The improvised techno thread

The Lounge General Discussion
#324

Thanks for the insights!

I’m working ny way towards a Rtym-only set at a birthday party in a couple of months. GAS is making me wonder if I should get a mixer and a delay. I almost certainly will, eventually. but I want to make myself see how far I can get with scenes and perfs first.

It’s good to hear that your concerns were mostly about immediacy and workflow. I was a bit worried you were going to complain about the reverb and compressor. I’m sure external ones offer a lot more, but the built-ins seem pretty flexible and sound “fine” for my first set in years. My main concern is that I’ll have different compression per kit/track and would benefit from having a main bus compressor to apply a cohesive levelling, and maybe tone (i.e. I’m GASing for a Heat or Boum too :grin:)

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#325

Ah nice, you will have to record it and share it back to the thread, even if you feel unsure about it being the first for a while and all.

It’s funny you say you wanting to explore the Rytm first before adding more, as this is exactly what I have been doing for a while. There is an upcoming 2 track release that is just straight out of the Rytm, and just using the drum engines as sound sources, and it sounds pretty buts when that machine is pushed, it’s definitely got some power and does lend itself extremely well to live jamming for sure.

The reverb and compressor give very usable sculptability in my opinion, yeah sure, external ones can offer more but that’s not always important, actually, I’m not really a more kinda person. It’s definitely a workflow area for me, and that’s not to say the Rytm has a bad one, far from it. Typically I have something running where I may change a parameter or two, but generally, the whole thing is done on a mixer so it’s pretty key for me. I tried stuff without, and I can get a track that sounds ok, but for a set, I really like that being somewhat open and just exploring sounds in the fx, the structure, the eq, the distortion and the sounds just come from a pool of audio that I know behaves in certain ways with fx, and maybe write stuff right there, in the moment, maybe start with sounds and no sequences, or maybe nothing at all and just see how I feel in the moment. The Rytm really does an excellent job of just delivering solid audio, good quality, decent tools to adjust and unlike laptops, are less likely to get all screwed with a new OS or similar.

The Oto stuff is nice, it’s waaaay overpriced I think, but still, people have to eat right haha. I have the BAM which is basically my portable DP4…it ain’t no DP4 I can tell you that, but it’s good enough, and it really has a sound of its own when improvising and adjusting parameters.

Seriously good luck with the set.

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#326

Dammit! I talked about it. Now I actually have to do it. My friend wont mind if I opt for DJing instead; in fact, that’s what he’s expecting. But having a deadline will make me make something. It’ll be good to perform live again (I’ve had years off).

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts on Rytm and outboard. Good perspectives!

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#327

What really opens up the AR for live jamming is a midi controller. I have a BCR2000 with 12 encoders mapped to the 12 track levels and 12 mapped to the 12 performance macros. Perfect match. On the AR I usually have the mute page in focus. Having all that accessible at once greatly improves its live playability without page/menu diving.

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#328

Synth punk / industrial techno rig-check- Anything utility or performance-centric I ought to consider for live? A few of these still in development or on order, more than enough time to strategize.

Tone generation: Elektron Rytm/Digitakt/Model:Cycles, MegaFM, Norand Mono

FX: Overstayer Modular channel, and a Valley Dyna-Mite for limiting/expanding. Toss in a bunch of fuzz pedals and an OTO Biscuit.

Sequencing: OXI One sequencer (also Digitakt)

Recording: Babyface Pro

#329

Thank you very much for taking the time ! It’s definitely not exempt from flaws and there are plenty of things to improve ! I do agree that I could have switched patterns a bit earlier towards the end.

Yeah the Alphabase really sounds great. You can add pulse, noise and attack to you kick which makes it cut through the mix quite nicely.

The rack unit is an Overstayer Modular Channel, a stereo console strip of sorts : preamp, filters, eq, comp and distortion. It’s really really amazing and greatly participates in making the thing whole and coherent. It was on the master insert of the mixer so everything ran through it. And yes both pedals were on sends, I think I used spare channels for returns.

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#331

Btw, just to be clear, it was meant as a compliment! When you can improvise for such a long time, keep the listeners attention and keep the energy that’s amazing!

I also really like that type of (for the lack of a better word) “soundscapy” stuff. The sounds from the modular, bordering on atmospheric sounscapes and few, well fitting percussive elements - really cool stuff.

#332

It’s funny because I always think my music is too sequence heavy, I’m always trying to make it a bit more sparse and “soundscapy”… So I’m glad that’s the way you felt it :slight_smile: Thanks again !

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#333

Finally found the time to listen to the whole thing. Great set! I especially loved the part from ca. 35 minutes onwards.

How is the sequencing on the modular done? Did you have patterns prepared? Which sequencer(s) were you using and which synth voices (I think I can see the Mother32 in there)?

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#334

Thanks a lot ! You can ask @MoeFerris how he is using the modular . His main sequencer is an Erica Synths Black Sequencer !

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#335

Hope this is “improvised” enough for this thread. More honest would be “the thrown together in about an hour techno” thread but couldn’t find it with the search function.

Thought I’d try to load it up on Youtube, as I didn’t make an audio recording unfortunately for Soundcloud, and Instagram video’s don’t work for sharing. I’m proud of how this one sounds, be it rough around the edges with some mistakes here and there and a minute of fumbling at the start etc.

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#336

Great set! I like how it’s filmed too.

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#337

Yessss, seems like the moody-techno-pad-topic paid off! Very nice neverending throaty machine growl :robot: :robot:
Love the hats too!

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#338

Finally got a chance to watch it, wow, fantastic work! Would’ve been nice had the location been able to be visited :alien: :alien:
Was there some post-processing or mastering happening too? Really solid sound quality throughout for being fully improvised.

How many people were involved at the location? Looks like quite some production value.

#339

Nice. So what’s in the eurorack and what sounds do you use it for?

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#340

Exactly! And now I even realize I could easily add some subtle lfos to that sound et voila :slight_smile:

#341

Thanks! Very little, literally just the throat singy sound. It’s made with the Loquel iciteritas percido, into C4RBN filter. Usually I use LIP for baselines or other techno loops, but here I opened up the EG/Amp to just use it as a drone.

I hadn’t planned to use the modular, but at the last moment I wanted to try out the CV outputs of the Matrixbrute (out of frame, doing the subtle bass arp) into my modular, to see if that worked. And so the drone resulted.

What I really like here is that I used the mod wheel of the Matrixbrute to open up the filter of the throaty modular - but in the meantime the modwheel is mapped to the bass line. So the Matrixbrute bassline and the modular merge together really nicely.

#342

Thank you very much ! It’s an abandoned polimer factory I think.

Most of the guys from Resilience work for a big French radio so they have access to superb studios and one of the main filmer is a sound engineer there doing all the jingles etc… He has done the mastering too but no idea what he did exactly. It sounds pretty close to the recording I have straight from the H4n but louder of course. And yes it’s quite the production, I think there were like 8 people including me !

@subduct Thank you ! Yeah the filming is really nice !

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#343

Does anyone have any favorite videos/recordings of Digitakt-only (or primarily Digitakt) improvised sets? Curious about how people use it for this purpose.

#344

I’m still intrigued by using a looper but the workflow is still a little unclear to me. I’m talking through what I think would be a usable setup:

I have 1 drum machine and 1 synth going in to 2 channels on a DJ mixer. I have the looper setup on a send with the outputs of the looper going in to a 3rd channel on the mixer. When I want to sample the drum machine or synth it’s just a matter of recording the loop and then fading between the looped material and the live synth/drum machine using either the channel faders or crossfader.

Is it that straightforward? Seems too easy after working with the octatrack :stuck_out_tongue:

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