Dj with Ableton Live

Hey guys...

Due to questions regarding dj'ing with Ableton live this months contest on a minimix will be extended for another month. With that in mind I'd like to share the original article that got me started pulling songs into Live. You can find it here.


Hope that clears things up a bit and as always anything your still fuzzy about we can run through Tuesday.

June Contest Synth Creation

Here are the synth creation contest submissions. The goal this month was to create your own sounds and have them evolve throughout the song. I gotta say I was highly impressed. Alot of you are making huge progress...Love'n it.

Casio DG-20

I was browsing ebay today and stumbled upon this little gem...I must have one soon!! The casio DG-20 was built as a guitar synthesizer. It has 6 strings which sense when you pluck them and sensors under the fretboard to tell where your fingers are. All of this information gets converted into midi notes that play through a casio like on board synth. There are 20 built in sounds plus 80's style rhythms (built 85-87). Best of all it has a MIDI output so you can use it as a midi controller giving it infinite functionality. Gotta love those nerds in the 80's slapping midi on everything! Check out this cool video.

Mixtape Madness

June Muzik Meeting

The date for our next meeting will be Tuesday June 17th at 7pm. The winner of the genre contest will be announced then. Content is still TBA and as always free pop and pizza for all. If you have not come in the past and would like to see what its all about please contact me at muzikaudioproduction@gmail.com for directions.

Genre Contest Deadline

We started another contest. Each person at the last Muzik meeting picked a CD at random that had a specific genre of electronic music. There were 5 genres in the mix and the cd that was selected was the genre you were to create in. If you were unable to attend the last meeting and would like to participate you may contact either Dan or myself and we will pick a genre at random for you.

All entries must be submitted in mp3 format to muzikaudioproduction@gmail.com before Friday June 13th 2008. If you are having trouble with anything let me know.

One of the questions asked so far is since some have never produced in the genre they are working if stock loops would be ok. My answer to this is that it is entirely fine to pull sounds out of sample librarys but not loops. You may take a kick drum out of one loop...or a snare from another for instance but remake the beats yourself. Same goes for other instruments.

If you need more inspiration for your genre than you were able to get from the cd you received I highly suggest using some form of online radio stations specializing in your genre.

My personal favorite service is Shoutcast. You will need to have Winamp installed on your computer to play the stations.

Another great resource for exploring different genres is Beatport. They are an online music store similar to iTunes but dealing specifically with electronic music...all sorted by genre. I'm not telling you to buy a bunch of songs there but there are 60 second previews for each track. Who knows...you may find something you really like.

The competition will be judged solely upon who gets the closest sound to their selected genre. Good luck to you all! Have Fun!!!

April Contest -AMBIENCE-

Congratulations to Steve DeVries for this submission in our ambient contest. Steve won first place and a recieved a $25 gift card to Beatport. Keep up the good work.

This contest was a great success...look for more like it in the future.

Sidechain Tutorial

Insane Drum Setup

We did a pretty massive digital integration with the acoustic drum set for the Good Friday service.

In addition to the acoustic drums Caleb Thurmer controlled a Mac G5 running Ableton Live to send a metronome signal with the bpm for each song into the monitor system and trigger drum loops and sweeps.

We custom made a button out of a usb keyboard and some cheap parts from Radio Shack and attached it to the drum kit so all he had to do was press the button to cycle between the different songs and elements.

We also added a set of Roland V-Drums to the side of the kit and used them as a midi controller for Battery. We set each pad up to a different sound effect...Lightning, rooster crow, dirty snare, wierd ambient effects, and added an 808 to the kick pedal. I've gotta tell you hearing the 808 sub kick peppered in with the acoustic drums sent chills down my spine!

Ableton Live on iPhone

Hey guys. I'm starting a new blog for Muzik Audio Productions. I thought we could use a place to store updates and news for those without myspace. Also I gotta do a little research but I think we can store all songs on here as they are made.

This photo is only real in my dreams by the way!