Repository for odd stuff

I've created a place for my musical side projects that I think are still interesting but I don't believe warrant a physical release.

At the moment these range between improvized jazz backed by triggered noises, 90s dance-pop, math-generated max/msp noise, grindcore and a band that existed only for a day.

There will be more once I gig them out and it's all donationware. ie: download it for free or chuck me a bit of cash f you want to.

There will of course be projects that still get physical releases such as the forthcoming "Nimon" album on ant-zen but this is my place for the more... oddball stuff.

http://keefbaker.bandcamp.com

enjoy...

if that's the right word.

I own pirate music software

Look at that title, eh?

People are going to click on this for different reasons with all sorts of preconceived emotions. Outrage, searching for vindication, but no. Let me finish that sentence.

I own pirate music software that I've already bought.

WTF Keef? What the horse knackers are you talking about.

Well...

On my main music machine I have an iLok and an e-licenser. They're permanently sat in there and downstairs I have a laptop.

Now I could.. I COULD take the e-licenser and iLok out and put them in my laptop but..

A) i'll likely forget that I've done that
B) Knowing my absent brain I'd probably drop them in the bin on the way down.

You see, I lose shit.. I lose shit all the time. I must have bought a hundred wooly hats, I only need one. And I've lost USB pen drives and.. Actual pens as well.

So if I'm constantly moving an iLok and e-licenser around that have... I don't even want to think how much money in the way of licenses in them... They're just going to go.

And yeah, that's not such a big deal in my house but if I take my laptop to another country and plan to write some tunes when I get back from the hotel, it's not so easy to get what looks like a USB pen drive back from a hotel in Austria. So I get pirated versions for my laptop.

So what does this teach us?

Well.. Let's start with "in the 21st century market which is going more and more mobile, dongles don't work"

Now that laptops properly have the grunt to make music all a dongle does is punish the consumer.

I know what software companies will say, "We need to protect our software".

Yes, you do...

But it doesn't work does it?

I'll say again, "I have pirated versions on my laptop". Ergo pirated versions can be obtained, Ergo iLok and e-licenser protect you against Dooley-squat.

So what's the answer? Well copy licensing models that work. I'm going to take two extremes that work really well here. Renoise and Ableton.

Renoise, you log in and download, and install. That simple.. No limit, all on trust, but if your copy of renoise with your license details appears on a pirate site, you're banned sunshine!

Ableton, you're licensed for two machines, after the second you can't license unless you contact Ableton support saying you're replacing a machine (which I have done after a rebuild and no doubt will when my replacement laptop arrives) and BAM, they send you a mail back saying they've unlocked your code. Done.

Both of these models work really well, are portable between machines and require no dongle.

So it CAN be done.

Also I'd like to point our that people are less likely to buy if they see it's protected by dongle, either for the reasons above or because they don't own one and an instant download purchase has now turned into waiting for snail mail and the additional cost of a dongle.

So come on, drop the dongles. It just doesn't work any more.


It hurts you, it hurts me, the only people it doesn't hurt are the pirates, the very people you're fighting against.

Presets....

Do you use presets? Do you not? Do you pretend you don’t use presets but actually do, just slightly tweaked and then go all high and mighty on forums about it?

It's a funny argument isn't it.

There are people who will physically balk at the concept of using a preset but will happily use 909 drum samples from a sample pack and not see the hypocrisy in that.

There are also people out there who only use presets, possibly with the odd filter tweak. Don’t genuinely believe that anyone else knows how this stuff works and subsequently they don't know how to program a synth properly even though they've been musicians for years.

There’s probably more positions on the preset issue than there are actually presets out there.

So where is the right place to be?

IS there a right place to be?

The short answer

The short answer of course is that there IS no right and wrong. All approaches to music are valid.

But that's a boring answer isn't it! And if I left it there then this wouldn’t reach TL;DR levels.

Ok, lets look at this in more detail..

The arguments FOR using presets:

Have you ever noticed this argument only ever comes up in electronic music? If a guitarist plugs a fender strat into a marshall amp nobody ever grumbles at him for not being arsed to build his own guitar or circuit bending his amp and why is that?

Well, it’s because it's all about the songwriting and dynamics. And it still is, and should be, in electronic music. I think a lot of people forget that and concentrate on the sound design side of things. You don't have to be a sound designer to be a musician and you don't have to be a musician to be a sound designer. The two are in fact separate disciplines.

Some people make awesome sounds, some people write awesome tunes. They’re not necessarily the same person and if you’re a great songwriter then why should you be stopped from being creative just because “some guy” doesn’t like the fact that you use presets?

Also, presets speed up the process of creation. If you spin the dial and find the "right sound" then why change it? Just make your track.

Besides, if you take the “presets are cheating” argument to it's logical conclusion, then surely using a premade synthesizer is cheating, you should make your own synths in Reaktor. In fact, you should make your own modules for Reaktor in C++.

In fact you should make your own synth creation studio. Then program your own DAW. And once you've done all that you can ask yourself why you haven't made any music in 5 years.

The argument AGAINST using presets.

No matter how close a preset is, it's not the right sound, designed just for your track. When you learn your trade you can get exactly what you need quickly, and here’s where I contradict my previous statement. You see,I used the "presets are quicker" argument FOR presets, but that's the thing. once you know what you’re doing, presets are slower.  You can make the exact sound you want in a couple of minutes rather than spend 10 minutes auditioning presets until something right comes along. And then it's YOUR sound. YOU made it and it does exactly what YOU want it to.

And that's the thing. If you don't use presets, you are responsible for every bit of sound coming out of the speakers. You made it all. Which means when you make an amazing track the responsibility is 100% yours! And that's a great feeling.

Also the sheer experimentation can be incredibly inspiring. Even if you don't know what you're doing, play with it. You can accidentally wire something into the wrong place in a modular and BAM! An amazing sound.

So where do you stand Keef?

Ok, it is very rare I'll use presets. I prefer to make my own sounds and genuinely don’t understand buying expansion packs for synths. I have learned a number of forms of synthesis quite well and love using those skills so using presets for anything except a learning tool I find pointless, except in the case of samples.

A couple of exceptions to the preset rule for me:

1)      The default sounds in QuadraSID and SIDizer and that's because that kind of PWM lead is exactly what I want a SID lead to sound like anyway.

2)      Sampled stuff. Like a piano. I'm not going to sit there for hours with FM/Physical Modelling/Additive synthesis trying to create an approximation of a piano when I have a sampled grand sat around.

The truth of the matter is most people wouldn't even notice if you used presets unless it's something obvious like the default D-50, FM-7 or M1 sound and some people will accuse you of using presets even if you haven't.

For example, in a track I wrote called "Getting Older" off “Pen Fiteen” I was accused of using a default fruityloops sound when I don't (and haven't ever) used fruityloops and the sound was in fact made using ES-1 in Logic.

So even if you don't use presets there are those who will think you do, so the truth is you're doing this for yourself.

So the question you have to ask yourself is what am *I* happy with using?

You see I'd prefer it if people DIDN'T use presets because then everyone is adding to the world sound pool and every track has the potential to surprise you in tonally but I accept that presets will continue to be used and even that presets will be used to make great tracks.

There is however one thing I'm sad about and it's a specific music software company so I'm going to have a mini-rant now....

reFX

To be honest, this is what started me writing this article in the first place. I received a newsletter from reFX and as always I hoped beyond hope that there was going to be a new interesting product from them. only to find there wasn’t. There was yet another flaming expansion pack for Nexus2.

reFX used to be a fantastic company that made some creative synths like QuadraSID (a c64 SID emulator) PlasiCZ (CZ style synth) Slayer (A false guitar synth) and Vanguard (like an Access Virus nearly).

But over the last few years they've concentrated on their Nexus/Nexus2 ROMpler synth (advertised as "all you need to create the next hit") and continually releasing preset packs for it.

Minimally editable, this synth seems, in fact not even seems... Is definitely designed to be specifically targeted at people who want to write a track by scanning through hundreds and hundreds of presets till they find the right sound. And there's nothing wrong with creating a workhorse for people who aren't that interested in making their own sounds, it's a niche that this fills nicely. And had reFX not had a past of creating much more interesting synths, this wouldn't make me so sad.

Because it looks like this synth is the only one this company are interested in continuing with and that makes me slightly forlorn because they have made some great products in the past, some of which I still use to this day.

There are, however, a number of other great plugin manufacturers out there and having re-examined my stance on presets, the existence of this product no longer offends me the way it used to. I understand now that there are people for whom synth programming holds no interest but they love writing music and those people need workhorses like Nexus for their sonic palette.

So in conclusion

Use what you like, just try not to make sucky music ok?

Dubsteb Wobble - Good or bad.

I've come to this page to find out how to make a Dubstep Wobble

Ah.. That wasn't what.... oh well...

Ok, I'll start this thing with a basic recipe sheet of how to make it. There are a million youtube tutorials with details so I'll just throw out the basics and you can grab the rest yourselves...

The first thing to remember is that the Dubstep/Brosteb bass is generally made up out of two different synth noises, the one that makes the weird blart noises, generally with most of the bass taken out and another one that just does the bass end, usually mildly overdriven.

I'll concentrate on the weird one.

Basically use an LFO that's synced to tempo to modulate parameters such as filter cutoff frequency, osc position, FM amount, stuff like that and you alter the speed by changing the ratio it's sync'd up at.

It really is that simple...

Ok, Keef so what are you actually here to say?

Now that's over let's talk about the wobble, its effect and its potential longievity.


The dubstep wobble, is it here to stay?
It's always hard to tell whether a sound will survive into the next musical phase or not. Back in 1989 two of the most prevalent sounds in dance music were the 303 and the Orchestra Hit. It's fairly obvious with hindsight which would survive as the 303 was a truly flexible classic, but instantly recognisable whereas the other was using a stab of an orchestra to showcase of the fact that sampler technology existed to the point where they could have the power of an orchestra for a second or two.

Sampler technology has moved on but the simplicity and unique bite of the 303 is still as valid as ever.

Here's my prediction. It will fall out of favour but will occasionally rear it's head in dance music until another, better method of polyrhythmic texturing appears.

WTF is polyrhythmic texturing?

In short, it's a really good way of expressing rhythms and contrarhythms through the medium of texture rather than standard dynamics. It's another tool to your belt, and why the hell not use it.

In my humble opinion it's as the wobble has made it's way into standard techno that it's found its true home. For me, currently, the likes of Feed Me and Zedd and yes.. Skrillex are showing that "the wobble" is more versatile than people think. Sadly, of course there are people who then like to call this dubstep because as far as they're concerned everything that contains the wobble is Dubstep.

And there we have the one thing that may well kill this tool. The disappointing desire to label everything that uses it as dubstep.

That may indeed be the real reason this sound dies.

So what has the synth world learned from this?
Well, the more advanced people have probably learned very little. However it has managed to showcase the LFO, previously considered the little ginger kid of synth modules .

I think for a lot of synth programmers obsessed with envelopes, FM and new forms of synthesis it has shown them the power and flexibiity of the humble LFO module, flexibility that maybe, they weren't aware of previously.

Also Dubstep is the first genre born at a time when people could well have been learning synths since they were very small. After all the VSTi appeared in 1999 which is 13 years ago, a 17 year old kid could have been playing with softsynths since they were 4 without putting their chocolate covered mitts on any of Dad's expensive hardware and causing him to scream in horror at them.

For the pedants among you, yes.. dubstep is 6/7 years old but the rule still applies, a 17 year old kid could have been working with complex synths since he was 10.

So anyway, it's hardly surprising that one of the first genres that appears with this generation is one that requires a certain amount of virtuosity with softsynths.

And that required virtuosity means that if people want to break into this genre they need to up their game. Therefore there are a lot more people that know a lot more about how synths work now, if only because they followed a youtube tutorial on how to make a brostep growl.

I think also, a lot of people who knew their synths well had got stuck in their ways, thinking they'd done everything that could be done with standard subtractive synthesis. Then they heard this stuff and went "What the fuck? I never thought of doing that!". It opened their eyes to the capabilities of the equipment they already had and hopefully to more possibilities.

So, to boil it down I think it's made people look at their synths differently, ignited the desire to learn more and increased the general virtuosity of synth programmers.

And in my eyes that can't be bad.

Intro

So, this is a new blog I'm starting. The idea is that this is where I talk about my music, share techniques and new innovations that have interested me.

So I guess I'll say that the next full project you're likely to see from me is oddly a more techno/complextro based project called OCDC on Subspec records.

However I haven't finished it yet so....