Music turned into light, and fired at you

(Original Link - http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/article/890275--music-turned-into-light-and-fired-at-you)


When Richie Hawtin wanted to create synesthetic visuals triggered by the music he’s playing live as Plastikman, he turned to his old pals at Toronto software house Derivative.

Derivative’s TouchDesigner helped propel this year’s Plastikman tour to that mythical “next level” by providing an interface with the performance-friendly electronic-music software Ableton Live that allowed the component parts of Hawtin’s skeletal techno tracks to produce images that moved and changed shape in direct response to the sounds he’s generating onstage. In 3-D, no less.
Heaven only knows how one actually brings something like that to fruition, but TouchDesigner — which will respond to pretty much any input you desire, from sound to light to touch and beyond — is the relatively young outgrowth of designer Greg Hermanovic’s longtime desire to use computers to produce “interactive, real-time art.” He’d been dreaming of it since he put his first pixel up on a computer screen while working on a U.N. research ship in Africa during the ‘70s, came a little closer to realizing his dream doing special-effects software with successful local CGI-enabler Side Effects — whose Houdini product has since been used in more than 400 feature films — and has gotten as close as he’s yet come to his perfect vision of a worldwide, collaborative art-sharing platform that’s “self-perpetuating and a bit out of control in its own way” and that could be used as a universal education and research tool since launching TouchDesigner eight years ago.

TouchDesigner has made stunning “live” artworks possible everywhere from M.I.T. to the world’s largest yacht, but Hermanovic — whose software’s patch-and-collage aesthetic is inspired in part by his love of old modular synthesizers and their many dangling cables — has also become something of a go-to guy for electronic musicians looking for a visual component to their shows. Swayzak enlisted Derivative, for instance, to jazz up its recent DJ gig at 99 Sudbury, while when the Star spoke to Hermanovic this past Friday he was just returning from a little last-minute tweaking with DJ Shadow’s crew at the Phoenix.

Q: So was Hawtin running some custom stuff for those Plastikman live gigs?

A: It was, but everything that Rich is doing you can do with the free version that’s on our Web site. It’s custom because we added more stuff to it, but anybody could have done it. That’s the nice thing about TouchDesigner is anybody can use TouchDesigner to make anything they see other people making.

Q: In this case, Ableton Live was being used to generate the visuals, right?

A: He’s sending this stream of data into TouchDesigner, which is running live on another computer. So we’re just taking all this looping data and this controller data, and every song we have mapped differently to a visual. So TouchDesigner takes his inputs and for every song we know what the visual is going to be so we display it out on the LED screens. He’s kind of building music tracks as he goes and we’re working with him and a visual designer going ‘Okay, part of that sound goes with this visual element and this knob goes with that thing, and then when the song progresses it will increase the brightness of this and the size of that.’ So it’s Rich and us working side-by-side so you end up with a look and a theme for a song.

Q: Why design a tool for making interactive art?

A: I’m a big fan of experimental films — I’m a huge fan of Norman Mclaren — and I wanted to reproduce some of these experimental-film effects using software, so that’s why I got into computer graphics: so I could do special effects. I wanted to do what a musician does — perform live, tweak things — and do that visually, but I couldn’t do that with special-effects software. In the ’90s, you couldn’t do real-time computer graphics. Well, you could, but it was on computers that cost $200,000.

Q: What’s your ultimate goal for TouchDesigner? Having it react directly to electronic signals from people’s brains?

A: When I see researchers who are doing high-end chemistry research or something using a component made by a 10-year-old in his basement, not knowing where it came from, that’s when I’ll be aware that we’ve kind of closed the loop: when kids are making parts of bigger systems for high-end researchers or professionals. It’s gonna happen.

Music student does gig hours after rescuing teen in Colchester

(Original Link - http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/8677399.Music_student_does_gig_hours_after_rescuing_teen/?ref=rss)


A MUSIC student who rescued a girl from a burning house returned to college hours later to play his first gig.

Jamie Cunliffe, 21, of Magnolia Drive, Colchester, came to the aid of Naomi Hare, who was trapped as fire ripped through her home in James Wick Court, Balkerne Hill.

Naomi, 17, a student at Colchester Institute, was asleep when the blaze started in her sister’s bedroom.
She was woken by a smoke alarm but was unable to get down the stairs due to the smoke.

Jamie, who is studying music at the same Sheepen Road college, said: “I was walking back to my mate’s house and saw a girl at the window screaming and screaming.

“I went to kick the door in, but it turned out it was open.

“I got to the top floor, where I could hear her screaming. It was really scary and the smoke was so black, and it was so hot.

“She was having a panic attack and wouldn’t move, so I picked her up and carried her out.
“We got outside, but then there were small explosions coming from the house, so I picked her up again and carried her around the corner.”

Neighbours came to the pair’s aid.

Jamie and Naomi were treated by paramedics for smoke inhalation, before being taken to Colchester General Hospital for further treatment.

Jamie added: “I was treated at hospital, but wanted to leave because I was desperate to get to a gig.
“I’m in a band called the Elements, and that night was our first gig.

“I'm the frontman in the band, and we have been practising really hard – I couldn’t not go to it.”

Naomi’s mum, Annette Kelly, phoned Jamie to thank him for saving her daughter’s life.

Fire crews, who are investigating the cause of the fire, which started on Tuesday at about 1.25pm, also praised Jamie for rescuing the girl.

He added: “People have been saying I’m a hero, but I’m not looking for praise. It was just a natural reaction. I couldn’t just stand there and watch.”

Fears for future of school music lessons

(Original Link - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11796636)

School music lessons could be hit as local councils make savings and school budgets are redrawn, it is feared.

One in five music services, which support schools, expect councils will completely axe their grants and half fear cuts of up to 50%, a survey suggests.
The Federation of Music Services warned that some services which help provide subsidised lessons could collapse.

The government said all pupils should be able to learn an instrument or sing.
It has commissioned a review of music provision in schools, being carried out by Classic FM head Darren Henley, but this is not due to report until January.

However, local authorities in England which face cuts of about a third, get their funding allocations in early December.

It is clear from the federation's survey of 158 music services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, that many are already planning cuts with some preparing to axe the funding completely.

Local authorities provide just one strand of funding for school music services, with the rest coming from central government grants and parental contributions.

But the expected cuts come as schools face a huge shake-up of their budgets. A number of schemes dedicated to supporting school music face cuts or being channelled into a general schools budget for redistribution.

The Department for Education later said it had not yet taken a decision on the main £82.5m Music Standards Grant and would not do so until the Henley review had reported.
But it would not guarantee that the money would be ring-fenced within schools.

'Steep decline'
 
Federation of Music Services (FMS) chief executive Virginia Haworth-Galt said: "We recognise the pressure many local authorities are under but would urge them to them to hold back their plans until we know the results of the Henley Review.

"Music and our children's education are too important to be jettisoned like this particularly when we know that 91% of the public back music education in schools."

She added that the FMS would be very disappointed if the music grant went directly into schools' budgets without any ring-fencing for music education.

"This situation occurred in the early 1990s with disastrous results; music went into a steep decline as the monies were spent elsewhere in schools. This is a music lesson that should not be repeated," she added.

Conductor of the Bedforshire Youth Orchestra Michael Rose says music services in his area, Central Bedfordshire, are set to have budgets and teaching staff cut to zero.

He said as music services were non-statutory they were particularly vulnerable in the present climate of cuts.

He said: "If funding is lost in this way music lessons will become the sole preserve of the middle classes."

He added: "Instrumental teaching in the county's schools is provided by a central staff of highly qualified instrumental teachers. It has resulted in literally many thousands of children having the experience of learning an instrument."

Schools minister Nick Gibb said too many children in state schools were denied the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument.

This was why he had launched a major review of how music is taught and enjoyed in schools to help make sure all pupils get an opportunity to learn to play an instrument and to sing.

Its recommendations would determine how future funding could be best used in the future, he added.
'Shocking'

  "Evidence tells us that learning an instrument can improve young people's numeracy and literacy skills and their behaviour.

"It is also simply unfair that the pleasure of musical discovery should be the preserve of those whose parents can afford it."

"As part of that review recommendations will be made to determine how future funding can best be used," he said.

He added that decisions on central funding for music would not be made until after the review had reported.

General secretary of the National Union of Teachers Christine Blower said the cuts to music in schools were even more shocking in light of Michael Gove's announcement that he would be holding a review into music education in schools, claiming that it was a "sad fact" that too few state school children learnt an instrument.

She added: "Music in schools makes a contribution way beyond the straightforward exercise of learning an instrument.

"Children and young people can experience coming together in a creative environment which benefits them in other aspects of their school life."

Recording Pioneers - Stories from History

Knows your roots!? I came across a great website detailing a lot of the finest stories from the greatest pioneers in recording sound!

http://www.recordingpioneers.com/index.html

A good history lesson is due!!!

Peace!

FroBot

Ancient trumpets played eerie notes

(Original Link - http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/65784/title/Ancient_trumpets_played_eerie_notes#sounds)

Scientists analyze tunes from 3,000-year-old conch-shell instruments for insight into pre-Inca civilization.

Listen to shell music.

Now you can hear a marine-inspired melody from before the time of the Little Mermaid’s hot crustacean band. Acoustic scientists put their lips to ancient conch shells to figure out how humans used these trumpets 3,000 years ago. The well-preserved, ornately decorated shells found at a pre-Inca religious site in Peru offered researchers a rare opportunity to jam on primeval instruments.

The music, powerfully haunting and droning, could have been used in religious ceremonies, the scientists say. The team reported their analysis November 17 at the Second Pan-American/Iberian Meeting on Acoustics in Cancun, Mexico.

“You can really feel it in your chest,” says Jonathan Abel, an acoustician at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. “It has a rough texture like a tonal animal roar.”

Archaeologists had unearthed 20 complete Strombus galeatus marine shell trumpets in 2001 at Chavín de Huántar, an ancient ceremonial center in the Andes. Polished, painted and etched with symbols, the shells had well-formed mouthpieces and distinct V-shaped cuts. The cuts may have been used as a rest for the player’s thumb, says study coauthor Perry Cook, a computer scientist at Princeton University and avid shell musician, or to allow the player to see over the instrument while walking.
To record the tunes and understand the acoustic context in which the instruments, called pututus, were played, the researchers traveled to Chavín.

 As an expert shell musician blew into the horn, researchers recorded the sound’s path via four tiny microphones placed inside the player’s mouth, the shell’s mouthpiece, the shell’s main body and at the shell’s large opening, or bell. Similar to a bugle, the instruments only sound one or two tones, but like a French horn, the pitch changes when the player plunges his hand into the bell.

The team used signal-processing software to characterize the acoustic properties of each trumpet. Following the sound’s path made it possible to reconstruct the ancient shell’s interior, a feat that normally involves sawing the shell apart or zapping it with X-rays.

The researchers also wanted to know how the site’s ceremonial chamber, a stone labyrinth with sharply twisting corridors and ventilation shafts, changed the trumpet’s sound. To find out, the team arranged six microphones around the musician and reconstructed the sound patterns on a computer.
If the trumpets were played inside the stone chamber in which they were found, the drone would have sounded like it was coming from several different directions at once. In the dimly lit religious center, that could have created a sense of confusion, Abel says.

“Were they used to scare people while they were there?” asks Abel. “There are still a lot of things left open.”

Turns out, such questions about how sounds affect people and their behavior, an area called psychoacoustics, can be tested. It's a field of active research, and not just for ancient civilizations: Another group at Stanford is now studying how a room’s acoustics affects human behavior. In one recent experiment, researchers separated test subjects into different acoustic environments to do a simple task — ladling water from one bucket to another in a dimly lit room.
“What your ear can actually hear plays into how you would behave, or the psychological experience in the situation,” says Abel.



SHELL CACOPHONY

A group of conch-shell instruments made by a pre-Inca civilization sound similar to a kid learning to play the trumpet.Click here to listen.

ANCIENT TONE
A musician plays the fundamental frequency and the first overtone of a 3,000-year-old shell trumpet unearthed in Peru.Click here to listen.

What is Talent?

(Original Link - http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/11/what-is-talent/66684/)

Thanks to Edward Tenner for alerting us to a new WSJ piece by Terry Teachout that attacks Anders Ericsson's so-called "10,000-hour rule." Teachout summarizes the Ericsson rule in the following way:

"To become successful at anything, you must spend 10 years working at it for 20 hours each week. Do so, however, and success is all but inevitable."

A superb straw man. So simple to understand, so easy to knock down. But think about it for a moment: Would anyone with half a brain actually argue that a simple *amount* of practice time could *guarantee* success? Of course not, and that's not even remotely what Anders Ericsson does. 

The real Anders Ericsson is one of the leaders of a fascinating new academic field called "expertise studies" which carefully deconstructs the longstanding notion of innate talent by looking for hidden components that might actually help to explain success.

This is what science does. It seeks to understand how things actually work rather than settle for mysterious formulations like "gifted," "natural-born," and "genius."  

Teachout also writes that "The problem with the 10,000-hour rule is that many of its most ardent proponents are political ideologues who see the existence of genius as an affront to their vision of human equality, and will do anything to explain it away."

I honestly do not know which proponents Teachout is referring to. The writers that I'm most familiar with on the subject of understanding talent and success -- Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Coyle, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, Geoff Colvin, Carol Dweck -- are all actually trying to understand what goes into talent and success. 

He might be referring to the title of my book, The Genius in All of Us, which some non-readers have misinterpreted as a blank-slate argument of pure egalitarianism. But, again, that's a straw man. No one here is arguing that we're all equal or equally capable of the exact same achievements. We all have differences, and are therefore assured of becoming different people.

When it comes to the question of individual potential, though, it's important to avoid what neuroscientist and musicologist Daniel J. Levitin calls "the circular logic of talent." "When we say that someone is talented," he says, "we think we mean that they have some innate predisposition to excel, but in the end, we only apply the term retrospectively, after they have made significant achievements."

So what is "talent"? Is it some magic or genetic stuff that gives some of us a springboard to success? The closer we look at the building blocks of success, the more we understand that talent is not a thing; rather, it is the process itself. 

Part of this new understanding requires a new insight into genetics that helps us get past the myth of genetic-giftedness. Genes influence our traits, but in a dynamic way. They do not directly determine our traits. In fact, it turns out that while it is correct to say that "genes influence us," it's just as correct to say that "we influence our genes."

Everything about our lives is a process, and we are indebted to Anders Ericsson and others for helping us to obtain a richer understanding of that process. 

It's interesting that Teachout pounds so hard on (nameless) obstinate ideologues who refuse to open their minds to evidence. Blind ideology is exactly what I'm seeing in his confident (and factless) assertion that Wolfgang Mozart's success as a composer (as opposed to his sister Nannerl's lack-of-success) is simply due to this: "He had something to say and she didn't. Or, to put it even more bluntly, he was a genius and she wasn't." Twenty minutes of reading about their early lives and the cultural context provides a much richer understanding than that. Why rush to enshrine a myth when we have so many rich facts and observations to help us come closer to a true understanding?

Teachout also writes that any suggestion of genius as a process "fails to account for the impenetrable mystery that enshrouds such birds of paradise as Bobby Fischer, who started playing chess at the age of 6. Nine years later, he became the U.S. chess champion." Again, why leap to "impenetrable mystery" when we can actually understand these things better? There are some terrific books out there now that help us closely examine talent and success. Why is Teachout trying to convince us not to examine the evidence and not to think about these things more deeply?

In his 1878 book Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (Human, All-Too-Human), Friedrich Nietzsche described greatness as being steeped in a process, and of great artists being tireless participants in that process:

 

"Artists have a vested interest in our believing in the flash of revelation, the so-called inspiration . . . [shining] down from heavens as a ray of grace. In reality, the imagination of the good artist or thinker produces continuously good, mediocre, and bad things, but his judgment, trained and sharpened to a fine point, rejects, selects, connects . . . All great artists and thinkers [are] great workers, indefatigable not only in inventing, but also in rejecting, sifting, transforming, ordering."

As a vivid illustration, Nietzsche cited Beethoven's sketchbooks, which reveal the composer's slow, painstaking process of testing and tinkering with melody fragments like a chemist constantly pouring different concoctions into an assortment of beakers. Beethoven would sometimes run through as many as sixty or seventy different drafts of a phrase before settling on the final one. "I make many changes, and reject and try again, until I am satisfied," the composer once remarked to a friend. "Only then do I begin the working-out in breadth, length, height and depth in my head."

Alas, neither Nietzsche's nuanced articulation nor Beethoven's candid admission caught on with the general public. Instead, the simpler and more alluring idea of "giftedness" and "genius" prevailed and has since been carelessly and breathlessly reinforced by ideologues. But we can do better. We have the tools and the evidence now to go beyond "genius," beyond "gifted," beyond "innate," and beyond "impenetrable." 

Who knows, maybe someday we can even catch up to Nietzsche.

My 2010 Lessons for DJing - Less is More - by FroBot

Well...2010 will be finished here in about a month or so...and I have stopped DJing for the rest of the year. I have many things going on in my life like a video / audio company I am starting in Hawaii, and a vacation back to America. So I wanted to write a small piece about my biggest lesson of 2010 when it comes to DJing.

Now, before I go too far, I know tons of you avid ableton DJs are gonna rip me apart for this blog. Remember, this is an opinion, and doesnt necessarily mean its the best opinion...but its MY opinion.

Ok...so my biggest lesson of 2010 is "LESS IS MORE". This can be applicable in many ways...lets start with the most simple way...and I will build up from least important to the most important.

5. Less is more when it comes to your tracks content. I have noticed this year, that the tracks (in house and tech house) that have nice simple bass lines, nice steady swinging beats, and profound but simple lyrics, are ALWAYS getting the BEST response on the dance floor. Maybe its because the normal dance goer is not as musically inclined as the artist performing it, maybe its because from a technical stand point there is more room for certain frequencies to stand out and punch. But, what I THINK it is, is that producers, now in the days of digital releases, are looking to gain smash, and make their track the LOUDEST they possibly can. By making more simple grooves, this creates more room for compression, and ultimately more room for the final output level...letting you make a LOUDER track. I have noticed that most people dont notice all the great effects and envelope automation that I do...but rather, HOW LOUD the track is. The producers that can make these SUPER LOUD tracks, always seem to sound better than the LESS LOUD track that was on right before it. When the track is more simple, you can raise the overall levels pretty high (above industry standards and distorting )...and that in turn makes the BASS sound more bassy, and the kicks thump your chest more. This ultimately has the greatest effect on the crowd, rather than complex rhythms and melodies that make controlling the distortion over 0db rather difficult. So, when I get a new track, and toss it into ableton, I always check how loud it is compared to the other tracks. Even though I could control how loud the track is using the tracks individual gain...this is not CONTROLLED distortion as producers have done. They have spent countless hours raising the gain, and using mastering techniques to clean up the distortion....using their ears to decide HOW distorted it is. When you can keep the track at is normally produced level...yet its LOUDER...that is when you get a thumping track in the club. Even when I listen to a track at home on professional studio monitors, and as a producer, can hear the compression and distortion (especially in the crash cymbals), it never seems to be noticeable in the club...and definitely not noticeable to the dancers. So....back to simple, thumping, loud tracks! I know a from a purist stand point, its WRONG...but in the club...all that matters is making the peoples feet and bodies groove harder.

4. Less is more in terms of the amount of remixing you do. Again, I know tons of you DJs will disagree...but this is what I think. There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between scratch DJs and House DJs. In house...people want to hear tracks for a little longer so they can really groove on a track. This is not hip-hop, where you are playing vocally charged tracks that people know because they are remixes of TOP40 tracks. These are groovy, rhythmic tracks that people move to because of their dynamics and flow. Funky to the core. Remixing is a nice technique to do as a DJ, but use it sparingly. One reason is, most of the time, if you are a thoughtful, "searching for tracks" kinds of DJ...chances are...99% of the people at the club have never HEARD the song you are playing in the first place. So remixing it doesnt do much good because they dont know what it sounded like originally. It kind of defeats the point of live remixing unless they can realize you are remixing it. And another thing... What makes you think you can remix it BETTER than the original artist anyway. That artist spent COUNTLESS hours making their track, thinking about every little detail of how they wanted the track to sound. If you are remixing it live, you are only changing it to sound the way YOU wanted it to sound...not how the artist originally intended. By adding an accapella or something over it...you are now making the track into what YOU think is good, and not what THEY thought was good....and to be quite frank....99% of the time, the artist had it RIGHT in the first place....the DJ only ruined it. From a production stand point (which I will get into in my most important lesson)...and from a TASTE stand point. Usually, the reason we DJs remix a track is because we have heard the original so many times, that remixing it makes it sound FRESH to us. But FRESH does not mean BETTER. As DJs, we listen to TONS of songs. This creates a vicious "ADD style" chain reaction. The more tracks we listen to, the more we want to hear fresh new tracks. This makes us get sick of certain tracks more quickly...the more and more we listen to music. So, what do we do when we really like a track, but have heard it too many times...remix it. But again, this doesnt make it BETTER...it only makes it DIFFERENT. In the future, I will only use remixing techniques if I absolutely feel it enhances the track, neurally connects to the audience, and is worth the effort. I wont do it for the mere fact of remixing it.

3. Less is more in terms of the amount of effects I use. To be quite frank...its OVERDONE. All these filters, delays, flangers...blah blah blah...its old! Some DJs do it ALL THE TIME. It sounds fucking horrible. First off, your ruining the dynamics of the track by doing it. Since music notes have fundamental frequencies and harmonics...removing certain ones with bandpass filters ruins other parts of spectrum that your arent filtering. Low pass and high pass are SIMPLY overdone. They can be used NICELY...HERE AND THERE...on build ups...or artistically where beats are becoming stagnant. But, in the future I will do less. If you are an ableton DJ...you have INFINITE amount of OTHER ideas you can do to make an interesting mix using clip envelopes, and more thought out mixes....rather than just turning some bullshit knob for the mere fact that you are BORED. As a house DJ...its OK to rock out a tune...and ENJOY IT...listen to it in the way it was intended.

2. Less is more! Im going back to the basics. To me, the art of mixing is just that - MIXING! Focusing on the seams between tracks and making them SEAMLESS! That is what I want to do in my next year, and what I have been focusing on. So many DJs are up there turning tons of knobs, doing all these crazy DJ effects...but when it comes time to switch between one track and the next...its a horrible...noticeable change! Instead of going nuts on your gear...how about using your time up there to more thoughtfully think about your next track...or even better yet...when you practice at home...remember what works and what doesnt. Its ok to pre-plan a little bit, as long as you are able to change depending on the crowd. But, DJing is about making nice seamless transitions between ONE track and the next! With ableton live, you have no EXCUSE for bad mix points besides your own negligence to prepare, or ability to hear what goes with what. With tools liked mixed in key (for only 40 dollars), and abletons ability to warp and match timing of tracks...there is really NO EXCUSE. Sometimes, DJs seem to feel like if they are standing up there not doing anything...they are doing something wrong. But, your HANDS dont have to be doing anything...how about instead...your BRAIN! Ultimately, its what makes the people enjoy the music and dance...that is what matters. And for the most part...they dont know what your are doing anyway...but they WILL notice when you change between 2 tracks drastically. So, make those mix points seamless, and spend more time thinking about HOW to make them seamless using envelope automation or skills. And dont worry about those people looking your screen...or that club owner who knows a thing or 2 from past DJs to judge whether you are doing A LOT or too little. THEY DONT MATTER. What matters, is good, thumping beats coming out of the speakers...and not what that 1% of other DJs that happen to be in the club THINK about the complexity of mixing. They are most likely just jealous anyway thinking "why is it that this DJing is doing so much less than I do...is so much less talented than I am, but the people are grooving like its no tomorrow". Fuck em, because ultimetely...you are the smarter DJ...and not the one just showing off the capabilities of your computer and software.

1. Ok...now the the most important reason why LESS is MORE! Ok...start the hate speech..."FroBot...your an idiot...you are wrong...etc etc). Alright...here it is. Ok...so since the release to the APC40 and novation launchpad...I have seen a drastic excess of ableton DJs. I, just like them, when I got my launchpad and VCM-600, loved the fact that I could download shitloads of loop samples...play them all together....improv a set...and make a NEW track that no one has ever heard on the fly. It is cool, and really works neurally with the need to HEAR new sounds constantly. Its almost like a disease we computer DJs have. After realizing the capabilities of your software...you seem to want to exploit them by running 12 tracks at the same time...individual HH and kick samples...etc etc. It is really cool...and for a LIVE style performance...where you are playing with BANDS and improv musicians...it is truly great. I definitely enjoy it more than DJing, because I have more control over unique sounds, and it really fuels my creativity. But...DJing is not about this. Its about providing a thumping beat that is rhythmically stable and full of nice changes, build ups, and thought out construction. The Key here is - IMPROV ABLETON AUDIO IS NOT MASTERED AUDIO!!!!!!
This is key to remember here. There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between a song made by a producer that has been compressed, balanced, and made to perfection - and running multiple audio tracks together, improv style. Mastering is a KEY element of making a dance track...and real producers know this. There are so many important elements that go into getting the THUMP out of your kick, the WARMTH out of our bass, and the frequency separation of all your elements. Steps involving compression, harmonic balancing, EQing, overall reverb, harmonic exciters...all very precise configurations depending on the frequencies being used. When you are playing with multiple samples, especially in improv style...you are taking this element out of the track making process...leaving...what producers consider...a track before the the mastering stage...or even worse...the mixing stage. Each sample that you play, is using certain frequencies in the spectrum. In order for things to sound right and powerful, is important to make way for each sound to stand out clearly...which means TIGHT EQing. Using notch filters to remove certain elements is CRUCIAL in making a thumping dance track. Especially in your kick and bass...most producers use sidechaining when producing to make sure that the kick and bass have nice equal room to stand out and shine...and that their high hats have nice placement, ALONE...to stand out. In an even more juvenile concept...how about even the KEY of the god damn sample. Tons of people arent even checking the keys of their samples...having a kick at say D, and bass at C. It just sounds terrible!!!! Without an understanding of your parametric EQ, spectrum analyzer, and the concept of detuning your samples...your cant even start to improv using your launchpad other midi controller. The overall result is a LESS powerful sounding set...and obviously sounds different to the DJs before and after you who are using vinyl, CDJs, or even a computer doing less complex mixing. I didnt even get into how HARD it is to do all this mixing correctly in the first place...and many of the people I see doing this style of DJing are NEW to DJing...and they can run 6-12 tracks at the same time without fucking up? That is a whole other point in itself. NOW I understand why many producers still DJ on CDJs...but are really good at understanding ableton. Because in the end...all that shit doesnt matter...its about a good, rocking beat. Even if you are just adding a few samples on top of an already mastered track... doing that...you are RUINING the final mastered sound of the track. When you add frequencies to a mix...it not only puts new frequencies in...but can change correlating harmonics of other sounds. Just look at your spectrum EQ...sit down with a professional...and prepare to cover yourself from the vomit that is certain to be in your lap.

Now, some of you proficient with ableton live know some workarounds for this. Some I have heard is using Ozone, and analog warmers...etc etc. Yes, these are all good ideas, and can help to clean up your sound...but none of them can even compare the the results of a nicely mastered track. There is a video where deadmau5 showed how he gets the final sound from his improv style sets. Here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTCqeWu094I It takes TONS of processing, and extreme knowledge of digital music before you can actually produce a live set in improv form that stands up to real mastered tracks. The fact that he already has a good background in music and digital production, also helps with this. He really isnt improvising...he knows what his sounds are doing, and mixes them QUICKLY....but is still thinking about the placement of certain frequencies. This is not the same as loading up a bunch of samples and playing them all at the same time. Save that for JAM SESSIONS, or LIVE EVENT gigs, where other artists at the event are ALSO using un-mastered audio samples...or live instruments. When playing these kinds of events, your final output sound is not intended to be CLUB THUMPING, but rather an artistic musical creation where value is placed on the art and not the power of the sound. I have YET to see a local ableton DJ that plays in this improv style in the clubs...even come close to getting the sounds of a mastered track. In the end, you are left with weaker dynamics, lower volume, and ultimately have to push the gain on the clubs mixer. That is the only option you are left with...but still will not compete.

1.2 - Oh...and less is more for one other very important reason! You can get DRUNK! When you are at the club...you wanna have a good time too! Dont forget to enjoy yourself...but sometimes, you dont have much of a choice. By keeping your setup simple...all the tequila shots and free beer wont affect your perfomance much even if you have a 4am set. Since its less complex, you should be able to it, blurry eyed and all!

Well, that concludes my "Lessons for DJing in 2010" rant. Please take it with a grain of salt. I am in no way condoning a lazy set...but I AM saying to THINK more than you DO. Use your brain a little more, hit the audio books and learn a little more, and watch your crowd carefully. Give them something to groove on, and realize you dont have to USE everything JUST because you have it. Do what sounds right, and not what sounds complex. The girls will thank you with a few extra hip swings and the guys with a few more "heads down" "in the groove" dance moves.

Peace!

FroBot