Looking back, Looking forward

New City

2011 was a heck of a year for me. A lot happened.. some good, some bad. I won’t bore you with all the details, but I’ll tell you some major stuff.

The most significant change was that for the first time in my life I moved out of California. It was time for a change & my relationship couldn’t handle the strain of a long distance situation any longer. Also catching a roommate on camera going through your stuff & stealing from you is a pretty big wake up call that it’s time to go.

I now reside in Iowa City, Iowa and am finding it to be really nice even though the climate change definitely takes some getting used to. This city is small but it’s more hip than you would expect. They have a great college station here & nearly every show has something interesting to offer. The one thing I miss is good mexican food, but thankfully I’m teaching myself to cook a mean burrito from scratch.

In making this move I had to conquer a pretty huge fear that I haven’t really shared with many people. 1 day on my way to DJ a friends’s wedding I had a major panic attack while driving on the freeway. Since that day, it’s been a pretty serious battle. Driving across the country was a pretty huge step even though the highways were pretty mild compared to southern California. I still haven’t quite kicked this, but I’m getting there.

I also went from living with roommates to having my own place. I’ve found this to really help me focus on music without being interrupted. It’s surprising how much more you can accomplish when you don’t have to stop what you’re doing to handle a roommate situation (and towards the end, there were many). I’ve carried new habits into the new year that are giving my great results as well.

The “Fall Through’s”

Like we all do, I had some “definitely gonna happen” scenarios fall through. I was supposed to work with a band that I won’t mention who were interested in bringing me aboard as a producer & Ableton tech guy for both the studio & the road. We had several conversations that seemed pretty definite but they ended up feeling a bit out of their comfort zone & decided to focus their budget more on upgrading the image & show as opposed to the music. At the end of the day, it likely would have been a mismatch for me to devote too much time to this project & put the rest of my work on hold, so there is really no harm.

I also had some highly anticipated affiliate partnerships fall flat this year. It’s possible things might rise from the ashes in 2012, but I’m not holding my breath. I won’t turn my back on integrity. It’s just not worth it. I live cheaply & thus sleep more soundly knowing I haven’t sold my soul for money. By delivering something of value consistently, the money will come anyway (what a concept huh?)

The main reason I mention this at all, is that I want you all to know that shit happens to all of us. For me, more things have fallen through than I can count, but i’m still here focusing on what’s important. I don’t let it stop me from going for that next thing…and the next. Remember that life will give you as many opportunities as you’re ready for, it doesn’t just knock once.

Blogs of 2011

I developed new habits over the year that have really stuck as well. I made a point to write more regularly during the last half of the year & I think I delivered some pretty good value. If you’ve missed any of my blog posts, here are what I’d consider to be my top posts (in no particular order).

Ableton 101: The Most Ableton Tips Packed into 1 Video

The Suck Factor

Most important Habit for Finishing Songs

Extracting Chains in Ableton’s Drum Racks for great drum programming options

Things People Say to DJ’s

Collective Loop Project

The New Year

In the new year I took on another music making experiment by challenging myself to write a song completely from the contents of a short porn video clip without it just sounding like re-edited porn. This was right after creating a song out of loops you guys submitted. I documented the whole process at this link below (don’t worry, it’s PG-13 at it’s worst). I ended up with an interesting Minimal Techno vibe:

http://www.musicsoftwaretraining.com/blog/2012/01/07/song-made-from-sampling-a-porno-clip/

Not wanting to lose my momentum of completing tunes, I took on a remix for a friend & am really happy with the results. You can check it out Here. I rarely use my voice in songs, but I think the addition worked well with the tune.

Picking up the guitar again

Directly after that, I contacted some members of an old band of mine Negative Image about banging out a 4 song E.P. It’ll be the first time since ’96 that I’ve written music primarily as a guitarist. Making rock music still seems to come to me pretty easily & I’ve have a number of song ideas bouncing through my head for years. If this E.P. ends up being fun, I could imagine making more.

The way I am approaching this is by making some demos with some raw guitar tracks, drums (mainly drums loops sampled from another song & edited slightly) & then making a bassline by playing the part on guitar & dropping it an octave in Ableton. Then I record some rough vocals to give the singer an idea of how I picture things going. Once I get the vocal takes back, I can share the results with the other guys to lay in proper bass, re-do the guitar & drums.

I find this approach to be more efficient than trying to get everything perfect from the start, I like to present a rough draft to make sure everyone agrees the song idea is worthy of taking to the next level. Another advantage I find is when I’m not worried about “tone” or perfection, guitar riffs, leads, vocal ideas & harmonies come so quickly that the songs largely write themselves. When I’m just doing what’s easy & adding layers, the collection of these parts create a depth & richness that tends to have a better vibe then sitting there trying to impress yourself. It’s also nice to have a whole EP demo done in a week or so, to listen back to with the other bands members to get further ideas. If all goes well, which I expect it to, I’ll share the results.

I’m also considering making a video collection specifically for Bands. I’ve been asked by guitar based music makers how to approach non-electronic music in Ableton. I’d love your feedback if you are in a band & have questions regarding how to accomplish things in Ableton.

Rebranding

Finally, I plan to do another electronic side project making a minimal techno E.P. (or at least my own version of what I think minimal techno is). The reason for not putting it under my current production names (innerstate, Jason Timothy) is that I already have a reputation for making progressive house, so it will be harder to get signed to labels of a different style than what I’m known for if I keep the same name. Better to clean the slate and start fresh. This is basically an experiment of rebranding myself. After I’ve made 4 songs I’m proud of, I’ll go through the process of shopping it to labels. I know I’ll have to start with the small labels & build a reputation there before I can expect the bigger ones to take an interest. Fair enough, I can work toward the end goal patiently.

What IS the end goal you might ask? I’d like to be traveling as a producer/DJ playing properly equipped & promoted gigs & the door is simply not open anymore for DJ’s who don’t produce. If your name alone can’t sell tickets, it doesn’t matter how great you are. Luckily, I love making music as much as DJing, so this shouldn’t be an issue. If you run a club or know someone who does (nationally or internationally), get in touch.

To wrap this up, I plan this year to be pretty damn productive & I’m really excited. As opposed to resolutions, I’ve opted to create new lifestyle habits. Most importantly, making music everyday. Some days you win, some you lose, but if you don’t set aside the time & space, you can’t ever expect any magic to happen.

Happy Music Making,

Jason

P.S. – Don’t forget to comment & tweet (down below) & “like” (up above). All your feedback & support is appreciated.

Dj'ing and Performance Collection

A must for anyone wanting to DJ or perform live in Ableton. Includes 17 in-depth Videos on Warping, Organizing files, Setting up midi controllers (including APC40) and lots more! As a Free bonus, it also includes my Ebook "Mixing with your Mind - Make your best DJ Mix".

Always In Key

Never hit a bad note again! With this tool, you'll be able to choose the key you want to play in and conform anything you play or ANY midi loop to that key! This is a fantastic tool for playing Live, DJ'ing, Remixing or Producing. Imagine chaotic, out of tune parts transformed into beautifully harmonized music. This will be the most fun you've had in Ableton in a Long time! Will work perfectly with the "Mixed in Key" number system or by actual key name. Must have Ableton 8.1.3 or later. Does NOT Require Max For Live.

30 Day Music Production Video

If you've ever wanted to look over my shoulder while I make songs, THIS is the collection for you! In this collection you get me producing 2 full songs and a DJ mix from start to finish over a 30 day period. I take you through the good the bad and the ugly. It's the most honest video collection I've ever made. It includes every Ableton songfile for each day, every sample used and about 20 hours of Video(Video is being edited and will be delivered once complete). It also includes mixdowns of the 2 completed songs and DJ Mix.

Ultimate Ableton Collection 1

A must for anyone new to Ableton or wanting to dive deeper into the depth of this program. Over 4 hours of the most in depth yet easy to follow tutorials on the market!

Ultimate Ableton Collection 2

This collection makes an incredible companion to the first collection and gets into the newest features in Ableton. There are also 20 professional custom drum kits and a full Drum Racks replication of Roland's famous R-70 drum machine.

Advanced Warping Collection

This collection is a must for DJ's and remixers! If you find yourself warping full songs on a regular basis, you are going to run into warping issues that can really bring your production to a halt. These simple secrets will get you past that with ease and back to doing what you do best.

Ableton Remixing Walkthrough

New Reduced Price (from $37)! For those who want to see exactly how I approach a remix. From editing the original sounds, to dropping them into Ableton and building ideas. Then adding to these ideas to compliment the original material and finally working it all into a song. All edits, effect settings, automation, and arranging procedure is included in the information packed video collection. (Now with a bonus 2 hour video walkthrough with songfile)

Producer's Deluxe Collection

Get all 3 of my full video Collections (Ultimate Collections 1 and 2 and Advanced Warping Collection) Producers Deluxe Collection

Ultimate Drum Machine Samples

This is a gold mine of sample collections from 70 vintage drum machines. This varies from the most popular to the obscure. All kits made into Drum Rack presets that are easily installed to your library. For a full list click on the title link or picture to the left. This collection will easily give you every sound you could need for electronic drums. If you are looking for THAT sound, I guarantee you'll find it here!

Song Made From Sampling a Porno Clip

With all this rambling on I do about finishing songs & avoiding distractions, I take on this doozie of a challenge.

Can I actually create a song completely made from only manipulated sounds from a porn? No synths, no drum samples. Only the source audio from a 6 minute video.  Can I keep my focus while listening to all these erotic (and ridiculous) sounds & complete something, without it sounding like I just made a song full of grunts, moans & dick sucking?

This was my experiment & it really tested my music skills as well as my focus skills. Typically watching porn is something you do to distract yourself. I decided to make it my work in this experiemnt.

The most difficult part was selecting, editing & processing the samples into something usable. I think I’ve proved that you can make drums, bass and melodies out of literally anything. I have to laugh, because I know what that snare drum is

From there it was a matter of constructing parts that worked together & didn’t sound completely stupid, creating a few scenes to make sense of a song structure & arrange something that still sounded like me. I was surprised how good things sounded considering the source video was of low quality & had a lot of background noise.

Below are all the videos documenting my process and a download of the completed song. I am adding the whole Ableton songfile & HD videos as a bonus for my Remix Walkthrough Collection. If you’ve purchased it in the past, this is a free addition.

I hope you make it through this collection without getting too distracted. If I can keep focus through this, you’ve got zero excuse to not finish your own tunes!

Song Download

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyUAWF2dxzw

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0l91xzRFjk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS9xmYS203k

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLWYcEVXmrQ

Happy music making!

Jason

If this video series helped or inspired you & you would like to “buy me a beer” for the work that went into this, I always appreciate donations.

Another blog coming soon (pun intended)

P.S. – Don’t forget to comment & tweet (down below) & “like” (up above). All your feedback & support is appreciated.

Dj'ing and Performance Collection

A must for anyone wanting to DJ or perform live in Ableton. Includes 17 in-depth Videos on Warping, Organizing files, Setting up midi controllers (including APC40) and lots more! As a Free bonus, it also includes my Ebook "Mixing with your Mind - Make your best DJ Mix".

Always In Key

Never hit a bad note again! With this tool, you'll be able to choose the key you want to play in and conform anything you play or ANY midi loop to that key! This is a fantastic tool for playing Live, DJ'ing, Remixing or Producing. Imagine chaotic, out of tune parts transformed into beautifully harmonized music. This will be the most fun you've had in Ableton in a Long time! Will work perfectly with the "Mixed in Key" number system or by actual key name. Must have Ableton 8.1.3 or later. Does NOT Require Max For Live.

30 Day Music Production Video

If you've ever wanted to look over my shoulder while I make songs, THIS is the collection for you! In this collection you get me producing 2 full songs and a DJ mix from start to finish over a 30 day period. I take you through the good the bad and the ugly. It's the most honest video collection I've ever made. It includes every Ableton songfile for each day, every sample used and about 20 hours of Video(Video is being edited and will be delivered once complete). It also includes mixdowns of the 2 completed songs and DJ Mix.

Ultimate Ableton Collection 1

A must for anyone new to Ableton or wanting to dive deeper into the depth of this program. Over 4 hours of the most in depth yet easy to follow tutorials on the market!

Ultimate Ableton Collection 2

This collection makes an incredible companion to the first collection and gets into the newest features in Ableton. There are also 20 professional custom drum kits and a full Drum Racks replication of Roland's famous R-70 drum machine.

Advanced Warping Collection

This collection is a must for DJ's and remixers! If you find yourself warping full songs on a regular basis, you are going to run into warping issues that can really bring your production to a halt. These simple secrets will get you past that with ease and back to doing what you do best.

Ableton Remixing Walkthrough

New Reduced Price (from $37)! For those who want to see exactly how I approach a remix. From editing the original sounds, to dropping them into Ableton and building ideas. Then adding to these ideas to compliment the original material and finally working it all into a song. All edits, effect settings, automation, and arranging procedure is included in the information packed video collection. (Now with a bonus 2 hour video walkthrough with songfile)

Producer's Deluxe Collection

Get all 3 of my full video Collections (Ultimate Collections 1 and 2 and Advanced Warping Collection) Producers Deluxe Collection

Ultimate Drum Machine Samples

This is a gold mine of sample collections from 70 vintage drum machines. This varies from the most popular to the obscure. All kits made into Drum Rack presets that are easily installed to your library. For a full list click on the title link or picture to the left. This collection will easily give you every sound you could need for electronic drums. If you are looking for THAT sound, I guarantee you'll find it here!

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!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esq4tI5oGW0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWLZeIXiavo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4eOEx2BLk0

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfZNPprHTyY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3m2Tborp-0

Songfile download

Song mp3

happy music making!

Jason

P.S. – Don’t forget to comment & tweet (down below) & “like” (up above). All your feedback & support is appreciated.

Dj'ing and Performance Collection

A must for anyone wanting to DJ or perform live in Ableton. Includes 17 in-depth Videos on Warping, Organizing files, Setting up midi controllers (including APC40) and lots more! As a Free bonus, it also includes my Ebook "Mixing with your Mind - Make your best DJ Mix".

Always In Key

Never hit a bad note again! With this tool, you'll be able to choose the key you want to play in and conform anything you play or ANY midi loop to that key! This is a fantastic tool for playing Live, DJ'ing, Remixing or Producing. Imagine chaotic, out of tune parts transformed into beautifully harmonized music. This will be the most fun you've had in Ableton in a Long time! Will work perfectly with the "Mixed in Key" number system or by actual key name. Must have Ableton 8.1.3 or later. Does NOT Require Max For Live.

30 Day Music Production Video

If you've ever wanted to look over my shoulder while I make songs, THIS is the collection for you! In this collection you get me producing 2 full songs and a DJ mix from start to finish over a 30 day period. I take you through the good the bad and the ugly. It's the most honest video collection I've ever made. It includes every Ableton songfile for each day, every sample used and about 20 hours of Video(Video is being edited and will be delivered once complete). It also includes mixdowns of the 2 completed songs and DJ Mix.

Ultimate Ableton Collection 1

A must for anyone new to Ableton or wanting to dive deeper into the depth of this program. Over 4 hours of the most in depth yet easy to follow tutorials on the market!

Ultimate Ableton Collection 2

This collection makes an incredible companion to the first collection and gets into the newest features in Ableton. There are also 20 professional custom drum kits and a full Drum Racks replication of Roland's famous R-70 drum machine.

Advanced Warping Collection

This collection is a must for DJ's and remixers! If you find yourself warping full songs on a regular basis, you are going to run into warping issues that can really bring your production to a halt. These simple secrets will get you past that with ease and back to doing what you do best.

Ableton Remixing Walkthrough

New Reduced Price (from $37)! For those who want to see exactly how I approach a remix. From editing the original sounds, to dropping them into Ableton and building ideas. Then adding to these ideas to compliment the original material and finally working it all into a song. All edits, effect settings, automation, and arranging procedure is included in the information packed video collection. (Now with a bonus 2 hour video walkthrough with songfile)

Producer's Deluxe Collection

Get all 3 of my full video Collections (Ultimate Collections 1 and 2 and Advanced Warping Collection) Producers Deluxe Collection

Ultimate Drum Machine Samples

This is a gold mine of sample collections from 70 vintage drum machines. This varies from the most popular to the obscure. All kits made into Drum Rack presets that are easily installed to your library. For a full list click on the title link or picture to the left. This collection will easily give you every sound you could need for electronic drums. If you are looking for THAT sound, I guarantee you'll find it here!

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.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTJOunOiEug

http://tinyurl.com/DummyClipTemplate

Enjoy!

Jason