Discovered a powerful heuristic for track selection which helps you to find track combinations that “work” very well together. “Mixing in key” is a fairly popular method for track selection. Basically you want to find tracks that are “compatible” in a musical way. I’ve found that following the circle of fifths either clockwise or counterclockwise, always skipping 3, leads to some really astonishing results.
Here’s an experiment, using counter-clockwise circle of fifths traversal on the song keys. Note that some tracks end in a different key than they start, so you always have to take that into account.
I noticed one of the limiting factors in producing my own original electronic music tracks was my lack of the ability to generate a real melody.
So, I did an experiment where I took an existing Mozart Sonata, ripped out a simple progression, and created a simple track around that progression. The result is pretty interesting: Download MP3.
In addition to this, I read up a bit on chord progressions, and came up with a simple note progression and then build on top of that in a fractal fashion, and came up with this result: Download MP3.
It is interesting how fractal in nature music really is. From synthesizing sounds, to creating a melody, to creating a song with transpositions on that melody, to generating a mix of various songs — the principles remain very similar.
* Update: I was pretty hooked on this fractal concept, so I went ahead and created another track: Download MP3.
My new Xone:3D equipment arrived on Friday. Since then I have been spending a fair amount of my free time obsessing over it, learning all the features, and getting all the components properly pieced together.
The Xone:3D comes with custom face-plates specifically for Ableton Live (which is my DJ tool of choice). There is also a template available for download on the Allen & Heath web site. This template sets up all the configurations for a really great integration with Ableton Live.
The biggest difficulty I have had so far is the lack of Vista 64-bit drivers. Actually, I was unable to get the drivers loaded even on my Vista 32-bit laptop. So, for now, I am actually DJ’ing over remote desktop…as bizarre as that seems.
Current, I have 3 Ableton tracks mapped to 3 mixer inputs on the Xone 3D. From here I can use all the powerful A&H mixing and MIDI controls to manipulate the sounds in whatever ways I’d like. Later I will post some videos of mixer tricks I have figured out.
I then use ASIO4ALL and Ableton Live to wire the Xone 3D’s sound card output (Mix Output) to the sound output of a small USB sound card on my PC which is running over remote desktop. This allows me to hear and record the output of the mixer without having to use special hardware. In a gig scenario, this would instead pipe directly to the house stereo.
So I gotta say I really love this new setup and I can’t wait to see all the things that can be done with it. I will be posting more about this new equipment as I get more familiar with it.
Still experimenting with FruityLoops. I’ve learned a good deal about Sidechaining and ducking. I’m fairly satisfied with the over-all sound of the instruments blending in this track. Usually when listening to a track, one may not realize the amount of engineering effort that goes into a professional quality track. It is difficult to keep the instruments blended without interfering with one another.
That said, I am not exactly at professional level yet. But it’s good fun to learn, and in time it’ll get there.
I put together a goofy little track, just for kicks…
I was experimenting with building a melody on top of a bassline, cut from the intro of the track “Basic Conversation” by “Unoccupied”, and tempo adjusted using Ableton to work as a loop inside FL. The instruments were made using a Subtractive Synth called Sytrus, and the simple 3x Oscillator generator inside FL.. enjoy the randomness.,
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Ableton, Mixes, Production, Xone 3D | 
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Posted by caustik
