Gustavo Bravetti is indeed a man of mystery. The Uruguay-born artist is a live virtuoso of dance music, pulling out all the stops. And in his latest feat, he tackles a trio of Elektron black boxes.
Fortunately, it’s not all mysterious. The Ableton Push-controlled, Max for Live-based tool that gives him these octopus-like powers over the gear will soon be coming to you.
First, let’s watch. Even if this isn’t your own musical idiom, you have to concede it’s a nice rig, nicely played. And it’s a pleasure to premiere here on CDM:
The secret sauce is something called Performer. Built in Max for Live, it gives you snapshot controls over Elektron’s Octatrack, Analog Rytm, Analog Four, and Analog Keys.
The big picture:
Performer is a master snapshot controller made with Max/Max For Live (Cycling 74). It allows you to store, recall, and modify a set of parameters on the fly adding a considerable amount of power while performing live with the Elektron’s black boxes. If you have also the Ableton/Akai Push controller (other devices compatibility to be added later upon request), you can control and monitor most of the Performance’s parameters/functions from there, store/recall Performer’s Snapshots, change mute states etc, etc.
What you get is the ability to pull up parameters on the fly. That includes scenes, patterns, and track mute/level, plus performance knobs and pads, depending on the particular piece of Elektron kit. Each bank stores 16 snapshots, and you get a whopping 64 banks.
You can recall snapshots via pads on Push or from the Octatrack (or via the device itself). And recall can be quantized.
That means you can create structures by modifying parameters, call them up quickly (on the beat, if you choose), and then use your free hands to improvise still more. As is often the case, adding more structure has the opposite impact of facilitating more improvisation.
If you don’t own Max, a standalone copy is available.
The patch is now in beta. It’s not available widely (apart from on request), but we hear it’s coming soon.
But all of this is also a great excuse to discover the output of a rich group of producers from Uruguay. Our friend Cooptrol has put together a compilation of 26 artists dubbed Misterio.
Amigos de Cooptrol (Friends of Cooptrol) is a compilation of Uruguayan electronic music artists. The purpose of this compilation is to integrate and promote artists from the Uruguayan electronic music scene. These 26 tracks were produced exclusively for this compilation. The artists were given two simple guidelines: to make a “misterious” track, and to keep its duration under 3.30 minutes. The tracks are in alphabetical order of artist names. If you click on each track you can see the artist info and image.
It’s beautiful and diverse — and it includes the track seen here. Give it a listen:
More:
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