May livestream!

hey, hey. Heat. N. Dack Back beat. Back up. Everything about everything. Is that okay? Dr. Heat. Wowee. What's up everybody? Close this note. my high-tech stream title cards. Um, so hey, what's going? Welcome to the live stream. We are going to just be like having some fun. I'm working on a few really I'm just going to say it. They're bangers. We're going to make some heavy gnarly stuff or it's already made. I'm just like playing with it trying to like make it more interesting. And uh got my notes over here, got my Ableton over here. Leave some questions in the chat if there's anything you want uh to ask me about. Doesn't have to be related to this, but um yeah, let's just play this. And then I don't have notes for this particular beat. I was just messing around with some um modular recordings that I did a while ago, chopping them up into loops, adding a beat, and like it's so few tracks, but it it's pretty fun. to tell like is that in a good spark or does it need a little something or something

kind of like a lack of intention to the structure. Just like moving pieces around, seeing what's cool, but there's not too many like repeated parts. Just like bunch of cool rifts. That buildup is very lacking. This is the heaviest part I put on. Uh, I made this Ableton rack. Uh, this is accessible to my patrons, by the way. It's called Distortion Selector. And, um, it has all of Ableton's distortions in it, mapped to macros. And so, I just put it on stuff and I hit the random button to randomize the macros and get like different distortion tones. And sometimes it's faster and more fun than dialing in some kind of exact distortion some other way. Like this like chill section, but again a little too sparse. I don't know. Literally just two tracks at a time here. The synth and the drums. Little noisy fill thing. It's just a loop. And then yeah, again, what else does it need? Tiny silence. This is a repeat of an earlier section, but the pink stuff is like different. But I also I can't tell with my like low end hearing issues if I need to add a bass into this or if there's enough happening with this modular recording. But I mean there's stuff down there. What do you think? Is it subby enough? I think I didn't get to the part of the song. — Oh, it's just a whole thing. All of it is just like modular recording doing pretty much — the same stuff but different tambers and notes but — Right. Yeah. I think definitely more contrast between sections could help a lot. — Yeah. — Oh, I just mean like is there enough bass in this sound? — Um I think so. Yeah, it's real sticky. — Sweet. Well, that helps then I don't have to create a sub layer. But yeah, got to have more contrast between different sections for sure. these first two sections. I don't know if there's enough difference between them. I kind of like I'm hearing like a more busy kick thing. I wonder if we like match the kicks to some of these synth lines if that could be interesting. Well, yeah. Doing some like funkier rhythms, not all the four on the floor stuff could be a way to make some sections different. Uh yeah. Is that it? Yeah. Uh, but I don't know about that yet.

Just repeat this. I don't know. It's like too emphatic for now. — Oops. What happens in the second part? Oo. Um, shout out to Oh, Angry Ninja Afro Ninja $2. Appreciate you. — Yeah, that's where that one. Look at move the camera to overlay the bottom. — What's that? — Uh, they want me. Okay, that's all good. I can move the camera. How ow I guess we could do the classic filter up on things. Something different will happen there. What are we going to do here? Had this EQ ready to go. Doing some filtering elsewhere in the track as well. Oh, but that uh this sample this just needs to be something's got to happen with it. You know what? Let's put distortion selector right in there. Again, get this rack if you're on my Patreon cuz uh wait, let's solo it. Just spam random. Oh, let's loop it. Oh, we've got another paid donation. Thank you again, Afro Ninja. — Oh, thanks again. — Um, they're asking, "Do you have any future projects with Rob? " — Uh, we're doing 1 of October, but I don't think we're planning anything else right now. — Okay. — Yeah. Both been a little busy, but um, every year 1st of October without fail. Um, — yeah. I'm trying to think if there's anything else, but no. — No, I can't think of anything. No. We're all swamped with our own project at the moment. There's something nice about the texture here. Oh, it's coming from the shape. I guess OTT would bring that up more. Yeah, I think this is good. And I'll just It needs more, but I like that it added a bunch of texture. And I love that it like you just work with your

ears when you're using this because I don't know. I have my like biases towards certain types of distortions or settings on them and so I don't even know like what are we using here? How do I we ended up is there a way to even tell which one I selected? — Oh gosh. — Cuz I'm going Okay. Wait. In the chain. Okay. So, I'm at the I'm using dynamic tube. Hm. Fun, fun. Uh, okay. So, what I'm hearing is that we can do Oh, I'm so lost in the chain here. Is this going to Yeah, sweet. We'll automate that up and have this other stuff is going lowass. This one will be high pass. And also I guess I need to automate this distortion off for other sections. So much automation to keep track of. And probably we'll need a little more of a curve here, but also like level adjustment once we hear it in the track. Oh, wait. I'm soloed. That's doing something. I'm going to Yeah. Okay. We're in that channel. The end of the chain is there. We are putting a utility on the end. And that is going to automate to here. And like maybe Oops. Yeah, something like that is fun. That's perfect. Someone was asking uh suggesting it needs transit. You guys are so helpful for both my music production and my promotion kits. Not quite as high there so that we get more of that filter flavor. And I want to like uh like get a wavefoldy distortion on that. Man, what is happening on my phone? Let's mute this, right? Okay. Uh, fold. Is this before the filtering? Yeah. Automate this up. Uh and automate this to only be on for this. So, I don't know about this chord. And what is the Oh, this.

Yeah, we don't want that high end in there. Cool. Uh, and then we want like some kind of fill or actually silence, but uh something there before the uh before the silence. I had a Is it this? Yeah. I liked how I like pitch shifted this and made it weird. Oh, wait. I also have a bunch of unused fills at the end. So, maybe I'll take one of those, put it in there, and do a similar kind of edit. Hat. Take these in a different rhythm. Yeah, let's do this. Where was I? Here, right. Oh, I think I grabbed too much. But could start earlier. Uh, it's too much. Uh, how much do I want? Yeah, it's real quick. Take that. I went past it. I have no sense of where that is. Come on. Yeah. Warp it. Get weird with it. Heat. Yeah, each one at a different note. That's fun. Just randomly move some of these around. Dude, dude. Dirt. Do I want this still on? Does it make a huge difference? I think it's better off. Um, should this continue filtering? Oh, no. What's going to happen?

All right, let's do transit. — The whole drum bus. — We have a few questions actually about the same thing. Like they're asking about like — what are these samples come from? Like where are these sounds coming from? Um, yeah. I mean, the drums are just samples and the this stuff is like a recording that I did with my modular like years ago. Just found cool uh riffs. I was like sending like random voltages through a quantizer basically with like some kind of minor scale. uh using the shape shifter module from Intelligel, which is like kind of a wave table thing. And um yeah, just found like all kinds of gnarly tambers and was generating like riff after riff. Doing a lot of um like uh stepped random modulation to the tambber, which is why like it jumps around so much. I think I was probably stepping through presets rhythmically. And so, yeah, you just get these like hockeyy feeling riffs. And then I took parts that I like and looped them. And cuz none of this was repeated when I was recording. It was just like an endless stream of notes and tambers. And then I was like, "Oh, these bars are cool. " And started chopping them up. Put a cool beat with it. So, yeah, a really fun way to work, but also like leaves you with a ton of editing. Um, but yeah, what if we Right, we're going to see what transit could do. Let's lock the macro and just do one of these. Oh, is that There we go. pretty good. Okay, I don't think I want the riser. Maybe not the noise. I don't know. It's kind of doing something. I do think we got to do some compensation here. And I want We still want that silence. So I'll automate this back. I want it there. I guess we want it here. I want like more reverb. And then no tail. Automating that distortion drive kind of breaks up at the end just to hear. But also like I don't know about this snare. I think it's pretty powerful before after and then in the filter section like is it too soft and isn't punchy enough on that one? And now I'm like just Which thing is automated? To make that better. Where's the thing that's like show all automated envelopes? Uh, do I have to click? Yeah. Add lane

for each automated envelope. We have the Yes. Don't have that EQ on. That's for the thing. Really? Why does that sound weaker? Nope. Yeah, it's just psychological. Um, yeah. Anyway, we made a big mess. I have to come back to this with fresh ears. I get to this point. Let's keep going. These sections I feel like are the closest to that. Like it's so full. You really just like need to feel all that distortion. There wasn't really a Justice style orchestra stab like right on the start. Oh, I've got orchestra stabs here. It's like more of a It's a little bit comical, I think. But like, yeah, I had that like vibe. It's I literally just dragged this in this morning, but something uh yeah, how what would a Justice version of that be? Is that like at the beginning of uh is it Genesis? cuz there that's like a quick stab, but I could also imagine uh I think it's this track like that's just straight up horn samples. Oh, am I going to get Oh, yeah. That's like a copyright. Whatever. We're not making crazy money off of live stream ad revenue. This is such an iconic track. But then did they go anywhere more with the horns or does it just go into that cool bass rift? Anyway, maybe if the person who left the comment has more thoughts, I'd love to know. — They were literally about to say Genesis. Yeah. — Oh, okay. — Actually, it's I wouldn't. — Is it like the low panina? just like that type of longer sustain maybe or is it the cuts because that's also fun. I mean definitely similarities to my track similar BPM and they're like pocketing between the samples and the synths and bass. Well, some of them are overlapping too. Yeah. Well, I mean, without ripping off that too much, what's uh way more distorted, but yeah, I think I like this section. Maybe a tiny bit more variation to the fill. But then here that's empty. But yeah, I was trying to go somewhere where like slightly comical with that where it's just I don't know that just in this one moment is like such a there's like just a rich collection of feeling there, you know, with like um a lot of hip-hop that used to use those brass dabs just a lot of like funky kind of music. But — thank you Ellen Bristol for the five pound. Oh yeah, thank you. Ewen — Ewen. Yeah, you did on Anina, the plugin that Maddie and I have. — Oh no, wait. Ewen is the creator of Anina. — Dude, that plugin's great. Everyone check it out. And it's free, right? Yeah. Free sort of um track spacer trackspacer/soo type uh — you know, dealing with resonance and doing your side chaining and stuff like Yeah, man. Cool to know that you are checking out these streams and videos. — They're saying um there's a DJ Hero mix of the track with way more stubs. — Oh, let's check it out. — Is it is the DJ Hero version on? — Uh well, let's just

— We're just going to YouTube is it's fix up look sharp versus gen. Oh, sweet. So, it's like a Dizzy Rascal Genesis mashup. — Just 30 seconds, but all right. — This is one. It literally feels like just the busy acappella. — On the Justice League with some scratching. — Oh, yeah. Interesting. Okay. Um, what do we got happening here? Like this empty space could be those kind of like syncopated cuts. I was also thinking like I don't know if this is the section for it but extra snare head there. Wow, I selected the perfect Yeah. Oh, but then yeah, we got to Should we just like splice up some samples? Let's go splo. Let's not update it. And um brass stab. Brass stabs. What are the other ways to sort by random? I don't want the most popular. Brass stabs. Oh, I kind of could take that. That's — sturdy. Let's do a little stabs track here. Or should I drum rack them? Uh, yeah, whatever. We will organize later. These are not brass stabs. Oh, here we go. That's so classic. I don't It might be too uh have too many connotations. Yeah, I'll take a bit of that. Yeah. Um, I would also use vocals. Yeah, we're just getting not brass. Actually, maybe could be useful. Oops. Don't want to overwrite that. Okay. And we're going to Wait, what was this? also a com sample. No, I just have the same thing, right? That's what I want to not lose. Okay. Uh, okay. Let's just organize the most relevant. Uh, what is this? A full stem. What do we draw base stab? All right. Yeah. Take the low one. That is a cool tone. Yeah, why not? H not the right chord quality. I did also want to grab some uh minor chords. Actually, I was Oh, yeah. All right, I'm going to say this is enough. But yeah, what I was starting to do with this, I think I just made that in vital, but um yeah, I wanted to do a few different ones of those. Let's see if we can just grab cool chords for that.

Wow. Take the right key now. I know. All right. Well, we'll take it. But these are all from the same pack. Not the vibe. Uh, let's do — Oh, the chords. Okay. — Yeah. Chord stab. Sure. Hey, Killman's ego. All right, not getting a ton, but there was one uh a couple of these. Let's just see what they're like in the track. Uh, what section were we at? what is the key? It's around there. I also I think this is tuned to like definitely not concert pitch because it was modular. We got two of those. All right. You know what? This is going to be a lot of tuning. What are the coolest ones that we want to try first? More of a Yeah, let's grab that in. I tried the vocal. That one jumped out. Let's see what we do with these. That right. All right. Maybe we're about 20 cents flat. This is feeling like cool though in this truck. It's very much that Justice But I it feels like it's not this section. Feels like it's uh I don't know something bigger. Uh oh, maybe. Yeah, in that strip back section like it is right now. Uh the strip back section after that. That was like Oops. We got all this stuff that's sitting on top of the track now, but I mean, that's just like exactly Genesis, but it's so good. All right, I'm going to put that aside for now. Something we might — Should we take questions? Is that — later? Good time for that or — Yeah, maybe it's a good time to take questions. I wanted to get into this, but I just realized we're going to spend so much of the stream time like tuning the sample. — Yeah, I can only tune that another time. — Yeah. All right, I'll load up the next project just for a change of pace here. — Okay. Um, while you're loading that up, we got a lot of questions about like oddly specific like plugins or tools. — Let's go. — People are asking, have you used Phase Plan lately? Uh, for some reason they keep going back to your really old school phase plant videos. — Oh yeah, phase plant is a great and um it just kind of depends cuz uh phase

plant is what I go to if like I want something really uh specific. Like I can really dial it in cuz it's just so good for all the precision about like you know the tons of modulators and the routing that you can do and how that's set up. Um, and everything is all the parameters are down to like two decimals of percent and whatever, you know. Um, but what else? I've been doing a lot more like vital recently just because like when it I'm collaborating more, I'm like, "Oh, well, this is free so anybody can also use it. " Um, current is a big fave just because the presets are so good. It's so nice to use. Um, I don't know. The a major thing with a lot of synths is that you're like really waiting through a lot of presets that you would never touch. And I feel like with current, every sound is inspiring. Um, yeah, those are the big ones that come to mind. I feel like — cool. — Serum is obviously always there, but it's also one where it's like so um just so familiar now, I guess. Like sometimes you just want to feel like you're playing with something a little more unknown or uh weird, — right? Yeah. — Oh, what is the story of this project and what percentage do you think it's at? — It's um I mean yeah, it was just like a modular session that I recorded and then started adding drums to. So, like it feels like really nice and full. I feel like in a lot of sections where it can just be like this basic banger where like what more do you need than a cool baseline and drums? And then it's sort of also one of those ones where I don't have the full vision of like how refined do I want it to be and how much like different changes do I want in different sections or like is it going to be cool is just like an in-your-face thing where I just strip it down to like an A part and a B part that go back and forth a couple times and it's all distorted and yeah, I haven't made that call yet. So I'm really just playing with it now. It could be at, you know, 50%, it could be at 80%. Hard to say, but um yeah, I just started really recently with it, so I think it needs uh time. — Right on. — Um yeah. — Um there was a few questions about like if you would be interested in doing like a live patching stream. — Oh, yeah. I have really wanted to do that. I thought it would be great if there were I think the thing that I've run into is that it's hard to film working at the modular because you want to be able to see a lot of stuff at once, but then every once in a while you want to really zoom in on a detail, but then also if you're working kind of quickly, even if I have someone like helping on camera, you're like trying to follow what I'm doing and I'm I guess we could maybe figure it out where it's like, okay, I'm going to patch to this, so like film that now I'll plug it in or like now I'll turn the knob, But um I think that's been the challenge is like what's the format where it's going to work videowise where like as a viewer you get enough of what I'm doing rather than just like one static shot where everything is like unclear, but um I mean I'm always going to be explaining stuff as I go. But yeah, I thought it'd be cool to do that patching, getting people's ideas while I'm patching and really just exploring and seeing what happens, but then also cutting down the results into a sample pack or something. Um, yeah, that has been on the mind for years, but we'll figure it out one day. One of these streams we'll do it that way, I think. — Okay. I mean, we did one previously when you were at the three deck and I was like on handheld for that one. — Yeah. I mean, that was just playing on a synth, but like — Yeah, it is a little modular. Yeah. I mean, maybe it doesn't matter because it could just be more focused on the sound and the results rather than like, oh, here's every little, you know, bit of the signal flow. But yeah, we should probably just give it a try and see if it works. — Uh, there was a question about whether you would do like a one synth challenge, — like using a free plugin like PGX FB module or uh Dex. — Yeah, could be interesting. We had um the four producers and uh Arteria Microreakreak um few years ago now. That was a cool episode. And then yeah, we're talking with another synth company about maybe doing one, but they're kind of dragging their feet. But for sure, it could work with a plugin. free plugin. That would be cool. I think it's just like, yeah, do we have uh the bandwidth for — I guess it depends on the nature of the challenge. If it's four producers, it's like the most time consuming thing that we do, which is unfortunate, but um I mean the videos are always — appreciated. It's just like yeah, hard

to like balance all the different things that uh we're trying to do. I like the idea though, free stuff and community challenge. — Four producers, one kazoo. — Yeah. — I think another thing too is like figuring out where we're going to go with four producers. We have an episode that's coming out soon and like as usual a lot of great music in it, tips and stuff in the breakdowns, but I do feel like the producers um further and further we're going into like really crazy sound design and like making the sample completely unrecognizable. And I think we need to figure out how to like get back to like making it um — I don't know having more of the spirit of the sample — shine through in every track cuz I think um yeah, it's just a tricky one. In some of the episodes I've felt like some of the music has strayed so far from the sample that it kind of doesn't matter what the sample was, but then at the same time it's like a great piece of music. And there were some when you hear the breakdowns, there are certain things that they take inspiration of from the sample, it's just like audibly I feel like it should be there for like the concept of the series. But yeah, I don't know. And then at the same time, they take a ton of work. So — I'm very much in limbo with like how to go forward with those, but we've got two that are coming out this summer that are that have been in the works for a while. So yeah, we'll see how the reception to those are. — There's two questions on DAWs. like what are your thoughts on Bitwig and FL Studio? — I haven't spent time with either of them in years and years, so I honestly couldn't say. Bitwig seems like probably if I wanted to go really deep into software modular, I think they're doing it among the best where it's not like an emulation of a real, you know, skumorphic modular kind of thing, but it's also not maxp level like really um obscure and like tons of uh just a whole language that you have to learn really. So, I think Bitwig has set it up in a really kind of practical way, but uh yeah, again, haven't spent a lot of time with it. And then FL, I just I haven't touched FL in 20 years. I don't know what it's like these days. It seems very capable. A lot of people I know use it to great effect. Um yeah. — Oh, I feel like you'd be into this. Someone is suggesting uh four producers uh but no DA. It's like just hardware. — Oh, yeah. That's interesting. Like just like electron boxes or probably some group box or something like that. — Yeah. Yeah, that could be a cool one. — Yo, Electron. — Yeah, I mean I would definitely do if I were going to do that challenge, I would for sure use Electron. That's uh — my number one nonDAW way of making a complete track. I guess uh there's lots of great things for just like grooving around and then eventually throwing in the DAW. But yeah, if I thought about having to like make a full track, no dah because I always eventually end up in the DAW. But I think electron would be the way to go. Dollless for me. — This is a good interesting question. They uh they're asking for your thoughts on or your guidance on going from a drawing to like an instrument or module. — A drawing to a Yeah, it's hard for me to say cuz I've always partnered with people on those kinds of things like just reaching out to people I guess. And it also depends on how involved you want to be on the, you know, creation, manufacturing of the hardware. If it's just like how I've done it is like I'm an ideas person and I'm a marketing person um and a tester and I like, you know, help refine things, but I am not like writing code and I am not talking to manufacturing plants or anything like that. So, I've been partnering with companies that have done this before and that works great. And so, like finding there there's a lot of these smaller um kind of boutique uh electronic music manufacturers, like people making their own little weird instruments. So, finding someone who's doing that and approaching them could be cool. But also, I don't know how all of these people are getting their knowledge and ostensibly, it's something that you could fully do yourself if you were going to learn about it. But yeah, I can only share, you know, to the extent that I've been involved in it, which is very much like partnering with people who already know what they're doing. Um, let's dive into another track. Keep the questions coming. We'll get back into it for I think one more little round of questions. I do have to bounce by 4:30 today. Uh, so we got half an hour. All right, we're going to listen to a track I called analog filter because I was using an analog filter and it really contributed

Heat. I don't know if that key change works. I felt like, oh, maybe change it up a tiny bit from the same loop, but back down. Yeah, you can hear the like squelching of this filter style module. Yeah, that's the gist of it. Couple other sections again like really distorting this filter. All right. So, let's go through. I have like notes here. And this is um the previous track we were working on. I was just playing with. But I felt like it could be valuable to show this part of my process where like I do a pass on a track, I export it, I listen to it elsewhere and just like write things down, which is uh I think super important like just getting away from your usual space and like looking at the music and just hearing it and not like seeing what's coming next or like thinking about parameters or whatever. just experiencing the thing as a whole. So, um yeah, these are the notes that I made from the last time I exported this and listened to it. So, a few things that I just like heard and didn't like. Like I didn't like this fill and I thought like let's just change that to like a stretched snare. I wonder if uh we do the layer or just the original Oh yeah, I like that mode. But let's audition a few. actually this is kind of smoother. Um, and then do we want to try that with the snare of the main loop as well? warp. Oh, it's on rep pitch mode here. Oh, that's fun. Oh, I like all of the options. I'm going to save that for another one. Um, oh wait, let's copy that and then switch this to doesn't seem to make a difference on the envelope shape there, but it's a little out of nowhere. Uh, so maybe this one is Yeah, let's uh Yeah, set these aside. Maybe this one is the kind of just rolling one. Oops. It's just like too intense. It's like predestin Yeah. I don't know if this even fits. Maybe it's just one at a time. Yeah, that one just has the feeling of like it's too big.

Feels like it wants to go into a beat there. All right, I'll just leave it for now. — Thanks for Owen for coming by. — Oh, yeah. Thank you. And — off to melt. Yeah, it's hot over here, too. Which honestly, welcome after like May was just full of rain in Toronto. — Um, awesome. Thanks, Ewen, for dropping in. And everyone check out Anina. Really cool free plugin that you made. Um, bass hard to hear in the A section. Let's see. I think Yeah, it's just like I really want that riff to come through. I mean, maybe it's just a levels thing cuz like with where the filter was sitting compared to later, you can even see the waveform is getting bigger. But I don't know. It could be like looking at the scope here. This the base content change. So it's more of like a highest issue smooth here. But oh, I guess I should be looking at the end of the chain cuz I added all this distortion. I want to like open up some 1k in the drums. That's cool for now. This is like what I do. I just like go through the notes, try and do them pretty quickly, and then like um if it's a problem again on the next listen, then I'll come back to it. But um just feel like yeah, working quicker here and then hearing um what the all the results of this pass together work like uh is just better for me. And I said a line base. I remember which part I was thinking of there. Towards the end it felt like Yeah, because this was not a clocked recording. Uh I was just off my modular again. I was finding some stuff sounded out of time by the end. So yeah, I think it was that last section. Maybe starting here. Now that feels good. Yeah, you can see those ones are off. So I'm just going to link these tracks cuz then I can slip and slide them together. Wait, am I forgetting the command for that? It's just pure muscle memory. Yeah, there we go. Okay. Zoom, zoom. Where is the start of the note? Is that where the frequencies start changing? Uh, oops. Next, you can even like see exactly where those waveforms go. It I mean, I'll do a fade on it anyway, but audio editing Yeah. I mean, it's still Maybe this is just one cycle behind. I mean, that level of detail probably didn't make a difference, but it feels tighter than before. At any rate, uh, all right, did that. Since we're at the outro, I felt like the outro was too long. It kind of like devolves at the end here. It's just like messing with the filter. I feel like it's fun to have a track fall apart, but it just felt like this went on for too long. Yeah, I might just cut some of these bigger chunks where it can just be like a smoother gradual devolve rather than

like, oh, it's falling apart, then it's popping back in. Yeah. Huh. But I guess I don't want to lose the rhythm of the riff, so I'm chopping full bars. Oh yeah, and I had already chopped some stuff out. So we had like weird filter weirdness. Maybe I just go to there. Yeah. Yeah, that's a better ending. But uh what point are we here? And again, aligning this a little better. Oh, and these ones slid forward actually. Okay. Yeah, that's the problem with my favorite way of working, playing with the modular, but things aren't always clocked. I've been doing more where I like send clock from the DAW and then all that, but sometimes you're just playing, you're like, "Oh, this is cool. I got to record All right. And then I got to see what's happening with my drum automation. Just smooth these out. What was happening here? Wait, why did those go like that? Still need to go. Okay, cool. That's done. Um, do we have any questions? — Yeah. Uh, always questions. — Um, question specifically about the song. Someone's asking what break is this again. It sounds familiar. — Uh, let's see. What is it? I Oh, yeah. It's from the HitKit pack, which I don't know where they got it originally, but I've been using HitKit stuff for like 20 years or something. 15 maybe. Um, yeah. I don't know if this is from like one of the old packs, but I definitely there are all these like great hit kit uh breakbeat loops that um I've played with for so long and a few definitely end up in my uh discoraphy and some tracks. But uh yeah, HKLP095 BPM04 and uh I think I layered it with some stuff in parts of the track. Yeah, I grabbed the groove off of it and put some samples down. Decided not to use the hat. Just adding a little little punch in a couple sections where we want a little extra impact on the drums. Um, what else was I going to do? Run drums through side drums. Oh yeah, I thought that would be fun, but we don't have the side drums out here. More stuff in buildup, earlier fill, and final repeat. It's probably here. Yeah, it's a little bit repetitive. Maybe this synth texture is like starting too strong. needs some kind of effect where it like

comes in from a little more distant and uh disguised of a place. I wonder if we can like uh well, there is always transit. I'm going to try a rift first because I like a lot of the distortions in it. Actually, you know what? Going back to my distortion selector rack because Yeah, like I just want it to be really broken. How can we like crackle it up more? We need like a — RC20 vinyl. — No, I'm thinking about like where how distortion breaks up. I think the um maybe dynamic tube with the bias. Oh, I see. You know, like right on the edge. Uh what if this is before the distortion? Oh, also it's just distortion on distortion. If you do satur here, maybe I'm just too distorted. Well, we'll automate this anyway. And we'll what should we do? Dry to wet on this distortion or wet to dry I should say. Yeah. Whoops. And this is only on for here. Need some volume compensation. Yeah, that's broken in a way that I like. All right. Again, we'll leave the fine-tuning for later, but uh try swapping bass B and C. Okay, let me do this before we get back to questions. But I have this section and then this section. Just had a thought that like, oh, maybe these work in the other order, but No, I think it was worth a try, but having more space here lets this weird uh this automation of the really short delay time stand out better, which I want to accentuate that more. Or I might switch that for a flanger just like fun as like vau coating the drums or something. I don't know. But that will take more time than we have today. Starker drop out for bass riser in intro. What did I mean by that? I mean, I guess I thought that transition could be better, but I I'm happy with it. Let's uh let's take a look at some more questions and then I should bounce. We got about 10 minutes — questions. Okay. Um do you have any thoughts about Sunvox

or Renoise? — It's kind of obscure. — Again, been ages since I played with either of them. I think I tried Sunvox like also 20 years ago I want to say and it was uh above my knowledge at the time. So, I didn't really get it and I haven't given it a fair shake. Again, it seemed like very comprehensive and well done for um an app. And then Renoise is cool. I mean, trackers are cool. I never spend enough time with one to get fluid with like all the commands. I know you'd be able to fly on them if you could. And a lot of the music that I love uses trackers. A lot of that like very kind of like on a dime changes in tambber and rhythm and all that kind of stuff is super fun. But I just kind of got so much better in Ableton that like using um other DAWs and other um kind of software meant for the sort of like construction and arrangement side of things. It's just always been faster for me to find the ways to do the things that I want to do in Ableton. Um but yeah, Renoise is cool. Um, — from a solo artist, how do you collaborate with other musicians remotely when you lose all of your ideas when it's time to contribute to someone else's stuff? — Wait, what's the question? How do you — collaborate with other musicians remotely? — When you lose all of your ideas when it's time to contribute to someone else. — Oh, interesting. — Yeah. I mean, I guess for me, I feel like there's um I wouldn't say there's one situation or another where it's harder or easier for me to have ideas. It's just it's completely random. There's plenty of times where in my own stuff I get stuck and then there's other times with collaborators where like I'm not sure what to add. Though I will say like I think my tendency is that I find an easier time when I am contributing to someone else's stuff because I feel like less worried about ruining it. Like with my own stuff I get too like ah but I don't know want to make it just right and whatnot. And with someone else's stuff for some reason I can feel a little freer to just like um what is it? Maybe it's that like you care slightly less and also you know that with them having the final say like they could just you know your idea might not work and it's not just because necessarily is a bad idea but maybe it's just an idea that they don't think is the right fit. So you almost feel like oh there there's like a it's not about success or failure it's just about trying stuff. Whereas for me anyway, when I'm working my own stuff, it's always like, okay, I want to like make sure every move I make is good. And of course, creativity doesn't work that way. But yeah, I mean, when you're stuck, I have all my little tricks to kind of like jog inspiration, which is like try a new tool or technique. Um, you know, whether it's like a plugin, free plugins, um, or like I look up random chords. Um, this is why I have like the book of chances, my little deck of cards. I created that specifically for like these moments where you just need to um have something. And of course, you can do the stuff that the card deck does in lots of ways. It's a, you know, gives you notes or rhythms or chords. And there's lots of ways to just choose those at random. And I think like one, as an example, like just choosing a random rhythm, right? you have like whatever song you're supposed to contribute to. Not sure what to do. Pick a rhythm at random. See what it does fitting over a top of part of the song that needs something like just clapping it or singing it or whatever. And that um if anything else um or is that what I'm trying to say? If anything, it at least tells you something that you don't want to do or at least gives you something to go off of. Like cuz maybe you're like, "Oh, like that rhythm didn't work, but feeling something happen on that one emphasized beat did work. " And that gets you exploring like what is it like to accent that with a different instrument or a different um you know changing something that exists in the track to accomplish the same thing. So I think like just giving yourself these random things to almost work against is part of how you can discover um you know what you want to explore in the track next and what you can try. Um, which I think is like many things, you know, if you're we do so much stuff on the computer these days, but like if you're playing instruments with a bunch of people and

you're trying to add something else to the track, like you can just play something on your instrument. Maybe you can pick up another instrument that's new, but you kind of have like something that you're forced to try things with. like you have your guitar in your hands or whatever. So, you're not thinking in this like vast landscape of infinite possibilities. You're like, "Well, I've got a few strings and frets. I'm going to try something. " And I think same thing with this approach with production. It's just like pick a thing and just like try anything with it. Drum loop, sample, you know, synthesizer, rhythm, chord. Chuck it in. And at least uh it rules out something that you might not like. — Yeah. — Uh would having the Osmos CE as my only keyboard have any downsides compared to just a normal keyboard? — Oh yeah, good question. I think you know play the Osmos just like see what it feels like to play in person. I know a couple people that use it as their main controller and I think the one downside is just that if you really like what a normal keyboard feels like, the Osmos is not that. So, you'd have to get used to playing um the nonossmos stuff that you want to play on an Osmos feeling keyboard, which is just like it's not that different. And it's one of the reasons why it's my favorite MP controller. It's the one that feels most like a normal keyboard while letting you do the kind of bendy glidey stuff, but it's like a little more pressure to work against than another keyboard. And then also the keys do that wiggle thing. So, it's like it'll just feel a little bit different and how much that affects you is really uh personal, I think. So, yeah, try one out. Um, I think it's definitely doable and it's just like your personal preference of like whether you would be okay with really using that for everything. — Here's a question we've been sort of like thinking about for a while. Something like uh a four prod four producers one sample live session like at a live event or something like that. Yes, I have wanted to do this for a long time and it's another one of those like when are we going to have the bandwidth kind of ideas, but I want to do a um I want to get like a handful of producers out. I mean, in this case, three others would make sense, but like just do kind of a producer camp where we'd make a lot of music, video together. One thing would be like a time box for producers where like we get the sample, everyone goes away for an hour or two, then we come back and listen to the tracks and they'll just be much shorter and less polished than what we might normally do on a four producers. But there's all kinds of other just fun producer games I would love to play with people and do it in person rather than remotely. You know, like a musical Exquisite Corpse or a musical Broken Telephone. Um, just like games where you could all be working together or like taking turns on something and building tracks in weird ways that uh I think would be fun just to play, but also probably would make for great videos. So yeah, one day that'll happen. We'll fly some people out and have a good time. — Um, let's do one more question and I think I got to bounce. — Let's pick the most loaded question. — Is the best question. thoughts on AI generation in music? — Oh, no. Okay, — that's just a Well, I mean, that's a — Yeah. No, we're — we're not going to get into that in 2 minutes here. And it's also just — No. — How about um Andrew Hong Bills collab? — Oh, Bill W. — Yeah, they just dropped a video. — Yeah. Oh, I need to check it out cuz he's been quiet for a bit, right? — Yeah. Yeah. They just — Yeah. No, I love Bill Warts. I uh I would love to do anything with him for sure. But um yeah, leave some comments to that effect in his stuff. — Make it happen. Yeah, there you go. — Yeah, I uh yeah, I think he's just so brilliant and so funny. Um — okay, one last question then. Uh people want to hear your thoughts on Reactor. I know you're a big Reactor fan. — Yeah, you know what? Reactor was my introduction to modular synthesis. I liked it before it became reactor blocks. I don't know if the like nodebased version of it is still around. The one that's sort of like Max MSP light a little bit more like fits with traditional synthesizer terminology and signal flow. Less powerful I guess than Max MSP, but also like I could figure it out, which I have not been able to do as much with Max MFP. And um yeah, I mean I think it's awesome and it was my gateway to that type of thinking in synthesis. And I will just say hardware is so much more fun for me. So once I started being able to get into uh Euroack, um I just haven't really gone back to

Reactor. And uh there's occasional patches that I use that are fun, but um yeah. No, it's just uh it's it's super cool and it's just like one of those things where being hands-on and tactile wins for me. Despite Reactor being like infinite modules and save and load everything super quickly, it's just like not uh the preferred experience for me when I'm doing uh that kind of modulars and stuff. But yeah, still recommend it. It's a great program. Um, all right. Well, I got to run. Get a couple more things done before I'm on dad duty. So, thanks for tuning in. This was fun. Hopefully these tracks will come out in a few months. And uh yeah, thanks for all the inspo, too, as we're going down that the brass stabs rabbit hole. Um, cool. And we'll uh we'll see you on the next stream. I might do these a little less frequently over the summer break. Um, but yeah, we'll do some again sometime. All right. Peace. — Peace.