We are the music makers - producers?

Can anyone recommend a forum (like this one) for electronic musicians? I'm fiddling around with Ableton & a couple of controllers, and I have a bunch of dumb n00bish questions.

Where can I go UTFS-ing on this topic?

I used to be on here quite a bit: http://www.no-future.com/erutufon/

Propellorheads forums used to be quite busy. SOS magazine forum also. Also vintage synth used to be good. I'm totally out of whats new now though.

elektron.se

The ableton forums themselves are full of info but also a lot of people moaning about insignificant shite too. I may be able to help too, I've been using ableton for 3 years now and know most of the ins and outs of the program

www.Kvraudio.com is one of the biggest, a lot of developers on there too.

http://www.macosxaudio.com/forums

soundonsound.com, as mentioned above

Thanks for the recommendations.

@Festerban - I looked at the Ableton forum, but looked like mostly a bug/crash reporting site..?

The issue I have is this - I'm using Ableton 7 w/ an M-Audio trigger finger to trigger samples. Right now, the trigger finger is "momentary" - i.e. you have to hold down the pad to play the whole sample, otherwise the sample stops playing when you release the pad. I'd like to change that to a "latch" (i.e. play whole sample from hitting pad once); ideally on a pad-by-pad basis. I've done a workaround by extending the decay and sustain to max in the main ADSR filter, but that doesn't work well for longer samples, or looped samples.

Any ideas?

Hmmm, sounds strange. How have you set up the trigger finger? Do you have it mapped to clips in the session view or are you using it to control samples in Simpler?

is there a one-shot mode in Simpler?

Hey Mattty...

i use ableton/cubase/logic/pro tolls and various controllers - Novation Remote Zero and soon the OP-1 by Teenage Engineering (music porn-o-rama).....I'm a drummer in a band and have electronic pads on my kit rigged up through various hardware n that.

As far as your question goes - hmmm, not sure. On some soft samplers you can set your samples to 'drum mode'. Meaning they'll play the whole sample..not sure if ableton has this though. helpful?

I have it set up with some of the bundled drum samples (kick, snare, hi-hat) and then some guitar stabs. Did this by dropping the kick drum into a midi track (not sure if that's the right term - I mean the vertical strip where you can record different parts using the same instrument), then added other samples.

This brought up a mapping for the trigger finger, and I dropped the other samples into it. If I understand the manual correctly, when you drop an audio sample into a midi mapping like this, it creates an instance of Simpler (with ADSL envelope, LFO, etc.) - which it did. But I can't figure out the gate or latch mode.

I have it set up with some of the bundled drum samples (kick, snare, hi-hat) and then some guitar stabs. Did this by dropping the kick drum into a midi track (not sure if that's the right term - I mean the vertical strip where you can record different parts using the same instrument), then added other samples.

This brought up a mapping for the trigger finger, and I dropped the other samples into it. If I understand the manual correctly, when you drop an audio sample into a midi mapping like this, it creates an instance of Simpler (with ADSL envelope, LFO, etc.) - which it did. But I can't figure out the gate or latch mode.

hmmm, do you mean you dropped the audio dample into the 'Mixer Window' - (thats the vertical strip one).....the audio sample can't be put into a midi track here...midi is information whereas audio is audio....however, audio can be placed into a sample map. I'm still not sure of the settings in simpler though. Do you use it with a laptop? I can have a look at it if you want and help with the set up?

I can come see you or visa versa? It's up to you.

Yep, into the mixer window. I dropped the kick sample from the midi instrument collection in there, then just dropped audio samples onto the trigger finger mapping. I assume this is plaing the audio onto a sample map.

Use it on a laptop, but am at work atm; can check again this evening. thanks for the offer of support - might have to take you up on it..

www.ibummedgarynuman.com

Yep, into the mixer window. I dropped the kick sample from the midi instrument collection in there, then just dropped audio samples onto the trigger finger mapping. I assume this is plaing the audio onto a sample map.

Use it on a laptop, but am at work atm; can check again this evening. thanks for the offer of support - might have to take you up on it..

Cool, no worries. Annoyingly these are issues that i would kinda do automatically, it's only when you're asked do you question how its done.

does anyone have any basic mac software for making music, i'm thinking along the lines of fruityloops etc. it would need to run on a g4 powermac running tiger.

No Future's got some pretty sound folks on it.

Anyone using NI Maschine? I'd really like the old Elektron Monomachine SF6 with the keyboard - hens teeth however. The Maschine I feel may be just a bit too Hippity Hoppity like the MPC.....

I have Maschine.

By hippity hoppity you mean only good for making hip hop?

yeah, well the way in which loops are assigned to the pads, does this limit you to breaks driven stuff?

not at all, Its pretty much a DAW in itself, I now do 80% of work in it then run it in logic to process.

Its really versatile.

do you make music allready?

Yeah I dabble. Have an m audio controller and reason and ableton. Also an Electribe ESX1, but want to have best if hardware and software worlds

i appreciate this may not be the right thread for this - but on the subject of music production has anyone got any tips for recording a band to tape?

we only have 4 tracks to play with - is it wise to saturate the drum tracks even though there are only 4 tracks?

is it a 4 track tape deck? You used to be able to record to all 4 tracks, then bounce down these 4 to one track, and so on, although you lose quality

yeah it is. i know you can print a couple of tracks down to 1, but the recording will probably be done live (excluding vocals) so it doesn't make that much sense. will maybe record a drums sub-mix, bass and guitar, and then bounce that down to a stereo mix as you suggested, leaving a couple of tracks for vocals. or perhaps bounce guitar and bass to one, which shouldn't cause much loss in quality due to less overlapping frequencies, and then leave 1 track for vocals..

it's complicated!