Codename Oreo – Ableton Live_ Studio Mix
Posted on February 1st, 2010
The following is documentation/breakdown/proof-of-concept on an Ableton Live Studio mix. It is simply a personal method I’ve found to be very inviting for my creative style. And importantly to note, it doesn’t take too much technical equipment or knowhow. The most important thing and dually the hardest important thing is clearly knowing your idea, your direction and what you want to make. It can be used towards a wide manner of productions; re-edits, remixes, sampling, Live PA, etc. Comments/feedback greatly appreciated!
Scroll down to the very end first if you would like to start with hearing the final product.
Project Codename: Oreo
I’ll be doing all of this using Ableton Live 7 – It assumes for the most part you already have a working knowledge of Ableton Live. It is not a “how to use ableton” style tutorial. But rather a conceptual method of production. Enjoy!
I really enjoyed the intro to daft punk’s Alive 2007, Human after all / Robot rock. But of course it is Live so there is crowd noise and such. I know there is a ‘rockapella’ version of Robot Rock. I couldn’t locate a clean sample of “HUMAN” But I figured I go forward with something and see what works out.
Here is a clip of the inspiration:
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And for reference’s sake, here is the original track from the album: [Youtube Link]
Upon inspection the rockapella track from the Robot Rock Promo Vinyl. I’ve found it is exactly the same as is found in the Robot Rock track. Isn’t exactly a true accapella. So I just stuck with the track.
I isolated the vocals for “ROCK” and warped it to be half a measure. (1.3) I tried some other lengths but this seemed to work out the best for just timing out the song nicely.
I did the same thing with the “RO-BOT” vocal, also half a measure.
In addition I made a third clip that was all of the “RO-BOT ROCK” vocal piece. This is just a little redundancy, if things get to crazy I can fall back on the whole clip. You could do this to say “ROCK, ROBOT ROCK” as well.
At this point in abletons session view. I have a bit to work with. I have the entire robot rock track, which I duplicated to make respective “ROCK”, “ROBOT” and “ROBOT ROCK” tracks.
I’ve assigned the three edited clips to midi controls on my AKAI mpd24 as well as a knob I’ve routed to the tempo control in ableton.
In this stage of things, I also move into the arrangement window, and align things how I would expect the track to turn out when I play. Including the ramp up; like the original live version.
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I like that there is still a punch at the begining of “ROCK” it keeps a rhythm. I think it could stand to use more though.
There is a pretty clean section of solid punches in the robot rock track. So, I can use that too, definitely once the tempo ramp ends too.
I warp and isolate the segment and create a new clip in the segment window. This time it is two measures long. I organize it in my arrangement window to see how it would sound, also adding in the single clip “ROBOT ROCK”. The steady beat covers up the edits and makes it sound a little more produced.
Here’s how it sounds and looks
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Now I’ll probably come back to this as the project evolves. but for now, i’m going to lead into something else.
I’d found this great remix of the same song: ‘Daft Punk – Robot Rock (Adjuster Remake)’ It carries with it some the funky bassline, and breaks for an electro bassline. It works. I’m going to use it to play out of this daft punk theme, and onto something that is still pretty French, like some Justice. Let’s play.
In the adjuster remake, there is a little bit of a glitch bassline, the drop the kick and chords. right before the first break. Its a good little bit. What the song does here is tip you a little bit. Giving you something off rhythm, something that actually sounds bad, so that when the break hits, it sounds a lot better by contrast. This is a variation on a common effect in tracks like these.
I went a little further with what the track originally had and re-warped the timing on the bass chords.
Here is the orginal timing:
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And the new warping:
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Just gives you more things, more options to play with.
Mainly for the transition here, I’ll just be EQing the sound with evelopes to get it to fit. I also warped and then chopped up the beat.
Click to zoom in on any screenshot. Here’s how that transition sounds:
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Also at this point. I make sure to create clips of all of this for the second track. The bass chords, the small beat clip and the whole track with a queue point. I map them to the midi scene to play around with more, later.
I picked out ‘Justice – Phantom Pt2 (Freemasons’ Remix)’ for the next track. The original is a great instrumental track anyway, but a bit maybe too edgy for the point in the mix. The remix I think suits it nicer. Now instead of taking it to the warping and chopping block. I’m gonna bring this one in with effects and effect envelopes. Actually, moresoe I’ll be applying the effect to the adjuster track on its way out.
These are the effects I’ll be using:
The EQ Three was there from before when I brought in the Adjuster Remix. The Compressor, I just generally throw that on any track, It makes things everything sound a little more substantial. Don’t really need to mess with it much. Super Looper, this is an effect that is part of an effect rack that I got from a great little pack called “Tarekith” It has a few other effect racks in it that are useful. Fade to Grey, this one is standard in ableton. It is basically just changes the frequency low and hi, gains the mid, and adds a feedback loop. Sounds good, but often needs a dry track underneath.
Here’s the effects worked into the Super Looper
I warped the Justice track normally, it was pretty clean anyway. I tossed the whole thing on a channel at about the same time the robot rock song comes in. But I let it play through. I lined up the breaks.
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Now, as for doing any of this live, that is an awful lot of effects controls for just two hands. One of the immediate advantages to a studio mix. But if your performing with more than one person, thats good! Otherwise you’ll have to map and do that other thing i don’t know how to do. You might notice i added the dry track in 2 Audio, it brings in another loop at the end, thats because the frequency modulator in the fade to grey really softens things a little too much. So that adds a layer of some sound back in. There is a really clean kick drum in the beginning of a remixed track by Noir, its called “Super Skunk (deadmau5 remix)” I lifted a beat off of that. and layed it on top. Of the justice track. I think it adds good sound. In fact, I think it might be better than the one I used earlier in the very begining of the mix. underneath ROBOT, ROCK. So I went and changed that, too.
The melody on the end of this Justice track is good, but I wanted to play around with some of the low end. I found a track with a lot in it, “Daniel Portman – Virtual Suicide’ and stripped out the high end, and some of the mid. Bringing it in and out as needed. I also hit it with some more of the super looper.
Sounded like this.
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and looks like this.
Here is what it sounds like layered on top of the justice track, which I also hit with the super looper on its way out.
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After that, I brought in the next track. In a pretty straighforward manner. Just eq’ed and brought up the track volume on ‘Boy-8-bit – Suspense is killing me’ This i actually a pretty hard track to mix on the fly. So its fun to be able to work with it in the studio.
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The final piece to this puzzle is making sure everything is assigned and organized on your midi controller. This method really varies widely. My only real recommendation is to practice it. A lot. Don’t be afraid to practice in front of your friends first and get feedback. Screw up often. Be confident in all your decisions. Know the songs. Learn how to count 4/4 time. And just throw things in as they feel right. Have fun.
This is the final piece all together. It’s a varied but a thematically consistent smashup about one normal tracks length.
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–Keegan Orange – 2010
Tags: Ableton Live, boy 8 bit, Daft Punk, Daniel Portman, Electro, electrohouse, electronica, House, Justice, keegan ead, keegan orange, music, Remix, Royksopp, Studio, tutorial
Filed under Electrohouse, House, Remix / Re-edit, Studio Post Production
