Date & Time: Monday 10th May 6pm UK / 7pm Berlin / 10am LA / 1pm NYC

In this livestreamed interview, we will speak with Sam Tarakajian and Alex Van Gils, who’ve built a fantastic live-coding environment that works within an Ableton Live device called Nestup. 

The programs we use to make music have a lot of implicit decisions baked into them, especially in their graphical interfaces. Nestup began as a thought experiment, trying to see if embedding a text editor inside Live could open up new creative possibilities. We think the answer is that yes, text can work well alongside a piano roll and a traditional musical score, as a concise and expressive way to define complex rhythms.

With Nestup, you define for yourself any size of rhythmic unit, any sort of rhythmic subdivision, and with any scaling factor. These language features open your rhythm programming up to musical ideas such as metric modulation, nested tuplets, complex polyrhythm, and more. Rhythms from musical styles which would have been prohibitively difficult to program in a DAW can therefore be rendered in MIDI, such as rhythms from Armenian folk musics or “new complexity” compositions.

Overview of speakers

Sam is a Brooklyn based developer and creative coder. Sam works for Cycling ‘74 and develops independent projects at Cutelab NYC. Alex is a composer, performer, and generative video artist based in Brooklyn. 

Sam and Alex have been making art with music and code together for over 10 years, beginning with a composition for double bass and Nintendo Wiimote while undergraduates and continuing to include electroacoustic compositions, live AR performance art, installation art, Max4Live devices, and now Nestup, the domain-specific language for musical rhythms.

Where to watch?

YouTube –

 

Level: Beginner

Ableton Live offers a vast playground of musical opportunities to create musical compositions and productions. Live’s native MIDI FX provides a range of tools to allow the composer and producer to create ideas in a myriad of ways. Max For Live complements these tools and expands musical possibilities. In this workshop you will creatively explore and deploy a range of MIDI FX in a musical setting. This workshop aims to provide you with suitable skills to utilise the creative possibilities of MIDI FX in the Ableton Live environment.

Session Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session a successful student will be able to:

• Identify and deploy MIDI FX

• Explore native and M4L MIDI FX in Live

• Render the output of MIDI FX into MIDI clips for further manipulation

• Apply MIDI FX to create novel musical and sonic elements

Session Study Topics

• Using MIDI FX

• Native and M4L MIDI FX

• Rendering MIDI FX outputs

• Creatively using MIDI FX

Requirements

• A computer and internet connection

• Access to a copy of Live Suite with M4L (i.e. trial or full license)

About the work shop leader 

Mel is a London based music producer, vocalist and educator.

She spends most of her time teaching people how to make music with Ableton Live and Push. When she’s not doing any of the above, she makes educational content and helps music teachers and schools integrate technology into their classrooms. She is particularly interested in training and supporting female and non-binary people to succeed in the music world.

Supported by

Level: Beginner

MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE)  offers a vast playground of musical opportunities to create musical compositions and productions. Live 11 supports a range of MPE tools to allow the composer and producer to create ideas in a myriad of ways. In this workshop you will creatively explore and deploy a range of MPE techniques in a musical setting. This workshop aims to provide you with suitable skills to utilise the creative possibilities of MPE in the Ableton Live environment.

Session Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session a successful student will be able to:

• Identify the role and function of MPE

• Explore MPE compatible devices  in Live

• Utilize MPE controllers within Live 11

• Apply MPE to create novel musical and sonic elements

Session Study Topics

• Using MPE

• MPE devices in Live

• MPE controllers

• Creatively using MPE

Requirements

• A computer and internet connection

• Access to a copy of Live 11 (i.e. trial or full license)

About the workshop leader 

Mel is a London based music producer, vocalist and educator.

She spends most of her time teaching people how to make music with Ableton Live and Push. When she’s not doing any of the above, she makes educational content and helps music teachers and schools integrate technology into their classrooms. She is particularly interested in training and supporting female and non-binary people to succeed in the music world.

Supported by 

Level: Intermediate

MaxforLive allows users to develop their own devices for use in composition, performance and beyond. Creating a graphical user interface that complements the device is one of the crucial development stages that can give a device its personality. In this workshop you will learn how to create a custom user interface for a M4L device, including a native Ableton Live style to a completely personalised theme.

Session Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session a successful student will be able to:

• Identify different styles of user interface

• Explore and configure Live/Max UI objects

• Create custom dials and sliders

• Construct UI systems that synchronise with Ableton Live

• Create pop-up UI windows

Session Study Topics

• UI objects and their properties

• User designed GUI objects

• Translating Ableton Live’s theme system

• Window properties and embedded visual patches

Requirements

• A computer and internet connection

• A web cam and mic

• A Zoom account

• Access to a copy of Live 10/11 & Max 8 (i.e. trial or full license)

About the workshop leader 

Mark Towers is an Ableton Certified Trainer and a lecturer in music technology at Leicester College. He specialises in Max for Live, as well as working with Isotonik Studios to create unique and creative devices for music production and performance such as the Arcade Series.

Level: Beginner

Programmed rhythms can lack the expression of real players. This is particularly evident when sequencing drums. In this workshop you will learn to program a variety of drum patterns, utilising a range of expressive techniques in Ableton Live. This workshop aims to provide you with transferable skills to enable you to breathe life into your MIDI programming.

Session Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session a successful student will be able to:

• Program at least one drum pattern with variations;

• Understand groove and learn how to implement it;

• Use MIDI devices (such as random and velocity and MaxforLive) to humanise parts;

• Utilise the Convert to MIDI function to analyse existing patterns and provide inspiration.

Session Study Topics

• Drum sequencing in session view

• Applying groove and swing

• MIDI effects, LFO device

• Converting audio to MIDI

Requirements

• A computer and internet connection

• A web cam and mic

• A Zoom account

• Ableton Live 11 Suite – if not, participants should be advised to download the trial version

About the workshop leader

Mel is a London based music producer, vocalist and educator. 

She spends most of her time teaching people how to make music with Ableton Live and Push. When she’s not doing any of the above, she makes educational content and helps music teachers and schools integrate technology into their classrooms. She is particularly interested in training and supporting female and non-binary people to succeed in the music world.

Difficulty level: Beginner

In this series of workshops you will explore the Max For Live (M4L) ecosystem, empowering you to utilise them in your own music.

Following these workshops you’ll be able build your own devices in the Max For Live environment!

Ableton Live Suite is a powerful and creative DAW.

Max For Live extends the vast range of creative opportunities that Live offers, allowing you to add third party devices or to create your own unique devices.

Session 1 Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Become familiar with the M4L landscape

• Explore pre-built M4L devices that come with Live Suite

• Locate and utilise M4L tutorials that come with Live Suite

• Identify third party M4L content

Session 2 Learning Outcomes

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Create objects and route patch cables

• Construct user interfaces in M4L

• Build MIDI step sequencers in M4L

• Explore further possibilities within Max For Live

Requirements

• A computer and internet connection

• A good working knowledge of computer systems

• A basic awareness of Ableton Live

• Access to a copy of Ableton Live Suite (i.e. with Max For Live) (i.e. trial or full license)

About the workshop leader

Phelan Kane is a Berlin & London based music producer, engineer, artist, developer and educator.

For over twenty years he has been active in both the music industry and the contemporary music education sector, with a focus on electronic music and alternative bands. His specialism is sound design and production techniques such as synthesis and sampling, alongside audio processing and plug-in development.

His credits include collaborations with Placebo, Radiohead, Fad Gadget, Depeche Mode, Moby, Snow Patrol, Mute, Sony BMG, Universal, EMI and Warner Bros.

He holds an MA in Audio Technology from the London College of Music, University of West London, an MSc in Sound & Music Computing at the Center for Digital Music at Queen Mary, University of London and in 2008 became one of the world’s first wave of Ableton Certified Trainers.

He is a member of the UK’s Music Producers Guild, holds a PG Cert in Learning & Teaching, is an Affiliate of the Institute for Learning, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and until recently was Chairman of the London Committee for the British Section of the Audio Engineering Society.

He is currently running the electronic music record label Meta Junction Recordings and the audio software development company Meta Function, which specialize in Max for Live devices releasing the M4L synth Wave Junction in partnership with Sonicstate.

Book a ticket here

Ableton Live provides a great software environment for live looping – empowering a solo performer to bring an entire song to life in front of an audience in an engaging and relatable way. Outside of performing, live looping can also be used as a composition tool allowing you to create new music in a faster way with less distractions. Live looping using software, such as Ableton Live, affords you greater flexibility in your workflow, performance style, and mixing techniques in comparison to using traditional hardware looper devices.

In this workshop we will be diving deep into the different techniques for live looping using Ableton Live 10 as our digital audio workstation. We will progress through basic recording and layering techniques, using Ableton’s powerful ‘Looper’ device, MIDI mapping your controls, and even discovering how to craft automated (hands-free) live-looping performances.

Here’s a chance to learn the methods that for years I’ve experimented with, developed, and optimized for my own multi-instrumental live looping performances and start building your own!

Topics

• Ableton Live
• Ableton Live Looper device
• Basis recording and layering techniques
• MIDI mapping
• MIDI controllers
• Live looping automations

Requirements

• An instrument and a way to capture sound, or a MIDI controller connected to a virtual instrument
• Ableton Live 9, Live 10 or even Live Intro!
• Using a MIDI controller can increase your flexibility (such as Novation Launchpad, Akai MPC, Ableton Push, ROLI Lightpad..)

About the workshop leader

Ruben Dax is a musician, multi-instrumentalist and instrument designer, who uses Ableton Live to compose songs with live loops. His YouTube channel shows a range of videos where he creates tracks with diverse sounds and instruments, aggregating them in loops to create rich, layered tracks.

Tim Exile has worked with live looping and sampling as an artist for a decade before building his own plug-ins, released by Native Instruments. His unique methods and concepts developed for live performance inspired him to build a music making flow, Endlesss, that would allow musicians to create music collaboratively.

Tim and the Endless team are preparing a special announcement on 2nd June. Our session takes place two days after, where Tim will share his journey from musician to entrepreneur, and the vision that led him to create the Endlesss app.

About Tim Exile

Musician and technologist Tim Exile founded Endlesss to bring the joy of spontaneous collaborative creativity to music-making in the way TikTok and Instagram did with other media. These platforms empowered their users to create regular short-form work in an open social space.

As a seasoned musician and producer, Tim missed the elements of spontaneity, creativity and community in his long solo studio sessions. He set out to develop his ‘Flow Machine’ instrument for electronic improvisation which would become the DNA of Endlesss. Tim saw the potential of what he’d built to unlock a new purpose for music-making – a fast-paced, live-action, game-like alternative to the complexities of music production and the competitive music industry. Tim has developed software instrument products with Native Instruments and released records on Warp Records. He’s performed live in every continent with his ‘Flow Machine’, collaborated with a diverse range of artists such as Nile Rodgers, Imogen Heap and Beardyman and has spoken multiple times at TED and TEDx conferences about music and improvisation.

Download Endlesss here (iOS only)