Jan 20 2009

Obama’s Inauguration as Reaktor Mash-Up: Tim Exile

by Peter Kirn

Living in the digitally-connected age means a constant flow of media – but also the chance to reprocess (or even hack) it. Tim Exile (aka Exile aka Tim Shaw) is an electronic music innovator and one-man DSP laboratory. He didn’t just turn on his TV to watch today’s US Presidential Inauguration – he mashed it up on his own Reaktor creations. Here’s a live take (after a few moments, he warms up and it absolutely takes off). Tim notes:

Most significant international events don’t have a pre-warning but this one did, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to mash it up live with my live remix/mashup/improv machine which I made. It’s all improvised using the BBC world service live web stream. Unfortunately the web stream flaked out at the beginning of his speech so I had to start part way in.

The likes of William Saffire may ponder how today’s speech stacks up against past US Presidents Lincoln, F.D.R., and Kennedy. But no one was doing live remixes of Roosevelt’s fireside chats, were they?

More on Tim Exile: check out the Tech Talk from NI, or visit Tim’s MySpace page

More on Reaktor:
http://kore.noisepages.com/tag/reaktor/

Tim Exile: Reaktor Video Master Class/Demo [kore.noisepages.com]

DIY, laptop-performance, mash-ups, Native-Instruments, patching, Reaktor, remix, tim-exile, TV, world-events,

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gibebe

Hello, I've a request.

Does someone know the hardeware and connections used for Tim Exile's setup?

Thx

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Niall

You can do this with the Elektron Machinedrum UW and presumably the Virus TI, as well. That doesn't say anything about Exile's performance, but there are other options for people who want to explore similar techniques.

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cebec

nevermind!

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cebec

it's Max/MSP, I believe, not Reaktor this time, right?

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R0NiN

Hey Fred,

Ooops, on re-reading it does sure come across like an advert... my bad, it's just that I do read tonnes of great posts on CDM and this one finally kicked my arse into gear to document some of my own work. Otherwise it will reside in the studio and obscured by munters in front of large sound systems.... for-ev-er.

So, s'scuse the self-promotion... though I assure you it's the first in many years. :)

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R0NiN

Tim Exile is also top of my list for people doing actual real live electronic music thatâ€™s raw and yet danceable. Funnily enough his setup is very similar to the one Iâ€™m working on at the moment. Except Iâ€™m doing it all with a mammoth Ableton set (which is due to get much smaller when v8 comes around!) and a complicated MIDI setup.

Iâ€™ve got live break resequencing using the PadKontrol, looping and glitching with the Lucifer VST (and Ableton doing looping, MIDI looping, resampling etc.) and the excellent Novation Remote 25 keyboard, instant mic mashup (Lucifer again) and the BeatLookup Reaktor ensemble for DJ style deckstop, spinback, reverse etc.

Iâ€™ve posted a video of me bashing away at it (admittedly not the full setup with MIDI pedal board for looping, DJ mixer for cutting in new phrases and my Alesis Air Synth + FX for freeform noises and farts). Check it here on Vimeo:
http://www.vimeo.com/2919031

Iâ€™m also working on the video side of it to run in VDMX. Soon I will use all the various MIDI data flying around the Ableton set to manipulate video clips, matching the same way the audio is being chopped, syncd A/V effects and some A/V sampling and instant resequencing. Should be fun, if a little hard to remember just what it is that everything does! Itâ€™s basically a solo version of the setup I helped develop for the audio-visual dubstep meets breakcore group Putsch Iâ€™m part of. You can check us out at: www.putsch.org.uk

I will post back to CDM at some point when the full monty come to fruition. More stuff and full audio liveset recordings at my own webshite:
WWW.RONINAUDIO.NET

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jonnyfive

Yeah! Love me some Tim Exile, brilliant electronic mayhem designer. I highly recommend his record "Nuisance Gabberet Lounge" for a most impressive live breakcore techno glitch extravaganza!

As for the sample mangling its sounds like mostly buffer scrubbing/latching and other granular stuff,(with filters distrotion etc.) But Hes a mad man and has unbelievable chops.

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fred johnsen

this guy is a freaking GENIUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Veqtor

Tim has been developing awesome reaktor ensembles for ages, I think there's a lot going on in that ensemble that only he can understand.

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ronnie

That's pretty awesome, what a lovely setup Tim has here.

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Jordan314

I'm particularly interested in what he was doing at the beginning. I think I'm familiar with these techniques but I had no idea it was so easy to generate them (live!). This type of editing would take me hours in Logic. I know Squarepusher uses Reaktor so maybe it's time I learned it. Here are my guesses for what's happening at the beginning. Anyone else want to correct me or tell me if these are easily done in Reaktor?

:23 - 'discord' - algorithmic/arpeggiated note repeat with extreme pitch bend

:28 - 'claim' - slowed down via repeated samples

:30 - live samples mapped to keys with note repeat?

:34 - 'worn out' - distortion envelope

:35 - 'worn out' cutoff sweep

:36 - bit crusher low sample rate

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