Level: Beginner

By turning off the quantize function on his MPC  J Dilla ushered a new era of groove in electronic music production. Composing beats using both rushing and dragging feels while also making sure that notes remained musically coherent. This workshop intends to equip you with the skills to program hip hop beats and music ideas with a drunk drummerfeel inspired by producers and musicians such as J Dilla, Questlove, Flying Lotus, or Kaytranada.

Session Learning Outcomes

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

• Develop an understanding of pulse, subdivision and polyrhythms

• Acquire an understanding of the Groove

• Using the Groove Pool and Warping to program beats with both MIDI and audio content

• Identify & apply the right quantization values to apply to your programming

Session Study Topics

• Drum rack for composition

• Audio & MIDI warping for rhythm programming

• The groove pool and timing features

• Audio effects for enhancing rhythms

Requirements

• A computer and internet connection

• A web cam and mic

• A Zoom account

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

About the workshop leader: 

Simone Tanda is a musician, producer, multi-media artist, tech consultant, and educator.

Based across London & Berlin he is currently creating music for his own project, as well as multidisciplinary artists, film, and commercials.

Level: Beginner

The riff by nature is repetitive so you get it, again and again, you get it reinforced and the rest of the song is built around it like the riff was the skeleton of the song.

This workshop aims to provide you with the necessary abilities to begin composing riffs and arranging a composition around such an important musical element.

Session Learning Outcomes

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

• Apply critical listening skills to riff & recurring motifs.

• Extrapolate core musical qualities of a riff.

• Construct a riff within a selected musical genre.

• Apply arrangement techniques around a riff within a track.

Session Study Topics

• MIDI programming

• Rhythmic subdivision and polymeter

• Micro fills and macro fills

• Layering and subtractive arrangement techniques

Requirements

• A computer and internet connection

• A web cam and mic

• A Zoom account

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

About the workshop leader: 

Simone Tanda is a musician, producer, multi-media artist, tech consultant, and educator.

Based across London & Berlin he is currently creating music for his own project, as well as multidisciplinary artists, film, and commercials.

If you’d like to support the Music Hackspace to continue to build a program of free workshops, a voluntary contribution would be much appreciated. 

Level: Intermediate

Ableton Live offers a vast playground of musical opportunities to create musical compositions and productions. These include techniques to deploy MIDI Control Change messages (CC’s) to manipulate and transform musical ideas. In this workshop you will creatively explore and deploy a range of MIDI CC’s manipulation tools in a musical setting. This workshop aims to provide you with suitable skills to utilise the creative possibilities of MIDI CC manipulation in the Ableton Live environment.

Session Learning Outcomes

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

• Identify MIDI CC’s messages

• Map MIDI CC’s to parameters

• Manipulate Clip Envelopes and dummy Clips via MIDI CC’s

• Utilise MIDI CC”s to create novel musical and sonic elements

Session Study Topics

• MIDI CC messages

• MIDI Mapping CC’s

• Clip Envelopes and dummy clips and CC’s

• Creatively using MIDI CC’s

Requirements

• A computer and internet connection

• A web cam and mic

• A Zoom account

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

About the workshop leader 

Anna is a London based producer, engineer, vocalist and educator.

Anna is currently working as a university lecturer in London, teaching music production, creating educational content and working on her next releases as ANNA DISCLAIM.

If you’d like to support the Music Hackspace to continue to build a program of free workshops, a voluntary contribution would be much appreciated. 

Level: Intermediate

Ableton Live offers a vast playground of musical opportunities to create musical compositions and productions. These include converting audio based harmony, melody and rhythm to MIDI, alongside techniques such as slicing audio into sampling tools which can be triggered via MIDI. In this workshop you will creatively explore and deploy a range of Audio and MIDI manipulation tools in a musical setting. This workshop aims to provide you with suitable skills to utilise the creative possibilities of Audio and MIDI manipulation in the Ableton Live environment.

Session Learning Outcomes

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

• Convert Audio to MIDI

• Slice Audio to MIDI

• Manipulate Audio via MIDI slices

• Utilise Audio and MIDI to create novel musical and sonic elements

Session Study Topics

• Converting Audio to MIDI

• Slicing Audio to MIDI

• Manipulating slices within Simpler

• Creatively using Audio and MIDI

Requirements

• A computer and internet connection

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

About the workshop leader 

Anna is a London based producer, engineer, vocalist and educator.

Anna is currently working as a university lecturer in London, teaching music production, creating educational content and working on her next releases as ANNA DISCLAIM.

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

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.