SHR5E014C~002- GIL23086109

At the start of this project I was deciding what kind of music I wanted to create and what electronic musical equipment I was going to use to get there. However I have always been curious about Ableton live’s session view as it has never been something I use regularly, I always tend to stick with the arrangement view. I have watched other artists and producers use this view and it can have great potential, so why could I not do something similar for this project. At home I already had a Launchpad mini and also an Akai APC key 25 which both can pair well for session view and creating music on the fly with Ableton. I felt like this project could be a gateway into an uncharted musical territory for me as playing my music live has always been something I wasn’t too sure how to execute well, as DJ’ing has never worked out too well for me, but building up the components of a track from the ground up and arranging and modulating the sound live is not only a lot of fun, but could be an excellent way to perform my own original music to an audience. There is a video of Skrillex performing with just his mac laptop and an m-audio trigger finger. I always thought that this performance was excellent and the way he was able to get the crowd moving with very little equipment, so why could I not do something similar.  

Firstly, I was getting to grips with using session view. I had a fair amount of knowledge on this view already but after watching multiple videos on how to use it effectively to play and arrange music live and having a few test runs I felt much more confident. For this assignment I created a main base of components that I could trigger and modulate with the AKAI and Launchpad through Ableton, such as a few different drum patterns with a kick, snare, hi-hat and a clap i also have a percussion loop, two main basses, an arpeggiato, some vocal chops and a few other FX. I had ran into a slight problem with my AKAI as it only has 8 mappable knobs, and so i had to be strict with what i wanted to modulate, i mainly used the knobs for frequency and resonance automation on the two main basses and the arpeggiator. I had also mapped the drum racks’ reverb and delay sends to two of the knobs which allowed for me to build great suspense and tension before I wanted to do a big drop or to indicate a change in the track. 

I decided to do multiple takes of the track in a couple different locations which was a lot of fun to do and my housemate Callum helped to film and document the process as well as giving me some great input. The first take i did was in my living room with my laptop plugged into the hifi system we have setup, this initial run was a great learning curve and i ended up recording about a 30 minute long set, this run through helped me to better understand timings as well as what other components i could incorporate to give the track some more life. It was during this session I added a couple of different midi’s that I could trigger for the main basse synths, this allowed the track to have more variation and better buildups and drops. The launchpad is what I used for programming in my drums for the track as well as triggering a few other effects which is where I will normally start with most tracks I produce. The launchpad mini buttons are a little small and can be rather tedious, sometimes triggering repetitively even if your finger slightly moves, which was making it difficult to do a smooth run through of the whole track, this is where i came to the conclusion of playing in the drum midi and then fixing all of the timings with the quantize feature and deleting any misclicked note so then this loop can be easily used and triggered for other run throughs. 

The next location I recorded in was the field nearby. I thought doing the tune live outside as well as filming it all would be great for a new creative workflow and to generate some new ideas, as well, it would be interesting to compose music in a widely different space to the previous. The takes of the track that I got outside were great and you could hear how the song had evolved sonically since the early stages of composing it in the living room. Playing the track outside gave me a little bit of pressure also as there were dog walkers and other people walking around the field as we filmed this, but knowing I had somewhat of an audience that could hear what I was playing out live made me really want to make something interesting and fun to listen to. Whilst performing and recording the track outside was great it did bring a sense of unpredictability to the project, such as quality of the video recording or dogs and pets  coming a little too close to the setup, showing why all recording locations can have pros and cons.   

This new approach to making music was excellent for my workflow, the clip based triggering with the AKAI and Launchpad created a new dynamic for me which was being able to quickly think of what’s going to come next and what parts of the song im going to bring in or out as well as all of the effect modulation. At the start of this project this way of working seemed quite daunting but once you get into the groove of the song you’re working on it becomes second nature and you start to learn which instruments and loops work well together and how you can make the track more exciting. The use of the real time automation with the knobs on the AKAI also help to bring a natural human sense to the track, with the automation sometimes not being perfectly accurate or exactly on grid with the rest of the song, as in arrangement or timeline view when working it can sound quite robotic as you are drawing and writing everything in to a fixed grid most of the time, everything can sound a little too on beat and synced. This factor means that if I were to use this setup or one similar in the future for a live performance,the tracks I am performing will never sound the same twice, giving the audience a track they may recognise but the arrangement and effects automation will be different each set.

Moving forward I feel as if session view will become a big part of my new music and creative workflow, as improvisation especially in music can help to create some amazing new sounds and feelings within a song. Whilst working on a few other of my own personal tracks whilst having this project in mind i was thinking about which i would be able to perform these tracks live and what instruments and sounds i would have automated. This new approach has definitely set me up for future musical endeavors such as live performances. I feel much more confident with playing tracks live, even with this project I was composing and launching clips on the fly in front of my friends, but this gave me some kind of an audience that I need to perform and make a quality sounding track for. I have also been looking at some new equipments that would help elevate this new improvised style even more, i came across the AKAI professional APC40 MK2 which is basically purpose built for launching clips in Ableton’s sessions view, this device also comes with individual faders for each channel which after the multiple run throughs i have had with this project, faders would definitely make a big impact to have especially for drops and buildups within a track. Another device i found is the AKAI professional APC 64 which is a little more expensive however seems like it could be a lot of fun to work with especially with the touch reactive sliders which could make for some great automation and pitch bends within a track that i would not be able to get with my current setup. Both of these devices are still quite small and portable making them easy to move around and set up for live shows. 

For the final video of my performance I took my personal favorite take of the track and overlaid a variety of clips that I got from throughout the project process. Starting in the living room and ending out on the field I feel the video helps to escalate the feeling that I had of becoming more confident with what I was playing out in front of everyone. Playing in the living room gave a very intimate and studio-like feel to the recording which was great for testing out ideas that I had as well as stopping the track  and changing whatever I wanted to change within the track with no repercussions. Recording outside was great to test the portability of the setup as well as giving a completely new feeling to laying to track, as i was playing through a speaker it meant people nearby on the field were ankle to hear me, and so i wanted to play the best i could, this is where i got the best takes of the track. Seeing the ease at which this setup can be moved around to wherever makes it great for live performance as it is all able to fit into my backpack and stay very light. Creating and editing the video have shown me ways i may be able to upload my tracks to youtube or other sites for an audience to hear and watch what i am doing, i feel with modern music marketing the visuals can sometimes be more important to the viewer than the actual audio, as if you can catch their attention quickly with a quality visual that they will stick around and actually listen to what you are showing to them. This approach definitely raises some questions surrounding authenticity in digital performance and music marketing, as the visual representation of performing live is partially made through editing. However, the video effectively communicates the use of MIDI controllers, with clip triggering and real-time automation interaction reinforcing the role of the person performing. The video was all shot on an iphone and then edited through capcut on my laptop. I added some Visual FX overlays over some parts of the video to really make the picture pop and to highlight when there was a big drop and I also added a fade in and fade out at either end of the video. 

Overall, this project was an excellent gateway for me to explore new ideas and ways of producing and performing. The use of sessions view as well as the MIDI controllers allowed the music to feel more human and natural with the automation control allowing for smooth transitions in between sections of the song that would be difficult to replicate accurately in an arrangement view. This new workflow definitely allowed me to be more expressive with what I was composing in real time, as I can add in and take out any component of the song whenever I feel like it is needed, leading to some  interesting dynamics in the track. This way of working made me think more minimally while producing as I did not want to over do and add too many parts to the track as having too many components would make live control more complex. especially with the limited amount of knobs on the AKAI i had to think which parts really needed the automation and which did not. 

Whilst this new workflow allowed for some amazing flexibility within my music it definitely came with some hurdles, the timing issues while recording instruments in, mainly the drum patterns, was rather tedious at times with the launchpad mini and was difficult to keep consistent, whilst the quantize feature helped with the timing issues i feel that this could lead to the track sounding less natural during the performance. With practice I will become better at recording on the fly and quantizing quickly. Furthermore working with session view live and playing clips could result in an over reliance on the use of loops as the main basses remain practically unchanged throughout, in future projects i will need to practice being able to write and improvise midi quickly to keep the flow of the track and keep it feeling natural. 

In conclusion this assignment has shown me a new way to work creatively, moving my timeline based production approach to a new improvised and flexible workflow. This way of producing has shown that some preparation is definitely needed in place for me at the moment if i am to perform like this live, but with practice less and less preparation will be needed. Investing in some of the new devices that I stated earlier like the APC40 MKII would be great if i am to take this workflow forward for live event performance, making the whole process easier, more controlled and fun to play. I am excited to see where these new approaches will take me with my music and the new performance possibilities that could come from it.