Arranging percussive techno

[Críoch]

Cool haha

[buffered]

if you want a masterclass in arrangement, listen to Mike Parker

[Alume]

Guys, I need your help.

Like some of you might know I've been struggling to get down on it since my first EP. After countless of sketches loops and projects I've written the ideas for a new EP a few weeks ago. I feel that the sketches are a distilled product of everything I've attempted before and sum up what I'm trying to achieve in music nicely(for now). The time, place and vibes are right, I wrote about 4 conceptual loops in 1,5 days and cleaned them up the days after that. The sound design, leveling and stereo image is better than I've ever done so im pretty stoked.

The issue is, I've never approached music in this conceptual/reasoned fashion. Usually I'd write a track that came from a subconscious place in about 1-2 days and be done with it, but since that hasn't worked for several months I'm thinking this might be my new way to go for now.

So this is as far as I've gotten now.
1. Outbursts of ideas sketched into 4 projects. ---> save as: "Name[sketches]"
2. Conceptualize the sketches, giving them a physical place in space and time whilst matching this space, time and vibe to the label.
3. Create flow in the EP, basically determining A1, A2, B1 and B2 ----> file manage this on my hard drive, giving every track its own directory in the project folder.
4. Clean up the projects, maybe EQ a bit here and there, add names and colors to the tracks, maybe some extra groups. ---> save as: "Name[Loop]"

Now I stand for the next challenge, which I'm not as comfortable with as making loops. How to arrange/finalize and translate these ideas towards a 6-8 minutes experience? I haven't done this for ages and the way I've been always been doing it doesn't feel right any longer.

In the past I've always arranged the stems as 8 minute loops an subtracted parts and added volume changes, that's almost the only thing I did as I believe the music should be able to stand on its own and remain interesting without to much interference.

Now I'm interested in jamming my parts out like a lot of us do here. As I aspire nature oriented sounds I find that would be the most natural way for me to go. The key thing for me is to remain in control, jam out but still be able to make adjustments later.

I'm thinking about the following:
5. I've cleaned up my projects in point 4, so next I'll save my project as "Name[Stems]" and export all the clips to 10 minute audio stems, this should be enough material to work with and disables me to fall back into a previous stage as I cant change any parameters any longer. Besides that I can give these loops a nice place on my hard drive for future use liveset/remixes. If i realize that I'd like to control a certain synth's filter or whatever I could recall it from a previous saved version and copy/past it later on. This will enable me to records its automation and bounce it to audio again in point 6.

This is the one where I need your help:
6. Jam out the music into the foundation of the track, somehow I need to find the balance between reasoned programming/arranging and natural/human composition. I don't have any experience with this so its oke to have a few takes and save them as such "Name[Jam1.0/Arrangement1.0].

But seriously, other than that i have no clue haha. I would appreciate it if you guys could jump in and advice me a bit on what gear I could use, preferably controllers without learning curves. Also maybe I should create some cool send/return tracks while jamming?

I know it all seems quite analytical and a lot of trouble but I'd like to give my EP's an album kind of vibe. When somebody buys one of our records it should feel like a privilege to own one, and not like it's another EP in your collection.

So to round it all up this is what I can work with as far as controllers go:
- Ableton live and Max4live
- Push 2
- Arturia Keystep


Any help is appreciated, I'd love to drop the audio clips too but I'm afraid I cant for obvious reasons.

[daniel]

@Alume

You seem to already have a well thought out system to keep moving forward in the process as well as being able to go back to earlier stages to change and re-record things if you desire do to so.

Regarding jamming things out, i've never tried ableton push but it you should be able to do it with it. Maybe adding another midi controller with lots of knobs like the livid ds1 - or something similar - might be the way to go as you'll be able to control pretty much every parameter that you want on a live setting and give a more human feeling to the composition.

[Alume]

Yeah think can go a long way, though I dont use several clips on one track for some reason, never got into that. It's all 1 audio/midi track per track basically. So clip launching is redundant.

Maybe all I need is some faders and some assignable knobs?

Something like the Launch Control XL? Think the BCF is quite bulky, eventhough it has motorised faders.

Livid ds1 looks lovely, expensive though!

[Alume]

Fuck that ds1 is something that I've been searching for a while now.

Pff, too expensive.

[daniel]

Yeah think can go a long way, though I dont use several clips on one track for some reason, never got into that. It's all 1 audio/midi track per track basically. So clip launching is redundant.

Maybe all I need is some faders and some assignable knobs?

Something like the Launch Control XL? Think the BCF is quite bulky, eventhough it has motorised faders.

Livid ds1 looks lovely, expensive though!

BCF's motorized faders are definitely cool but at that price range i'd rather have more knobs. The Launch Control XL seems to be a good, more affordable alternative, i just wished it was a little bigger, everything seems to be too close together. If knobs are all you want you can also look into the midi fighter twister.

[Alume]

Yeah think can go a long way, though I dont use several clips on one track for some reason, never got into that. It's all 1 audio/midi track per track basically. So clip launching is redundant.

Maybe all I need is some faders and some assignable knobs?

Something like the Launch Control XL? Think the BCF is quite bulky, eventhough it has motorised faders.

Livid ds1 looks lovely, expensive though!

BCF's motorized faders are definitely cool but at that price range i'd rather have more knobs. The Launch Control XL seems to be a good, more affordable alternative, i just wished it was a little bigger, everything seems to be too close together. If knobs are all you want you can also look into the midi fighter twister.

Well actually I sold my mixer yesterday so i'm looking at a midi mixer. The livid one is just a bit to much, plus i read they are hard to get and people fear that the OS updates will die out after some time.

Any alternative to the DS1?

[Lost to the Void]

if you want a masterclass in arrangement, listen to Mike Parker

Press play and record, walk away, make cofee, drink coffee, read paper, come back, hit stop...release track?

[innovine]

Actually, his production is much more complicated than that. Throw on a few shitty loops, put an lpf over everything, then make the coffee.

[buffered]

if you want a masterclass in arrangement, listen to Mike Parker

Press play and record, walk away, make cofee, drink coffee, read paper, come back, hit stop...release track?

Exactly....