Our class did Ableton Live stuff this week!! Ableton is my THIIINGG so I felt very much in my element this week!!
The first half of the class was spent teaching everyone how Ableton Live works. We were then provided with some samples of some popular songs, and our task was to create a mashup remix!!
The thing that was emphasised the most in this lesson was the importance of ensuring every track was transposed to the same key, and at the same tempo. Otherwise, it will sound like a muddy mess and not pleasing to the ear.
I used the riff from Ariana Grande's "Thankyou Next", and Taylor Swift's "Calm Down" - lowering the pitch and speed to create a darker sounding vibe. I did a lot of splitting with Taylor's sample by transposing some sections down a tone, to make the chord progression match Ariana's.
I cut a vocal sample from Lizzo's track "Good As Hell" - also transposing this to the correct key - and added some reverb for some colour.
I then layered Lorde's "Royals" drum pattern underneath this which started to drive the track. I also layered this with a MIDI drumkit playing the same pattern so the drums could really stand out amongst the other layers.
Then, I added a short synth sound from Beyonce's track "Formation", and the piano riff from Adele's "Someone Like You" with a guitar sample from Halsey's "You Should Be Sad".
For some fun at the end, I added in the chorus of Sia's "Chandelier". It sounded a little silly so I kept it in for a laugh!! :)
One thing that excited me was that briefly, James showed us Madeon's famous Launchpad mashup called Pop Culture. This made me excited because I'm such a fan of Madeon, he often uses Launchpads when performing his music live. This video is what made him famous at an extremely young age.
The DAW-Less Studio
Of course music can be created using a DAW, and MIDI controllers which run computers. However music production hardware that don't connect to computers are coming back into fashion!
Examples shown in class:
AKAI MPC One - contains its own programmable synthesizers, as well as a sampler. It doesn't need to rely on a computer.
Novation Groovebox – Fm Synth with a drum machine. It has its own built in synthesizer
Roland TR 8 – it has 16 buttons, with midi on the back. Sliders are individual mixers for each drum
The idea of a DAW-Less studio is very popular now, and it's important as educators to think about how we can get kids away from computers and get them using digital or analog controllers instead
James also mentioned that Ableton are creating education resources for teachers using Ableton - I wasn't aware of this so I will definitely check this out!!
Right: Novation Groovebox.
Left: A digital guitar (I believe it's called an Artiphon?) This connected to an app on the iPad which generated the sound through headphones.
Right: A digital MIDI drumkit. This was linked to a program which teaches you how to play the drums, by following along and reaching objectives. A fantastic educational resource!
Left: A LaunchPad app on the iPad. This works like a normal Novation Launchpad.
James also mentioned to us that next week we will be pitching our ideas for our Tech project to the class!! Very excited to start figuring out what I will be doing for my project!
Such a fun fun FUN class!!