Modulate This! - Electronic & Experimental Music Tech, Technique, & People

New Juno 106 Ableton Pack by AfroDJMac

I just bought the "Juno 106 Ableton Pack” from AfroDJMac  and wanted to turn you on to it.

It contains 22 unique Ableton Instrument racks, each one created with a unique preset from the Juno 106.  I’ve added controls for 8 macros to each instrument, which allows them to be manipulated and twisted into new and ever changing sounds.

Watch embed overview video

More here: http://afrodjmac.com/2012/04/14/roland-juno-106-ableton-live-pack/

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
Official Web Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com
Listen/Download Albums: www.MarkMosherMusic.com/music.html
www.ModulateThis.com

My Second Collaboration with AfroDJmac - Zebra Attack Part II for Ableton Live

I announced my first collaboration and Ableton Live pack with AfroDJmac back on December 18th. I’m happy to announce a follow-up Live Pack - ZEBRA ATTACK II.

It utilizes the same waveforms as the first Live Pack, but with a completely different different instrument rack. Here is his overview video.

For more info and to download visit: http://afrodjmac.com/2011/12/28/ableton-rack-40-zebra-attack-ii-mark-mosher-afrodjmac/

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
www.ModulateThis.com
Official Web Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com
Listen/Download Albums: www.MarkMosherMusic.com/music.html

AfroDJMac and Mark Mosher Zebra Attack Free Ableton Live Pack

I'm excited to announce I just finished a collaboration with NY artist AfroDJMac who's been "crushing it" by releasing an Ableton Live Pack every week for 37 weeks! It's week 38 and we collaborated on "AfroDJMac and Mark Mosher Zebra Attack [Ableton Live Rack #38]."  What a great honor to be part of his series.  

I used U-HE Zebra 2 to make original harmonic content from INIT. I ended up with a patch that generated 1 bar FM wave sequence. Each wave was created in real-time by modulating FM with a stepped LFO with each step at a 16^thnote at 120bpm to accommodate slicing into a rack. I resampled, and then handed off the samples to AfroDJMac. He racked them up in Ableton Live's Sampler and created an entirely new performance instrument based on the harmonic content including the ability to select a wave or sweep through the wavetable with an LFO!

AfroDJMac did a very detailed post on the rack including some production notes and screen shots of my work. I’ll included the video below but direct you to his post for the details and the download links. Enjoy and let me know what you think of the rack :^) For more of my sound design work visit patchlab.modulatethis.com. For more on AfroDJMac, see links at the bottom of this post.

Watch embedded video

AfroDJMac Links:

• Official Site
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Soundcloud
• YouTube
• Flickr
• Bandcamp 

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
www.ModulateThis.com
Official Web Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com
Listen/Download Albums: www.MarkMosherMusic.com/music.html

AfroDJMac Crushing It with Free Weekly Ableton Racks

New York based electronic musician AfroDJMac has been crushing it with his weekly releases of free Ableton Racks and companion videos. At the time of this post he’s up to week #21. Whether you are looking for fresh sounds or need some inspiration for creating your own racks I encourage you to swing by his site or subscribe to his feed. There is a lot of creativity and variety in these racks!

Links

• http://afrodjmac.com/category/free-ableton-instruments/
• Feed: http://afrodjmac.com/feed/rss/

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
Synthesist | Composer | Keyboardist | Performer

http://modulatethis.com/
Official Web Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com
Listen/Download Albums: www.MarkMosherMusic.com/music.html

Get Inspired to Create Unique and Expressive Sounds with Operator Ambience Vol. 1 by Nick’s Tutorials

Nick’s Tutorials has released Operator Ambience Vol. 1. This is more than just a sound set and in addition to 20 Operator Patches the library also contains, 20 Live Clips, and 21 Videos.

I consider Ableton Operator (along with Ableton Sampler) to be required instruments for your rig. Operator is not only an expressive FM synth with a great user interface, it also can be used as a utility of sorts.  For example, you can use it to create discrete frequencies to say surgically give a kick drum more oomph. If you are new to Operator, your going to want to check out Nick’s previous tutorial Sound Design in Ableton Live: Operator.

Back to Operator Ambience Vol. 1 - according to the web site:

“Unlike larger, bloated libraries that attempt to cover every need possible, this affordable set is all about providing a tightly focused, thematically consistent set of ambient and atmospheric sounds.”

I really love this idea of a smaller deep thematic set of sounds and went the same route with my “Sounds From a Distant Outpost” library. As always Nick’s videos are informative and inspiring and even if you know Operator fairly well, odds are you’ll pick up on some new tricks. 

The Digital download Contains:

• 20 Operator patches that are completely open to reverse-engineering, tweaking, and learning
• 20 modifiable Live Clips corresponding with the patches which provide musical phrases and inspiration
• 1 substantive introductory video packed with Ableton Live tips as well as detailing common elements between all the patches
• 20 short videos detailing unique or noteworthy aspects of each patch, giving insight into their construction and suggestions for using them
• The same open inbox policy for support that I provide with all of my products (limited by my schedule, of course!)

Sample Audio

Here are some samples of the sounds, but remember, these are all under Macro control so you can take these same sounds and get different results using the knowledge you’ll pick up in these videos.

Operator Ambience Vol. 1 by nickmaxwell

Incredible Value & Highly Recommended

Of course the idea here is you’ll take these core concepts to improve existing patches or create your own unique patches. Nick's tips on using velocity as a modulator throughout Operator alone are with the price of admission. This is an incredible value at $9.99 when you consider how much work Nick put into this package and I'm really glad I bought it. Highly recommended.

Links

• Operator Ambience Vol. 1 Product Page
• Sound Design in Ableton Live: Operator Product Page
• Ableton Operator Product Page
• More Modulate This Posts on Operator

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
Synthesist | Composer | Keyboardist | Performer

http://modulatethis.com/
Official Web Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com
Listen/Download Albums: www.MarkMosherMusic.com/music.html

Ableton Colorado User Group Launches Free Collective Patch Library on GitHub

 

Ableton Colorado User Group in conjunction with DJNSM/Datamafia launches a Free Collective Patch Library on GitHub. The premise behind this site library is to create “an area where we can share, store, and expand our library using the basic building blocks of Ableton.“

The rules are simple: Original stuff please Nothing that requires wave files…[don't use FX that are exclusive to Suite]. Any patch config from the Ableton platfrom (Operator, Analog, Tension, M4L, etc) is welcome! Macro your patch and label the main 8 (or less) macro knobs. If you can't do it in 8 macros, turn it into multiple patches. When naming your knobs use logical names. One knob called "Tweak" is okay, but everything else should make sense (e.g. Filter Freq, wet/dry, distortion, etc) Yes! Max4Live patches are welcome!

Currently Marc the moderator adds patches to the library which users can download as one .zip file. This works well so far as there are no .wav files and these are patches within racks.

Things are just getting rolling but there are some fun patches out there already for Analog, FX, and Operator by DJNSM, James Tobin, and Chase Dobson (who’s been on the road doing backline Ableton Tech for Mike Posner), and yours truly.

James Tobin wins the award for patch names that make me LOL with…

More info on how to download and contribute here:
https://github.com/datamafia/ableton-colorado-user-data

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
Synthesist | Composer | Keyboardist | Performer

www.ModualteThis.com
Official Web Site: www.MarkMosherMusic.com
Listen/Download Albums: www.MarkMosherMusic.com/music.html

"Sounds from a Distant Outpost" Ableton Live Pack Experiment Update - New Compositions + 1000 Downloads and Counting

On December 17th, 2010 I released the Sounds from a Distant Outpost FREE Live Pack. Now, a little over a month later there have been over 1,000 downloads from http://www.outpostexperiment.com/! Update on 6/13/2011: Just about to hit 2,000 downloads :^).

The most exciting thing for me is that a two people have REALLY dug into the 12 instruments in the Live Pack and have taken the time to compose tracks using ONLY instruments from this pack.

I’ve attached their two songs plus a third I created below. It’s pretty fantastic that while we didn’t directly collaborate all the works are quite different yet sound they all sound like they are telling stories from the same universe.

I think it would be pretty cool to create an album or score a film with multiple composers sharing the same custom yet limited instrument palette like this.

“Subdude's First Excursion To The Outpost”
First up is an awesome offering by James Tobin (aka Subdude), Denver, USA - www.jamestobin.info.

SoundsFromADistantOutpost-Subdude'sFirstExcursionToTheOutpost by Subdude

“Contact”
Next a wonderful track by Jason Anderson from Bottnaryd, Sweden - http://twitter.com/jasonswe
Contact (via Outpost Extreme) by JAnderson 

“Outpost Encounter”
This is a track I created to kick off the idea of everyone composing from this live pack.

Outpost Encounter by MarkMosher

Thanks!
Thanks James and Jason for your wonderful contributions.

Your Turn to Take a Trip to the Outpost!
There are still stories to tell. I’d love to hear more from others so go grab the pack and tack a trip to the “Outpost”. - Sounds from a Distant Outpost.

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Boulder, CO
www.ModulateThis.com

patchlab.modulatethis.com
www.MarkMosherMusic.com

Your Modulate This Holiday Gift is Ready - "Sounds From a Distant Outpost" Ableton Live Pack Plus Samples

 

I'm very excited to announce that your FREE holiday gift is now ready for download! It is an Ableton Live Pack called Sounds from a Distant Outpost.

Sounds From a Distant Outpost is more than a sample sound library. Over 30 hours in the making, it is a set of 12 deep and expressive instrument racks that will transport you to a dark and distant outpost. From here you will be able to explore the sounds, machines, and creatures of this world.  These instruments will help spark your imagination and I hope inspire you to create your own soundtrack for this world. Of course, the instruments will also help add an interesting "edge" to any sound or music project.

The  source audio is made up of some of my field recordings as well  as original synthesized and re-synthesis harmonic content.  The concept for the instruments was based on a back-story I created as the project progressed. Fueled by the story and setting, I translated these source samples into Ableton Live racks and meticulously programmed them to create playable dynamic instruments which are placed under your command via macro parameters, velocity, after touch, and modulation wheel mappings. I've also provided the original source samples for the project so those who don't have Ableton Live will be able to use these samples as oscillator sources in synths like Absynth, Alchemy, ElectraX and Blofeld.

This project is also a social experiment. Rather than just provide a Live Pack, I've created a dedicated social microsite so you can share your notes and work with the library. I’ve also offered a SoundCloud drop box so you can share your original sound or music compositions.

I've had a great time creating - to coin a phrase - this  "story-based sound design with social remix" experiment.

I hope you enjoy your gift. I'm looking forward to your notes and creations.

As always, thanks your support. Have a happy, safe holiday filled with electronic music!

Visit OutpostExperiment.com now to download the Live Pack.

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist
www.OutpostExperiment.com
www.MarkMosherMusic.com
www.ModulateThis.com