The improvised techno thread

The Lounge General Discussion
#41

I’m going to be keeping a close eye on this thread. I’ve been leaning towards a techno jamming setup for a couple of years as my “taste” in music production has gone completely off using a DAW to actually sit and sequence/produce/mix music. I just want to switch off work and jam after a long day of software development in front of a screen.

I’ve sold all my hardware except Typhon and almost all of my software that can be transferred. Eurorack appeals to me as it is self-contained in one “device” and the non-linear sequencing options are so unusual and varied. The cost scares me a bit but I’ve been fortunate and I could spare enough to make a small system if I chose wisely.

I know the money would go further with cheaper individual boxes like volcas, Elektrons and other great options but glueing all that stuff together gets complicated quite fast with midi and audio mixing, midi sync etc. I think this is perhaps why Eurorack is still popular because once the modules are in the rack they all just “work” due to the standards being used.

Personally I tried using a DT and sampling various sources but the stop/start process of sampling and then trying to create something with those samples didn’t exactly feel spontaneous or fluid. I think eurorack will have that ability to just experiment and see what comes out without any thought about saving or recalling anything. I’m leaning towards things with a “dumb” interface and most eurorack fits that as well.

Sorry if this is a bit of a ramble! I’m slowly edging towards spending the money so these threads are very helpful for me!

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#42

Sure. Live practice jam:

Streaming show live set (as Artificial Intolerance, starting at 1:03:18):

Not very satisfied with that last one. Monitoring was bad and I didn’t get in a good flow. Ah well… the perils of live performance…

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#43

So this is ‘just’ the AR and a midi controller?

#45

No!

AR, MD+EHX LPB2UBE, M:C, AH, Eventide Space & H9, BCR2000, Xone:96

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#46

My friend and I meet once a while an make improvised techno Jams. I have my drum patterns done in the DT. An my friend plays the modular. Nothing planned just let the Techno flow. When I am jamming alone I try to have 1-2 things prepared so I can concentrate on tweaking a synth e.g. . Here’s an example of our last jam in February

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#47

:slight_smile:
It sounded a bit too good for just an AR!
Are these sets using your mix and match approach with different patterns?

#48

Could you elaborate on what you mean by a template part?

#49

Yes. The first soundcloud set is actually built up of just one pattern on MD and AR, and a few on M:C.

The youtube one is mostly 1 MD pattern, 2 on AR, a few on M:C and then a couple more solely for the last track in the set.

So each MD and AR pattern has several different kicks, HHs, percussions etc in them to move the set in different directions without needing to change pattern. The M:C has kicks, synths/basses and perc fx in each pattern. Intention is to always have the possibility to keep a good drive going on 1 or 2 machines while I can make changes on the others.

That’s my strategy for transitions: make sure I have enough parallel sources to keep things going. That’s different from using a looper.

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#50

Sure thing. So you’d open up an empty bank, then make changes to the default part (ONE), such as changing your track sample slots, lfos, fx, or rec setups, then copy that part on to the three other parts in your bank. Then you’d copy that bank onto all your other empty banks, using ot file manager or a computer. If you do this with an empty project, you can make a template project.

One of the most useful things to do imo is turn on scale per track by default. To do this you need to copy an empty pattern with scale per track (master length to taste) onto every other pattern in the bank as well. Massive time saver.

If you look for things you do often, then set it up so you’re that much closer to them, everything flows that much smoother. Remember that they’re just defaults though, you can still change everything!

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#51

A few videos I have enjoyed:

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#52

I’ve been following this thread with interest and adopted the philosophy and apllied it to a couple of my recent jams with the TR8S + M:C, they work really well together for me, lots of fun to be had :grinning: :smiley:

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#53

Great thread! Lots of thoughts to share/ask here, but first going though the full thread. Here’s a first remark though:

To be honest I’d be interested still to hear people’s use of loopers for live techno. I’ve followed looper threads a bit from the sidelines, but the uses/needs are so different.

[Added: So first up, is I’d be curious how people use loopers in their chain. Do you write a new sequence PFL/Cued in your headphones, send it to a looper, and then fade it in? Or do you fade from live sound to the recorded loop OT-transition-trick style? Or…?]

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#54

I’ve been watching a lot of this guy. His Discord group is a useful place to go to too.

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#55

I really liked the Surgeon one with the sample & hold of the leploop for random notes bassline that he has to fit in the mix by sound-designing on the moment. You can reproduce it with the DN for instance by midi loopback LFOing cc3 (note) on the digitone

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#56

I do mpc one, with tempest and xone96, i miss seperate outs on the mpc one, i think the toraiz sp16 is great for that, a single machine with 4x stereo out to the mixer would allow 2x 8 Drum Kit to seperate out.

For improvising i put the mpc sampler to loop mode and collect 4 bar samples which i then filter in and out. Often Digitone where i sweep its LFO for interesting stuff. (more noise, than actual music) Nevertheless, i get more samples to work with. I think having some sounds to go to works for me better, i like complex maschines, and for improvising some more simple ones might work better. (or at least simple method to capture, that is why the mpc one was an eye opener for me.)

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#57

Oh wow, that’s a great piece of knowledge, I have to try that !

@tallrobphilp just a little note: unfortunately eurorack is not really a place where you can chose wisely, it’s more of a trial and error process. As much as I wished to do like you, you can’t avoid the bad buys and the need for more. Glueing all the modules together is even more of a headache than a few machines as every manufacturer has his philosophy. You truely don’t realise what you really need until you’ve made some bad decisions . You should be prepared to buy more than what you initialy think will work, to have modules not work the way you thought or not well together, and to be forever tempted by even more new shiny things.

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#58

I have to go trough this whole thread and read more about it all. But I wanted to add some of my setup.

I use a vs-1860, which I use mostly as a mixer and a recorder when something decent comes in. At this moment, I have the Typhon, and the Medusa as well as a mic plugged into the OT. I use the 4 outs of the OT in the VS. I also have a Mopho Keys, plugin into reverb then a looper (x4 ditto), which then stereo plug into the VS. Which give me 6 channel in total.

I normally start with sound design, on the mopho or medusa, when I get to a certain sound I start playing some sort of loop/melody and I grow the song from there, and it feels like it’s getting to a place I could play this live (although slow and experimental) it would be possible to have that in front of an audience. The 6 tracks helps me to move from one part of the composition to another, so I can continue moving forward in my improvisation (and sometime hit record when something nice comes out of it)

But what I wanted to share about improvisation is that I’ve started a few months ago is to play live improv with 2 other musician. We just play, no prep, simply jamming, riffing from one to the other, sometime I bring my volumes down to hear what is going on, then I get back into the grove slowly. Jamming with other people with the simple intention to create crazy noise is quite a treat, here is a recording of what we are doing :

Of course it does sound, well like electronic improvisation, but to be in that groove is really powerful! I think it’s a huge help in my learning my machines and my composition…

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#59

What I like about sampling is to do field recording during my days/travel/activities then bring them home and editing some of them out and loading them in my OT. The more I record the more tools I have to get started. Thunderstorms, lake waves, kids playing in the park… all good foundation for a track, but yeah not on the DT, as you can’t play super long backing track like on the OT.

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#60

The first set I recorded was kind of an accident. The DFAM arrived and with all those controls on it and the A4 as an FX unit for it The whole setup lead to one evolving 60 minute piece of techno.
Octatrack for drums which was basically one pattern with a few sample chains of drums, a channel of a noise hihat on the A4.

The whole thing made me put production on the side and focus heavily on live set with different boxes.

Some of things I learned from the first set:

You can get a lot out of a single synth.
Especially in Techno, a little monotony doesn’t hurt, but don’t overdo it.
Smooth transitions are cool, but exchanging just single elements one at a time ( a kick, a hihat) can go a long way.
Keep things moving.
Find ways to create tension and release, buildups, drops.
Know your toys, at least one key instrument very very well.
Keep the instrument count at a manageable level.

Here is the impro performed on the DFAM, A4 and OT.

For sets sets that followed did a more structured approach and a song-bases setup. Creating patterns takes time but can sound more rounded and you can do more complex stuff. I guess stuff like this can only partially be counted as impro though.

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#61

This sounds like good advice and the very active eurorack buy/sell market would back it up. I guess it’s a hazard that goes with the hobby but it encourages me that the resale value seems to be very high, up to 90% of the brand new price as far as I can tell. I suppose that goes both ways - I won’t lose much money when I sell but I won’t be able to save much money by buying used either!

I try to be as informed as possible in terms of watching the videos by the usual suspects (DivKid, MylarMelodies etc) so I understand what the modules do, but it’s often so dependent on what they’re paired with that it can lose meaning.

What you say about each manufacturer and “their philosophy” makes me think again about buying a whole system from one manufacturer. That said, there seem to be very few pre-designed systems that are oriented towards techno and rhythmic genres with the majority geared towards ambient and sound design or one complete “voice” which is a totally different ball game. Erica techno system and…that’s it.

…which leads us back to buying a groovebox-style machine (AR or similar) as you get more for your money.