Loop (2017) – Ableton Hosts its 3rd Annual
Summit for Music Makers

It’s that time of the year again, when the heat creeps in, fades out teasingly, then wakes you up in mid-September to remind you that Summer ain’t over yet even though Fall is just around the corner. By the time Autumn has finally shown up in early November everybody’s favorite music company, Ableton will be ready to host its international music conference Loop. What is this conference all about? The name was inspired by live-looping/loop-cutting, both are relatively new methods of performing/producing music on the fly by solo or group artists. The conference is described by Ableton as, “three days of discussions, performances, presentations, studio sessions, installations and interactive workshops designed to share ideas at the forefront of music, technology, and creative practice”. The conference will be held at the historic Funkhaus Nalepastraße radio station in Berlin for the third year.

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Funkhous has a truly rich history as it was built between 1953-1956 and was to be the main radio station for East Germany, in addition to housing the largest studio complex in the world it hosts a community of over 300 artists across disciplines; Funkhous embodies the collaborative spirit of music and is a perfect location for Ableton’s Loop conference, a meeting of creators that strives to do the same. If you want to learn more about the studio click here.

Loop’s participants this year will include Dennis DeSantis (who literally wrote the book on how to use Ableton Live), Drum n’ Bass pioneer Goldie, Los Angeles’ very own Nosaj Thing, and many other Ableton gurus that have made their impressions on electronic music. Presentations will range from live track deconstruction to lessons in mastering audio with Live to artificial intelligence’s widening role in making music. If you have any interest in what is going on in electronic music and what the future holds then you have to stay tuned for the videos that will come from the conference.

Aside from the more esoteric panel discussions and presentations on music technology and coding, videos are posted featuring artists sharing their processes. If you have ever been to a workshop hosted here at Beatlab then you understand how valuable that insight can be. Getting an inside look at how artists that I am inspired by create their own music puts me in a position to reverse engineer and emulate their production styles. I have a habit of starting a track the same way each time so at the very least it is valuable to see more seasoned producers do their thing, if I can take away a new method from each video that I passively watch then my benefits increase exponentially when really looking for new techniques to experiment with. One of my favorite talks to watch last year featured No I.D. telling his experience producing for Vince Staples. He touches on the difference between producing music for the sake of pushing records and producing music with the intent to develop art, watch below.

Loop begins on November 10 and goes until the 12th, videos will be streamed live daily and uploaded later to the Ableton website. If you are interested in applying for the chance to attend, registration is open until August 3rd, good luck!

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