a blog on hold

Obviously it's been too long since I've last posted here. The reality is that between school, work, recording, live shows and numerous other important elements of my life, there simply hasn't been, nor will be soon, proper time for maintaining this sort of blog. I love writing about synths and software and the production process (and of course about Industrial music, too) so I won't say this blog is done for good -- but it's on hold for now, so I can focus what free time I do have on being productive with the Dead When I Found Her project, both live and in the studio. Thanks for reading, and be sure to keep up with me and my project on the Dead When I Found Her website & facebook page.

-Michael

I couldn't help myself....my "Dead Lines" cover

Speaking of old-school industrial, it doesn't get much more old-school than this -- my oh-so-true-to-the-original cover version of Skinny Puppy's 'Dead Lines,' which I consider one of the greatest electro-industrial songs ever created. Which is why the process of making this re-creation was so rewarding. I deliberately set out to emulate the original sounds as best I could (I like to think of it as a sonic exercise in emulating my idols, so to speak) using a fairly limited set of tools: Ableton Live as the DAW , with three software instruments: ableton's Analog synth, and G-Force's Minimonsta and M-Tron Pro (Minimoog and Mellotron emulations, respectively).

Dead Lines (As I Found It) by deadwhenifoundher

On Creating INDUSTRIAL Drums

Every fan of old-school industrial knows that the sound of the drums is one of the most crucial elements at play in the mix: both the timbre of the used drum hits and the style of sequencing used in the drum patterns form a definitive element of the 80's-90's industrial sound. They're big, they're thick, they PUNCH; and the patterns are slick, infectious, and often subtle and unpredictable in their movements. And though occasionally (or often...) we hear the standard four-on-the-floor beat, we just as often find syncopated layers of rhythm that, while perhaps simple, nonetheless avoid cliche dance rhythms and form infectious patterns that stick in the mind for days, weeks, years...('Addiction,' anyone?)

If you're like me, you've probably felt that a sad majority of modern industrial music has tended, rather oddly, toward using drums of a very different sort. Today's popular drums, disappointingly, are too frequently built from the standard trance-kicks paired with light snappy snares. And worse yet, these tend to play looping four-on-the-floor patterns with little (if any) variation.

But I'm not here to insult today's drums, but rather to discuss how we can go about making Old School Industrial Drums, and bring this sound back to the genre.

1. The Drum Programs

I'm very picky about which drum programs I use inside my host. For my needs, Ableton's Drum Racks are the best thing out there, most notably because they allow you to apply individual effects for each drum sample in a simple and quick way (and furthermore, drum racks offer a collapsable mixer channel for each drum pad, so the extra visual element is there IF you want it). I can also drag and drop samples from Ableton's browser right onto the drum pads, which is also key for me, as it's a huge time-saver when I'm sorting through my rather ridiculously large library of drum sounds. Products like BPM, Guru and Battery allow for individual effects per pad, but only if you create new audio channels in your mixer and route the pads to them, which I find to be a huge workflow killer (not to mention a quick way to create a visual mess in your mixer). Battery and Maschine both have some built in FX, but if you're like me, you don't want to be limited by the native FX section, and need your bevy of 3rd party plugs on hand.

It's also worth noting that sometimes it's nice to use (or create yourself) synthesized drum sounds, as opposed to sample based drum design. In this case I almost always use the excellent Microtonic drum synth made by Sonic Charge. The rest of this article, however, generally pertains to using sample-based drum programs like battery, drum racks, guru, redrum, BPM and so on.

Last note: if your goal is to build industrial-style drum tracks, you can kiss goodbye the notion of finding preset kits in any of the above mentioned programs that will provide you with ready-to-go industrial drum sounds. You will, of course, find any number of glitchy, trancey, housey, techno-y kits out there among the vast preset kit libraries.

2. The Samples Themselves

This step and the next step are the most important on this matter; regardless of what drum tool you use, your drums are never going to sound suitably industrial if you don't a) use good samples to begin with and b) know how to make FX work for you (though I should note that sometimes, with really heavy FX like a good distortion plug, the FX chain can work magic on even the crappiest of samples, resulting in powerful drums regardless of your original source). I recommend hunting down one-shots (as opposed to loops) because extracting hits from loops tends to keep extra material like hats or other random percussive noises, which can get in the way of crafting a perfect, pure industrial kick or snare. I do, however, like using loops (either ones I've made in Maschine or others found online, from a library, etc) and filtering/EQ'ing and otherwise processing the hell out of them and then dropping them "behind" the primary kick and snare pattern, as this will often create a strong sense of additional movement to the overall pattern.

So, back to finding good one-shots: here's my secret tip, take it or leave it, but guard it safely: the best one-shots for industrial music are those that come....from 80's pop music. Whether from 80's style sample packs, or literally sampled from 80's pop tunes themselves, much of industrial drumming involves taking 80's style kicks and snares and then processing them heavily with reverb, distortion and compression. No doubt this is simply due to the fact that industrial music started up in the 80's, and the industrial musicians of the time were, to be reductionistic about it for a moment, basically creating a counter-culture version of what was mainstream pop at the time: pet shop boys, a-ha, tears for fears, depeche mode, bowie's 80's phase, and so on. Here's some proof: go listen to some samples from Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" album, and just pay attention to the drums. If you strip everything else away, what's left would fit at least decently well (if not far better) in any track from Mind: The Perpetual Intercourse or Front By Front. So: do searches online for 80's drum samples.

There are all kinds of resources around the internet for finding 80's drums. Zenhiser sells some cool sample packs, as do Dance Midi Samples and PureMagnetik. But you can also track down 80's style drum sounds from numerous free sites; see my old post about "feeding your sample" for some great starting points. That particular 80's sound often came from early sample-based synthesizers (and also, of course, sample-based drum machines) that used small waveform samples to form a core library of available sounds that could then be run through the usual filters and modulations. The LinnDrum was an early example of this, and has an iconic sound still heard in popular recordings today (though if you want to know what LinnDrum samples sound like, just listen to any track from Prince's 1999 album). The sample-synth idea eventually evolved into the 'workstation' concept, fully realized in 1988 by KORG with the seminal M1 workstation synth. Check out Korg's excellent emulation (part of the KORG Legacy Collection: Digital) of this synth, and a quick run through the drum kits will reveal plenty of distinctly 80's sounding, crunchy sample-based drum hits. Synthesized drums naturally have their role to play in industrial as well, with the classic Roland beatboxes popping up all over, to name one example, the entire discography of Skinny Puppy. But purely synthesized drum hits (particularly the snares and hats) tend to have a thinner, snappier kind of sound that, while having their place in industrial, won't by themselves provide adequate material for big, crunchy drums (unless, like Cevin Key in 1985, you know exactly how to heavily process these things to full effect, using the sorts of tricks mentioned below).

Needless disclaimer: Obviously I'm just talking about a specific sort of sound here, heard throughout much of the Classic Industrial backcatalog. It goes without saying that any kind of drum samples could be put to good use in industrial music, with the right creative tweaking. Oh, and maybe try some samples drawn from two rare, little-known machines that show up and now and then in the electronic music world, I think they're called the 808 and 909...

3. Production Techniques

This is where it gets really fun...but a whole book could be written on this subject. Your FX toolbox provides endless ways to toughen-up your drum sounds and make them really crash & clang. But I'll focus on a few FX tricks that lend themselves very well toward the Industrial 'sound'...

1. Gated Reverb (plus a few notes on sample layering)

It may have started with Phil Collins, but this trick is heard all over the industrial drums of the 80's and 90's. Usually you hear this on the snare drum, but often it appears on the kick (or more typically, one the 'click' layer of a multi-layer kick drum). Reverb Gating is basically where you run the sample through a big roomy reverb, and then run this signal into a Gate that effectively cuts off most of the tail of the reverb. The result is an expansive sounding punch to the hit (again, usually of the snare) that then quickly disappears, resulting in a much wider, crashier hit that can nonetheless be played repeatedly without numerous long reverb tails starting to overlap and muddy up the whole sequence. If you do this on a kick, I recommend layering your kicks such that one kick provides a lower, bass-centric 'oomph' and another provides less bass and more of a mid-range 'click' sound (you can sculpt these with your favorite EQ plugin) and then run the 'clicky' kick through the gated reverb. The combined result is highly effective, and if you want a perfect example of this kind of sound, just listen to 'Deadlines' from Skinny Puppy's 'Bites' album.

2. Parallel Compression

This is also called the 'New York' compression trick. Put a compressor on a Return channel and set it to a fairly high ratio (like 4:1 or higher); now put an EQ after it that scoops out the midrange, as we want the added 'oomph' to focus on the lows and highs, but not the mids, as these tend to sound grating and tinny when over-processed. The threshold setting of the compressor will have to be adjusted to taste, but it will usually be something of a moderate setting -- enough to pump a lot of the signal without pumping all of it, if that makes any sense. Now, use the Send on your Drum channel to send around %50 (give or take a bit) to the Return -- this will add the compressed signal from the Return into the mix, on top of the already heard drum channel, resulting in a beefier, snappier overall mix to the drums. Typically, compression is used as an insert effect in a serial FX chain; parallel compression mixes things up by using compression in parallel instead (e.g. adding wet signal to dry signal rather than dry becoming wet by a certain percentage) via the use of your DAW's send+return channels. If this all sounds a bit confusing, do a quick search on the difference between serial and parallel fx processing and you should be able to sort things out.

3. Making Noize

There's a wealth of tools out there to mangle your drum sounds. For industrial, a good distortion unit is always a good choice. Personally, I'm not too fond of extremely overdriven drums, e.g. the sort you'd hear in power-noise and it's brethren; but a subtle use of distortion or saturation can give drums extra grit and punch, and occasionally can be great for extreme sonic destruction, if controlled and sculpted appropriately. My recommendation for distortion (and for other crazy fx) is most definitely the kooky french group OHM FORCE, who make the most wicked distortion plugin you're likely to ever hear -- Ohmicide. This is a multi-band distortion unit that really just has to be heard and played with to be understood. You can find out more at www.ohmforce.com

Well, that wraps up my introduction to industrial drums. I have a feeling I may revisit this territory again in the future; meanwhile, if you have any particular tips and strategies, or know of any great sample resources relevant to this kind of thing, please drop a comment below!

Phil Western Virtual Tour of Subconscious Studios

This was posted over in the litany.net forum earlier this month, though I just stumbled onto it today: a fantastic mini-tour of the subconscious studios, gear-home to Phil Western and Cevin Key!

Gary Numan On Meeting the Minimoog

Here's an excerpt from a very recent (July 2010) Rolling Stone interview with Gary Numan, in which he tells the story of how he met the Minimoog-- and how that changed everything. This is as funny as it wonderful.

Read the full Rolling Stone interview here:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/17386/184692

Meeting the Minimoog Portion of interview:

"I remember it clearly. I had been sent to a studio by [my label] Beggars to record my first album. It was going to be a punk album and we were going to play the songs live. But as soon as I walked into the control room, there was a mini Moog. I had never seen one before. I just thought it was the coolest looking thing, just fantastic. Quite, quite small.

Apparently, a company was going to come pick it up but the man said I could try it out until they came to collect it but they never turned up! I had this thing for the whole day and it was the most amazing experience. Very luckily, it had been left on that sound which had become famous: a huge big bottom bass roar. It was just huge. I didn't know how to set it up. All I did was press a key and the room shook! And I just thought, "Fuck me! That's the most amazing thing I've ever heard! The power!" Imagine, if the sound had been something that went ping!, I would've thought, "This is rubbish" and none of this success would've ever happened to me. So much of this was luck."

DEAD WHEN I FOUND HER CENTRAL : THE HOME STUDIO

I figured some of you might be interested in seeing the current incarnation of the DWIFH Home Studio Setup. Additionally, I'll post a little guide below to help you understand what you're looking at, as a few things are obscured. It's funny to reflect on the progression and development of my home studio, because I used to be a very "software only" kind of guy. And actually, that's still *mostly* true, as much of what you see above are controllers rather than instruments. But, things change...

It's worth noting, however, that pretty much everything you hear in my songs has been, to date, software-based. The kurzweil has only been used (it's a crime, I know) as a midi controller for my softsynths; and the Virus and Ensoniq are both relatively recent acquisitions, both of which I've yet to explore extensively (let alone use within a DWIFH track). Even Maschine (though strictly a controller that powers the Maschine software) is a new purchase that hasn't shown up, to date, in any DWIFH material.

I point this out because, if you're thinking that the sound of "Harm's Way" requires an apparently hardware-heavy setup like the one seen above, be sure that it doesn't. "Harm's Way" was the product of extensively using Ableton Live and a selection of software instruments and FX. Most of what you see above are tools acting as controllers for software: only the Virus and the Ensoniq will be used as additional instrument sound sources on future recordings (and the Ensoniq, well, was really more of a goofy nostalgia purchase; both the K2000 and most of the software I'm using can run circles around the Ensoniq's relatively dated functionality; but, it will have it's place all the same).

That said, I keep eyeing DSI's MOPHO keyboard with hungry anticipation...After all, a setup like the one above could certainly use at least one truly analog synthesizer...vamos a ver!


Studio Hardware:

Apple iMac Intel Core2Duo
Mackie MR5 reference monitors
Native Intruments Audio Kontrol 1 audio interface
Akai LPK25 mini keyboard controller
Akai APC40 ableton live controller
Native Instruments Maschine drum sampler/groovebox
Shure57 microphone
Kurzweil K2000vx with sampler option (lower keyboard in photo)
Ensoniq ESQ-1 Synthesizer
Sennheiser HD 280pro Headphones
Access Virus B Synthesizer
Epiphone Les Paul "goth" electric guitar (not pictured; it's next to the keyboards)

Studio Software:
(listed by company; not a comprehensive list, but with a focus on the most essential and frequently used tools)

DAW:
Ableton: Live 8 (Suite Version)

SOFTWARE INSTRUMENTS:
Native Instruments: reaktor5, absynth5, kontakt3, fm8, guitar rig3, maschine
KORG: Legacy collection instruments, Analog + Digital
GForce: Minimonsta, impOSCar, Oddity
Arturia: ProphetV, ARP2600V
Rob Papen: Predator
Propellerhead: Reason4 (instruments rewired into Live host)
Cakewalk: Rapture, Dimension Pro

FX:
(note: mostly I use the Ableton on-board FX but there are a few exceptions, most notably the Voxengo plugs which I use extensively; for mastering I use nothing but 3rd party mastering FX plug-ins)

Sonnox: Limiter
U-He: Uhbik bundle
Sonalksis: StereoTools
Izotope: Ozone4 (mostly used just for the multi-band compression unit)
BBE: Sonic Suite (for the D4 aural exciter)
Voxengo: MaxPunch, VariSaturator, StereoTouch

Review: Waldorf LARGO Software Synthesizer

Largo Softsynth by Waldorf

$249

Waldorf have long since made themselves a household name among the modern hardware synth market through the success of their digital units Blofeld, Q and Pulse. Largo, while not technically the companies first softsynth (they had earlier released a nice emulation of the classic PPG Wave synth as part of a bundle with the Attack drum synth), is nonetheless their first large-scale entry into the software instrument market. And "large" it truly is: a three-oscillator, two-filter, modulation-heavy wavetable monster that, while not presenting anything notably novel into digital synth design, instead simply aims to do what's been done before, but with Waldorf's signature style and edge. Do we need another subtractive style soft-synth? Is simply having that "Waldorf signature" worth a notably steep $249? Well, follow me...

I'm going to bypass writing paragraphs aimed at comprehensively listing all of Largo's various features, as a quick jump over to Waldorf's website will fill you in on anything you might want to know. Suffice to say that Largo boasts a very typical subtractive design, with the notable (and very important) added feature that it's a true Wavetable synth, with two of the three oscillators providing a selection of sixty-eight wavetables, borrowed from Waldorf's hardware line (the Blofeld, specifically). Each 'table' contains a long chain of single cycle waveforms (one hundred and twenty-seven, to be precise) that each individually provide, as you progress along from 1 to 127, gradually varying harmonic content. For example, a table might start with a standard sawtooth waveform and gradually morph into a standard square waveform, with the harmonic content of each wave inbetween altering slightly to create the total morph. Using modulation sources such as envelopes and LFO's, each table can be 'scanned' through, thereby resulting in a fantastic array of moving textures, tones and soundscapes.  

I'm always happy to see new wavetable synths come on the market, as they represent a definite minority among the software market despite their ability to offer a much wider range of timbres and sound-shaping abilities than your average synth. Before Largo's arrival, the most notable (and certainly most popular) wavetable synth on the market had been (and probably continues to be) Native Instrument's Massive, a synth that shares quite a few substantial similarities (and also a number of important differences) with Largo.

THE OSCILLATORS...

Evaluating the sound quality of provided waveforms is always terribly subjective at best, but all the same, as the owner and user of an admittedly over-large array of software instruments, I feel 100% comfortable in stating that Largo's oscillators are among the best I have heard. And I'm talking about the straight, unfiltered sound quality of the waveforms and tables: there is a richness, smoothness and perceived 'purity' here (so to speak, as I know such terminology verges on the dangerously arbitrary) that my ears aren't used to hearing when loading up dry waveforms. Largo's oscillators are high-powered machines: first there are the scannable 68 wavetables, and secondly there is the powerful sub-oscs to further fatten the sound.

THE FILTERS...

Waldorf are famous for the supposed legendary quality of their filters. All I know is that these sound really, really good. Furthemore, they each boast a variable drive-stage that allows you to instantly dirty-up the sound. This is a great feature.

THE GUI....is pristine. Really. Look at those big silver knobs, they're a thing of beauty. The layout is natural and easy to get around. Yes, you have to tab between the modulation sources, mod matrix, fx, and arpeggiator, and the synth itself is rather large to begin with. But at least the 3 oscs and 2 filters are always visible.

At first glance, Largo definitely looks to be more-of-the-same. You could argue that it's basically just like Massive, but with no available step-sequencers as mod sources and a vastly more antiquited approach to modulation (Massive still has, I must admit, my all time favorite implementation of modulation-- long live the colored-rings!). The difference for me -- and it's a huge difference -- is all in the sound. Whereas Massive has always sounded cold and edgy to me, no matter what the style it's programmed for, Largo's pallette is smooth, warm and clean. They both sound unabashedly digital, but Largo, for my  money, sounds far and away superior. 

Nonetheless, if it weren't for the wavetable oscillators, fully recommending Largo would be harder to do, simply because despite the overall excellent quality of the GUI and filters, the synth just doesn't bring much of anything new to the table in an already crowded soft-synth universe. Everything it does, it does well, and the whole package is slick, sleek and refined. But if you've been using software synths for a while, it's unlikely that Largo will offer you any real new tricks or abilities that you don't already have well covered among your synth arsenal. But, I'm a sucker for wavetable synths, and the only real competition in this department is Massive (you could argue Rapture as well, but if you see my feature on that synth, you'll learn that it's claim to the 'wavetable' title is tenuous at best). The large choice of waveforms and, more importantly, the ability to smoothly glide through the 127-cycle long tables, altogether allows for a depth of sonic exploration you just don't find on non-wavetable synths. I can't say I'm very fond of the preset library shipped with Largo; it's weak compared to the great (and extensive) material that comes with synths like Predator, Rapture and Sylenth1. Too many of the presets fall in the trancey, buzzing lead category, which is odd for a wavetable synth, and the browser itself is a bit clunky. Still, these considerations aside, the good certainly outweighs the mediocre on this thing, and Waldorf have crafted a classy software instrument that I imagine will please both their longtime followers as well as nit-picky soft-synth users such a myself.