!) We were working on a test piece in our tutorial and when I heard the sound coming out of this instrument I knew I could tweak it into what I wanted - my Weird Bells!

In Simpler you load in a clip and put a start and end around the piece you want and ammend it from there using a wide range of controls. There’s options to alter the frequency and resonance, the attack, sustain, decay, releaase - on volume, filter and pitch. You can also use LFO to bring in a random ‘moving’ element to your sound - you can see below I had mine panning a little. You can change the way the sounds move from one to another, the wave type used, transposition and voices etc.

You can make a nice cross fading loop (see the black sloping lines in the highlighted yellow section that I’m using) so that the sound runs on and on rather that sounding like it starts and ends (though you don’t have to).

Anyway using a clip we were given to work on in class I started to hear something I thought I could turn into the bells. Once I’d got it right I played the sound in on the key board (here’s the clipview of the clip I used):

 

 

So it went from this:

http://sharebee.com/f5e0be7d

 

To this:
http://sharebee.com/dd157bbc

(follow these links to hear the audio - unfortunately audio clips cannot be put straight on to this site)

SPECIAL EFFECTS

At the end of the project I decided that I needed a sound effect to give a bit of oomph to the start of the last part of the finale … and since we’re talking about weird sounds I’ll give you a listen here. I took a straight whip crack that I found in Ableton and then looped it … but then I wanted it to come in at a certain point - so I unlinked the clip (unlink button) and turned down the volume with an envelope until the last beat and a sixteenth so that the whip just cracked three times at the end of the bar. This was used in the intro of the finale end piece, and again a few bars on - but there I kept it to launching at the beginning of the bar.

This is the normal looped whip sound:

This is the unlinked section to make it play at the right point in the bar:

I had the first in a follow action so it naturally stopped and the second (original whip sound) I stopped using the launch settings too.

Have a listen here to both whip sounds in place: http://sharebee.com/334a1102

Going into warp drive

When you want to use audio in your piece you have to get it into Ableton, edit it and warp it so it plays in time with everything else - I’ve done that to get the clips of myself and Irene speaking and singing the lines from my poem. Here’s some notes on how to do it: (I’ll get to the nitty gritty of recording in the song lines later - still working a nice diagram to upload).

 

 

Loading, editing and warping audio

To load audio you can either drag and drop readymade audio files from Ableton or the computer into clip slots – or you can record it in directly by setting up an audio track, preparing it for recording by pressing the record button at the bottom of the track (in the panel with the track on/off switch which features the track number). Once this is on you will be able to hear the audio (in the case of my project this is how I recorded Irene’s and my voices for the sung/spoke lines). When you have set levels etc you can press record on and individual clip slot (you will notice that these have changed from the square stop buttons to round record buttons). It will start recording on the next beat so beware that it is recording before you play/sing in the audio. Then you can stop recording with the stop button at the bottom of the track (this is easier if you have it assigned to a key on the computer rather than with the mouse).

Record is the round button below the ’s’ (that one solos the track so you can only hear that one)

 

Once you have recorded all the slots you want you are ready for editing

 

To select the section of audio you want you have to open the clip view by clicking on the coloured body of the clip. Once in the clip view you can pull in the start and end flags across the top of the audio pane and also the loop brace if this is required (see other entries if any of those terms are unclear).

 

Click and hold in the grey area beneath where you want the start of your clip to be and run the mouse up or down to zoom in and out, so you can place the start at the very beginning of the piece you want. You can crop the sample, which will leave just the bit you have identified but you may want to keep the whole sample so that you can copy the clip and move the start, end or loop to make a variation.

 

Once you have identified which piece of audio you want to use you will want to warp it into time so it runs nicely with other clips in your set.

 

Warping is tough! Well I have found it so. This involves finding the start of your desired piece of audio, identifying how long you want it to run for (it may be the whole song or a large chunk, or perhaps just a couple of bars).

 

Once you know what you’re trying to warp you have to set the 1 point. Find the start of your piece (the first beat of the bar). You’ll need the warp button on (that’s to the left of the audio pane). No matter how long your piece you will have to start with the first bar. Bring in the 1 marker by clicking and dragging it to where you want it (or right click where you want it and select mark 1.1 here – that will bring it to the nearest marker – which is helpful if you are working in the middle of a long piece).

 

 

Then you need to identify where the second bar should come in. Once you have done this you can mark that spot with the 2 marker – double click it to fix it in place (it should turn yellow). Check your selection by counting time while it plays (use the metronome in the top menu – it’s symbol is a clear circle and a coloured in circle)  – this is often easier if you put a loop around it even if you’re not going to loop this bit for your final edit.

 

You can then look within the bar to see if any of the elements need pulling into time with the beats – again you may need to magnify and you’ll see more time markers come into view, and then again drag them to where you want them and double click to fix (see above).

 

Then you can go on to warp the next bar or longer piece – often doing one bar will put the whole piece into time – but sometimes not! This is one of the tricky bits. You have to remember to check further on in a long piece as it could have started to drift out of time…

 

In my final project my spoken lines were only one or two bars and most were worked pretty well as they were (lucky me!). But there were a couple I had to work on in more detail – when working on different types of audio you need to look at the type of warping – for vocals I used complex (it’s in a drop down menu below the warp button- see illustration above). There’s also beats (for beats) for example, or texture.

 

Warping for effect – when you are warping into time you usually want to retain the original sound of the audio – the different settings of complex etc help do this too. But you can use the warping setting to effect the sound. Set up a bar with the bar markers and then zoom in. Using the markers within the bar you can squeeze or stretch the audio between them with either pleasing, or often horrid results. It can be a useful tool.

 

Trigger happy

Hurrah - I think I’ve worked out how the main body of my musicalpoem will work - and how I can have both me and Irene in it. I’ve put all Irene’s Qs on one track and all her As on another. Same with mine. They all trigger each other randomly down the tracks. But it’s a big jumble if all four are playing at once - so I’m only going to have two on at once - probably my Qs and Irenes As or My As and Irene’s Qs most of the time (as the answers trigger +two beats more than the Qs, so they don’t overlap too much with them) …. but the world’s my lobster if I dedicate keyboard keys to the track on and off switches - I can have any one track audible, two, three or all four.

I can also trigger the whole main section of my poem by lining up the first clip in each on the same scene and having that on another key to start them all at the same time (NB I must remember before I start playing live to switch two of the channels and off the other two - and I think I need a silent clip in the first ’answer/response’ channel otherwise I will be triggering it the same time as the call (….this comment added afterwards, after playing with the whole random thing - in the end I made the first clips on all but Irene’s call channel silent ones so that there was no danger of me triggering more than one as I started into the verse section) - and my finale first scene will switch them off when I launch it… or I can mute with my keyboard on/off keys (see the buttons below the 7+9 are yellow because they are on, 8+10 are grey because they are off).

I have also created a set of drum loops to trigger randomly  (varying whether they last for 2 - 8 bars mainly depending on how much I like them)  with the spoken/sung words - this means I will be able to concentrate on using effects on the words and drums, playing in sound effects and melodic pieces such as the strings when I perform it.

Does that sound like it will work to you?? (anyone’s welcome to answer but I’m mainly directing that one at my tutor Graham (or anyone who’s in Beaumont street working on their music tech project) - he’s got his class doing this blog thing so he can keep an eye on us from afar - well that’s what I think!) 

ANOTHER DEVELOPMENT - I think the verse piece will go on too long if I incorporate all the calls and responses in just one verse - so I’m going to break it up with a musical chorus and some live spoken lines from me (which I’m also going to do over the intro and finale).

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.