Welcome to another issue of Technolite

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In todays newsletter:

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1. Site Updates

2. Successful Tracker Artist

3. Aphex Twin Interview

4. KTGranulator guide

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1. Updates.

There has been huge "behind the scenes" movement on and off the site. First up are the Ableton Tutorials which can be found here. Please note that the effects section of the Ableton Tutorials can be applied to other sequencers and music players. this is especially so for the "make better beats tutorial". You can get compressors and EQ plug-ins free (they are in the free soft synth section found here) under Mda-VST. Anyway, more tutorials will occur in the future.

To all those who have bought the Beginners Guide To Techno Music Making, 4 hours of tutorial videos have now been added. An email has been sent to you regarding access to the videos. So that makes 7 additional bonus to the ebook, with value over $150.

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2. Successful Tracker Artists - Keith303

I have admired this musical great for many years, and the site contains many references to his work. This is a musician who has innovated the demo scene with his cool tunes stepped in DnB, Techno, BreakBeat and Dance. He also uses exclusively FastTracker and ReNoise- 2 Tracker sequencers to bring his tunes to life creating some seriously cool MP3s. If you want to listen to his tracks then check out his site: Keith303. Look under Music, and then download some cool tracks. My favourites are: ThumbWorker, Detox, IntoTheUnknown, HandCanoneer....and most of the others actually ;)

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3. Aphex Twin Interview

The Aphex Twin has been a "weird" pioneer of some cool music. From the cult Didgeridoo, to the strangely great Window Licker. So how and why does he do it? The interview has been edited from Perfect Sound Forever.

What made you want to go into music?

By the time that I went to London, four or five years ago, I knew that I was going to music forever whether it was going to be a career or not. I thought quite possibly that it could be a career but I didn't care either way if it wasn't. I thought it would be a pretty good way of living, an easy life. At the same time, I didn't really care though so I knew I was going to make it. (laughs)

What kind of music where you listening to that got you interested in doing this?

Nothing really. I got myself motivated to do this. I just loved creating things and making things. That's my motivation for doing this. I do get motivated by listening to other people now but I don't really NEED to do that. I could just lock myself away for days and get inspired by myself. That's my favorite way to do it. It's more like a pure form of motivation when it's all on your own. But you have to wait until you're really bored and you've got nothing to do. That's when it comes out. That's when I reckon it gets good.

You still find that so now?

Well, it's difficult to get bored now because there's so much going on. There's parties, good friends and a (former) bank in Central London where I was hoping I'd get more work done but it doesn't always work out that way. But I'm not bothered so I'm still getting enough work done. And I've got my laptop which is really good for working. I think that if I had gotten a laptop (before), I would have put out this music a couple of years ago.

Where does the inspiration for your work come from?

I don't know really. I never really worked that out. If I'm not in the mood to do something, I'm not going to do it. I'll just go and do something else. When I just get something new, I just want to get something out of my system. I know that when I'm feeling in that mood, it's going to be good and I'm going to enjoy it later. Then I can listen back to it and appreciate it afterwards.

There's a stereotype of a lot of dance music being made in bedrooms. Do you do a lot of that yourself?

Yeah, I can't do music anywhere else. It's got to be in the bedroom basically. You get to do tracks in the nude and if you're working in the studio, you just can't do that. It's not really practical. It's also really just removing it from any sort of pressure as much as possible and just making it more personal basically. I could never handle doing music in the studio- it's too cold. I'm sure I could do it but I just wouldn't want to do it. I just like doing it at home.

You've done some tinkering and reworking of the keyboards and electronic equipment you've used. Did you find that what they could do wasn't good enough?

Yeah. I knew that there better keyboards that were out there but it was costly. I really enjoyed doing working on them though. It's really taxing on your brain, making circuits. It's satisfying to make your equipment and then to make music with it as well. It's really nice.

A lot of performers don't bother and they all use the same equipment though. You think that leads to a lot of monotony and sameness with music?

Yeah, sort of but then I'd reckon that I'd still be happy to work with shit equipment. I'd reckon that you'd still be able to squeeze out good things from it. A lot on today's equipment is wicked even though I wouldn't buy a lot of it. You can still give me any piece of equipment, any keyboard and I can do something nice with it. It's peoples' ideas and motivation behind it that makes it boring and monotonous. It just exaggerates it more if you do build your own stuff or write your own software. Then it's going to be even more personalized.

You're writing some of your own software now?

That's what I'm into now. I don't muck around with electronics anymore but I probably will get back into it soon because it's still got advantages. It's nice to have something in your hands rather than on a screen. I'm really into computers because obviously you can do something with it- I'll be dealing with electronics in a nostalgic way not in an inventive way. Using older electronics for an older type of sound. My prime motivation is to do something new all the time and keep exploring. Computers are so poweful now, there's so much to be done with them really.

What kind of programs are you working on?

Things to just get more new sounds and sort of twist my brain as well. It's that complicated. I really love it. It's really technical. That's what I'm interested in basically- really technical music as well as having it be emotional too.

Is it a problem to balance out time doing the programming and doing the music as well?

With programming, it is quite difficult. In the conventional sense, I love the programs I make. It doesn't involved any sort of interaction- you just put it in, press the button and it goes. That doesn't involved much interaction and that's quite hard to get the balance right. If I'm using a sequencer, I don't find it difficult to use it to get what I want into the music. I don't find the equipment to get into my way then. If I did, I wouldn't use it.

Any interest in working with interactive systems and components?

I haven't done anything like that but I'm really interested in that sort of stuff. Anything odd or unusual like that. Electro-acoustics like that. A lot of it makes me laugh though because it's kind of like a science lesson with no music. A lot of people forget to make it into music. It's very technical and not very emotional. When it's got the two, then that's when I really like it.

Anyone in mind when you say that?

At the moment, I suppose it's just my friends who do it and a few old composers. I like the old tape and avant-garde music. I really like Stockhausen's first record. It's awesome. Don't really like much else after that. 'Songs of Youth' is my favorite one. Tod Docstader as well. He's an American (composer) from the '60s, working with tape music. At the moment, I like Luke Vibert. He's doing this tour with me. I love his music. I like Squarepusher as well.

What kind of things do you like about their music?

I like it basically because it's music of today. It's really relevant to me. They're roughly in the same generation as me so it means more to me. That's the first thing but then I also love it because it's f*****g good music. It's doing something different that's never been done before.

How would you compare their work to yours?

I think we're all really different but we're linked together. There are SOME simliarities to the music but I think we're all on quite different pathes really. I mean, we're similar compared to some rock bands but looking at it closely, it's not that similar at all.

For your tour, you're just working off a lap-top computer. How does that effect your work?

It's wicked. That's the only reason that I'm doing this now (touring). It's just that good to work with. I wasn't going to do another tour until I got a box about that big (the lap-top). I wasn't going to tour four or five years ago without it.

You find that it still gives you enough flexibility to do everything you want for a show?

Oh yeah. I write software that I use for live stuff. It's more flexible than anyone else's I reckon. I can do loads of stuff. In reality, I don't do stuff to the tracks. A lot of the tracks I'm happy with so I really don't want to change them around. The mood of the gig doesn't really change the music that much. Sometimes it does and I will change it later. It's not that big (the lap-top) and you can still make more noise than any f******g band. It's simple. You got to these festivals and you see these bands that are s**T, just making noise. But you put this in and it's ten times louder with more bass. It makes loads more noise.

Do you like 'ambient' music then?

Things like that are really just easy listening. If I want to fall asleep or I'm really stoned, I'll listen to something like that. I really don't like that kind of stuff now. I like fast stuff to keep my brain interested. I get really bored with loops going around for ages. I need something happening all the time to keep me interested.

What kind of music are listening to now?

I don't buy new records now. When I want to listen to records, I just go listen to my old records. There are loads of them that I haven't listened to yet. It's a bit of rubbish because you're missing a lot of new stuff but you can't do everything.

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VST Tutorial

A while back I offered free download VSTs. These were really cool, and some were just totally bonkers. So I am going to dedicate some time to go through the cool but bonkers VSTs so that you have a better understanding on how they work. So this month I am going to try out KTGranulator.

The VST can be downloaded for free from here. It loads up like a normal VST plug-in but it offers some cool effects.

What does it do? gives your sounds some individual status, as it will chew up and throw out anything you put in its way. technically, it processes the incoming signal into lots of little grains that can be shifted in frequency and time domains. It is also the same sort of technology behind timestreching.

So load up a loop or a sound, input it into your sequencer and press play. Now load up your Granulator VST and then apply it to your sound track.

Granulators default preset won't do a lot, so increase the feedback a bit, but reduce the in gain so that you speakers don't get mashed. The output of the effect is controlled by the ampl sliders, click on lock to move them both.

The max grains slider is set on 8, so crank it all the way to max. If you move the delay sliders you might get some serious delay sounds. You don't have to lock the sliders.

Granulation processes the pitch and the time domains separately, that is how they are used in timestretch. Granulator can mess with the pitch and the duration of the grains. Give them both a mess around.

The skew adjusts the attack and delay of the grains (a setting of 1= long attack but not release, a setting of 0= no attack but a full release). So left slider down and right slider up for a harsh stereo effect.

The shape slider provides overall shape of the grains during playback. 0= triangle, 1= rectangle. Change each slider independently.

If you want to listen to what you can create, go down the presets. MM-Android, Antigravity, Aug7 and Dim7 are pretty cool. I listened to them through the headphones...you get to realise how cool this is as normal computer speakers do not pick up the small changes. I have applied MM-end-of-Line to a full track (by applying the effect to master) and it sounds really cool. If you go through the presets quickly from Dim7 all the way to Almost Major chord, it sounds like a cool intro.

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