Our second live gig on NakedBeatz

X-Amount live on NakedBeatz: June 2012- set 1 by X-Amt on Mixcloud

So, another live X-Amount show on NakedBeatz..

We had this rather ambitious idea of playing as much new stuff as possible. From an aesthetic point of view, this made a lot of sense; we had been so busy putting new jams together we had built up quite a backlog of material that was waiting to be edited and mixed. From a practical viewpoint however, it was not so good. We had decided to perform in a similar way to the last show (back in January) and do two forty minute sets using our laptops hooked up via Airport, running Ableton with a bit of DJ'ing inbetween. That meant editing and mixing an hour and twenty minutes of music beforehand to prepare the gig. A tall order given the amount of time we had before the performance.

We decided to go for it! It was up to me, really. I do the post-production side of things (with Andi's guidance/advice/complaining/swearing), and after a long period of contemplation I decided that it would be worth a go. We would do some recent tunes and twelve new ones. If I ran out of time we could always fall back on the previous gig's work.

It was incredibly complicated and hard work, but we got there. We also added in a re-work of a favourite track of ours from last year - "Oppressor" (from "You Need Glasses"). This was a good result as it originated from our earliest (maybe first?) jams using Ableton. Back then we decided to throw away everything after we had improvised with it. A kind of art-punk attitude which we later realised was a bit daft..

So, I got this huge project in place eventually and we jammed through a rehearsal session at Andi's the night beforehand. It was all looking good.

Two screen shots of the pre-gig arrangements in Ableton (click to see larger)

But! On the night we were all ready to go and things went pear-shaped. We had set up at Mr. Bloor's house in Deptford, South London. He DJs for NakedBeatz every other week (as DJ Simple). The NakedBeatz studio is somewhere else entirely, what happens is that the set is broadcast via a PC in Mr. Bloor's house, you switch over from the previous DJ (who could be anywhere in the world) when you go live.

When it came to the time for us to go live, Mr. Bloor pressed the button and the computer went "error". Bugger. Mr. Bloor frantically tried to sort the problem, but to no avail. Andi and I were sat there poised and ready to go for nearly an hour and a half before we finally went on the air. Even then it still wasn't working properly, so we have no idea what the poor listeners suffered (apologies if you were one of them).

All the technical hitches threw us somewhat and it was quite difficult to get into the right vibe, so we were not at our best. Still, the recording of it is not so bad..check it out and let us know what you think..

Rather than explain the tech bit this time, I thought I could run through where the sounds came from on each track.. you might find it interesting..

Set 1:

1: Steam

The set opens with a recording of a carrier bag. The bag features throughout the two sets. The bag was scrunched up, a microphone placed inside and the bag was recorded as it un-scrunched itself. The next sound to enter is a treated recording of me hitting jam pot lids with a butter knife. Other samples are of shortwave radio. Andi made the synth sound using Propellerheads "Figure" on his iPhone.

Figure by Propellerheads

2: Box

Box has been explained in a previous blog (see: here), so I won't go on about it here. This is a "re-dubbed" version. I like the acoustic sounding kit. Listen out for a recording of Andi tapping his feet at work and cutting strips of wire (reversed).

3: Oppressor

This was rebuilt from the original samples used for the version on "You Need Glasses". I added a synth bass to enhance the bassline that originally was generated by filtering one of the drum loops. The voices and other sounds and voices are all treated shortwave recordings.

4: Fat Deluge

Again, this one has been explained in a separate blog. The squeak was recorded in the local kids playground (the swings). The crowd sounds are a combination of a recording in a cafe and Andi walking around a building site, recording. The low pitched voices were recorded on the 208 bus in South London. The hiss noise is a waterfall and one of the synth sounds was generated from tape hiss. The main bass is a filtered section of the cafe recording.

5: Hobo

The bag and the jam pot lids return. Three bags this time, one heavily time-stretched. The bassline is a pitch-bending long 909 bass drum. Glitchy treated acoustic guitar. The synth sounds and one drum loop are again made by Andi using Figure on the iPhone. Plenty of easy to spot shortwave samples too, which is also where the chattering voices come from.

6: Crush Your Pride

This track is named after the shortwave sample present here, where there seems to be a translation going on of some Christian principles regarding "pride". There is a filtered Rhodes riff, sub bass and another synth and drum loop generated using Figure. A pad synth riff and drum parts were made in Logic. A sample of the Roland R8 drum machine and shortwave recordings.

7: Disgrace

The rather disturbing bassline for this was made by Andi using the Korg iMS20 on the iPad, as were the beeping sounds in the front half of the track. The voices are all recordings of shortwave radio.

The second beeping sample is overlapped from the next track (Flap Flops) and is a recording of the pelican crossing outside Waterloo Station.

8: Flap Flops

The recoding of the pelican crossing is melded with some shortwave radio beeping sounds. The snare-like sound here is actually a recording of someone throwing something large and metallic into a skip. There is a treated recording of the swimming pool at Bromley Leisure Centre and sounds from Wrotham Steam Fair last year. There are some treated Gamelan Gong sounds. The track ends with the sound of someone running to catch a train wearing flip-flops.

X-Amount live on NakedBeatz: June 2012-set 2 by X-Amt on Mixcloud

Set 2:

1: Matter

A pitch bend acoustic guitar and a familiar sonar sample begin this track. Then you have some shortwave mutterings with drum parts made using Ultrabeat in Logic. Another acoustic guitar completes this snippet.

2: Tang

A dirty feedback guitar that Andi calls "Simon May on the roof" begins this track. Most of the other parts of this track were built in Logic then trashed in Ableton. There is, as usual, shortwave lurking.

3: Transparency

An accidental sample that I recorded on shortwave comes from Nicki Minaj's "Beez In The Trap" has been chopped and twisted. The other vaguely musical sound is some sort of eastern Zurna-like instrument I also picked up on the radio. I never found out what it was properly as I preferred not to tune it in correctly, keeping the barmy distortions. The low voice I call "the beast" comes from another snippet of shortwave, and there are other shortwave voices present too. All the drum parts were built by Andi using the Korg iMS20 on the iPad. The bass is made from a recording of the pier being deconstructed in Herne Bay, I think it is actually a motor boat engine in the distance.

4: Lost A Grand

The main voice in this says "since I started work, I must have lost a grand". This man was recorded on the 208 bus in South London and had plenty to say. At this time he was going on about being ripped off by credit card companies. The crowd voices were recorded at a protest march by the Congolese people in Whitehall, London. I recorded sound whilst my son Dillon took photographs. More shortwave and synth loops built by Andi using Figure and myself using Logic, and some synthetics made using white noise. There is also a treated recording of a digger on a building site.

Photo by Dillon Skyring-Birch

5: Bottle Banker

This was originally called "Dennis' Tune" because Andi's daughter's Guinea pig Dennis seemed to like it (hello Mr. Bloor, that info was for you). It begins with a recording made at the bottle bank in New Ash Green. The carrier bag and jam pot lids return again. There is the sound of a train door's 'closing' beep sound. Voices come from shortwave recordings and there is some reversed acoustic guitar. The disgusting bassline was made on the Korg iMS20 by Andi.

6: Auk

Most of the parts of this were built in Logic, synths with a real electric bass. The main synth is treated live in Ableton using the Saturator effect along with a filter that exaggerated and created harmonic vibrations. Shortwave effects and trashed drum parts complete the picture.

7: Stammerung

So named after mis-spelling "stammering" when identifying one of the shortwave voices here, it also seemed to fit with the German 'counting' voice. There are drum and synth loops made on the iMS20 alongside samples of the Roland R8 drum machine, synth loops made in Logic and a real bass guitar. Some sounds are made from a recording of strings on a piano being plucked that I made at Nicky's house in Salisbury, which have then been effected by Andi.

8: Gannett

Synthetic double bass and piano parts recorded in Logic and then trashed in Ableton, with some random acoustic guitar harmonics shimmering. Shortwave lurks as usual, this time heavily gated and chopped up.

Simon.

Note: to see more of Dillon's photography go to:

http://dsbptgy.tumblr.com/

Note 2: The tracks listed here that have clickable links as their titles: clicking the link will take you to the SoundCloud page that has a free downloadable version of the track

On the tech side, this was all put together using pretty much the same methods as the previous gig back in January (see: Our live gig, tech details & stuff), only without so many mistakes. I have since learnt to always use WAV (or AIFF) files with Ableton as the program reads and understands them better. If you use mp3s the program simply converts them and stores WAV versions it creates in its "Decoding Cache" folder. This folder can get pretty massive quite quickly if you are not careful. Use WAVs and there is nothing in it at all (besides the ever present "cache content" file).

Production Process

Slurry by X-Amt

The mixing & production process

I thought it might be of some interest (especially to the musos and techies out there) to describe the way that X-Amount have been constructing the new album, as our process (we think) is somewhat unusual.

At first Andi & I thought it best that we keep our methods secret for fear of being ripped off, but there are a couple of reasons that changed our mind. Firstly, that even if other artists copied our methods completely, stole all our samples and tried to do the same thing entirely, it would still come out differently to our version and should be quite interesting to hear anyhow.

The second reason is that we have such a minimal audience, it probably wouldn't make any difference anyway. We have decided to give all our music away free, and have no illusions about becoming pop-stars any more (we used to think that was on the cards when we were young and pretty), so we really have nothing much to lose.

Personally, I have had plenty of attempts by people to steal what I do in the past, they never came out the same (and usually were poor imitations). These days we would welcome some skilled imitators, they could do gigs with us, or even pretend to be us for all we care (preferably wearing mustaches).

Anyhow.. after the Gits Encroaching EP, we decided that we would maintain momentum and go for more explorations in sound with a view to putting out another album. We seemed to be on a roll with our new working methods and, most importantly, we were really enjoying ourselves.

The Zoom H2

So... the first thing that happens is that Andi collects a group of sound recordings with his iPhone and I collect a group using my Zoom H2. The Zoom is an excellent portable recorder that has 4 condenser microphones built into its small frame that enable stereo and surround recording, and I am sure you all know the iPhone.

We have captured loads of stuff: drainpipes, building site noise, thunder, squeaky gates, pumps, engines, animals, gas, water, conversation and ambience of all kinds, subtle types as well as horrible rackets.

These sounds are then transferred into the free sound editor Audacity on the computer, and chopped into usable sections.

Audacity

The other part of pre-production is done using Logic Express on the Mac. I record live bass guitar, acoustic and electric guitar and again these parts are eventually edited into usable loops using Audacity (I find it easier to convert to mono using Audacity and this saves on CPU later). I use Logic's amp simulators as well as some dynamic effects like compression, limiting and equalisation, but essentially the sounds are recorded dry so that we can process them later at the improvisation stage.

recording bass in Logic

The drums and percussion parts are done slightly differently. Some percussion parts have been recorded live (like tambourines and simple tapping) but most of the samples we have created so far have been programmed.

The Roland R8 MkII

We have built up a library in the last few months that involves drum patterns that come from either Ultrabeat in Logic or from our old faithful Roland R8 drum machine. Both devices are highly versatile with large degrees of change possible (such as ADSR, pitch and even filtering). The bass drum and hi-hat patterns are again recorded dry. The snare patterns are mostly recorded dry, but we have also found it useful to record variants with reverbs and other effects recorded on, as often the sounds get reversed or twisted, and having an effect already present in the sample can yield exciting results.

Ultrabeat in Logic

The percussion tracks are put together in the same way, sometimes with mad effects or edits. Logic has some impressive and unique effects, these are great with percussion (often create keyboard parts using them as well).

The keyboard loops are created either by recording live from my Waldorf Pulse or the Novation Bass Station (we have also considered sampling the old Roland D110 thats gathering dust after listening to some of the sounds created on it for "some previous"). Or they are recorded after I have programmed sounds using the synths inside Logic.

The Waldorf Pulse+ & Novation Bass Station

After all this preparation we then set up for a session at Andi's place. The last few times we have worked we have begun with 50 or 60 new loops.

We both listen to the new material quickly. Some loops have been created to work together, but this is rarely adhered to. We copy each others loops and field recordings onto each others laptops and we are ready to go.

Each Mac is running Ableton Live, and using the Mac's "Airport", we are able to synchronise the pair wirelessly. Initially we select loops and warp them out of shape using time-stretching, pitch-shifting, filtering and any of Live's effects which, like Logic's, often have their own unique sounds and sonic possibilities.

Effects in Ableton Live

Soon the layers of sound begin to gel and we reach a point when we feel we are ready to go and we hit record on each laptop at the same time as recording a reference live mix onto the Zoom via its line-in inputs.

We then attempt to build a groove or atmosphere improvising the arrangement and throwing effects at each other.

Things inevitably reach an agreed conclusion and we move on to the next jam.

eejits

We then end up with a recorded arrangement on each computer for each jam, which I later merge in to one for the mixdowns and edits.

This is done in my home studio where I have a set-up that I know well, acoustically. After getting the levels sounding roughly the same as the reference recordings I then edit the jams down as they are nearly always too long - some have been as long as 25 minutes.

As long as this is done as soon as possible after the initial jam, its fairly obvious which parts to chop out (Andi and I usually discuss the reference recordings before I do this as well).

Ableton Live arrangement page (click on it to see more detail). You can see the list of samples on the left and some in the arrangement itself.

Once edited down to a reasonable size, I am more than often sure about where the "tweaks" need to go. I rarely need to do much as we get pretty close to what we like at the jam stage, and I try my best to maintain the spirit of the initial jam and to avoid any over-working. We have found this sketch-like ethic to be to our advantage.

Editing notes

Errors are corrected (usually they will be minor timing mistakes or unexpected volume errors). Other tweaks will be about perfecting what the effects were supposed to be doing, because at the jam stage we don't want to waste time endlessly adjusting parameters, so we sometimes just get a near approximation of what we were trying to do. However, most of the time we do get it about right in the jam.

I then go about balancing the mix and fixing the dynamic range. Bass guitars have any necessary compression sorted out and I add subtle reverbs here and there to some things as well as moving things around in the stereo field to create a kind of sonic landscape of sound in 5 dimensions. Yes, 5: left, right, near, far and time (sometimes I think there are 7 as it may be possible to move sound up and down too (but that might be the effect of misbehaviour in the old days).

This mix is then exported from Live as an uncompressed stereo sound file. It is better not to compress at this stage (and I am talking about both dynamic compression and file compression) to retain the best possible quality. This is even important when putting together the most hideous racket!

The mixes are then imported into Logic for the final mastering stage.

Mastering in Logic Express

After listening to most (or all) of the tracks for the next release and trying various settings out, I end up with with a template containing combinations of effects, usually an equaliser, compressor, exciter and limiter (in that order). I try my best to get each track to sound as if it belongs with the others in terms of tonal and dynamic quality, so that you end up with a complete sounding finished record.

And thats it. The tracks are exported at full quality and normalised. The artwork and titles are decided upon and finally we upload them as mp3s for people to listen and download. I do also make a few copies on CD as these will have slightly higher quality than mp3, and the artwork looks better too.

I suppose none of this actually sounds that unusual, the unusual part is in our choices of sounds, they way that they are put together and the way that they are processed and manipulated. Both Andi and I see beauty in decay and distortion, feedback and noise. It follows that a squeaky gate can sound beautiful when "singing" over distorted drums and bass. Hopefully our audience hears that beauty too (do ya?).

The initial idea of this piece was to describe the mixing process, but I have already said enough, so I shall write more on that another time..

Simon.