Student Spotlight – Interview with Beat Lab Alumna Madame Gandhi
Student Spotlight – Interview with Beat Lab Alumna Madame Gandhi This month, we had the honor of sitting down with talented musician, drummer, and producer Kiran Gandhi, aka Madame Gandhi. Gandhi has toured with acts such as M.I.A., Thievery Company, and Kehlani and even accompanied Oprah last year on her 2020 Vision tour. Known for her work as an activist as well as an artist, Gandhi uses her music and advocacy to focus on fourth-wave feminism, or the empowerment, inclusion, and representation of marginalized genders in business, politics, and culture. We loved hearing her thoughts on the role of music in culture, the power of rhythm, and her sage advice to the next generation of femme producers. Kiran began with our Foundations of Music Production course and has since graduated from our Ableton Push Master Course. su_divider top=”no” size=”1″ How old were you when you first started making …
Read More
Wheel Method – A Different Way to Visualize Rhythm from John Varney
Wheel Method – A Different Way to Visualize Rhythm from John Varney How many of you have ever practiced your rhythm before? Drummers may be nodding but if you aren’t a drummer then you most likely haven’t practiced rhythm or looked at a rhythm sheet with the notation on bar lines. Typical rhythm notation doesn’t stray far from the classical method of notes on staff lines, there are pros and cons to this method. Pros include generalization from sight reading musical notation and familiarity but the format doesn’t often account for polyrhythms in a meaningful or clear way. This can be frustrating. The ‘Wheel Method’ described by John Varney in a recent TEDEd video attempts to mediate that issue with a layered visual approach to rhythm notation. The Wheel Method involves using concentric circles to represent multiple instruments and their respective timing. Like a clock, imagine a hand or needle spinning …
Read More
Booms and Claps – Try Out Roland’s New 808/909 VSTs for FREE
Booms and Claps – Try Out Roland’s New 808/909 VSTs for FREE Roland announced to the world in January that they were to bring an updated hardware version of the classic 808 to market, the TR-8S. This was exciting news for everyone who has heard of the famed 808 but never had the opportunity to experience the real thing, but those who are more software prone we were still left with less-than-faithful recreations and knock-off emulations. Now, we all have the opportunity to use a certified official software version of the original 808 rhythm machine and its cousin the 909. Roland added these instruments to their Roland Cloud service, but you can now try them out for free without registering for their cloud. Though it is not a permanent license, users can try out the VST/AU plugins for 30-day trial periods without having to enter credit card info either. Roland said …
Read More
Getting in the Groove – 6 Tips for Programming Realistic Drums
It's a great time to be a music producer. You can produce full songs with nothing more than your laptop and a DAW. While getting good drum sounds is easier than ever with more and more options expanding beyond the limitations of old drum machines, even with good drum sounds your tracks may feel like they are missing something. That something is often the groove, with your rhythm locked in so tight to the grid that your drum programming feels programmed as opposed to feeling played in by a real human being. We've got some tips below to help you spruce up your drum programming even if you aren't a good drummer yourself.
Read More
Dynamic Tonality – XronoMorph | Explore Rhythms in New Ways (Free Download)
XronoMorph – Explore Rhythms in New Ways Check out this awesome free application from Dynamic Tonality. It offers a new way of approaching rhythm composition. XronoMorph utilized mathematical approach that uses two main methods: perfect balance and well-formedness. Check out the video demo on the bottom. A few words from the developer. divider style=”clear” Perfectly Balanced and Well-Formed Rhythms The mathematical principles utilized by XronoMorph are perfect balance and well-formedness (MOS). Perfect balance is a generalization of the polyrhythms found in many African and jazz musical traditions. A rhythm is perfectly balanced when the mean position (centre of gravity) of all its rhythmic events, when arranged on a circle, is the centre of that circle. Well-formedness is a generalization of the additive rhythms found in aksak (Balkan), sub-Saharan African, and progressive rock musical traditions. Well-formed rhythms contain no more than two interonset intervals, arranged as evenly as possible. WF rhythm …
Read MoreFeatured Masterclass
