Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Amazing builds

So as many of you know, P!nk has a new album out - The Truth About Love. My girlfriend was extremely excited to get a hold of it as soon as possible. The first track that I heard from it was Blow Me (One Last Kiss) which I thought was a pretty clever title. I liked it, I won't lie. As far as that realm of music is concerned, I'd pick P!nk and Katy Pery to listen to all day considering the other choices out there in that specific genre. I'd pick those ladies for a few other things, too. ;)

Anywho, I bought the album as soon as I could and gave it to my girlfriend (who absolutely loves it). We were listening to some of her songs as we were driving down the thruway and I heard track number three - Try. Now being that I'm almost always up for hearing some new music and really try to look at what makes a song great beyond just the lyrics, I found this track's build to be amazing. You only get the full effect in the beginning before the first chorus, but it's worth it. The second time around it's watered down and accompanied by P!nk's vocals, but that's okay. I like her voice.

If you haven't heard it yet and you love a good melodic, spacey and trancey build, give it a listen while wearing a good pair of headphones. It's a magical 10 seconds that was excellently constructed for this song and blends the genres of P!nk's pop rock sound with an epic sounding EDM build.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Working with Ableton Live 8

So, I took the plunge and added Ableton Live 8 to my studio for music production. So far I'm liking it. I have been watching videos from their site as well as YouTube vids from other users showing their work flow. It seems to be just what I needed. Now the thing is learning how to use this DAW.

I have been using the Internet to search for help in various arenas in order to better hone my skills. Obviously dedication to the DAW and constant usage will help the most, but it also pays to learn some tips, tricks and shortcuts to speed the process along. Watching tutorial vids or product feature overviews gives the basic user some insight as to what the DAW can do for you, but it's not always the best way to learn. For me, I needed to get some more real world usage help.

As I bounced around from site to site, sifting through the myriad of search results, I happened to come across some info from Vespers, a Glitch Hop DJ from Canada, who is also a certified Ableton Trainer. He had some of his tracks available for download along with a PDF he put together with some tips he uses in his Ableton studio setup. It was a mix of things that I already knew alongside some new tricks that I was unaware of. All in all, I learned a lot from reading the document and I'll be referring back to it to brush up on the keyboard shortcuts and MIDI mapping section.

Now that I have a MIDI keyboard from school to use, I can start to program settings into the knobs and buttons and get my Live sessions setup in hopes of working more efficiently. Vespers made a very good point that when you know your DAW and your hardware, you spend less time worrying about how to accomplish certain tasks and you can focus more time on creating music. This will pay off for me big time since a large part of my frustration has been not knowing how to get certain effects and/or sounds from my DAW. And by the time I figured it out, so much time had passed that I had forgotten what I was trying to accomplish. Talk about a total waste of time!

So, I feel that Vespers, along with so many other successful computer music producers, have become so by putting the time and effort in to learn the tools of their trade. I'll be spending some time learning keyboard shortcuts, macros and creating Racks and Session Templates.

Does anyone else have a secret about how they learn?