Let’s be frank. Computers really don’t demand any musicianship; they’re a blank slate with which you can do anything you like, and quantization is always close at hand. But bragging rights aside, whatever anyone else may think of the results, playing musical elements live can often be more satisfying. And it’s refreshing, at a time when software seems to be bending over backwards to offer bleeding-edge technology to compensate for your lack of time and tune, to see people getting more dextrous, not less.
Ukrainian-born, Toronto-based artist Andrew Andriyashev, going under the name Triple A production, sends along a video of his work in a friend’s studio. What’s nice about it is that everything – from instrumental parts to sample slicing – is played live. It’s not a new idea, but it’s nice to see it documented, and I was curious to learn how Andrew got lucky enough to get this studio and skilled enough to make it work.
He explains his tool set to CDM:
[The setting is] my friend’s home based studio in Toronto, called “Studio Dynamic.”
Yes I was using [Apple] Logic for recording. I chopped and changed the pitch of the sample in [open source audio editor] Audacity beforehand and loaded everything in EXS, which I later played along to the beat. It consists of 2 parts, instruments + the chopped up vocal sample.
All the other instruments were recorded live into Logic separately.
About my background: I was born in Ukraine but live in Canada now. I have been making music professionally for about 4 years now. Had placements on MTV in Europe and MuchMusic in Canada. Also I am currently an in-house music producer at one of the biggest recording studios in Canada, “Cherry Beach Sound“.
While my main website is under construction, some of my work can be found here:
Thanks for the nice work, Andrew. So, readers – got any tips and techniques you like to employ in production to keep it live? Or, alternatively, anything more you’d like to know?