Great video as usual from Ricky. He ends it with a question about a problem many of have: moving from the fast, creative, in-the-zone stage of working with hardware, to the more painstaking stage of arranging and finishing a track.
I thought we could discuss it here.
I know some of you record straight out to stereo, but that’s not what this thread is about. For people who do continue a song in a DAW or similar, how do you get there? When do you know it’s time? And how to you avoid—or smooth out— the annoying step of tracking everything across?
For me, the song really comes together in the DAW. It’s where I arrange parts, add longer sections, or snippets of field recordings that don’t really suit the Digitakt’s abilities, and so on.
When I had an Octatrack, I would also take parts and feed them back through that.
I try to avoid Ableton’s session clips, because then I end up in the same loops as I was in with the hardware.
When I still managed to finish songs I sequenced bits of hardware from Ableton in session clips, created a basic song structure, then recorded that to arrangement (audio) in jam. Then I added layering, finetuned transitions etc. in arrangement view. Mixing everything at the same time as well.
I love the Elektron stuff I have now and really enjoy the act of making music while away from the computer more than ever but the barrier going from those boxes to a finished tune is higher imo. Patterns being scattered all over the place etc. I know that’s an organizational thing but it’s another barrier when the daw has total recall on everything.
I know the solution: Print everything asap but then I’m in the daw again
I find that I love jamming on hardware but the only way I can finish a track is to pull everything in to Ableton Live and then create the song structure there.
Also printing everything to Ableton means I don’t have to worry about how I back up the Elektron boxes.
I guess the best way to avoid tracking out individually is to use a multitrack recorder, do a few live mixes then comp the best on a linear DAW and add any other refinements. The limitation of this approach is you ideally need a piece of gear for each part or separate outputs on the gear if you want to tweak the mix in a DAW after. Or use a groovebox/devices that can stream individual tracks over USB, or which can export stems, such as a MPC, Force, Push3, etc.
Usual process I create an eight-bar loop on Syntakt (rhythm and bass) and Digitone (pads, arps). I create an arrangement using song mode on the Syntakt/Digitone, leaving space for a live instrument - a piano or guitar part. My arrangements are simple and usually about 3 - 3.5 minutes. Average listen/view time is 30-45 seconds, so I just present my idea and get out.
Once the arrangement is done, I do a performance and record all audio parts multitracked as well as one or two camera angles for YouTube. Having the performance means I actually get some views on my stuff.
I add some effects and mix down and master in Ableton Live, heavily using Izotope’s mixing/mastering chain. Their Tonal Balance Control is very useful too. I don’t strive for perfection, I’d rather complete the process and improve iteratively on my next track.
I then bring it all together into DaVinci Resolve, make a video, make a thumbnail in Snapseed, make a blurb and then post here, a few discords and Facebook.
And then I do again. I am trying to get a track out every two weeks. Means I better stop typing and practicing the solo for my next one.
This is all a very engaging process with lots of different skills to improve on. I’ve worked hard over a year or so to find this workflow for me.
When I was at my most productive with my OT+DN combo, I tracked each part individually and made it a point to play a lot with parameters so I get a lot of diversity out of them. I then picked the loops or stems out of each and build my song structure in arrangement view.
Playing with each part afforded me a lot of diversity by combination when arranging.
If I am working on a track with the MD and MnM, I try to squeeze out as much as I can out of both machines. That includes using a lot of patterns across multiple banks and having several versions of kits with variations of machines for whatever parts they belong to. This way I can create as much diversity as I want for a given track, and that diversity is carefully planned, composed, recorded, and archived for later access. I may do the occasional live tweak here and there, but I would much rather have those tweaks recorded to be recalled at any given time. it is time consuming, but hella worth it for me, and I don’t mind putting in the work at all.
I then record everything to the DAW one track at a time. It is also time consuming, but I know that the reward of being able to move the hardware composition to a new level is huge. I then carry on tweaking, composing, and arranging until I feel it is done - that “done” stage I can’t tell you what it is, I just feel it.
To me it is super fun to bring things to the DAW. In fact, when I am actually being productive, I try to work on the hardware as best and complete as I can and as fast as efficient as I can because I really look forward to the next step of creativity. To me working on hardware and then transferring to the DAW is like writing a short story and then expanding it into a huge book, and I really enjoy the process.
A notebook is such an important tool for this because one can sketch out what a track may look very quickly, and keep track of what hardware machines are doing when and how.
I don’t have a single workflow and am as comfortable in starting a track on one piece of hardware, or several, or in the box, and then taking that idea into completion on the computer.
Some of the things i do when hardware is involved:
Multi track on the bluebox. Great for jamming different parts on the fly. Hit record and forget about it, is all synced
Multi track via overbridge (standalone app)
Export MPC project as .als in both audio and Midi
These methods work real well for me. Gear is great for me for writing, but arranging and mixing is more comfortable for me in a linear arrangement view. I never use and refuse to use Ableton session view. Not for me. I’ll be watching Ricky’s new vid and see what he’s saying and might edit this entry in order to comment on that.
I like that you divide it into two separate stages. I am always tempted to go back to the hardware to tweak further, and then I don’t know what’s what. Which drives me nuts as I am otherwise extremely organized.
Create a basic pattern on your hardware box of choice.
While recording it into your DAW, tweak as needed to create as much variation as possibile.
These could be minor tweaks, like slightly modifying HH decay to add dynamics to an otherwise static part, or major pattern variations, like punching in notes while recording, deep filter sweeps, performance fx, etc.
Repeat on as many hw boxes as needed, on as many DAW tracks as needed, until an idea of arrangement starts to emerge naturally.
I can see why he would ask that question. The incidental variations he goes through while mucking about are way more interesting than the ‘fixed’ result he ends up with, and that kind of thing would be easier to program in on a computer (or proper sequencer like an MPC). The thing is, when working with a proper sequencer you don’t tend to go through the same steps of variation and tweaking so would end up missing all the little bits like hitting a low snare sample just once on the off-beat. The answer is probably to record all that ‘exploration’ as audio into a multitrack then edit it together. But that’s when it gets boring to deal with. Turns out making interesting music is actually slog work, who’d have guessed!
Overbridge is almost there for this, but I don’t like that you have all the effects together on one track.
I usually end up recording one track at a time, which means that you don’t really even need OB to do it. So now I don’t. I have been recording the Digis into Logic Pro on the iPad, which is surprisingly pleasant, and means I’m not stuck at a desk when I keep working on a song.
Ahum. If you put a regular band together, and let them “jam”, how do they end up with a finished song? By being great musicians that actually have an idea on how to incorporate the “riffs” of the jam into an arrangement that makes sense, is musical and interesting. This is the difference between creating a loop by being handy with gear, or being a musician and being able to write a song. It’s not about gear, it’s about having song ideas. All imho and my 2 cents of course
I sequenced bits of hardware from Ableton in session clips, created a basic song structure, then recorded that to arrangement (audio) in jam. Then I added layering, finetuned transitions etc. in arrangement view. Mixing everything at the same time as well.
