4 elements, 2 scenes, 10 knobs and 4 minutes of mucking about and you have a track that's probably 85% complete! (which is also 60% more complete than anything I've done in a long time!)...damn... I'd still be in the kicks folder! 🤣
This is more a video about psychology actually, if you think about it. Very fascinating, how often times we as musicians don't "finish" a song. In my experience, the most powerful and nice way to finish a song (=to print it out) is having a loved one urging you "please give me that song, i want to have it" after listening to the live jamming. 😊 That feels more powerful to me than any other technique out there, haha
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That is indeed a truly wonderful feeling and reason to finish a thing :)
You're such a wonderful human being Alex. And a genius. Also, this track hit me good. Put it out there and it'll be on loop all day. Thank you for so many inspirations.
I have been considering switching over to Bitwig because I want a more flexible and performance orientated approach to trying out different ideas and composing tracks. This video and the previous one which looked at project modulation and blending together different states of the track have been an absolute revelation and you've described them so clearly. My decision is now made, thank you!
I needed this video badly, thank you so much! I have such trouble transitioning from midi to audio and just your intro helped me understand why it's important to do so.
Hey Tache: watching on an old broken phone. Just to clarify: the Macro knobs you created are purely volume knobs each assigned to a different element in the track (including a summed FX send), right? Thanks for the vid!
@ I took it a little further and mapped mute buttons. Honestly I think all this would be a better way to do a live set vs using all the clips in Session view. In the moment performance embraces the energy instead of nitpicking on arrangement, synths, etc. Thanks for the reminder of how music used to be made/performed! bringing the hardware experience to software's flexibility.
@ I guess I just don't see it. I'm browsing live performance systems for an upcoming gig, and with the combination of Live and Max...it's the bees knees.
I would have to gain the coordination to do this propers..but you are the king of making Bitwig (and electronic based music production in general) a more vibrant and visceral experience giving it so much life and energy. Man. Makes me happy.
Love it. This hybrid method of studio / DJ production is a wonderful thing. It's absolutely what I have been wanting forever, and super cool with these project modulators. I made something yesterday and it is so much damn fun. Great stuff man. Oh, and nice shirt 👍
It brings the Live DJ feel to recorded dance music. That's really cool. t wasn't sure what to expect with this video... showed up on my feed. Didn't know the channel. Arrangement means something different in the kind of songs that I write..... The closest equivalent is transitions and automation. I'm glad my DAW let's me easily render midi instruments to audio and revisit the midi leter. Or maybe I would never stop messing with them!
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I’m glad you enjoyed it! What type of music do you make mainly?
@ more traditional stuff mostly.... Influences like Radiohead, the Beatles, etc.... Jazz even. Hasn't gone too far down the modern production style rabbit hole. More often than not o go for an organic drum sound. But I'm flexible.
Thank you for the inspiration and advices. I love watching your Bitwig tutorials, they make a lot of sense and open up a lot of new ways of thinking about how to interact with the software. BTW - what is the MIDI controller that you use for the knobs and faders?
Thank you Taches - you helped me in so many ways. Musically, professionally, and philosophically. I really appreciate your videos and look forward to them every morning with my roasted bean extract. All the best for now, love you babe
I’ve also found that a conscious effort to print to audio has helped me to tighten up my mixes by being able to calibrate tracks so that the peaks land exactly where they’re supposed to. When it’s in midi you can’t really tell sometimes the timing is a bit out of whack and it’s hard to notice. Initially, I just started printing audio out of habit because my Mac mini only has 16 GB of RAM and I kept on running out of memory so I was forced to bounce instruments and disable them.
This is bad advice... I fail to to see how this approach is superior to recording MIDI clips + automation to the arranger!? With your approach it's impossible to make adjustments to the automation or the score after recording, all you're doing is bouncing the instrument output with baked in automation to multi-track audio. The same effect can be achieved by recording the midi + automation to the arranger with the added benefit of being able to make changes/fix mistakes and still have the ability to bounce to audio if desired.
it isn't worse, it's different. more in line with the way a DJ works. While you are correct, as I see it, the whole point is to force you into using the DAW as a live instrument and commit. Also, once you have the multitracks you can do stuff in audio space that wouldn't be possible in MIDI. At the end of the day there is no right way, and it certainly isn't bad advice, it's just different, and that is fine.
@@jumpstar9000 I'm a DJ as well as a producer; I don't understand your comment about "the way a DJ works"... as far committing there is no difference in the immediate product of recording to audio vs recording to midi -- it's going to sound just the same and have the same arrangement. The difference is that the midi is infinitely easier to make changes to after arranging. I could see a beginner having some psychological benefit of seeing the audio in the arranger vs having midi, but that's exactly my concern with this 'technique' being advertised is that a beginner will go this route and then run into a bunch of extra problems when they want to make a change or fix a mistake after recording. As for doing stuff in the audio space vs midi the only things you can do with the audio that you can't easily do in midi is reverse, time/pitch stretch. This can still be accomplished by recording midi + automation to the arranger and then bouncing the necessary sections to audio. All in all I see this approach as taking extra steps to produce the same result as recording midi without any of the flexibility of being able to edit afterwards...
@@consciousholes When you are DJ'ing you are taking source material, mashing it all together based on feelings in real time. That is what this encourages to obtain a fresh live sounding result. There is nothing stopping you doing tons of production work in the source material using regular techniques, but now you have the added possibility of an extra live dimension on top. The great thing is you can have the "studio mix" absolutely perfect in the source material and then cut as many remixes as you like all day or night long. You'll be thanking yourself on set for setting it up like this. There is a ton more stuff you can do in audio space than you said. Micro-Pitch and Formant shifts, Time stretching Folding to takes and Comping, Slicing and Dicing and using all the Operators in audio space. All these are totally different to using them in MIDI space. I don't understand the pushback, because clearly there are more than a hundred likes on this video who think this is a cool and fresh approach that is difficult, if not impossible to do in any other DAW. We can't all be wrong 🤷♂️
@@jumpstar9000 > That is what this encourages to obtain a fresh live sounding result. That's a moot argument as the result of this approach isn't any different than recording the clips and knob actions as midi/automation in arranger -- it's the exact same performance just captured in a less flexible format. At the end of the day people should do what works for them, I just think it's important to point out the differences and consequences of this approach so that people can make an informed choice in designing their work flow. My primary complaint isn't the technique itself it's that the presentation makes no mention of the tradeoffs/downsides of arranging this way; more complicated setup and less flexibility... Don't get me wrong this isn't an "I'm right and everyone else is wrong" type argument -- there is no wrong way to make art! 😝
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@consciousholes Being able to make infinite changes till the cows come home is often PRECISELY what stops beginners from finishing things. Committing and working from audio is, in my expert opinion, a fantastic way to actually move beyond the endless knob twiddling that many producers end up calling “production” and into a place of actually being able to share I guess this technique just isn’t for you then and that’s fine. Thanks for all of the long comments though ✨
