Rewire: A story of hope & dismay

Pro Tools, Cubase & Ableton Live have been the three softwares that shaped me as a Sound Engineer/Producer. We haven’t bought Pro Tools for the new studio yet, so this leaves us with the other two, and I said to myself: why not enjoy the best of two worlds? Rewire!

So, accepting having to use Cubase as master and Live as Slave, I embarked on this new adventure!

Surprise #1: Control surfaces are disabled while Ableton Live is in Rewire slave mode. Hmm…my AKAI APC40 to the trash…but I can map it to Cubase as well! You do it…

Surprie #2: Well this wasn’t really a surprise, but I will keep this format for the sake of drama…VST plugins can be used only in the master application, so this means that if you want to use VST plug ins on your Ableton tracks you need to map them to a dedicated bus, that are fortunately quite enough (64).

Surprise #3: Putting a track in solo in Live can drive you crazy, and there is no way around this. Gotta switch to cubase, solo the Rewire master/bus, solo your track, and then un-solo them both…

Surprise #4: This one is the real killer…once I had different timelines: three minutes in Cubase equaled 3:50 in Live, and I had to actually test them with a stopper watch to see which one was correct (it was Cubase)… that one literally drove me crazy, and I have no idea why it happened.

Having said that, there are still some things that are really comfortable in this method, especially if you need to work fast. I find that auditioning samples in Live is much faster than Cubase and Cubase has the vary audio function that is essential if you have vocals. So, there’s the compromise!

Good producing to all,

Yoni

Elastic Squeezing Massive Patch

Just wanted to share with you a simple adjustment for a massive patch that produces a really cool sound. Here’s a download link for the modified patch: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BworbyAIuejoR3FDcUZLZDNoQkE/view?usp=sharing.

We have used this patch when producing the track “Secrets” by Yud Kei & The Mosquitos in 2011 (out on Baroque Records ADE compilation):

This patch is based on a quite basic patch called “Fm Plastique”. In itself quite a regular FM sound. What we did was use a macro control for the pitch of each oscillator, than use an LFO for the same pitch as a sidechain modulator, than modulated the release and decay time & level of the main envelope together with the previous parameters. To make it more simple we mapped a second macro control to LFO amp, release, decay time and decay level and named it Pitch Modulation:

So just by tweaking the macro controls “Pitch” and “Pitch Modulation”, we obtain some really cool effects such as in this short example:

It’s pretty cool in the high end, but I think where it is most impressive is the lows that go really deep and make some really interesting and unusual sounds. Try it!

Yoni

Best of 2015 part 2

After dedicating my part 1 selection entirely to DIRTYBIRD here’s some more great music with some more representation…

spotify:user:doubledotstudio:playlist:54M44L3GVZG1Jegkdj9MlQ

I’d say this is mainly a house music selection, with the first two tracks coming from UK’s powerhouse Toolroom.

Rene Amesz & Mendo manages to create a great groove with a tribal low end and awesome chunky sounds.

Miguel Bastida’s track Moudness was originally released by the end of 2014 but made most of it’s buzz on 2015, amazing first of all because of the tight clap sound and second for the great synth work, vocals and build up.

I discovered Youandewan at a Barzilay Crew event at the Alphabet club in Tel Aviv, became a fan ever since… The set was amazing and the vibe excellent, also merit of this great club which is one of the best in the city in my opinion. This track specifically is introspective and warmly oniric with great bass.

Last but not least a track from the first EP of Spanish artist Antonio Thagma released on Visionquest, an awesome sound managing to be Techno powerful and Electronica sophisticated and interesting at the same time.

That’s all for now. Will there be a part 3? Hopefully before the end of the year! Best,

Yoni

Folkstone – Le Voci della Sera

Hi guys,

It’s time for me to make my first exception here on my blog, as I said I would write primarily about electronic music, but this time I’ve got some great news from a different musical genre I would like to share with you.

Folkstone is a rock band from Italy I have worked many years with. Our collaboration started in the recording studio, I worked with them as a sound engineer and we became close friends and collaborators. We started writing music together and our songs rapidly gained major success in Italy.

Folkstone has one special trademark: the use of medieval instruments such as bagpipes, harp, bombard, cittern and particular flutes. These instruments have all special and unusual sounds, and are great for experimenting unique arrangements.

I have produced their last album, “Oltre l’Abisso”, right before returning to Tel Aviv. I have many great memories with the band, including travelling through Europe when I was their PA engineer.

So why am I writing this? This Christmas, Folkstone has released a new video of a song we wrote together on their new album, a beautiful animation video directed by Marco Pavone. This song also features Chris Dennis on the violin as a special guest, he has played with some of Italy’s greatest bands such as Nomadi and Modena City Ramblers.

I hope you enjoy this song! Best,

Yoni