I'm a sucker for hand-drawn videos like this

You should be able to explain to anyone, in common sense terms, why a piano sounds different from a flute even though they are playing the same exact pitch.

Once you understand the concepts of timbre and the fundamentals of harmonic series mathematics (not as scary as it sounds), I promise you that your sound design and/or music production will reach a new level.

There’s a certain confidence that comes with knowing how to stack basic waveforms to obtain a desired result.  You don’t have to know exactly what is going to happen, but you should have some idea about the possibilities.

This knowledge can make the difference between random, aimless noodling and directed experimentation that renders intentional results.

I recently happened upon this video which does a great job at describing the basic mechanics of sound in a way that couples math with common sense.  It’s a bit like Miranda July learned about the physics of sound and directed a hip short film about it.

I especially like the focus on and definition of timbre, something that I harp on over and over again in my Ableton tutorials.  This video is in many ways the perfect compliment to that material, so please consider it recommended viewing.

Here’s the video:

It’s also important to note that you can do this the old-fashioned way without warp mode by simply changing the pitch of one sound so that it’s length changes, too. Just turn off warp mode and adjust the transpose setting on the clip. Lowering the pitch will make the sample longer, and raising the pitch will make the sample shorter.

Here’s the video. My apologies for the lack of voice-over, but like I said this one is just quick and dirty!

This video has inspired me to take my little Edirol R09HR and crappy mic around the house to capture some debris sounds that I’ll later process into part of an abstract soundscape.

Enjoy!

Operator Ambience Vol. 1

As most of my customers know, I recently released Operator Ambience Vol. 1, a set of Ableton Operator patches and short tutorial videos.  Now that a bunch of people have had the chance to pick up the pack and work with it a bit, I’d love to hear what you think.  If you have had some experience with the pack, sound off in the comments!

A Simple Interface - Huge Functionality

I’m always looking for functional, free, and standalone programs that give me an excuse to turn off the familiar interface of Ableton Live and dive into something different and inspirational.  The excellent Paul Stretch is a perfect example of this sort of thing, and SoundDoodle definitely follows in those same footsteps.

A Mac-only app (as of this writing), SoundDoodle accomplishes a lot behind its unassuming interface.  In brief: You load up your sound, process it through 4 flexibly routed effects units, and record realtime parameter modulation by mousing around in the interface.  Your movements leave little trails that are then followed when you choose to play back the modulation either looped or one-shot.  It reminds me a bit of using a Korg groovebox like the ER-1 where you are recording a realtime modulation “performance” rather than dialing in exact values as you would in a DAW.

The result is a huge dose of inspiration with absolutely no barrier to entry in terms of either cost or ease of use.  I can’t recommend this tool enough to anyone with a Mac and some interest in sound design and processing.  I put together a video showing off the features of the program below, although there’s still more to explore that I just didn’t have time to get to:

Many thanks to the creative people who contributed to building this software!

Download and read more about SoundDoodle from this post on the Sound + Design blog: http://www.soundplusdesign.com/?p=2607

Elliott Fienberg, a.k.a @mrtunes

I just finished recording a really enjoyable conversation with Elliott Fienberg, the man behind the Wobble Tech Radio podcast.  We chatted about some recording industry news and talked a bit about my upcoming Ableton Live packs that I’ll start releasing in the next month or so.

Check out the recording here, and be sure to check out Elliott’s other episodes:

http://mixlr.com/mrtunes/wobble-tech-radio-10-with-the-ableton-tutor

And be sure to check out Elliott on Twitter here: @mrtunes

In the interview, he talks about a philosophy which embodies the inability to save patches, forcing the user to commit to a particular sound once it’s recorded.  While I wouldn’t want to go purely in this direction for my own work (patch management absolutely has its place in my workflow), it would be cool to have a system that is purely tactile where I would simply record things that happened and was free from the clutter and worry of saving things.

I’ve already gotten some great advice on Twitter about where to start, so I will share those here in case other beginners happen to find this post.  Here they are:

The Buchla 200e - I Can't Afford This

Developers

• Doepfer
• Curetronic
• Synthesizers.com
• Harvestman
• Buchla
• Music From Outer Space

Information

I know, this picture of a horizon is a little heavy-handed.

It’s time to expand Nick’s Tutorials into the realm of sample and device preset packages.  The feedback for this idea has been very positive and has taught me a lot about you guys do and do no want to see from the project.

Here’s what I have so far:

• Each pack will be a small, thematically consistent set of sounds, maybe 25 to 30 in total
  • this will ensure not only a lower barrier to entry in terms of pricing, but also it will keep each collection focused
  • the sounds will be focused mostly on effects and atmospheres, transitional elements, found sound drum kits, etc.  There won’t be any titles like “Phat TripStep Beatz” with pictures of large breasted women shaking their asses on the marketing materials.  THAT’S A PROMISE!
• These packs will be based around Ableton Live device preset chains rather than baked in wave files
  • I want the products to be not only a solid source of new sounds to inspire your music creation, but also an unofficial supplement to my Ableton video tutorials where you can reverse engineer the sounds down to their core components
  • I will of course make all of these chains into instrument groups with useful macro knob assignments already in place.
  • that being said, I will probably make wave file versions of each pack available for a lower price
• Speaking of education, each pack will come with a short PDF documentation which details notable aspects of each device patch
  • this will serve as a shortcut to locating the most important parameters for each sound
• Every patch will come with at least one melodic or harmonic idea in the form of a Live Clip
  • this could be a chord progression or motif that will get you started using the sound right away

Bottom line: I just want to give you something useful rather than more “me too” sample library products.

I just wanted to write this short update to let my readers know how I have synthesized their helpful feedback so far.  Creation of the first pack is well under way, but further comments are always welcome and encouraged because I’m happy to tweak things as I go.

Just doing a little cleaning in my studio, paring down everything to the essentials and also funding some upcoming purchases.  To that end, I’m putting stuff up for sale.  If you’re interested, feel free to contact me through the “Contact” link in the top menu of the site!

UPDATE: All items have been sold.

NOTE: I have mentioned prices next to each item, but I’m willing to entertain best offers as well.  Prices do not include shipping.

Here’s the list:

1. Tascam HD-P2 Field Recorder – $480
   • excellent condition
   • original box and documentation
   • 2 GB SanDisk memory card
   • shoulder strap
   • power cord included
2. Rode NT4 Stereo Microphone – $430
   • mint condition, used only a couple of times
   • includes original documentation
   • original hardshell storage/carrying case
   • extras:
     • dead kitten wind diffuser
     • pistol grip
     • shock absorber (great setup for field recordings w/ no handling noise!)
     • stereo XLR cable
3. M-Audio Keyrig 25 – $30 [SOLD]
   • simple, no-nonsense MIDI keyboard with small space footprint and nice keys
   • great condition
   • USB bus powered
4. Akai MPD-24 Drum Midi Controller – $75 [SOLD]
   • excellent condition
   • USB bus powered
   • MPC-style pads and 8 knobs
   • original box included
5. 2 Shure SM57 Microphones – $60 Each [SOLD]
   • great condition, barely used
   • original boxes, documentation, and leather carrying pouches

If you have a looming deadline for writing a little theme song or doing a small piece of sound design, it’s easy to forget that (for better or for worse) modern digital music production tools can even start our songs for us.

Randomizer & Scale: Two peas in a pod

If you use Ableton Live, there are some handy tools to do just that, and today I want to cover some extremely basic yet effective uses for two of them:  Randomizer and Scale.

I know some people are going to object passionately to the idea of using a tool to generate melodic ideas out of thin air.  However, I have no desire to turn this into an exhaustive, academic discussion about whether the machines have indeed taken over ala “Terminator,” so please keep your comments on track with creative or technical suggestions.

In the following video, I show you how to turn a simple rhythm that never deviates from a single pitch into multiple melodic ideas as well as recording this randomness so that you can further revise the resulting MIDI phrases: