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This week I talk about a processor-friendly strategy for rapidly creating variations on MIDI-based melodies called preset thrashing. 

You’ll Learn

• The Preset Thrashing technique to help you generate melodic variations

Resources

• List of upcoming House Ninja performances – 20th livestream performance this Wednesday, October 14th at 9pm eastern!!!

Transcript

What’s up Heroes, welcome to episode 41 of the Producer Life Podcast. This week I’m going to talk about a processor-friendly strategy for rapidly creating variations on MIDI-based melodies called preset thrashing. 

But first, cue the intro music.

I’m working on a melodic trance piece (truth be told, I’ve been working on it for a couple of months… but I keep getting sidetracked with other projects with shorter deadlines).

It’s almost done, but based on the feedback I’m getting from Trap Jesus, one of my mentors at the Producer Dojo, the melody gets too repetitive because of the length of track.  Here’s what it currently sounds like.

He recommended a technique called “preset thrashing.”  The technique is pretty straightforward. Now, ordinarily I’d recommend doing this at the beginning of your creative process as you’re generating ideas rather than towards the end of it… but in my case I need a little more variety.

Here’s how we set it up; the goal is for you to be able to hear the synth you’re messing with while simultaneously recording it’s audio into a clip. This may sound a little tricky, but I’ve got a screenshot on the show notes so hang in there. 

Boot up Ableton and hit TAB to go over to Session view (the grid view as opposed to the timeline).  Put your favorite synth on a MIDI track with your MIDI melody in a clip; I’m using Sylenth right now but you could also use any of Ableton’s built in synths such as Wavetable or Operator.  Turn the monitor to Off.  Now create a new audio track next to it and in the input/output settings change the “Audio From” setting to use your MIDI track as the source so you’re routing the audio from your MIDI synth to the audio track.  Finally, arm that audio track to record and set the monitor to Auto.  

Now you’re ready to get creative. Open up a patch on your MIDI track’s synth, hit record on one of the clips on the audio track, then go crazy with the tweaking parameters on the synth patch while you are recording the audio.  Stop recording, go to a different patch and the next clip down, go crazy on the parameters in that patch while recording the results.  Keep that up until you’ve generated about 50 different audio clips of different synth patches with semi-random preset movements.

Once you’ve gone through the creative process of generating lots of variations, you go into the more critical phase of sorting. Now create three new audio tracks you’ll use to sort those clips and label them low energy, mid-energy, and a high-energy.  Go through each of your 50 different audio clips and drag them into their appropriate category, and color-code them by how much you like them.

At the end of this process, you should have several really good variations on your melody that you can use in low, medium, and high energy parts of the track.   

Ok cool.

Producer Dojo, I should note, has a heavy emphasis on glitch bass music and dubstep, both of which are certainly ill Gates’ strength. 

This technique seems great for those genres… but I’m composing a melodic trance piece where I don’t necessarily want huge jumps in parameters in the middle of a melodic phrase. So here’s how I adapted the technique.

I set up the MIDI clip with Sylenth as before, but I pick a patch and experiment with parameters first before I hit record. When I find a parameter change that works well with a preset, I THEN hit record.  This yields either a variation on the preset with an original sound, OR I may change the parameter gradually over the melodic phrase to increase or decrease tension, but it’s a gradual and deliberate change instead of sudden and surprising.

The other thing I’m doing is after hitting record, I’ll label each clip quickly so I can get back to that setting in Sylenth…. Juuust in case I think of some other cool riff later and want to use the same sound.  I like to keep it short so I don’t slow down the creative process, and in Sylenth that’s easy: it’s just a numerical code: ie. 2-123, or bank 2 setting 123.  

The rest of the steps are the same: sort by energy, color your favorites.

I do like this process, if only because it saves CPU power by working primarily with audio clips so I can generate a lot more ideas. Remember, quantity makes quality. If you generate enough ideas, some of them will be great.  Previously I’d duplicate the lead synth MIDI track, mute the original, find a preset, then duplicate the MIDI track again, play around with presets, etc. But after about 5 or 10, my CPU starts to get sluggish if I’m working with a big track.

I also found myself fiddling with parameters in my synth that I hadn’t used before, so this was a good opportunity for those “oh, that’s what that does” moments. 

If you want to hear a track that was made extensive using this technique, listen to Ill Gates Ice Bucket. I’ll have a link in the shownotes at ProducerLifePodcast.com, episode 41.

Hey, what are you up to this Wednesday night? I’d love for you to join me for my 20th livestream for the Heroic Hump Day House Party, 9pm eastern.  I’ve got some big plans for this one and some things I’m gonna try that I’ve never done before on film….. So come check it out. I’ve got links on the show notes page houseninjamusic.com/shows

Until next week, this is the House Ninja reminding you to be someone’s Hero today.