Dj lace vs Creed md - get in that by lacedj

west coast electronic house recorded as a live gear jam and edited down to a club track length. early evening opening set style. Ableton was set

Roland TR-808, Roland ef-303, Crumar Bit99, Sequential circuits prophet 5, futureretro revolution, Xoxbox, Arp Axxe, Roland Juno 106, Boss re20 delay pedal, TC nova delay pedal, deltalab dl2. Mixed on a tascam dm4800 at canmarc.

Short version:

This track was written by taking pieces out of the synth room and composing the track as the gear was assembled in the control room. It started out as a tr808/Crumar bit99/Juno 106 Jam, then the Xoxbox/Prophet where added, programmed and jammed for a while more, and finally the futureretro & Arp Axxe where added for a full two person layout. For the final take, everything was launched and improvised on for about 20 minutes, with two people at the controls and recorded with a straightforward club like vocal using a stage mic instead of a studio mic.

Long version:

Ableton is running on a computer that is synchronized to a master word-clock in the studio (which drives everything). The computer is firewired to the dm4800 and the dm4800 serves as a midi interface with it's own internal midi/timecode clock also derived from the word master. This provides a pretty stable base for most of our audio/video/machine noodling.

One midi out cable comes from the DM4800 to a midi time piece2 which we use as a main midi splitter/processor. One cable goes to the xoxbox. The Xoxbox plays the left acid line in the mix (the one that chirps at the end) and syncs the tr 808. The xoxbox cutoff, resonance, envelope mod and decay are changed on the fly.

The Delatelab rack delay, TC Nova and boss pedals are connected to the DM4800 and used as traditional effects send chain.

The TR-808 is recorded via it's mono mix out. The best way to get that random coolness every one talks about on the 808, is to start with the kick as loud as it goes, as much decay as the track one is working on can take and everything mixed out of the mono output of the drum machine. You get the benefits of the kick drums decay affecting everything else that plays during it's decay, and the slight drive/compression provided by pushing the last gain stage in the machine when you have a lot of things going or during a fill. It's not a massive effect, but it's there especially when you add bell rim and/or toms, and you can bring it out more later with compression/eq effects.

Another midi cable goes to the EF-303 which is used as a live step sequencer for the bass-line played by the Crumar bit99. The Crumar is not modulated live, It's too finicky. In fact we are amazed it even works so we do our best not to look at it while it's playing. But it sounds deep and amazing on bass-lines so it gets used a lot.

The Sequential Prophet 5 is connected to the Bit99 and plays the same line, but the oscillators are transposed up to play a harmonic instead. The filter cutoff, resonance and pwm modulation are all messed with live to slowly take apart the sound over time.

The right acid line is played by the Futureretro Revolution "pizza box can't put it anywhere" synth. It's a bit more subdued in the mix but it's there and has a nice buttery acid sound. The best thing on this synth is the remix button, which allows you to throw some random variations of the notes in your sequence on the fly. It's very cool for adding life to a sequence when playing live.

The Arp Axxe is connected to the Futureretro via CV/Gate, and plays the same line, however the octave switch is used in addition to the usual sound shaping to throw the notation up and down while it's being played. It creates neat tweaks and a few really wide swings. All this is heavily accentuated by The panning delay on the Nova pedal.

The Juno 106 is playing one chord throughout, It was the first thing added after the bass-line, and function well to set a limit to the overall energy level of the track. It's set with a slow LFO on the filter section and never opens too much, functioning both as a chord and a smooth percussion element. The deep reverb on it is a dm4800 preset with added pre delay and a bit of ring a the end, to give it a bit of space and movement with the rhythm of the track. The vocal was recorded with an sm57 and a pop screen, and run through a distorted filter. The SM57 is running into a focusrite ISA1 with a digital output which is connected to the DM4800 via aes/ebu. SM57s microphones are great but they don't have a lot of gain so you need a clean mic preamp to get that classic "rolled off stage vocal" sound out of them. There is a distortion filter added onto the vocal to grunge it a bit more. That's just a personal preference for this type of track.

The boss pedal is mostly used for the prophet, and creates the feedback at the end. It's shelved above 10k to reduce smooth the edge on the distortion. The Nova pedal is used as a panning delay and is mostly noticeable on the ARP Axxe line. It's a beautiful pedal, highly recommended.

The delatlab is a personal favorite and is used in this track to give the 808 a bit of room reflections. The delay is ring modulated for that old school 80s electro sound, and the highs and low were eq-ed out of the returns, so the slap comes alive on the rim and snare but it leaves the hi-hats and kick clean. The mix-down took a couple days to get the vintage overtones right.