Sound design

EQ Eight Explained – More Than Just Cuts & Boosts

EQ Eight Explained What Is An Equalizer? Have you ever noticed the “Bass” and “Treble” options on an amplifier? Or the “Low, Mid, High” filters on a DJ Mixer? Chances are you’ve used an equalizer (or EQ)  in some way or another. An equalizer is a device that can increase or decrease a specific range of frequencies in a track. In music production, EQ’s help producers reduce problematic frequencies, enhance musical ones, and help shape the overall sound to achieve depth & clarity. In this article, you’ll get an overview of a popular, modern equalizer – and a breakdown of the types of filters found in it.  su_divider top=”no” size=”1″ All About EQ Eight So what does a modern EQ look like? Watch the video below to see our head of education, Yeuda Ben-Atar, take you through the ins and outs of Ableton’s “EQ Eight” – the stock EQ that …

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All About Max for Live Packs | PitchLoop 89

All About Max for Live Packs | PitchLoop 89   Created in collaboration with Robert Henke, this Ableton 11 Max for Live device is based on an early digital effects processor. The outcome is jittery glitch effects, delayed digital shimmers, and outlandish vibrato. Watch guest host Lillian Frances breakdown this unique device for sound design and beat making. Video Tutorial su_youtube_advanced url=”https://youtu.be/CeLxElsRTPc” width=”400″ height=”200″ autohide=”yes” rel=”no” fs=”no” modestbranding=”yes” For more on Max for Live Packs check out our All About Max for Live Packs Playlist. Subscribe for more awesome tutorials! divider style=”clear”   About Lillian Frances Lillian Frances is a sonic collager hailing from Sacramento, CA. Frances attended Beat Lab in 2015 and 2019 and has since taught Ableton courses at The Library of MusicLandria in Sacramento. Her unique alt-pop style has been compared to Lorde, Sylvan Esso, and Billie Eilish. Her 2018 EP, Timeism, was praised by NPR’s Heavy …

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ABLETON 11 Devices – Inspired by Nature, Interview with creator Dillon Bastan

Ableton 11 Devices – ‘Inspired by Nature’ Interview with creator Dillon Bastan Ableton 11 has a lot of great new features coming out in 2021. We had the pleasure of speaking with device designer Dillon Bastan about his 6 new devices for Ableton Live 11 –  “Inspired By Nature”. You can see Dillon’s demo for each device at the bottom of the page.    What is your background, are you a physicist? What got you interested in making sounds based on natural phenomena? I’m not a physicist at all and am coming from a music background/self-taught programming, my academic math level is low. For some of the devices I make I try to get to a game-like/playful approach to sound generation/design. A couple of years ago I began to learn more about coding simulations of natural phenomena, particularly simple particle systems in the case of these devices, so it was …

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Event Recap Round-Up March 2020

Event Recap Round-Up May 2020 We’ve had our fair share of masterclasses at Beat Lab in the past, but we wanted to really make a big splash this year. We’ve had a heck of a year with our live workshops, and we’re still hosting virtual masterclasses until the coronavirus curve is officially flattened. So we wanted to take a moment to summarize a few of our past events for those who missed them. We’ll go over past events, then tell you about a few upcoming! Read on below. su_divider Intro to Ableton Workshops   January of this year we started hosting free workshops to entice community members old and new. We’ve always welcomed prospective students in for class visits but felt that a monthly event would allow the whole community to flourish. Our first workshop covered the basics of Live. We’ve held multiple of these each month and have been …

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Should I Buy It? – DS Thorn Synthesizer Review

Should I Buy It? – DS Thorn Synthesizer Review DS Thorn is a Spectral synthesizer plugin designed by Dmitry Sches (hence the DS before Thorn). Yeuda goes over the synthesizer and boy it seems amazing, we think you’ll be excited too. Watch the video review below, and read the walkthrough below that.   su_youtube_advanced url=”https://youtu.be/-TfpD6BZD4M” width=”400″ height=”200″ rel=”no” modestbranding=”yes”   su_box title=”Rating: 8.5/10″ style=”glass” box_color=”#333333″ su_row su_column size=”1/2″ Pros: – Enable preset switching with the keyboard is amazing!!! – Spectral Synthesis Oscillator and Harmonic filters are a great way to build complex tones with ease – Although modulation is not visualized the ability to map every single parameter (even voicing and poly mode!) to a modulator makes it extremely flexible. – The easily accessible limiter can make things very loud! – Glitch Sequencer is awesome and fun to use. The Seq presets and the Glitch Sequencer presets really shows it’s …

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Top 12 Free Synths Every Producer Should Know

Top 12 Free Synths Every Producer Should Know With the endless new software and hardware synths out it’s hard to keep some money in our pocket. So we figured we’ll make a list of all the free synths every producer should check out. You can make entire albums with great-sounding synths just with this list alone. There are many more free synths out there that are exclusive to windows or Mac machines but we only included the multi-platform (Windows, Mac and some supporting Linux for all you nerds out there) beasts so everyone can download today and start making some awesome sounds for free! If you find yourself using these synths a lot please consider donating to the developer who put hours on top of hours of writing code, designing and developing. su_youtube_advanced url=”https://youtu.be/ff4JDGjxAmI” width=”400″ height=”200″ rel=”no” modestbranding=”yes” divider style=”clear” Surge   Surge is an open-source synth developed by Kurasu …

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