Hypothetical Workflows

[gizmoismogwai]

I wanted to start a thread where we can dream up some hypothetical workflows around our Electribes. A totally "hmm, wouldn't it be cool to try and make a song like this..." kind of thing. This is sort of like what we've been doing with the challenges that people have posted but I'm more interested in philosophy. And then if anything sparks someone's interest they might try it and report back. I would prefer not to view it as setting limitations on oneself but instead see it as having a very specific plan and sticking to it for results, which both sounds and feels more empowering.

Here's the idea I had today that I want to try and base an entire EP on. It might seem obvious to some, but not to others. It centers on overcoming the E2S's bar and voice limitations by turning Ableton into the ultimate drum pattern arranger, but keeping the E2S integrated into all parts of the workflow. All the while, I'm making decisions ahead of time so I can focus on being creative.

"Bag of Tricks" Method for Drums

1. Select a single sample set on by E2S and decide on a single tempo. I will choose 120 because I want to work on some dance music in and around that tempo.

2. Spend 1-2 hours doing nothing but filling up 20-30 four bar patterns on the E2S with drum and percussion loops, trying to do as many different variations and genre nods as I can. By this I mean compose the loops, not simply load pre-existing ones onto the device. Because my aim here is nothing but rhythm I will go overboard and add as much crazy stuff to each pattern as I can. Don't worry about voice stealing because the next step will negate it.

3. Export those 20-30 patterns to a single Ableton Live set. Go get coffee because this will take 30-40 minutes, at least on my E2S.

4. Open up my Ableton Live set. Now I have 30 scenes of drum loops to play with but if I start to mess with mixing clips from different scenes, really I have an almost infinite number of possibilities. E2S Ableton Export is a ridiculously easy and fast way to generate a ton of new material to play with. Even if the E2S couldn't play every sample I tried to make it play because of voice stealing, those samples will appear in my ableton live set, which is why it's worth it to try and fill every pattern with 16 sounds when you're working on step 2 of this workflow. Even Live Lite users and their 8 track limit can try this. And because I have so many little loops to play with, I can give the feeling of drum loops that are as long as I want even if everything is a 4 bar loop. If you have something like an APC40 or a Launchpad this is all very easy to control on the fly. I don't have one but I have some iPad apps that control Ableton clips so I'll try one of those instead.

5. Now I midi sync the E2S to Ableton and set things up to record it on a stereo track. Ableton provides the clock and the drum loops. Starting on a new empty pattern I begin to play and explore harmonic and melodic ideas like I normally would on the sampler, except I don't have to devote any processing power at all to drums or percussion. And all the while I'm able to freely explore drum ideas by mixing clips in Ableton. It sounds like it'll be a lot of fun because though I am the source of all the material, I have no clue what variations it is capable of until I play with it.

6. Because my goal is all about keeping the E2S central to this workflow, all harmonic and melodic stuff will be built and mixed within the sampler and recorded into Ableton as a simple 2-mix. But you could technically export your new patterns to Ableton and bring them into the original session if you want to mix those in a DAW.

I'll let you all know how much success I have with this. But I'm interested in your hypothetical workflows (or tried and true ones) so let's hear em.

[sleepsnumb]

Great post Dooder!!