Studio Update: A few weeks ago I was soliciting opinions about whether or not to get a Mac Mini to replace my ailing, nearly decade-old PC.
Opinions differed, leaning toward "yes but get more RAM than base model" and I had just about decided not to do it when I stumbled on a good video from a music tech vlogger I really like (video here: https://youtu.be/obkCMxaIIFM) who did exactly what I was thinking and had great results.
I didn't get to test it quite as thoroughly as I'd hoped but preliminary testing was incredibly positive. It runs #Ableton Live Suite 11 without a hitch, as well as #Pigments and the #Korg#Wavestation plugin, which is pretty much my entire computer setup.
(Note: I went #DAWlessright around the time Live 11 was released, and while my old computer's inability to run Live 11 well wasn't the reason why, it didn't exactly push me to stick with the DAW-based world.)
I ran a couple stress tests that just involved dumping multiple instances of plugins in and seeing what happens: it runs like a champ even with 8+ virtual instruments (including multiple instances of #Pigments, which is notoriously CPU-intensive, and multiple instances of Ableton's Wavetable instrument, which always brought my old PC to its knees), plus effects.
This got me kinda excited and I decided to port my current project into #Ableton from the #MPCOne and finish it there.
So I like #Ableton. It's a good daw. But also pretty confusing. I wish I had a #Keyboard I could use to make music on but them keyboards are far from cheap. Very far from it and no mistake. #Music is one of those hobbies that it's a very high cost to start.
This is a very small nuisance, but in Ableton Live, sometimes I end up dragging an audio clip onto a MIDI track, and it would be nice to have an option to convert the MIDI track into an audio track.
#ableton live 12 is a real CPU hog with an empty set — kills a Macbook battery quickly, running at 51% CPU in Activity Monitor with no plugins running at all. Hope this gets fixed quickly; it's making my actual fans come on, which doesn't usually happen on M1
I'm doing a generative sound installation doofer later in the year in which I want to use some recordings of Lincolnshire Dialect poetry somehow.
I've got off to a tentative start - but this at least gives me a foundation to build on I think. I thought folks here might like to see how it develops, so I'll pop a very occasional update in here if there's any interest 😉
Looking forward to just building more elements into the set bit by bit and then seeing how they can fit together...
I've talked before about how some default #DAW metronome sounds are stupid. #Cubase, #ProTools... Just go home. Go home, stay at home and don't let anyone have to hear that shower singing noise. Kill it with fire. Or water as the case may be.
#Logic... Where you going with that? You can't leave the house with that stupid click. Get to your room!
#Reaper... Reaper... What? Just no. Don't even look at me like that, you know you're just wrong. Stop it. Don't!
#Ableton... Finally someone I'm not embarrassed to be seen with. Well done, well done. #Maschine... Yep, you ain't half-bad either. Good. Proud of you.
Sure, you can make others behave nicer, but why are so many default metronomes just such a pile of shite?
I've been getting back into #Ableton Note of late, so here's a little groove I made today. I used some automation on the synth sound to emulate an auto-wha type effect.
Also regarding the Focusrite – As I see it, in order to listen to things coming from the PC (Youtubes, DAW….) you have to use the Playback (DAW) mix and for things going in like my synths, you have to change it to ‘custom mix’?
Is there a setting that allows both ways? Not that big of a deal, mostly just seeing if this is correct."
Anyone #DAW people know why this might be happening?
Nach 3 Tagen mit Fieber und allen anderen üblichen Symptomen, geht es mir heute endlich etwas besser. Habe mal nicht den ganzen Tag im Bett verbracht, sondern konnte endlich ein bisschen an meinem Jahresmix weitermachen.
Der Mix wird 4 Stunden lang, wovon ich die ersten 60 Minuten jetzt fertig habe. Erstmalig mixe ich nicht live mit #Traktor, sondern erstelle ihn Stück für Stück mit #Ableton. Ableton ist eine Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), also eine Software zum Komponieren von Musik. Eignet sich aber auch hervorrangend für Mixe.
War eine ziemliche Umstellung. Der Vorteil ist, dass ich jeden Übergang nahezu perfekt hinbekomme und ich Titel im Mix noch auseinanderschneiden, umarrangieren oder Remixen kann, und dafür nicht erst einen "edit" machen muss. Nachträgliche Änderungen, wie Titel entfernen oder hinzufügen, ist allerdings umständlich und ich weiss noch nicht, ob ich auf diese Weise exakt 4 Stunden hinbekomme.
Ich weiß auch noch nicht, wie ich daraus die Playliste generiere.
Egal, ich wollte das immer schonmal so machen, jetzt mache ich es endlich 🙂
I'm implementing crate for reading (and later on writing) #polyend#tracker projects :-) Not proactively developed until I get my serial tool in shape tho. After I have that I might write a playback engine for the projects and a command-line player. For reverse engineering reverb and delay algorithms I'm going to use Bitwig Grid and then just compare sampled output until I get it right.
The utility would be e.g. to convert Polyend project to #Bitwig or #Ableton project and stuff like that but to do proper conversion you first need to have a playback engine for comparative testing even though those tools do no need to play anything.
All of our tech should come with an "upgrade kit".
"Technology moves fast, but the new [Ableton MIDI controller] Push is made to stay at the heart of your setup for a long time. That’s why the Upgrade Kit allows you to replace and upgrade parts yourself. It comes with easy step by step instructions and everything you need to switch Push to standalone in just 30 minutes."
So I've been playing with the beta version of the upcoming Ableton Live 12 release, and while there's a few nice new features, the two I've gotten a ton of use out of already are:
being able to set a global key for your track (great for going through your own old material when looking for an inspiration)
and the ability to "go back" in search (not having this really bugged me)
I like the new MIDI clip generators feature of Live 12 from what I've seen. I wish Bitwig could something similar in terms of baking the results of MIDI effects into a clip.
I know you can route one MIDI track into another and record that way, but it's a bit inconvenient compared to Live's new feature.