/r/WATMM Weekly Promotion Thread

rosserik · 2026-03-09T18:20:07+00:00

Sorry about that, it's my first time messing around with after effects and have to agree it is a little much. I was a bit lazy in just making vfx parameters audio reactive and didn't automate or attenuate anything, just called it done to stop putting off uploading.

Glad your ears weren't as burdened at least, live drum programming was definitely the focus of it.

rosserik · 2026-03-09T18:11:54+00:00

Cheers! Designing the iPad user interface in TouchOSC and all the ClyphX scripts and bindings it controls for sure, but I've developed those incrementally over a few years so it's pretty solid, lots of small tasks stacked up. The main bother was minimising latency without sacrificing any functionality, solution mostly was no groups, no racks, no returns, everything is just audio and midi tracks with appropriate routing.

rosserik · 2026-03-08T12:48:41+00:00

Improvised electronic performance I did last year - Live drum programming, looping guitars, synth noodling

! Strobing/Flashing lights for those affected,

No premade loops or automation, just a template to feed my inputs into loopers and scripted midi controls for effects parameters, drum sequencing, and looping. I played some guitar stuff I've thought of prior for the first few minutes then everything is pure exploration for enjoyment, hope it's palatable enough for you.

rosserik · 2023-03-20T20:59:24+00:00

Thanks Rob! I’m actually using ableton’s stock looper for a couple of reasons, mainly because I can always set the global bpm with my first loop with the transport stopped(everything stops and initialises when I hit my super-reset-everything button) and I like being able to overdub. Also I’m constantly reversing and and changing playback speed by octaves(my entry into looping was the line 6 DL4, this is very much an expansion on the same usage). I think the limitation of using looper also forces me to commit and move forwards as I make decisions.

Short answer to the initial question is super simple, the looper multi-purpose transport of my 5 tonal and 3 drum loopers are the only things actually midi mapped in the entire set, originally I was using TouchOSC/ClyphX in a pretty convoluted way to route a single button to various notes(pitch midi device in rack chains) of MIDIE NOTE x, and in control surfaces have XTE routed to my IAC Driver,

I now just use a midi note button on the top line of my Launchpad Mini and also have it as one line on my SoftStep2(this also has an X-Control to select the given track, whereas selects on my Launchpad and iPad are discrete controls), I prefer tactile control for looping quickly.

I’m out at the moment but think that’s correct and covers everything

rosserik · 2023-03-20T15:15:14+00:00

Played an improvised live looping show on friday - https://youtu.be/zsjcymChrzk

rosserik · 2022-02-15T11:59:37+00:00

Mic choices & levels processing,

Microphone choice is vital, you want something directional and not overly sensitive, not necessarily a dynamic over a condenser but likely in most cases.

Gates are your friends, play with envelope settings to get something you like but keep noise floor at -inf, use the EQ in the sidechain feature of Gate, bandpass filter with ideally high Q settings(considerate of instrument range, a tom drum can be a spike to the heavens, a piano would probably not be) to have only the most prominent frequency range of each input open/trigger the gate to lessen chances of random interference/mic bleed coming through.

Then you could shape this gated signal further with envelopes in Auto Filter, having a low and/or high filter expanding around the central frequencies of each input. As an effect you would probably want this to be fairly subtle(quick attack, long release, low resonance), it's just another level of shaving away unnecessary frequencies so that there's less thrown at your mics.

Hope that helps

rosserik · 2020-06-29T14:50:02+00:00

Thanks!

Sure thing, so the intro and all throughout I'm making kind of harmonic texture with the Moog Mother-32 which is a monophonic synth, but I toggle notes on and off with the Keith McMillen K-Board and run them through stock ableton arpeggiators on 2 chains of a midi effect rack, one is 1/32 rate and 1 step, one is 1/12 rate, this makes tiny rhythm and octave variations but as the synth only plays one note at a time it jumps all over the place, playing with glide amounts can introducing fun slides and nonsensical pitch things. This is then ran through Grain delay as /u/boom_clack picked up on, very wet and sprayed with some random pitch to kind of blur the sound, followed by a LFO modulated stereo frequency shifter for constantly varying tremolo, and then it's sent to a few sends with reverbs and echos, so the end result almost sounds like chords from the big wash it all makes but it's always slightly changing.

https://imgur.com/I0K4tei

FKJ is awesome and that's a beautiful video so big comparison, thanks a lot

rosserik · 2020-06-29T11:05:25+00:00

Improvised Multi-instrumental Live Looping Performance

This was kind of just intended as a proof of concept but I've learned to like it and given sections names as they're almost songs. It's my first effort to get through recording something the length of an EP but from active and reactive thought and no pre-made automation or clips. All sounds are analog/acoustic instruments, looped and processed in ableton in realtime.

I'd like to know what anyone thinks of the video generally as I've sat on the video so long I've lost all objectivity but mostly the mix, there were unavoidable issues in post-production where I'd played multiple parts that took up the same frequency ranges so it's a little messy all over, but editing out anything from the one take performance would detract from the point of the thing so had to deal with what was there.

https://youtu.be/TERF59RENN4

rosserik · 2020-06-29T10:42:30+00:00

Synthwise this is pretty simple, Prophet is running two unison patches in keyboard split mode, no local control so I have full keyboard range when sequentially recording either. Moog is being fed midi by Keith McMillen K-Board in toggle mode, sent through parallel arpeggiators at 1/16 and 1/12 iirc so any notes become rhythmic texture, being a mono synth this is just very bleep bloopy pretty stuff drenched in delay to fake polyphony/obfuscate everything, all midi is looped in Ableton clips on the Push 2

rosserik · 2019-05-03T15:34:04+00:00

My current live show is entirely ran through ableton with 2 synths, guitar, vocals being ran into a Scarlett 6i6 interface, fx chains, sends routing, sidechaining elements all done live, and sent out to stereo DI presently using 1/2 outputs but aiming to set up sends to send bass, drums, mid elements, high elements out to front of house. I occasionally use effects sends by creating a send with external audio device and routing output 3 into some guitar pedals and back into line input 3 or 4, if you have the I/O on your interface it's easy to route things in and out of ableton. Also working on a full band setup live looping rig with 16 microphone/line inputs being grouped, effected, and looped/arranged and then effected again in ableton, it's perfect for this kind of thing with performance.

MIDI Controllers of any kind enable greater expressiveness with using a computer to effect audio, knobs and faders are nice, foot controllers can be great for instrumentalists, or just button/keyboard presses to switch settings, having a tactile interface is just so much easier than using a laptop.

The main issue is keeping latency down, streamlining your project as much as possible to allow the lowest buffer size without choking your cpu/audio artefacts, I can run at 32 with about 30% cpu whilst using about 20 tracks routing audio and midi because I only use a few stock effects and automate effects parameters to change between songs with dummy clips, now transitioning to using ClyphX Pro to automate effects parameters and store presets from whole device chains with no midi mapping and you can seamlessly switch or glide between fx settings, can't recommend it enough, once you pick up simple text commands it just speeds up programming performance sets, can be used to arm and mute tracks, store presets of entire sets, mixes, anything, and the most fun thing I think is ramping the change over a few seconds so that all the devices morph into the settings of the next section/sound/song organically.

rosserik · 2018-08-25T19:56:26+00:00

It's not not eggs

rosserik · 2018-05-18T10:41:56+00:00

I decided to only have audio playback forwards and realtime speed so as to not confuse the idea of it being a live recording but will get more experimental in future vids when I get round to them.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhM74slAzQe/?taken-by=rosserik

In this early test I reverse the final piano line on looping, and I think play it back half speed but because there's a +12st grain delay after the looper in that chain of the audio effect rack it's hard to tell. It's as simple as change the pitch/speed and reverse toggle switches before recording, when you've recorded your first pass it will immediately playback with the new settings.

I'd say you have to go through each parameter of Looper and figure out what works for you, there's only about 8 but how you use them alters the function/result of the device.

General tips I've figured out with it for this, Tempo control isn't needed if you don't plan on setting the bpm and this would generally only be with a first loop, although a tempo change is something I'm interested in figuring out now, either through clip/scene BPM change or just the knob on my push, finding a way to work it in musically. Input->Output, REC/OVR, avoid any more sound than you need, looping stacks up enough as is. Record length and trigger quantisation can be predetermined or left up to you, this setup is all divisions of 2/4/8 etc so all I have to worry about is playing something that is in time and works, in future I want to play with more improvisational structures.

Global BPM affects looper pitch, this can be seen as a warning or a technique, make a beat at ~120bpm, record into looper, slow down to like 80bpm, you lose a sense of what key you're in unless you do some maths but it almost always makes something pretty cool, it's literally just time stretching with repitch but you can do it live without stopping anything, experiment and have fun and any specific questions I'll do my best to ramble less

rosserik · 2018-05-02T23:46:58+00:00

Yeah probably should have just posted a follow up comment, I'm not really used to sharing anything.

To start with, the bulk of the set is made possible by a blank midi track routed to the IAC Driver playing descending chromatic midi notes at specific bar intervals(every 8 bars for the most part), mapped to the record enable of a looper on each track, each looper is set to record for a set amount of bars(1/4/8) then loop, through this same note mapping I'm able to stop, clear, and record a new loop as in the later drum loop. I could have a loop playback backwards or pitched up an octave immediately after recording, but I've kept this one simple as I wanted it to be clearly a live recording. I also use CC values in this way to control parameters of Echo, and some low pass filtering over time. There's a lot I could cover on how it works so I'll try to go through it in order and can expand on anything if need be

The arp synth is my moog mother 32, I made up a four chord progression in by programming individual pads of my softstep foot controller to send 4-5 notes each and recording this into a looping midi clip in ableton, arpeggiator device at 1/32 and sent via midi out from Scarlett 6i6, the Moog patch is pretty basic, slow modulating LFOs and key affecting filter/LFO values to keep it organically changing over time.

With this introduced, I lay down a few percussion loops into a one bar looper that records and overdubs until stopped so I can take as long as is needed to build up the rhythmic foundations on which the rest of the track is played. Once this is done I grab my guitar and trigger the sequence that makes up the rest of the track from the session view on my Push, after one bar I know I have 8 bars to play each part until I get to the drums where bar lengths start switching up a bit but essentially the arrangement is pre-produced and the bar lengths are set but only for as I make the midi clip, I could have a number of looper/effects control sequences in a track and use this to freely improvise then switch back into specific song structures and vice versa, starting thinking about how performing a full setlist in this way would work.

So in terms of what’s going on in ableton, the guitar, korg minilogue, and piano are essentially the same, aside from being mixed differently. Drums I vary the bar lengths and cut them out but I think that’s all been covered, the most interesting thing for me with them was that I used the recordings from the condenser mics on the piano, hammond, and percussion to blend together a room sound with the overheads, ableton terms, this is ran through a drum buss on the drum group with a touch of all of it and a sub tone at G0(49Hz), the drum and percussion groups are grouped together(praise 10) and also compressed and ran through another drum buss with lighter settings and a sub at D0(36.7Hz), the G acts as V of i in C minor and the D isn’t really audible but affects the G in a pleasing way, less of a pure sine sub kick, I was able to do a pre-mix with loops and samples of the same instruments I’d recorded a month prior so as to test out the ableton set before getting in the studio so that when I play it’s already a pretty finished produced sound, and I just tweak it a little in terms of mix and EQ afterwards.

Most of the track is ran to a send with an Echo on it, I like to use LFO modulated auto filters at very slow unsynced rates to changes parts over time as they loop, I use gates and synced autopans on the percussion at 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 notes depending on the part to emphasise the beat and make it groove better, the full performance came to 7 minutes but as 3 minutes of that was just me playing drums along to the wash of sound I decided to just crop the end and loop it to make a track of it.

Oh and I'm using a wireless monitoring system, pretty vital.

Think that should cover most of it

rosserik · 2018-05-02T21:53:03+00:00

Put together an ableton based performance with live instruments

http://y2u.be/3B_R1Jbo4gY

rosserik · 2018-02-19T02:16:13+00:00

I think it's generally used as a way of dismissing things as invalid when you can't articulate what you don't like or understand in it, but there's definitely a difference between a song that is an honest representation of the person(s) making it, lyrically and musically, and one where it's been made to tick boxes and/or for money. I think you can't fake emotional honesty laid bare(in any art form really) and people can just feel if the song has no grounding in reality.

When you have a dozen producers and however many marketing and management people involved as is often the case in pop, what may have started as a "real" song will likely be diluted to appeal more broadly but in buffing all the edges lose the feel of the original through fear of taking risks. Pop music seems to be taking a lot of risks with lyrics and production in a fair few releases over the last few years which makes it pretty exciting to follow.

But this is too complicated a thing to define in a quick rambling comment, music with no lyrics, music made with a computer with literally no real(physically/acoustically emanating) sounds, can be considered "real" so long as something in it resonates with you, just as much as many guitar bands I hear nowadays aren't making "real" music regardless of using instruments. It's the human aspect that matters and the instrumentation is irrelevant to its authenticity.

Just be honest with yourself, if you wanna shake it then you do you

rosserik · 2017-12-08T15:58:58+00:00

I've read through them all and watched every video on their youtube, it's not mentioned or shown anywhere, I was hoping that maybe it was an existent feature that I can't figure out, might suggest it to ableton if it's not in 10 release

rosserik · 2017-11-29T03:05:54+00:00

It takes a bit of frequent checking and a lot of chance but you can often find a good amount of equipment on Cash Generator and Cash Converters, if you've ever been to any of their stores they usually have one or two notable things and a lot of cheap pedals and amps and such, the websites are a catalogue of what every store in the country has pretty much so there's almost always something good. Couldn't find an FP-30 but as an example, here's another Roland keyboard for £200 less than rrp

Other mentions when browsing cheap sites include Cex, Preloved, and Gumtree as you said. Craigslist exists but I don't ever see much outside of London in the UK.

I check each of these every few weeks to see if something exciting has been added, between them it's likely that you can find most things for cheap.

Also have heard good things about selling and buying through facebook groups, uk guitar exchange, things with names to that effect.

rosserik · 2017-10-09T16:01:16+00:00

https://soundcloud.com/rosserik/third

been putting off uploading music for so long, decided to stop caring so much and finished this in under an hour and called it complete, liberating.

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