Creative Music Production

Stretch Synthesis: Learn the Lesser-known Perks of Ableton Live's Warp Function (Feb. 2004) was my first article. I explained a rough taxonomy of sound effects yielded by abusing the Warp Function, a sound stretching tool Ableton invented to enable independent tempo-matching and pitch-shifting of audio. The Warp function works by dicing audio into little bits, then spreading the bits across the time axis like chopped bits of semi-thawed butter across toast. Though the warp function wasn't designed as an effects device, to this day it's my favorite effects device.

The Positional Morph (Oct. 2007) is my one original concept. It is an adaptation of the positional cross-fade, a sampler function designed to make transitions between samples smoother. A positional morph requires the producer to record all 88 notes of a synthesizer, making incremental changes to multiple synthesizer parameters between each recording. Any morph-able sound source will suffice. In the article, I used Audeon’s UFO synth to record this track, which illustrates the inherent coolness of the positional morph technique.

Chop Shop (Dec. 2007) adapted the literary cut-up technique of Brion Gyson and William S. Burroughs to the world of digital production: luck-based idea creation. Writing it was a blast. I have to thank Eric Uren of The Trainites, for planting the seed of this article, explaining to me that a melody I had created accidentally was an instance of the cut-up technique. I expanded on the idea, applying versions of the technique to digital production. From one melody, I got this altered version, and this further altered version by slicing up the original in the midi sequencer. The rest of the article consisted of cutting pieces of audio up and reassembling them randomly. 

Reorganized Noise (Nov. 2006) takes three classic effects and looks at how to re-interpret them using contemporary software tools. My favorite process out of the three described in the article was using Ableton Live’s Grain Delay to create a bubbling synth line like the one in Baba O’Reilly.