Day 163: Make your own sequencer!

Yeah, gnarly huh... who needs to buy hardware or software sequencers when you can... uh make your own!

Nice looking piece of kit, god knows how you might use it though.

Well I pose you could read the full article here and find out...

2/365

p&&l

bang!

Day 162: Whoops...

Almost forgot to blog today...

So here is a picture of a goat:

Sorry, here is a pic
2/365

p&&l

bang!

Day 161: Crooked musicians bulk buy own tunes for chart success!

Nope, not Beyonce's management team, no no no... not Snow Patrols PR guys. Yes we know they've all been at it for some time, but now some industrious bunch of crooked London DJs have decided to have a pop.

It seems that the said gang of industrious DJs (anyone know exactly who?) got their grubby hands on some stolen/forged credit cards. They then got their tunes distributed on to iTunes, and Amazon via Tunecore (more on tunecore tomorrow).

Now with their tunes available to the masses, they decided to mass purchase their own tunes, forcing them up the charts, and earning them subsequent genuine purchased a long the way. Developing a name for themselves at the same time.

Sound familiar? Yes of course, cos that's exactly how the music business has been run for years. The only exception this time was that it was paid for on money that wasn't theirs.

You might argue that considering recent economic events, that was also true of the Major labels also...

Full story here.

2/365

p&&l

bang!

Day 160: Get organised

As all real men will know, especially those that have read High Fidelity, there is deep importance to having your music collection properly sorted.

In this digital age it is especially important. The lack of physical media means that keeping tabs on where things are can just get damn confusing.

On the plus side, it also makes it much easier to sort, arrange and control. Especially thanks to the efforts of the keen enthusiast come software maker.

Again this is another article lift, so credit where it's due. DJtechtools came up with this great article that reviews both how, and with what (free) software to organise your music. This is something that I have been thinking about for a while, as my collection grows. So these solutions couldn't come sooner.

Full article here.

2/365

p&&l

bang!

Day 159: Browser based music sequencer.

If you are looking for more opportunities to kill time at work, yet not just slack off on Tetris or something else equally unproductive, then this is for you!

An in-line music sequence, it's totally addictive and make you feel like you are being creative and making tunes. I wont go in to how it works so much, as it's the discovery that is part of the fun.

Get on it, and kiss the afternoon goodbye. (Obviously requires sound).

http://www.fivexperience.com/pulse.php

2/365

p&&l

bang!

Day 158: All the Ableton shortcuts you'll ever need.

Ok peeps, this dropped in to my RSS feed reader, and was such a nifty post I'm not even going to attempt to re-write it and claim it as my own (honestly, I almost NEVER do that).

Ableton Forum user autogen compiled this list of shortcuts and tips for Ableton Live users.

Live shortcuts & alternative controls for certain functions. PC users substitute ‘COMMAND’ with ‘ALT’ and ‘ALT’ with ‘CTRL’. (BTDJ NOTE: Surely COMMAND = CTRL, ALT=ALT?)

1. Duplicate = COMMAND+D.
2. Disable Grid = COMMAND+4 (or hold COMMAND whilst selecting note or note start/end).
3. Select Looped = COMMAND+SHIFT+L.
4. Resize/Move Loop braces = cursor keys or COMMAND+cursor keys.
5. In arrange view loop selected = COMMAND+L.
6. In arrange view consolidate multiple selected clips = COMMAND+J.
7. Playback from current position = SHIFT+SPACEBAR.
8. Trigger selected clip slot = RETURN.
9. Switch Clip/Track view = SHIFT+TAB.
10. Move clip from session to arrange & vica versa = Click and hold on clip then press TAB.
11. Stop focus moving when triggering clips (all clips) = In prefs > Record/Warp/Launch > Select on Launch > select ‘off’.
12. Stop focus moving when triggering clips (selected clips) = CTRL+Click desired clip > select ‘Select on Launch (Pref)’.
13. Preferences = COMMAND+,.
14. Adjust all track widths = hold ALT while adjusting.
15. Record Enable Track = F9.
16. Slower response while changing track levels = Hold COMMAND while moving fader.
17. Show hide plugin windows = COMMAND+ALT+P.
18. Stop browser preview = ESC.
19. In browser alternate navigation/previewing = left & right cursor keys.
20. Zoom to loop = Click on the word “length”.
21. Zoom to position = Click on the word “position”.
22. Zoom out 100% = Double click the bottom clip overview tab.
23. Zoom to specific portion = Use start and end of bottom clip overview like loop braces.
24. Alternate scrolling in MIDI clips = COMMAND+ALT+Drag.
25. Show/Hide overview in session view = COMMAND+ALT+O.
26. Show/Hide Info View = SHIFT+/.
27. Mute/Unmute tracks 1-8 = F1-F8.
28. Time compress/expand MIDI notes = right-click with all notes selected then select ’stretch notes’.
29. Insert silence in arrange view/scene in session view = COMMAND+I.
30. Drag multiple files to individual tracks = Hold COMMAND whilst dragging files in.
31. Unfold all arrange tracks = ALT+Click a track arrow icon.
32. Alternative velocity control in MIDI editor = COMMAND+Click note+drag.
33. Duplicate note in MIDI editor = ALT+Click note+drag.
34. Render tracks as individual files = In render dialog change “Master” to “All Tracks”.
35. Assign twice as many qwerty keys to live = SHIFT.
36. Restrict automation point movement to vertical axis = COMMAND+Drag.
37. Scroll drum racks 1 row at a time = COMMAND+Drag.
38. View multiple plugin windows = In prefs > Look/Feel > Auto-Hide Plugin Windows > select ‘off’.
39. Edit info text for tracks and devices to make notes = CTRL+Click > select ‘Edit Info Text’.
40. Create note with draw mode off = Double Click.
41. Remove stop buttons to avoid clips stopping when changing scenes = Select clip slot > COMMAND+E (or enable ‘Legato’ launch mode).

General Tips

• Hidden buttons visible when in midi or key assign mode = scene up/down (in master track).
• per track play button - launches selected clip in track.
• Entering bpm in the scene launch buttons title sets bpm when launched.
• Click the headphone icon in midi editor to enable vertical keyboard to preview related sound.
• While MIDI synced to external machine hosting Live ALT+SPACEBAR on the sync slave causes it to sync to the masters current song position. (remedy for sync drifting without stopping and starting).
• Remember to experiment with the default live rack presets especially the DJ/Performance ones.
• GIGA libraries can be exported to Sampler then deleted (if required), as all samples are copied to the library.
• Mac users check out a free app called Soundsource. It adds an audio prefs selector to the menu-bar.
• OSX Function keys = ALT+F1/F2 opens Display Prefs, ALT+F3/F4/F5 opens Sound Prefs, ALT+F8/F9/F10 opens Keyboard & Mouse Prefs.
• When a new version of Live is released. Open Info Window (SHIFT+/) and hover any new parameters, fields or preferences.
• Multiple tracks can be selected and frozen simultaneously.
• Drag and drop tracks directly from iTunes for DJing.
• Dragging a sample onto a plugin instrument will replace the instrument with an instance of Simpler containing that sample.

2/365

p&&l

bang!

Day 157: Beach Bums

After a pretty heavy few weeks at BTDJ towers, it's be nice to have a relatively chilled weekend. As you know I managed to start work on some new tunes, and a nice trip out to the beach today has gone a long way to recharge the batteries. Even if as a side effect it's made me not want to go to work tomorrow.

Summer you evil bastard, you roll around all unannounced, then blam, people are at the beach, taking some beers on the promenade, live music in the streets and a different Feria (Fair) every weekend. Talk about way to wind up the office workers. So much fun stuff, so much food to be had, so much beer and wine to be drunk, it just cant possibly done whilst holding down a full time job.

Who wants to work all those hours if you don't have any time to enjoy it, the weekends are so short, you need a few cheeky days off in the week.

Weekends are too sparse, and free time in the week is just a distant dream.

Maybe I can make a living selling cold beers and coconut on the beach, not a bad life that surely.

2/365

p&&l

bang!