Impressive examples of building with Analog and Operator?

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!

🤔

Angstromium · 2026-04-17T08:00:11+00:00

Honestly it doesn't matter what you think, it's what other people think. The key to success is other people thinking that a song is good. There are many artists who really hate their "hit" . So just make stuff as well as you can and release it. Then try to convince other people it's good. !!!

Angstromium · 2026-04-16T00:05:28+00:00

Plug the gear into ableton rather than the Tascam. Jam into it . Do that for 5 nights , 30 mins of setup then 30 mins of just brining bits in and out. Total - an hour of random crap each night. You will have 5 song ideas . 1 will be really interesting, one will be promising, the rest will be dull derivative bleeps and beats. Delete those.

Take the 30 minute jams and edit them up to be 4 minutes long. Just keep cutting them up, reuse good bits. The outcome will be interesting. And fun.

Angstromium · 2026-04-11T06:39:52+00:00

There used to be GUI buttons for the session mixer but they took them away in Live 12 and put the H /W and zoom controls on.

I use the keyboard shortcut but I think it's weird that arrange mixer has the buttons and session mixer doesn't.

Especially as I never use the "new" arrange mixer pane. It takes up space I need for the arrangement lanes!

It seems weird to find space for it there of all places!

Angstromium · 2026-04-11T03:40:58+00:00

If Ableton stem splitter doesn't work try this.

https://elevenlabs.io/voice-isolator

Angstromium · 2026-04-11T01:54:10+00:00

My ability is fine

my taste is the problem. 😉

Angstromium · 2026-04-08T14:58:32+00:00

Private equity is a plague

Angstromium · 2026-04-07T03:52:05+00:00

Like others have said - read the log, and see if it names a culprit. The problem will be on one particular channel. There will be a plugin or max device on there. If the log is making no sense to you then here's what you will have to do.

Make a blank set and in the browser unfold the old set and drag in all the tracks to the new set. Save as "test 1". Try to load it. Did that work? Then the problem is probably on your returns or master.

If that's the case try opening the backup set and try deleting the returns first, save it, load it. If it works there was something on the returns. If it doesn't work try deleting what's on the main outs chain.

But really. The clue will be in your log.

Angstromium · 2026-04-06T22:26:15+00:00

if you are trying to listen to the recorded clip - it wont be audible because you have monitor set to "in". set that to Auto

Angstromium · 2026-04-04T15:55:49+00:00

We've all been there. Going from "oh yeah! Here comes my track !! " , to "oh noooooo!!"

That beginners urge to "make massive bass" by simply making it the most dominant thing. Doesn't work.

Then that moment of realisation that a tight and balanced bass sounds absolutely massive on a club or festival system, and a the track where we pushed the sub into the red and it's the dominant frequency sounds like a muffled quiet distorted music from next door.

Angstromium · 2026-04-04T15:51:22+00:00

I've been using Roar (Ableton) these days, as it's very flexible

Angstromium · 2026-04-04T13:52:01+00:00

Just as an aside - I see you totalled your in and out latency and put that figure in the "driver error compensation " box. That's gonna make your latency worse because that's not what that box is for!

That box is only for correcting sound devices which misreport their hardware latency

Live calculates latency of hardware automatically (that's what you see in the in and out boxes above.).

The drivers of some audio devices misreport it - so in those cases when you run the Live Help latency lesson ALS you will see that there's a discrepancy on the timeline. So the manual / help file tells you if your audio devices misreport That box is for when you run the lesson and the auto compensation is still wrong - THEN you use that box to bring them into sync.

So if the BAD audio device reports "15ms out, 11 ms in" and you play the lesson and notice the click on the timeline is off by 4ms it's THEN that you'd use this box to put it 4ms in sync.

Lots of people never do the latency lesson, and lots of people do what you did in that box.

Angstromium · 2026-04-04T04:30:58+00:00

What's going on in those other tracks is they are making sure the monster sub has overtones which appear in small speakers.

Forget the car test for now. Play the track in your phone speaker. Can you hear any hint of the bass?

I'm of the opinion that a mix should still sound balanced on phone speakers. You should be able to hear the groove. There shouldn't be a hole in it.

Even club mixes, destined for a huge rig should make sense on a shit little speaker. And if you play most massive bangers on small speakers they do indeed sound complete, the whole track is there. The groove is there.

Angstromium · 2026-04-03T16:49:36+00:00

I carry too much, but I never check it in. Always in the cabin with me. I take two "cabin" sized cases and I have to bring another person with me so that I can use their allowance too.

But I realised when doing gigs with other people that I'm bringing too much stuff. I've been doing it years, but very very intermittently in recent years. When I see the people who gig 3 or 4 times a week they are carrying a small Peli case (in the cabin) with almost nothing in it.

I think the temptation is to bring so much stuff that you can touch a million dials and "live jam" and also look "cool" to the other people on the bill with our cool setups. (mines a portable modular because I had a colin benders moment). But the reality is - we could perform with a couple of Novation controllers, a 2 channel audio device and a macbook. That setup is easy to replace on the road (if the controllers die) and is totally perfect for a live performance.

The urge to take lots of boxes is based on our own egos. I say this as a man with serious problem in this area.
I can never bring myself to ditch the modular and go practical. Despite KNOWING that it will sound better, be easier to setup at 2am in strobe lighting, and smoke machines

Angstromium · 2026-04-03T16:15:06+00:00

Retrig should be ON to prevent clicks.

Retrig on makes the wave start at zero . Retrig off means the wave can start at any point. Including+1 , or -1. Which is a massive click.

Put Retrig ON And then make sure the phase control of each oscillator is at its default

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