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Hey hello it's Fred Falke and I'm here in San Francisco talking with DJ Techtools
So today I'm going to show you the basics of my
live setup. I'm using Ableton and I'm using
prerecorded audio and also including some live bass.
So I'm gonna show you very simply how it's made
I'm using Ableton's compressor, the built in one. It's really cool
It does the job. Using the built-in plug-ins
it's just working fine. Which is so important
in Live. When you're using DAW software live, no matter what it is, you want things to go very
flawlessly with absolutely zero danger for
CPU overload or whatever. So I'm playing my tracks
live. It's remixes I've done, or originals, or
edits of tracks. So I always have access to the stems.
Each track, as you can see on the screen here - for example
the four tracks, we have four channels - are stems.
I don't have any presets of combinations
like Channel 1 is drums. It's just whatever.
So for example this track, 808, this is the guitar part
so let's say I want to start
with this and then include the wave sound
to it. So I'm going to launch this clip which is just the guitar
by itself. And then, I can launch the clip with the
wave sound.
And then I can bring
in the Fender Rhodes. It's like all the stems from the
original track. On some of these
clips actually, some like this one, they don't
have any follow action, which in Ableton is amazing. The Follow action
because basically you can tell the software after the clip what you want to do next.
On this one there is no follow action, but as you can see on the
Rhodes for example, there is a follow action. That means,
every time I play that clip, the clip
will play for 16 bars and then move to the next clip.
Which allows me, if I want to pick up the bass straight on, I can because
I know the Rhodes will play. It's like a keyboard player
I know the guy is gonna play the score. But if I want,
I can of course, if I want to bring some
I don't want to bring the bass, and just play the stuff,
I can just repeat it again and again. I can make a loop,
even shorter. I'm very adventurous, and sometimes
what I do here, I just change the loop size
in Live because one thing that's amazing about Ableton is
it's so stable as a software, I've never had any issue.
you can change loops and make everything while the software is
running. I think that's the beauty of it, it's like
using it just as decks, it's
it's a shame, because you can do so many things with it and be crazy.
and I think that's what Live is about, is being crazy. Sometimes
the loop is not perfect and you have to correct it, but that's the live stuff.
Again, so I could use the beat from the original
track.
Ok.
Normally what I do live is bring different beats
like here I have put some loops I can use
like for example the drum track loop here. That's the interesting stuff
I can play live the whole
track, but my feelings were
What's the difference between me playing all the stems live,
and me playing just the record. So when you go see a band play live,
the drummer is not gonna hit the drums the same way he did on the record.
And you won't have the same sound, it will sound a bit different. I think that's what makes
live performance so interesting.
So I was like, how can I do this with the computer?
This is how I do it, instead of using the drums for
the original track, which I may do sometimes, I'll combine those with
different drums or different parts and bring something new
and sometimes I play things once and
I'll be like "oh yeah, I can try this", and on the go, I'll drag a clip from
my browser. It can be a vocal, a synth, a drum
and I just play it, and I'm like "yeah, it's so great!" and after
at the next show, "Oh, I knew this was working so good"
So I'll bring this thing into the session ready. When it's simple I know the software
will be perfect, and me, I'm like, yeah I can do this
and I have fun. And if I have fun, people enjoy it
it's a great combo. I don't want to be stressed and be
looking like [I'm doing] too much thinking. People
don't want to come and see someone thinking in front of him computer, you know? Being a producer is about
being confident. Know your limits, and it's good to know
sometimes you have to team up with people in order to make a great track or great
performance. I think it's very important not to have too big an ego,
and know your limit, and work as a team. Build a crew around you
and that's the only way to move forward and move up. Au Revoir!
e merci!