SonicTransfer

Ableton Live, Performance, Composition, Burning Man. Want your music played at Burning Man 2010? There is a new interactive video, music, and fire installation called Syzygryd that is taking Ableton Live music submissions. Get the Syzygryd Music Developers Kit.

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Professional Mixing Tricks, Vocal Recording, Vocal Stacks, Ableton Live, Compression. Want to know some great tips for improving your vocal recordings and mixes? Do you want to learn how to create thicker vocal recordings and better mixes? Then read on.
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Ableton Help, Ableton FAQ, MIDI, VST Plugin. Having trouble using MIDI files with Ableton Live? Do you want to use a MIDI file you downloaded from the internet within Ableton Live? Then read on. For this lesson you will need:

• Ableton Live 4.0 (or newer)

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Ableton Live, Free, Keyboard Shortcuts, Workflow, Tools, Automation. Microsoft Windows users can now expand their Ableton Live workflow tool set. Independent developers have released tools to add extremely useful shortcuts to Live. You should grab these tools if you’re running Windows and you want to develop and perform music as fast as possible using Ableton Live.

• Click here to download LiveLife.
• Click here to download VitaminL.

Also, if you want to pimp your keyboard for Live, check out these keyboard stickers.

Electronic Music Production, Plugins, VST, Melodyne. Celemony Melodyne is about to release a revolutionary tool for producers and remixers. It’s called Direct Note Access (DNA) and it allows you to separate polyphonic audio into adjustable MIDI data. It can take an audio loop that plays chords, separate out the individual notes, and then adjust their pitches, volumes, onsets, and durations. The software is truly jaw-dropping and will no doubt be as useful and prevalent as Antares Autotune. Before seeing this in action, I would have told you that this feat is mathematically impossible.

• Click here to watch the promo video
• Click here to watch the presentation of this software at MusicMesse 2008

Note, this new software is currently in beta.

Thanks to Chris from RTHM for telling me about this one!

Compression, Mixing, Side Chain Compression, House, Tutorial, Oscilloscope. In the old days, mixing engineers would study the volume meters as they danced along the console. By playing back well-mixed songs, these early pioneers learned how to read proper song dynamics. This skill is invaluable when trying to understand and utilize compression. This article discusses a modern approach to developing the same talent cultivated in the old masters: the ability to create pleasing dynamic compression. For this tutorial you will need:

1. A VST Host (Ableton Live, Steinberg Cubase, Digidesign Protools, etc.)
2. S(m)execope VST/AU Oscilloscope. Download S(m)execope for Windows / Mac OS X.

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VST, Plugin, Free, Mixing, Oscilloscope.A good oscilloscope is useful in many contexts: synthesizer programming, understanding phase cancellation, compression, etc. Lucky for you, there is a fantastic free digital storage oscilloscope from Bram at SmartElectronix. This plug-in can be dropped anywhere in your DAW’s signal path for quick and easy analysis. You can use this tool to fix all kinds of dynamics-related issues.

Download the S(m)exoscope VST / AU plugin for Windows & Mac OS X.

Pear Cable has been challenged by The Amazing Randi, the well-known skeptic and paranormal debunker. He has offered 1 million dollars if they can prove in a scientific experiment that their $7,000 Anjou speaker cables sound any better than the relatively cheap Monster Cables. I’m very happy to see someone confronting the absurd claims made by speaker cable manufacturers. Remember, music-lovers listen to music and audiophiles listen to speakers.

Happy Producing!

Matt Sonic

Nothing beats the 808 drum machine for a solid, club-worthy low end kick. Its sound is immediately recognizable in all styles of dance music. It is an essential component of every electronic music producers gear collection. For years, musicians have paid large sums of money for the real thing. But, thanks to the D16 Group you can get Nepheton, a VST instrument that faithfully recreates the 808 sound. Best of all, instead of samples, this VST synthesizes the sounds. This allows you the same sound design flexibility enjoyed by owners of the actual hardware.

Nepheton is a commercial VST recreation of the Roland 808 drum machine. It is available for Windows and Mac OSX. Click here to learn more about the Nepheton.

VST, Plugin, Free, Mixing, Frequency, Spectral Analysis. It is often extremely useful to see the frequency spectrum of your individual tracks and your final song. For example, you may want to see if your bass is dipping into the same frequencies as your kick drum. Unless you have perfect audio monitoring equipment and perfect ears, you will need some help to make sure you don’t have overlapping frequencies. There is a free plug-in from Roger Nichols called Inspector that allows you to see the frequencies used by an audio signal. This tool, in combination with a filter or EQ plug-in, allows you to visually sculpt your instrument’s frequencies. In other words, this can help you spot problems with your mixes and improve clarity. Every electronic music producer should have this plug-in in their sonic arsenal.

Download Roger Nichols’ Free Inspector Plugin.