To me the Session View of the performance was the project, in fact the major reason for doing the course, so I think it appropriate to have gone into the detail in the way I did. I could have posted a “how my project was progressing”, but it would been the same one, because at that stage it was all relevant to the scenes. That’s why I did it under this heading.

That said, matters were resolved really well. I was able to cut down the scenes, without loss to my song, which allowed time to include some live effects. It would be possible to identify what was done now in the way you suggest, but in a separate post.

With the benefit of hindsight and knowledge of Ableton I would have done the song differently. That was the whole point wasn’t it? Job done!

One thing to be very careful of – don’t make your Area of Expertise too wide. You won’t get any more marks for covering more ground, so the best idea is to choose a much narrower area and cover it in more detail. It would be a good idea to speak to Tom in the group, who has compared Reason’s Redrum with Ableton’s Impulse for his post. This is a perfect example of a narrow area which still contains plenty of his own research and conclusions.

- Excellent concise one-line introduction (some of your other posts would benefit from this!)

- The post makes an excellent “snapshot” showing how far you have progressed and what you have still got left to do.

- You include lots of detail (probably too much, see below!) which shows an obvious understanding of the structure of your song and a definite goal in mind that you are trying to reach.

Points for Improvement

- As in some of your previous posts there is too much detail! Be selective – you don’t have to discuss every part of the project! Try to focus on one or two scene examples only e.g. one scene which you are completely happy with and another which you know needs sorting out.

- The screen capture isn’t very informative. Why not cut it down into individual scenes which can go alongside the text below. Or at least label the relevant scenes with numbers which match up to your discussion below.

- Do we need the numbers down the left hand side of the post all the time? These tend to disrupt from the flow of what you’re writing and are only really useful if you’re using them to match up with your screen capture.

- Try to leave out more general discussion of problems you are having with the project as they are not relevant to the discussion of scenes (but would be perfect in another post e.g. “how my project is progressing”).

- Post shows an obvious technical understanding of set-up and usage for both Impulse and Operator – good!

- Good progression and problem solving (e.g. remapping drums from Sonar).

- Some relevant justification of sounds chosen in Operator.

- Appropriate step-by-step guide to how to set-up Impulse.

- Operator section is generally more concise and to-the-point than your Impulse one.

Points for Improvement

- Too much detail in your Impulse section! The post is very technical and therefore it is easy to get lost in what you’re saying, so you must keep it concise. It is obvious that you understand what you have done, but this is not always easy for the reader to follow. If unsure then get someone to read through your work and tell you which bits make sense and which are “too deep”.

- Your introduction is a perfect example of how your post could be more concise. You include lot of unnecessary detail and there is some repetition, when you could express the purpose within a few lines at the beginning. Also, what does this mean – “there were too many instuments used in sequences created from an imported midi loop and added to over a number of weeks” ?!

- Some odd selections/omissions of screen captures. What is the first screen capure showing us? Only include captures if you are discussing them in the text. And why no screen captures to go with your Impulse set-up guide?

- Overall the screen captures in the Operator section are much more informative and well labelled than those in the Impulse section.

- Relevant and informatively labelled screen captures. These contain lots of details which show-off your knowledge – good!

- Very individual approach to warping which shows good proof of independant learning and re-application of what has been taught in the first few sessions.

- Good step-by-step guide which documents an actual example from your project and shows good progresssion (e.g. example of how you resolved the “stone” problem).

- Interesting to see that audio can just be dragged between the two packages!

Points for Improvement

- The post is not very engaging to read, mainly because it lacks context. It is not until half way through that we really understand what it is about. You might want to start with an overview of what you are going to tell us, including why it was important to transfer and warp audio in this way for your project.

- Your post could be stronger on the actual warping side of things. Remember that this is the core of what this post should be about. The “right to left” technique you mention could be better explained and it would also help to highlight the “bar markers” you talk about in the first warping screen capture. Also, the second warping screen capture shows the fixed markers, but doesn’t explain a lot about them. Finally, was the Warp Mode important here?

- Minor Presentational issue – some of the lines of text appear alongside the images rather than below them (this should be easy to sort by adding carriage returns).

Some comments:

- The screen captures help illustrate the area you have chosen.

- To narrow down plug-ins as your area of expertise, you need to focus on a single example of how you used the Kore2 within your project.

- The link to the Native Instruments site works, but looks a bit strange in the post itself.

- The title should tell us more about the content of the post (Blog 5 isn’t very informative!!)

- Probably your most detailed post so far! Excellent step-by-step guide which demonstrates your understanding of how to set up Impulse.

- Good to point out that the other instruments use drag-and-drop methods also (you could link this to discussing the other intruments themselves – see below).

- Lots of good screen captures (perhaps too many – you could cut down on the amount by using arrows to highlight the parts of the screen you talk about in the text).

Points for Improvement

- Again your post lacks the personal aspect of how you used Impulse within your project. This is a vital part of your blogging which I have mentioned a few times before and which you should be including by in each post by now.

- Good on the basics, but could be more detailed on the controls of Impulse (and how these can or have been used in your project).

- If you’re writing a post about Ableton instruments you need to talk briefly about the other available instruments and their purpose (shows “range”).

- Excellent understanding shown on the more advanced aspects of the process (such as controlling effects with clip variations, and assigning effects sends to the MIDI keyboard).

- Good selective use of screen captures with appropriate parts of the screen shown.

- Generally a very logically laid out and presented post.

Points for Improvement

- Your post could be a little stronger on the basics of effects setup (e.g. how to set up a return channel? How we know that delay is an effect? What can we do to check that the return channel is purely sending out the effect?).

- Your description of setting up effects is still not personal enough to the project (e.g. What sound did you put the delay on? Why did you choose to automate it? How did alternating the delay on and off between bars improve the sound?). Same applies for why you chose to control the delay using the keyboard.

- Good basic explanation of *why* you used Warping.

Points for Improvement

- Your description of the warping stages could be better – you cover the process quickly, but also miss out some important points that would demonstrate a deeper understanding. Try to break the process down into steps and give more detail for each one.

- When describing the stages, you need to refer to the screen capture you have taken (otherwise there is no point in it being there!) What was it and how did it work within your project?

- The arrows on your screen capture also need labelling (as before).

- Check your use of English by getting someone else to read through and comment on your post (there are some corrections that you or other students may spot).

1) The different elements of Ableton (in which case you need some more info on the others e.g. Session View, File Browser, etc)

or

2) Creating variations (in which case you need to give examples of variations you made in your actual project).

(See “Documenting Your Project” sheet for more info).

Strong Points

- Well presented screen capture.
- Good general discussion of the sections of the Clip View.

Points for Improvement

- You need to talk about specific examples from your project (make it more personal).
- What are the arrows showing us in the screen capture? (these need labelling).
- Check your use of English.

I would agree that the up and down scene buttons are definately not reliable as you have to be able to see the scene on screen before you trigger it. If you only have a fairly small amount of scenes, then assigning them to individual keys is definately the way to go.

- Excellent introduction (and screen capture) which demonstrates your understanding of the basic difference between clips and scenes.

- Good understanding of the purpose of removing stop buttons (an area we have not consider much in the taught sessions).

- Some good discussion of how your scenes were built up and their purpose.

Points for Improvement

- The clips and scenes you discuss in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th paragraphs would benefit from being identified in a screen capture. For example I found it hard it identify the scene containing the sample that increases in volume.

- The terms “simple bass line”, “simple drum pattern” and “sample that increases in volume” do not give much of a feel for your project – being a little more descriptive of the sounds themselves would make the post more engaging and personal.

- Similarly, when discussing removal of stop buttons, it would help to talk more specifically the elements that you wished to continue and why this benefitted your project.

Strong Points

- Well written – you have an engaging style which tells us why you were interested in making this comparison.

- Excellent pros and cons when talking about the Redrum pattern sequencer vs Impulse’s editing of patterns in MIDI. (Redrum is definately not very well suited to producing drum loops that are longer than one bar long!)

- Some relevant points made throughout about the key differences.

Points for Improvement

- Your post could be more concise – could the differences between Redrum and Impulse expressed as a comparison table?

- You should concentrate on discussing the differences rather than the similarities. You say that “Impulse has presets and ReDrum has patches, this is not important however as it is just the words used for the same thing.” – so why mention it?

- Your understanding of Impulse could be shown in more depth. You include a good step by step guide to Redrum but nothing similar for Impulse itself (unless you have covered in within another of your blog posts – in which case say so and make a link).

- Finally, you should end your post with key conclusions, summing up what you have told us. (e.g. bullet points).

Overall some excellent work here though – well done!

Although you have used the preset Audio Effects Rack, you post shows that you have dug into the controls of the Guitar Tube Amp and have shown a solid understanding of what each control does. This shows some evidence of independant learning. You also make concise use of screen captures (they are used sparingly but in just the right places to illustrate what you say).

The main points for improvement are that your post could be stronger on describing how and where the final sound was used within your piece, and the final screen capture could be annotated to give a more detailed understanding of how the pitch bends were created (although if you have covered use of Clip Envelopes elsewhere in your blog, some of this detail could be redundant).

- Another good step-by-step guide – you show an obvious technical understand of setting up effects.

- Again good use of screen-captures showing relevant stages of the process.

Points for Improvement

This is not the most well-written of your posts…

- What is the point of the first sentence?

- The last paragraph in particular is very confusing. Is it an EQ3 or Filter Delay that you are using (or both)?! And the delay gives a distorted skippy effect to what?!

- Your post still lacks a personal focus. Instead of talking briefly at the end about why you used the filter delay, why not talk about a specific example from the beginning? (i.e. i wanted to do this … so i used this … and this was the result). This would make the post much more interesting to read and more relevant to your project.

- Lots of good technical detail here. You demonstrate a good understanding of operators key princples (four oscillators with filters and the possibility to modulate these parameters using velocity).

- Good screen captures (although they are not always used to maximum effect).

- Very good expression and use of english.

Points for Improvement

- As previously, your post needs more on the “personal” side. You need to link your technical understanding of how operator works with a practical example of a sound you created. For example, you say you have “used Operator extensively in my project” but do not say how! It would help to explain the screen capture you have shown, and to have another showing the controls of operator and an explanation of which you used and the result.

- You say “An operator can be likened to an oscillator and Operator being as flexible as it is each operator may be a range of raw waveforms, not just Sine as were the DX range.”This sentence would be better earlier in your post…after where you say “It is essentially a four Operator FM synth.”

Good Points

- You say why it is good to edit audio as opposed to using brand new clips – good!

- You make excellent use of screen captures, using them to show the relevant stages of the process. You also clearly identify the controls you used.

Points for Improvement

- You need to explain what kind of things can you do with Clip Envelopes? You show how one is applied, but do not say how it can be used.

- Your post is missing a “personal” aspect (e.g. a specific example of how used variations within your project). At the end of your post you should talk about how you edited your clips and how this helped you vary the music.

Good Points

- Appropriate use of screen captures.

- Successful identifications of key aspect of looping using the Clip View.

- Clear and to the point!

Points for Improvement

At the moment your post is a bit basic and does not really show off what you know in this area…

- Post could do with more range (there are more ways to vary clips than by changing the start, end and loop points).

- Needs the “personal” touch. What was the clip? How did the variations you created benefit your project?

- Post could be layed out better (images could be a similar size and text could go below rather than next to the first image).

Good Points

- Good step-by-step guide to setting up an effect.

- Appropriate use of screen captures at each stage and some good labelling with arrows.

Points for Improvement

- You don´t explain how you have made use of effects within your actual project.

- Some of the screen captures have extra white space around them that could be removed.

- There are still a few spelling and grammar errors e.g. truck = track, drug = drag (but lots of improvement from last time here as well!). It may help to get someone from the class to read through your work and help you to correct some of these before you submit.

Good Points

- Using the EQ on the master gives you lots of flexibility in performance and shows you can use processors in a slightly different way (rather than just applying them to individual channels).

- You give some excellent insight into why you chose to use the EQ – this definately makes the most more personal and interesting to read.

Points for Improvement

- Your f irst screen capture could be a bit bigger (hard to see the 1)…or you could tell people to click to make it larger!

- You could go into a little more detail about what the FreqLo and FreqHi controls actually do.

- You could give a practical example of where this EQ might be used in your performance.

To complete this post your need to think about whether the Auto Filter a “Processor” or an “Effect”. Once you have worked this out your should give a step-by-step guide to the set up process.

Good Points

- Accurate step-by-step guide to the effects setup process.
- Clear identification of the controls used, both in your screen captures and in the text of your post.
- Good extra detail on how effects can be controlled using clip envelopes.
- Excellent last paragraph which details how you made use of all three of your effects within the project.

Points for Improvement

Very few – you are hitting all the required areas in terms of (presentation, being concise, technical understanding, range, etc). Progression is perhaps one area which you could expand on. You show an obvious grasp of the techniques, so it would be good to hear a little about how you are challenging yourself within the project.

The good points are that you have identified the overall aim of the project, and the first stage of creating the drum beat from a sample. You also make good use of a screen capture, but it needs some sizing (white background is too large).

To complete you need to identify the rest of the stages, going up to how it will be performed. For each stage you should set a deadline date. You don´t need to say a lot about each stage, just enough to show that you have thought about where the project is going.

Finally, you need to be clear about whether the final project will be your own track or a mix of other peoples (or both), as at the moment it is hard to tell from what you have said.

To complete, try to address the following questions within your plan…

- What kind of style and type of samples you are using?
- What are the challenges of the project?
- Where will you begin?
- What deadlines will you set yourself to reach each stage?

I like the way you break down your overall project idea into stages. To complete the plan you need to add deadlines dates for each of these stages (to show when you aim to reach each goal).

Finally, it is a definately a good idea to be ready two weeks before the performance – but perhaps a little too ambitious!

For the first part (range of instruments):

- …it would be good to do one line on how each is set up (like you have done for simpler) – to show a fuller undertanding of how they are used.

- …try to avoid complex terms like “chromatic”, or if used offer an explanation of them in simple terms as well (again to demonstrate your understanding).

For the second part (specific example in Simpler):

- …you need to put the sound in context e.g. what is it and how does it figure within the whole project? What was the benefit of using it in simpler as opposed to just an audio clip?

- …you need to be more specific about what was actually done to the bass to get the “warm resonant bass sound” you describe. A step-by-step guide would be more appropriate here, with each step corresponding to a highlighted part of your screen capture.

Finally, you have used the same introductory paragraph for this post as the last one – this might be better included in your project plan rather than here. Overall though this is another excellent start, which improves on your first post by giving a specific example of what you have done within your project.

The one major weakness of your work is that do not demonstrate how you have used MIDI creatively. Try to avoid writing in an instructional way – instead take a specific example of a MIDI clip from your project and show how it was put together. The idea is to show off your best creative work.

Further comments:

- Do you need before and after screen capures? Why not just show one with the ARM light on and point this out by circling it or with an arrow?

- The post could be stronger on how to quantise, change note length and change velocities. You only mention these very briefly and do not show how they are achieved on the screen capture.

Overall through this is a solid start to your six blog entries. For a higher mark, please update to address some of the above comments (and bear them in mind when writing your next posts).

Also maybe the tempo change could fit in with your area of expertise?

The post would be best split into two, with the first taking us through how you recorded a MIDI clip using the Dimension, and the second giving more detail on how you tranposed the off key clips (highlight the controls you used in the screen capture). Don’t forget to consider which of the course criteria each post is relevant to and stick to it (see “Documenting Your Final Project” sheet).

Further Points for Improvement

- The post has no proper title (you should copy the heading at the top of you post into the title box).

- It might be worth considering whether you need to use Dimension at all (is there a built-in Ableton instrument that could do a similar job?)

The main area for improvement is that the post could be more clearly written (e.g. broken down into clearer sentences to make it easier to read). If you are not sure about which bits are clear and which bits could be better then a good idea is to get someone else in the class to read it and give you feedback.

Points for Improvement

- Are the first two images a “before” and “after”? If so you might want to label them this way. They would also benefit from arrows and numbers to point out the things you mention in the text (e.g. changing the start points, looping).

- The overall post is quite basic and needs to “show-off” your understanding better than in order to get a higher mark. You do mention other possible clip variations and justify why you didn’t use them, but you may still want to add to this post later to cover some of these and others. A good constrasting example would be to include some variations you have created on an audio clip.

Some points for improvement about your work are:

- For some reason I can only view large versions of two of the images in your post, so it has been difficult to mark the whole thing (see if you can sort this out).

- The post is strong on the step-by-step technical setup of Impulse, as you cover the key stages of the process in a concise and clear way. However, it could do with more on the “personal” side (i.e. what did you use Impulse for in your project? What type of sounds did you require? How did you tweak the controls to get the sound you wanted, etc).

- The section on Operator isn’t as strong as your one on Impulse (it doesn’t tell us much about the sound you chose, or say how it was used within your project). If you only used a preset sound so far then that’s fine but tell us what it was and what part it played in your project.

- A general thought – perhaps it would be better to just label the text with numbers (step 1, step 2 etc) and the text would be better done in wordpress? This makes the text easier to edit later…

- Finally, you could improve the title to make it more revelant to the content of the post (not the most engaging title!)

Overall this is some very good work for a first post though!

Points For Improvement

- the post is good on the technical side, but not very strong on the personal side (you need to talk about an example from your project).

- The post does not cover the whole Warping process. (Step 7 needs more detail, for example how do you know where to place the 1 marker? How do you bring the sample into time?)

- When doing your images, it would be better to type the text into WordPress instead of in Paint. This way you can easily edit what you have written later.

- There are quite a few spelling mistakes in your work (e.g. drug = drag, displated = displayed etc). In future try to print your blog and ask someone in the class to read through it to help you correct some of these.

The post is slightly weaker on the “personal” side than your first one, as it lacks any reasoning as to why you chose the sound. Some questions I found myself asking whilst reading the post were…

- What did the intro sample you chose sound like? Was it a rhythmic or textural sample?
- Did you need to count the bars/beats in order to warp or was it more intuitive?
- What made it interesting/usable? Why was it a good starting point?
- Which part did you decide to use when warping and why?

To improve the post you could try to briefly address some of these concerns.

The post also demonstrates good use of screen captures, which are appropriately sized and are clearly labelled and referenced in the text.

My only criticism would be that you cover the quantisation process in quite a basic way, with no explanation of the particular settings used. This is one aspect which would help to show a more advanced understanding of the area.

However the post seems unfinished, as you only cover part of one of the techniques. To complete you need to:

- Finish your step-by-step guide to using MIDI, by showing how the MIDI was recorded in and edited. For your drum patterns explain whether you drew-in or record-in the MIDI? Explain how both are done, but say which you used and why…

- Remember that you blog should be “personal”. To do this you need to explain what you were trying to achieve by using MIDI and Impulse (style, type of drum kit used, sound you were going for). Try to choose an actual example of a drum pattern you used in your project (and show it in your screen captures).

Things to consider:

- Do you know where you might get the digeridoo and vocal samples from?

- What might be the stages that come between practise and performance? Try to break your project down and set yourself some deadlines for these too. The blog entry deadlines are important but you don’t need to list them here, as they will be based on the stages of your project.

- What might be your area of expertise? You mention instruments and effects here but you’ll need to focus in on specifically what you want to do with these, in order to ensure the area you choose isn’t too wide.

Some things to think about:

- Before recording the vocals it will help to have a basic set of scenes laid down that you can write to. The details of the music and how it will be performed live can then be worked on more later.

- There are two ways to approach combining the three songs you are going to make.

1) Creating them as one big midi-based project.

2) Creating the three songs separately, then exporting them as audio files and manipulating these files to create a performance set.

The first way gives you lots of possibilities (but maybe too many?), whereas the second is more constrained but simpler to work with in a performance setting.

You clearly identify some of the stages that the project will go through (preparing drum samples, building beats, adding instruments, etc) but I would also like to see some dates for when the different stages should be completed, as a guide for how your project is progressing.

From listening to the video it sounds ike like distortion, bit-crushing and use of beat repeat might form form major parts of your project! If you can create difference in dynamics and mood that are as good as in this piece then it should be a great performance!

Things to think about:

- What preparation is needed before you can start? Finding samples? Warping audio? Making sounds in Ableton’s synthesisers?

- How long do you want the performance to be? How will the tempo change during the performance? What kind of styles do you want to create for the different parts?

- What will be your Area of Expertise within the project?

Please update your post to include some of this detail. We can talk about getting your work between home and Beaumont Street during the next session.

Things to think about:

- Which aspects of the project will remain as MIDI and which will be used as audio? (you may have a good idea of this already)

- Which techniques will you focus on and what will be your Area of Expertise? There are a lot of potential techniques for a project like this – be careful not to attempt too much within the time you have.

- Later you will need to consider how to introduce some sponteniety to the live performance in Ableton, whilst retaining the song structure. This is something to think about once the song is complete.