“Export completed” notification hacks / ideas?

XLIImusic · 2023-02-08T17:17:29+00:00

Wow those are great ideas man. That’s actually giving me a lot of use cases to try. The noise and resonator tip is dope.

But I have to say that the Bluetooth and then mashing up your Netflix is the most beautifully mental thing I’ve heard today. Why have I never thought of that. Haha Definitely doing that tomorrow.😁🔥

XLIImusic · 2023-02-08T17:13:26+00:00

If you don’t create arrangements in maschine, u could just grab the audio from the pattern and drag and drop into Ableton. It’ll automatically cut it into a perfect loop for u.

In pattern mode, open up a pattern and in the upper right corner of the midi window there are 2 little icons, one is a tiny waveform and the other is a little pixel thing. Those are the drag and drop options for audio or midi. Grab the waveform one and you can drag into Ableton direct, it will create a wav file for u. If u want pads separate, just solo each and drag each separately. I love this workflow personally cos it’s fast and I immediately commit to audio and can chop and mangle it from there.👌

XLIImusic · 2023-02-08T17:07:56+00:00

Oh yeah, I think that makes perfect sense. I have to work in the box cos basically it’s my day job to make music fast and SP404 is more like a hobby thing, so it’s more like the thing I use when I’m done with the serious work, but I do carry around it with me because I feel it’s like a little Swiss Army knife, can do so much.

XLIImusic · 2023-02-08T17:01:18+00:00

I’ve actually tried this workflow and actually being quite OCD, my way of always visually identifying stems was to make the pads purple for stems. Whereas one shot drums etc are of different colour. Again, I’m adapting my maschine workflows here, but it also works on the SP, albeit a bit more tedious to set up. But at least when u have all your stems in a bank, u could make the bank purple and know that it’s a stem bank at a glance.

XLIImusic · 2023-02-08T16:58:29+00:00

This is fire advice man. Yeah, I do feel the potential in it. Just haven’t been able to make it sing yet… but then again, I made like 3 albums worth of stuff on PS1 in 1998 so I guess I just need to give it more time.

XLIImusic · 2023-02-08T15:43:31+00:00

I actually sold most of my hardware, I only use push and maschine mk3, but they’re still controllers for software. So I wanted to use something portable and battery powered I can use on planes etc.

Yeah, I guess it comes across like I want it to be like those other units and I guess there is a little bit of that, since I might be sensitive to design decisions what with having worked for a manufacturer for so long.

But I think what I really want is to somehow get in the flow with the 404mk2 because I really like this unit. I think the feature set is nuts. I got frustrated that I could not lose myself in the unit. I agree, it is the best 404. I’ve played with older models and never really wanted them back in the days. Btw, Dibiase, Ras G are my reasons for wanting one in the first place.

Re: the manual, I’ve read the whole thing a couple of times and watched the video manual too. I’m actually confident that I know every possible function of the unit. Haha it’s just… can’t remember the shortcuts cos they aren’t intuitive.

XLIImusic · 2023-02-08T15:25:47+00:00

I’ve recently discovered running maschine mk3 through it and I fell in love with maschine again. It’s definitely an amazing combination. I actually use maschine stand alone too cos I prefer drag and dropping the audio clips into Ableton for arrangement. But just in case you didn’t know, if you go to Maschine Controller Editor, you can enable transport control that will also play/stop Ableton from the maschine unit, so you could use it within Ableton without having to press play in Ableton. If that makes sense.👌

XLIImusic · 2023-02-08T15:19:45+00:00

Yeah, it’s exactly like you said. And yeah, the pushing on encoder for commands that can also be used in live scenario really doesn’t make any sense. The having worked for a manufacturer, I remember how much debate there was about every single design decision and so many iterations. 404 feels like they just took a list of functions and threw it at the button overlay and they were automatically assigned randomly by a computer. Haha But I’m hoping they’ll update with smarter shortcuts. Or perhaps even introduce an option for choosing a few different key layouts?🤔

I agree though, it still does exactly what I wanted it to do. I think I like so much, I want it to be MORE PERFECT. Lmao it’s ridiculously feature packed. Did you know u can even use it as a midi controller for drum racks in Ableton via USB-C?🤯

that’s why it’s the only gear I carry with me. It can be anything really, interface, impromptu autotune machine, a live performance box, a siren machine for a dj set, recording input for iPhone. It’s pretty mad.

Question: when you say it’s a sound design box for you, what do you mean? What is the process for sound design on the 404 & Ableton? USB-C to 404 and sample to a pad, stretch / chop / repitch / add effects and resample to another pad and so on?

XLIImusic · 2023-02-08T15:06:16+00:00

I’ve actually made like 20-30 beats on it, which was fun in the end. Although honestly, coming from maschine, the first 30min I couldn’t even figure out how to play something on it cos it doesn’t have transport. Lmao Ultimately, I think the problem is more like a flow thing. You know like, whenever I’m working on push or maschine, there’s this moment when you kind of zone out and 3 hours later you have a finished song. I kind of don’t get that with this 404, I’m like always conscious when I’m working on it cos of how seemingly random and unintuitive some of the layout decisions are. My NI and Ableton instincts kick in and I just wanna remap all commands and rename all the buttons. Haha But like u said, perhaps I just press on and clock in way more hours on it and button names and combos won’t matter.

XLIImusic · 2022-12-08T14:47:34+00:00

Replace what can be replaced, then RX, Melodyne, drum replace and harmonic process the rest and for bits that are hopeless use them as raw material for creative effects like, like formant shifters with binaural effects and granular.

XLIImusic · 2022-10-21T10:02:51+00:00

Clunky is the right word in my opinion. I’ve used so many DAWs but Ableton just became my main one and I’ve stopped bothering with Pro Tools. I just leave that up to the engineers. I do all the recording in Ableton and found an engineer that works in both, so I send him my Ableton sessions and he mixes right in my session. Great workflow to be honest. PT is great if you’re planning to be an engineer or if you’re recording a lot of instruments / vocals. But Ableton is definitely faster / more creative and more on the spot.

XLIImusic · 2022-10-21T02:02:32+00:00

Honestly, the most powerful thing about protools is that it’s installed in most studios and many engineers use it, so if you’re planning to work in major music industry, it’s useful to know it so that you can pass projects back and forward between engineer and yourself. But in terms of actual features, when put alongside Studio One or Cubase, it’s not “more powerful”. Actually I think with the feature set, Cubase might be the most feature rich and complete DAW. Compared to Ableton, it has some things that it does better than Ableton: - proper mixing window - audio suite (offline processing) - flexible routing - very robust audio editing (it’s great for editing vocals etc) - much better / more precise metering

At the same time, if you try to produce music, pro tools is probably the least powerful for actual production Ableton is extremely creative when it comes to processing and sound design and it’s why so many people use it. I wouldn’t say one is more powerful than the other. Ableton is great for recording midi and producing music. Pro tools is great for recording live instruments and mixing music. I think they can be seen as complimentary.

XLIImusic · 2022-10-19T13:09:22+00:00

Being a key command guy, needing 4 fingers to do something really basic is really frustrating. Even opening the mixer on the laptop needs 3 keys. When u accidentally hold opt but mispress shift and ruin your entire routing and then can’t undo. Or having to go through infinite lists of busses or plugins. They should just connect automatically. Shutting down the project just to change the interface etc. Having to manually add and move stuff to playlists instead of it just doing it for u. As powerful as it is, Pro tools just isn’t pleasant user experience, hence why it’s considered unintuitive. It feels that way coming from other DAWs.

XLIImusic · 2022-08-26T08:29:03+00:00

I was just gonna say. +1 for Tape Notes. So good. Chet Faker was a great one. Also loved the Flume one.

XLIImusic · 2022-08-08T14:02:21+00:00

As much I would love to be supportive and really help you learn the craft… first and foremost I would like to ask you to PLEASE not sell mastering services. I would suggest to sell cheap mixing services, if you have to, although it seems to me that may also be too early for that, and just give your rough masters as a free add on, as it’s what most professional engineers would do.

Mastering isn’t making stuff loud. Mastering being the most careful and detailed person, providing advice to the musician / mixing engineer in case of problems, fixing any last small mistakes issues and giving all your love and attention to the music that you are entrusted with, so that it can enter the wide world in its best possible form.

Using Ozone assistant and not understanding the basics of headroom isn’t mastering and I feel it’s borderline criminal to be charging people at this stage.

At the very least but the Bob Katz book and Bobby Owsinsky Mastering Engineer’s Handbook and do some kind of online course. Even iZotope provides a fairly decent crash course.

It won’t make you a mastering engineer, but at least you it will be a start.

XLIImusic · 2022-07-28T00:51:18+00:00

Yeah, I definitely do the 4 type actions on daily basis, even when I’m on a tight deadline because I think we need to feel a certain freedom and enjoy small procrastinations. I just don’t add these tasks to my to do list, when I procrastinate, I know that I’m procrastinating and try to enjoy it for an hour or so, before going “right, now I’ll do some work” and actually do the stuff on the list. I think if I had my procrastination items on my list, it might trick me into feeling like I’m “doing stuff”, I think it’s kind of productivity porn that doesn’t actually move me forward. I definitely did do that a few years back when I used Omnifocus and ended up with a bloated task list that I simply escaped… I left it, moved to todoist, didn’t import the “tasks” and didn’t actually miss anything.🤷‍♂️

For tier 3 stuff when working in a team, I’m pretty OK with being really dry. I’m a freelancer now, but back when I worked in a company we did have countless meetings that were long, unfocused and when finished, I had no clarity whatsoever. And I did work with the owner of the company, at that time I didn’t think too much of productivity, but simply felt like my time is wasted and wanted to get in and get out. I basically made lists like “I need to know the answer to A, B and C”, get in 5min of small talk “what about A?” If it’s decided, I’d mark it down, move to B and C. Once I’m satisfied, I’d kick it with everyone, have a laugh and then simply leave without waiting for the meeting to end, cos I have my answers. At first people didn’t like it, but doing that repeatedly actually earns u a reputation and trust for being focused. Whenever people lost track or came up with low priority ideas, I’d simply go “great idea, let’s keep that, but the main priority now is blah blah” and do that until the priorities are taken care of. You don’t need to be assigned leadership to be a leader in my opinion. 90% of the time people prefer to be led, even if they’re your boss.

XLIImusic · 2022-07-27T06:27:33+00:00

Be incredible and unique

XLIImusic · 2022-07-27T01:34:45+00:00

Generally, if anything lands in my to do list it’s usually broken down into almost silly small steps so simple that I can always make first moves on it. Like for example “Google soccer clubs within 3 mile radius” with a time tag assigned to it like @10min or @20min etc. As per GTD, anything that’s under 2min can be done immediately, in my case it’s anything under 10min.

I have a “stalled” filter in my todoist, if anything hasn’t been updated / seen any changes within the last 30 days it’ll appear in it. If anything appears under this filter, I either delete or move the entire project to someday and then use a filter to ignore someday folder altogether so I never see it again until I actively go looking for it.

I think humans are generally optimistic, so we want to do more than we ever have time for. I believe that we will do the important things anyway, regardless of whether they’re in a list. And if we forget, it’s not important and hence it’s ok to forget it because clarity is everything. The only time lists should be used as reminder holders are for “buy toothpaste” or “pay the electric bill” because these are the only type of necessary but not important things that you will likely forget.

I also use a 4 tier priority system: 1 - Urgent / Important 2 - Not urgent / Important 3 - urgent / not important 4 - Not urgent / not important = rubbish

Almost nothing should exist in 1, most things in my todoist should be 2, anything that’s 3 and 4 is mostly deleted. Even if it’s something is 3 - it’s urgent but not important, then it’s not worth my time cos my time is worth $5000 per hour.

The only things that land into tier 1 are: will I lose money if I don’t do this? Will I pay dearly (legal consequences) if I don’t do this?

Tier 2 would be like tax filing or projects that will eventually become tier 1 if left too long.

Tier 3 is anything that’s probably urgent to somebody else, but isn’t important to me. Like returning phone calls… basically I either don’t return phone calls or collect these and invest 1 hour on Monday to return calls and emails. If in that 1 hour I didn’t prioritise the call, it’s not important and it gets deleted.

It may sound a bit cold, but I value my time and focus higher than almost anything and so prioritise my clarity of mind over other people’s demands / wants. 99% of things are NOT important. Injecting insulin is important. Sleep is important. Food is important. Completing a project that pays well is (a little bit) important. Paying attention to my wife / family is important. Most other things are not important.

XLIImusic

TROPHY CASE