Song - Robotix

This is a play with a new software synth I got last night called Absynth by Native Instruments. I had heard it was meant to be good and was extensively used and praised by numerous artists in future music. This took about 3 and a half hours.

My first impressions were good. I was able to work out how to load different presets straight away and got some instant mad sounds. Its main power thought is customisation which I haven't even touched. So the sounds in this track are 2 presets, one being the bass and the other being the scary pad sound.

Other things used were audiorealisms bassline for the 303, Live's impulse drum machine and two breakbeat samples run through a filter.

On reflection it reminds me a bit of "Another excuse" by soulwax.

Next I'm hoping I can get the vocals off this track for a remix.


powered by ODEO



Download MP3

Song - Mont Blanc

I woke up Saturday morning with a bit of a hangover after an excellent night out with Emma. I picked up the guitar that I have given Emma and this is what came out my brain. I spent the best part of that day Composing this on Emmas laptop using just a barebones Live setup while she slept.

I emailed the set home where all my kit is and layed down the guitar tracks. I learnt that the live drum kits and Groove agent don't midi map the same which is a pain :(

Its influenced by TV on the Radio I think, been listening to them loads lately, definatley my fav band right now, return to cookie mountain is genius.

There is 2 drum tracks there. The first is groove agent with the disco kit and the 2nd is Live's native "impulse" kit with the "Tresor 1994" preset. I'm running through a resonator too, a trick I descovered earlier in the week, it reminds me of the drum sounds used by radioheads elctronica stuff. The bass is a new plugin I got today, its a 303 emulator (audiorealism bass), it's far better than rebirth because you can fully sequence it in your DAW. I love that 303 sound. I expect it will turn up in many other tracks. The guitars are just 2 tracks (except for the intro where theres that fedback sustained guitar). They are recorded through my Line6 guitarport, with the deeper guitar just playing powerchords and a higher slightly less disorted guitar playing fuller chords. There are parts you'll hear around the pre-chorus and chorus that sound a bit off key. Not sure if its my bad playing or I've messed up in some other way.

Going forward need to lay down some sexy dark vocals from Emma or Scott (theres a vocal line in my head) and need some lyrics. Needs a solo and obviosley to be better structured and tidied.


powered by ODEO


Download MP3

Song - 1st Experiment

My first play around with my new bass guitar. I have used Live at 100 BPM. This is another old song of mine originally writen at 120BPM. My plan was to record slow in Live then speed up using the warp feature. The results of this weren’t satisfactory so I have left at 100BPM. I think maybe the bass and guitar are slightly out of tune. I have used NI guitar rig to add effects to all the guitars (recording them clean). This clip was also meant to be a lot longer, I think I messed the Live rendering screen up.


powered by ODEO


Download MP3

Song - A new DAWn

This is the very first song I attempted in Live. It is an old song of mine that I originally produced in Cubase, it was a lot slower then. I will upload the old version soon. This new version is heavily influenced by Evil Nine, in fact the beat is *borrowed* of a track on You could be special too called "Devil stuff".



powered by ODEO


Download MP3

Kit

Software

Ableton Live

Ableton was introduced to by Shakes who I was working with at the time. I was'nt at first moved by what I heard about Live even though Shakes so enthusiastically described it. I decided to give the demo a shot even though I had spent so much time learning cubase SX up until that point.
Needless to say upon my first play I was instantly sold on Lives slick, intuitive interface and original session/arrangement concept.

Cool Edit

Native Instruments Guitar Rig

Native Instruments Battery

Native Instruments Conkact

Propellerheads Reason v3

Steinberg Groove Agent 2

Hardware

Line 6 Guitar Port


Fender Esquire Jagmaster Guitar

Godman Bass Guitar

Acer Travelmate 800 Laptop

Evolution MK-225C midi keyboard

Digitech Control 8 midi footpedal.

Introduction

Hi thanks for visiting my blog/ odeo podcast.

The purpose of this blog is to record the progress I make (or don't make) and lessons I learn in attempting to produce music. I also hope to gather some feedback on my homebrew tunes to assist the process.

My goal is to make a hybrid mix of indie and electronica using a plethora of (mainly) software based audio kit. The primary tool in my virtual shed will be Ableton Live, the ground breaking DAW. The plan is to write a bunch of songs, and publish them on sites such as myspace,garageband and indiestore to see how they fair.