Arrangements!!!

[JAYDMF]

Originally Posted by modz1

I'm a serial 'audio commiter' Sureno..
In most cases, my drums are programmed in Battery or EXS24, processed and then bounced to audio for further (optional) processing/manipulation. Having control over a 'full kit' (albeit electronic) gives me so much freedom to have fun and be creative. You'll notice I leave certain percussion 'lift' elements (shakers, cabasas etc) separate to blend in later in the arrangement.

As for the small EQ tweak, yes, you're right.. barely noticeable but in the case of this particular track, I felt it needed a little tickle to sweeten up what I felt was a very decent mix already. Incidentally, the Logic adaptive limiter plug-in was removed from the mix-buss when the track went to the record label prior to going to a mastering suite..

Yup ditto on the audio front although i do generally work in midi for a fair while. Ive been back and forth between the two techniques for years and i still cant settle fully on one or tother but i do find making things "tighter" in audio is much easier as it stops battery from doing random things especially when humanise functions are involved. One problem i am having atm tho is really bringing everything up to level i just cant seem to get everything tight whilst getting a good level out dunno why as ive managed it before

[sureno]

i take it you bounce down to audio after arranging in midi, i cant work well in audio because its just so committal if that's the right use of the word but watching how easy it was for the freemason boys work in audio made me go buy logic and give it a go but i stopped with audio if midi is providing an acceptable result.

[Khazul]

I tend to bounce stuff to audio as soon as I'm happy with it - for nothing else than it means less to go wrong when doing a master export - the kindof stuff that I leave boucing until last is where there is tns of automation of synth parameters going on.

I guess it also depends on what you are working with - if working with external hardware, then better to bounce ASAP so you can reuse that
synth, or if you have a channel limited audio interface - free up that input channel.

For software - the basic argument for bouncing is freeing up CPU, though some software provides a freeze function for this.

[sureno]

i knew i should of kept my lego blocks, i wasn't allowed regular lego though only Duplo

[Khazul]

Now if you just stick some kind of electronic tag in each brick and a way to read them and work out way they are - you end up with a potentialy cool arrangement tool

[Monarch]

Originally Posted by sureno

i knew i should of kept my lego blocks, i wasn't allowed regular lego though only Duplo

Very clever. Surprisingly useful video. Excellent find sureno.

[Khazul]

A arrangement and breakdown of this noise (its not a full track, just a 2.5min tester):
** Sorry had to take it down - no nothing bad - actually something rather good

(Click on the pictures below for large view - 1920 pixels wide).

Main Arrangement view with automations (there some buried in the MIDI of the bass part). I tend to colour stuff fairly subjectively according to energy, feel etc, and enough to identify differnt bits etc.


HH/Perc loop warping (equiv to chopping and re-aligning in another DAW). How this works is you basically stick markers on the start of sounds within a clip, once you have done that, then ableton wil ensure the sound aligns perfectly to the music time whiles its playing. If you select the loop to have a swing, then it will automatically adjust the timing appropriate points in the clip.


Vocal/Synthy loop warping


What was used:
Ableton Live 7, Virus TI and samples off three sample CDs, fabFilter Pro-C compressor plugin (x2), Abletons reverb, ping-pong delay, filter and flanger plugins, UAD precision series EQ (justt for bass roll off at 20Hz) and precision series limiter.

Audio routing structure:
4 sends:
Send A - send sub mix for pumping a sub mix compressor (Pump 1)
Send B - send sub mix for pumping a sub mix compressor (Pump 2)
Send C - short reverb
Send D - long reverb

2 groups:
Pump 1 - moderately kick pumped submix
- vocal loop
- stabs lead
- atmospheric fx
- long reverb return
Pump 2 - heavily kick pumped submix:
- bassline from Virus TI

Everything else goes to master along with the two groups.

Sample pre-processing
Atmospherics - two copies, one reversed, re-enveloped and resampled, the other just re-enveloped and resampled.
Perc loop - warped, chopped and re-combined to produce some variations
Kick - re-enveloped and resampled, then stuck in a sample player just for further dynamic enveloping - just to make it a little thinner in the intro.
Fills - two fill samples used - both were warped, re-enveloped and resampled
Vocal loop - just warped to lock to overall groove - (equiv to chopping something up to re-align it in another DAW.)
Stab samples - 3 of them just had their envelopes changed, one was timestreched and made more grainy then resampled. All four then stuck into an sample player with an fx chain consiting of a delay and flanger. Also the lead stab of the progression was reversed, had reverb piled on, resampled then reversed again to give the preverb effect used regularly.

Other general - All parts send a little to one or both of the reverbs at very low level.

[sureno]

Well K let me start by first saying what an awesome post, many thanks for this im loving the track and tbh i hope you dont mind me saying it has really inspired me by helping me understand certain aspects of how you progress your track, iv also noticed you are very meticulous about how you personalise your sounds which quite honestly i admire as i dont have the know how and it sounds very intricate, may be this is something i will learn to do over time?

i would like to know more about your sends A & B, i do something similar but its often just sending my kick to an aux then sending the aux to a compressor on my part im wanting side chained.

I see you mainly work in audio but im presuming you initially start out in midi and hook it up to all your externals then record in? may i ask do you record through a desk or???

I can see you dont have many parts but your sound remains for me very interesting, can i say this is because you focus on evolving the sound through constant changes and developments in fx parameters?

Your kicks? they are sectioned, why? what changes between each section?


A* K

[Khazul]

Originally Posted by sureno

Well K let me start by first saying what an awesome post, many thanks for this im loving the track and tbh i hope you dont mind me saying it has really inspired me by helping me understand certain aspects of how you progress your track, iv also noticed you are very meticulous about how you personalise your sounds which quite honestly i admire as i dont have the know how and it sounds very intricate, may be this is something i will learn to do over time?

LOL - thanks - I never think of that may - more on the lines of beating a sound into submission - brute force and ignorance?

Originally Posted by sureno

i would like to know more about your sends A & B, i do something similar but its often just sending my kick to an aux then sending the aux to a compressor on my part im wanting side chained.

My standard Live template consists of 6 sends - the four used in this and I often have a couple of delays on to start with, just so they are handy for trying stuff.

What I often end up doing however is moving the delays into their own track so I can automate them (feedback and filter as I happen to love over-fedback type effects - overused or not - its just something I like). However with heavy use of effects then you end up with a huge problem and that is eventually they swamp everything unless you get them back under control, so what I tend to do some variation of the following:

- Stick a keyed compressor after them and key the compressor from the dry sound - this for eg allows very heavy delay and reverb that does then swap following sound as it gets auto-ducked - TBH - I really only find this useful for reverb and not really precise enough for controlling a delay sound properly.

- Route the effect out into one of the kick pumped submixes, then the kick pull its down hard on every beat - with some high reverbs this can leave a nice pumping sheen, or pumping tape feedback grunge etc - especially if you route the reverb out to a tube vitalizer or similar to fizz it up.

- Either automate tthe send or cut specific bits out of the audio and stick them on a separate track, for eg as with Stone prodcution videos - to get certain words or sylables repeated. Often I'll try to catch something in such a way as it will eventually appear to blend with something else coming up.

Originally Posted by sureno

I see you mainly work in audio but im presuming you initially start out in midi and hook it up to all your externals then record in? may i ask do you record through a desk or???

Normally I tend to work with MIDI synths create midi clips tweak them, bounce them to audio and goto work there. The exception is long midi automations where I may leave the part as midi right upto mixdown. Even then, I will have bounced it several times probably to free up the synth for something else, or for eg to create atmosperic resamples etc.

I do record through a desk of sorts - its actually a Yamaha 01x combined mixer/audio interface. Main advantage that as its also a mixer, then patching in hardware fx like the TC boxes, dbx compressor, SPL vitalizer etc is easy and it means that if Im just sat at the piano or a synth fiddling, I can have a full fx compliment that is also zero latency, unlike doing the same in a DAW.

Originally Posted by sureno

I can see you dont have many parts but your sound remains for me very interesting, can i say this is because you focus on evolving the sound through constant changes and developments in fx parameters?

Dunno - LOL - sometimes I think stuff doesnt evolve enough, sometimes I just get plain lazy, or something I go overboard and it takes someone else to tell me so. Trance was allways my thing which is very much about evolution of sounds and smooth blending etc, so it kind of doesnt matter what I try and do - from something utterly non electronic (jazz/soul for eg), to house/techno or whatever, then I allways want to keep things moving - I find the hard bit is figuring out how to move them right in the context of the desired end result without trashing it and sending it the wrong direction.

Some stuff does have alot of parts - this was a fairly quick hack, whereas other stuff (Sunset for eg) has alot of parts and way way more complex routings (actually thats a nightmare to untangle).
Also things can look alot cleaner if alot of the layering processing has been done offline, so instead of three basslines for eg all doing the same thing for eg, you just have the one, or using send automations instead of cutting and pasting etc. Normally I would have all of the perc parts and probably a couple of kicks separate out onto their own tracks, along with two layered bass sounds i addition to whatever other stuff is used. Sometimes I even have completely silent parts whos job is just to key compressors, gates or envelope-follower filters etc in some peculiar way, or parts (tracks) that are purely fx automations etc with no actual audio or midi in them.

Your kicks? they are sectioned, why? what changes between each section?
A* K

Sectioned? as in nut house?

There are 3 kick 'sounds' - the intro kick is slighly thinner - it just has a much shorter decay, so it sounds a bit sharper as well as being a way to reduce its perceived volume without actually taking its real volume down. (IMHO that also makes it easier to hear clearly when mixing, but thats just me).
Then there is the main kick with alot more body to it, then there is a silent kick (white bits) that just keeps the compressors ticking over - hence the ratio automations on the white bits to avoid leaving gaping holes in the sound, but still let it breath a bit and of course the compressor pumping is still there when you bring up the ratio so you can pump the sweeps/build-ups etc without actually having to bring your kick back in.

[sureno]

Wow K, there is a hell of a lot to soak in there had to go over it a couple times, some parts i must admit go over my head at the moment but im starting to understand how you work. a great post mate

[Khazul]

Originally Posted by sureno

Wow K, there is a hell of a lot to soak in there had to go over it a couple times, some parts i must admit go over my head at the moment but im starting to understand how you work. a great post mate

I think 'randomly' is the phrase you're looking for

[sureno]

Originally Posted by Khazul

I think 'randomly' is the phrase you're looking for

Ha Ha your to modest

[Khazul]

Oh, one bit I didnt answer properly as misread which sends you were asking about. Assuming you know how a keyed (or sidechained depending on your choice of terminology) compressors work, I use sends A and B to create a submix for feeding the key input tot heb compressors - usually its just kicks, but sometimes I'll add other stuff on those sends as and when needed.

Another way to look at it - in a mixer you have your main faders and pans, EQ etc that create a mix on the main bus (in a simple mixer), but sends are actually additional much simpler mixers within the whole mixing console.

So a mixer with 4 aux busses (ie 4 sends knob per channel) actually has 5 mixers in it - the master mix as decribed above, then the 4 send mixers which each yield a separate mix on each aux bus.

Its doesnt matter what you have on the send - conventional bussed reverb, delay etc or even a compressor, flagers or something more typically used as an insert - then end result is the send levels create a mix on that aux bus which is sent to the fx device.

Note - in a digital console or DAW, or when using an analog console with digital fx boxes you have to be careful about using insert type fx as typically the device might instroduce a tiny delay which will cause phasing when the return is mixed back into the master mix, so it gets messy. In a daw you may have to bounce the return to audio and re-align it.

In the case of the track above, I'm just creating simple sub-mixes of whatever I want to key the compressors with - normally its just the kick, but sometimes I may automate something else into it.

For example on busy bits of a track with a lead vocal I may actually want to very subtley duck most of the sounds in the same frequency space by a db or so around the vocal words just to make it stand out a bit more without having to crank its level, fiddle with EQ, or drop level of alot of other stuff across the board. So I'll group a bunch of instruments together that are in the same frequency space - for synths, guitars, keyboards etc, run them through a compresor and send a bit of the vocal to a key input. If its a dance track - then chances are I allready have the kick keying that compressor *if* the compressor settings actually work for both kick and vocal keying - sometimes they do, sometimes they dont.

With the right compressor settings then this can be alot more transparent than say riding a fader to make room for a lead sound/vocal - effectively your are using the frequency masking effect and biasing it the way you want it to go. Additionally, you may only crank up the level of the send in busy parts of a track to do this.

Its just one approach - sometimes fader riding is better, sometimes not.

[sureno]

cool i haven't really dabbled with vocal tracks too much and neither side chaining for that matter, the only side chaining i ever do would be a kick as trigger on a bass line or lead and have very fast att and rls with high threshold and ratio for that pumping sound, never really used it to make subtle spaces in the mix.

everything i do is always pretty much in the box but after reading your posts may start bouncing tracks down and re importing as audio to have more control.

nice tips K, will be dabbling with these in the near future me thinks

[Khazul]

Originally Posted by sureno

cool i haven't really dabbled with vocal tracks too much and neither side chaining for that matter, the only side chaining i ever do would be a kick as trigger on a bass line or lead and have very fast att and rls with high threshold and ratio for that pumping sound, never really used it to make subtle spaces in the mix.

everything i do is always pretty much in the box but after reading your posts may start bouncing tracks down and re importing as audio to have more control.

nice tips K, will be dabbling with these in the near future me thinks

If using Live - there is no need for bouncing out nor re-importing as you can record direct from one track to another or even just resample the master out

You can pretty much do what you like - its one of the major things I like about it.