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Collective Ableton Loop Project: Song Completed
Collective Ableton Loop Project: Song Completed
After quite a rough road of sorting out random loops sent in from my blog readers & twitter followers, I’ve finally completed the process of turning it into a song. The greatest challenge was editing & processing each loop in a way that not only made the parts work together, but also sounded like something I might write.
The next step was creating scenes in Ableton to make sense of which loops worked together & which didn’t. This way I was able to create different “movements” for the song. The best approach I found for creating scenes was to start playing individual clips & adding part 1 by 1 until things sounded good. Then I would use the shortcut Command/Shift/I to get ableton to collect all the paying loops into their own scene. Each of these scenes had a different mood, so it became my job to figure out how to best transition form one scene to another.
I dragged another song into Ableton’s arrange window and added locators at different sections of the song to give me a head start on how to structure the song. Once I got a few minutes into the track, I was able to abandon this structure & rely on my own arrangement instincts. Copy, Paste & duplicate were friends through this process.
I used simple delays and volume fades to introduce or cut certain elements throughout the song. I even used EQ & delay on the master track in a few locations. As the song was already pretty complex, I wasn’t too interested in doing anything too crazy effect-wise.
Below are links to all 5 videos documenting my overall writing process. Although nothing is perfect, I’m pretty happy with the results. There is also a link to download the full songfile with all the samples & loops so you can either reverse engineer what I’ve done or use the raw loops to build your own track from scratch. This is completely free but if you find my work helpful, donations are appreciated.
Enjoy!
happy music making!
Jason
P.S. – Don’t forget to comment & tweet (down below) & “like” (up above). All your feedback & support is appreciated.
Interested in Learning Logic or Reason?
I recommend the sites below:
Logic Courses
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Sasha Soundlab – Sound like Sasha & rock the dancefloors!
Sasha Soundlab
I have just been given the privilege of being able to test drive this fantastic new tool that Sasha created with AudioRaiders . This puts Sasha’s signature Drum sounds, Bass tones, vintage synths, stabs & custom made loops right into your computer. It’s not just raw samples either. These sounds are processed through his analog gear, plugins, compressors, reverb, stomp boxes and more. Many of the sounds were used on his productions & mix cd’s, so you know they are “production ready“.
On top of that, the whole sample library allows you to tweak and effect the sounds with high quality filter’s, reverb, chorus & dirt(bit reduction). There is also a step sequencer allowing you to build your own loops from his sound collections.
The collection works inside of Native Instruments Kontakt instrument or free player (which I am using in the video below). It took me a few minutes to set up, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. It was really cool to be able to hear each separate instrument & have the ability to reverse engineer some of the sounds. It really gives you some insight on what makes a great sound which you can use for your own sound design.
I’d say that for the $99 introductory price (soon to go up, but i’m not sure when) it is a no brainer. I don’t usually get excited about sample libraries, but I think this qualifies as an exception.
I’ve met a few of Sasha’s studio production team & they are audio geniuses for certain, so I’m not going to turn down the opportunity to dig through their sounds for some of my own productions. I think some of you will get a lot out of these sounds regardless of your musical preferences.
Check out the videos and enjoy!
more info at: http://tinyurl.com/SashaSoundLab
happy music making,
Jason
P.S. – Don’t forget to comment & tweet (down below) & “like” (up above). All your feedback & support is appreciated.
Interested in Learning Logic or Reason?
I recommend the sites below:
Logic Courses
Reason Courses
Free Ableton dummy clip template & walkthrough
Free Ableton dummy clip template & walkthrough
Here’s a quick video showing you how to set up dummy clips for live performances & DJ sets in Ableton. I wanted a simple way to allow you to effect 1 or multiple tracks at a time. Below is the video & download to the dummy clip template.
http://tinyurl.com/DummyClipTemplate
Enjoy!
Jason
Interested in Learning Logic or Reason?I recommend the sites below:
Logic Courses
Reason Courses
5 Ways to Cut up & Stutter Vocals in Ableton
5 Ways to Cut up & Stutter Vocals in Ableton
I was recently asked through email if I could help explain some ways to create a vocal stutter effect. In thinking about it, I realized there are several ways to approach it, so I decided to make a video to show some of the ways you can accomplish this effect. In this video I show simple editing tricks, an autopan technique, gating effects & the “slice to midi” option.
Below is the video:
Happy Music Making,
Jason
P.S. – Don’t forget to comment & tweet (down below) & “like” (up above). All your feedback & support is appreciated.
I recommend the sites below:
Logic Courses
Reason Courses




