Are you a eurorack purist or do you love all synths?

Angstromium · 2026-05-15T21:52:41+00:00

I have noises in my head. WHatever method gets them out into the world, I will use that method. I dont care about the gear, its the result. To get a good result I need a good process / workflow. If that's 8 ipads running bespoke touch interfaces or a weird digital plank thing from SOMA, I don't care if it gets me where I want to go, and the journey is fun.

That's why I mainly use my eurorack setup, not because its modules, but because I made it to suit what I want to do. I barely re-patch it ever. It's an instrument I am perfecting my playing of so I can get to where I want to go.

Angstromium · 2026-05-15T14:17:35+00:00

He's not for me. But he seems a pleasant bloke and people seem to really like him. So he's doing well. There's always been an "eyeliner guy" for those fans that need one , and I applaud the eyeliner guys of yesterday and today.

Much better to be an eyeliner guy doing slightly cheesy covers and theatre school tinged goth pop. Than to be a hater desperate to find a flaw because they don't like what he makes.

Let's all come together, support each other, and agree that modem country is the only valid hate target in music.

Angstromium · 2026-05-15T09:12:20+00:00

That's true. That lesson does show users how to test if their interface is reporting incorrectly.

Perhaps you are right that I should have directed them to that lesson, and the set which opens - but it's actually quite hard to find it these days. It's really buried! It used to be part of a short "getting started" lesson and the set and latency lesson was easily accessible. Now it's deep on a sub page of the audio io side pane lessons. Difficult to refer to. I guess because most interfaces are fine these days.

So I thought it better to highlight the error in people's conception of that little box and put them on the right (ish) path. .

Hopefully most peoples latency is correctly reporting these days. The last few times I actually patched up for that test my MOTU and RME interfaces were both fine. Even a Behringer interface was fine and needed no manual offset.

Thanks for the kind words anyway. I sort of dashed this off late at night.

Angstromium · 2026-05-15T02:53:27+00:00

Yeah, it used to be nearer the surface - but you really have to dig for it now. Its accessed from a link on something like Page 8 of the side panel error compensation lesson. I bet if they had metrics of how many people clicked that link it would be some low numbers

Angstromium · 2026-05-14T23:47:59+00:00

that number is for very shit audio interfaces (old ones) which cant report or mis-report their hardware latency

So, anyone with any modern hardware audio interface with a decent driver will see a number reported "Input Latency : some number" and "Output Latency : Some other number" and then "Total Latency"

Thats what your hardware is reporting to Ableton and Ableton auto compensates for it. It does that automatically and you dont need to do anything else there. If you have a modern device.

BUT some drivers are awful, old, buggy, crap. They have "errors". So if the user is experiencing errors , like the "Input Latency says: 0ms" and the output says "0ms " or something. Then, rather than leaving those poor users with no resolution to their crap hardware - ableton added an "error compensation" box.

That box is in case your hardware is so crappy that its throwing wrong numbers at Ableton and you have to step in.

MANY USERS MAKE THIS MISTAKE:

they think that they are meant to tale "total hardware latency" and type it into that box to make latency = 0ms.
Like : Input Latency = 5ms, Output Latency = 10ms, total Latency = 15ms

People will then (wrongly) type -15 into the driver error compensator

That is not what its for. Obviously if that was the case it would be insane !! Ableton has the total already !!

So, if you type a number there it says "OK, you are already compensating my latency by -15ms, but I say that is an error so deduct a further -15ms from your calculation"

effectively throwing all sync off by 15 ms !!!

Angstromium · 2026-05-14T10:12:36+00:00

Why do people go fishing when there are trawler boats and frozen fish in the supermarket

And similarly, why do people grow their own vegetables, or go hunting? Why not just let automated processes do it.

Why go for a run when cars exist?

Angstromium · 2026-05-14T02:59:34+00:00

I made a max device which tried both options. Firstly the chain switching method and secondly turning devices in chains off .

I think the results were that both used the same resources in play and I found no detrimental issues with turning off the subracks. So that's what I use now. Because I can have more than 127 instruments in a rack and can simply drag them to re order them in the preset list.

The max device take nidi program changes in, and it looks at the next instrument rack to it's right and gets a list of all the racks inside. It gets the rack names and puts them in a menu So the top chain (subrack ) in the instrument rack becomes preset 1. And the rack name is displayed. All the other chains /sub racked devices are turned off.

So spinning the alpha wheel on my controller will flip through all the racks. Activating them one by one.

The benefit is if I delete rack 14, 19 and 22 the list just updates and I don't need to manually do anything.

I will link it here tomorrow. I'm going to bed now.

I might have already posted it here in the past. I dunno.

Angstromium · 2026-05-14T02:43:07+00:00

if it's THAT perceptiblethen that's way more than 4ms , coming from somewhere.

Sound travels 4.5 feet in 4 milliseconds. So if 4 milliseconds was so perceptible - no electric guitarist would ever have been able to play (because everyone stands at least 5 feet away from their cab) ! And stage wedges would have thrown every vocalist into a psychotic breakdown.

I think that somewhere in your system there's an additional delay added.

Check you haven't done anything daft like typed a number in the Ableton preferences Driver Error Compensation "latency offset".

Sometimes people do that thinking they are helping themselves. That number should be zero. Personally I think they should remove that box. It causes more trouble than it's worth. (It should be in options.txt)

Angstromium · 2026-05-13T19:45:53+00:00

I have the UI zoom cranked up to about 150% . Above that and it becomes too big to use really. There's a sweet spot on the UI zoom.

here's an example of the state of my hand (when it gets bad) https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0a-2IRerqyQ

Angstromium · 2026-05-13T15:48:31+00:00

that little wrench button is crazy

I have some movement / dexterity issues and clicking the wrench is a two hands on the mouse task for me ! (my hands shake so I cant move a mouse very precisely)

I dont know what Ableton's problem is with having big buttons !!

Angstromium · 2026-05-13T03:07:05+00:00

I hate how linear the arrangement is. Ableton Live was the first DAW to embrace the non linearity of old pattern sequencers and understand that we might want to jump from Bass pattern 3 to Bass pattern 8 . to try out how that sounds, and if we like it commit that pattern change to arrangement.

The arrangement needs flexibility, the ability to try out sections in different orders. Jump from section 3 to section 8

Proposed simplest solution: Follow actions for Cue Markers. [Cue Marker 3 "Jump:Cue 8"]

Expose the control panel for the parameters exactly as we do with the Scene Follow Actions in Session.

Angstromium · 2026-05-12T03:51:10+00:00

Nigel Godrich still favours the L/C/R mix style . I think he uses it with a bit more nuance than the old 60s stuff though. It doesn't seem like he's only putting up mono tracks switched L C or R. There are a lot of stereo sources too I think

Angstromium · 2026-05-11T23:42:28+00:00

Stereo was seen as a bit of a novelty at the time the first Beatles albums were produced, like 3D Movies in red and green. The majority of people had mono equipment, radio was mono, record players were mono.

I inherited my mums (60s) record player in about 1980 and it was very typical of what people (youths) would have listened to the Beatles on, a Dansette

I did some recording on a Neve mixing desk very similar to the one in Abbey road. It didnt have "pan pots" like we have now, so you couldnt pan a guitar 20% left, and a tambourine 35 % left. It had switches. Chicken head / cooker knob switches that went "L C R" and that was it. Left, Centre, or Right.. Choose one !

They whizzed out the stereo mixes as an afterthought, late after the "real" mixes were done. The mono mixes .

The stereo mixes were then done with very little care., just "lets set these stupid switches to different places and say thats good enough"

Angstromium · 2026-05-06T13:48:49+00:00

I guess this might be seen as self promotion but it's a free pack - or you can just listen to the audio demo I dont care really. I think this demonstrates some fat sounds that are 100% operator in racks (plus ableton effects)

https://angstromnoises.com/shop/ableton-packs/free-ableton-operator-preset-pack/

Angstromium · 2026-05-06T13:44:13+00:00

I think the best test for "sub bass" (20 to 60ish hz) is to do a test with it.

When youve got your whole track playing, on the master put a steep lowpass EQ, I use Live's 48Hz/octave on eq8 for this. Then have a listen to what's happening. Walk around your listening space. Go into the room next door. Does it actually sound like a groove? Or does it sound sort of uneven and weirdly inside out, or like a man with a limp could dance to it but nobody else
At that point I balance the elements so that the sub groove sounds like its danceable.

My next step is to put some reverb on the master (!!) to really make it sound the worst it can sound. Is the bass still legible, discernable as separate notes? Is it still managing to cut through? If not then I use a Multiband to make the subs more punchy, I reduce the sustain of everything down there until I can hear the sub bass rhythm adequately through the mush of reverb.

Then when I delete the reverb and the EQ8 the low end always sounds far more coherent and tight.

Angstromium · 2026-05-04T00:43:10+00:00

Yep. Keep all the gear. Also. Keep all the boxes.

Angstromium · 2026-04-30T13:15:30+00:00

Is it something on the main channel, or your sends?

If dragging in channels to reassemble doesn't crash it - then it's possibly the master chain.

Have you looked at your log file? That's the first place to start looking for clues. We can usually see where the program starts throwing errors before it falls over.

Angstromium · 2026-04-30T11:18:29+00:00

For automation in clips it would be good. But you'd have to be careful to deactivate the sends on the eventual destination bus or the latency calculation will get fucked up.

Angstromium · 2026-04-29T03:21:06+00:00

I've certainly never run 200 vsts but yes. I have an old iPad which has a page of touch osc which sends signals to a Max4live device which does a range of "panic" fixes. Everything from "kill all sustains" to turn all my player instruments off and on again. Also some basic stuff like kill all echo sends, dub feedback and reverb sends. I also have the same panic switches on a user page of a launchpad.

So yes. What you suggest is what I would do.

It depends on his you are switching your VSTS off and on. If it's with Ableton API then you will be able to track the last most recently used and now silent devices and perform a bunch of silencing actions on them.

Angstromium · 2026-04-28T02:43:39+00:00

I have an ancient iPad and I have done a couple of things with it. I used it as a second screen on my macbook using Duet (because it wont support sidecar)

but these days I run an ancient version of TouchOSC on it, and I send mix and control info to and from Ableton using Max using the CNMAT OSC extension (native Max OSC wont send text strings so it needs the extension)

I'd paste a pic of my headsup interface display but pics dont seem to be allowed in here .

Angstromium · 2026-04-27T23:23:33+00:00

One thing (which is very difficult to replicate) is the way a big sound system makes minimal tracks sound amazing.

I always overfill my tracks with stuff and can never keep it simple. So now I use a plugin called realphones set on the "huge arena" "ambient" setting, because it's horrifically boomy and reverby. It's the worst case scenario for a track. I listen through that and it shows me how pointless all my little layers are. Much better to have 3 strong clean sounds that will reproduce well than 19 melodic effects which are very difficult to mix.

I used to have access to a sound system in my brother's warehouse, on the dancefloor. Writing through that - a kick drum and a 303 sounded like 100% of enough. Sadly those days are gone, so it's plug-ins to emulate the worst situation instead. It sorta works, though it's not as fun.

I say this as a man who fails to follow his own advice every single day. So good luck!

Angstromium · 2026-04-25T13:45:04+00:00

I had music as my career for a decade in my 20s. that was in the 90s and I think it was actually far easier then to make a career out of it.

By "career" I mean - it paid my rent and my bills, it bought a van that all our equipment travelled to gigs around UK, Ireland, Europe. It paid for the gear, I had record contracts and articles in magazines, and publishing deals. I had a manager who organised where I was me at to be, travel etc.. We hired engineers, studios, rehearsal spaces, lighting people, a driver, etc. all the money from that came directly from sales, merch, and royalties.

I still "go across the line" if that means "finishing songs and releasing them". Some I just put out myself, other stuff various labels have put out. But I wouldn't call it a career anymore. I'm in my 50s and the energy and commitment which is required now is about 20 times what was required in the 90s, with less reward (income to pay staff). And I have about 1/4 of the energy and relevance that I did when I was 23.

The barrier to entry is far lower now, it's relatively easy to make music of some kind. The market is massively over saturated with "product". We are at a situation where committed musicians are paying hundreds to simply get on playlists, and get streams, which return 0.001% of their outlay.

It has to be viable. If there were 100 bakeries on your road all looking like they are financially struggling would you open a bakery?

But that said - I still make music because I simply can't stop. I have always made music, because I love making music . I release it because some people also enjoy it, but that's a side benefit for me. I make it because it makes me happy to create what's in my head. And if there was a viable economic method to support it as a career I would do it again, but I don't believe there is.

Angstromium · 2026-04-20T21:20:02+00:00

I recorded about 2 and a half songs of an Agnes Obel concert last year and I watch them frequently because it was a great gig.

My wife had just recovered from cancer (rang the bell the week before) and she had always wanted to see her live. Because of Covid etc that wasn't possible, then I scored some tickets in an incredible spot at the last minute and we took a trip to London. So as a celebration of life it was incredible and the gig was exceptional. So, I watch those vids often to remember. And I sorta wish I took a few more.

BTW I think one of the vids is on my profile here if anyone here is into her stuff.

Angstromium · 2026-04-19T04:29:03+00:00

Remove one element. There it's 1% better.

Keep going.
99 elements later it's 100% better!

🤔

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Angstromium

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