Create Digital Music » Ableton Live 8 Misuse: Ping Pong Psuedo Scratching Effect Video Tutorial

Apr 27 2009

Ableton Live 8 Misuse: Ping Pong Psuedo Scratching Effect Video Tutorial

For all the emphasis on learning how to use creative tools the proper way, it’s often when you misuse a feature that it really becomes a powerful tool. So, in the spirit of some of the “mistutorials” from Ableton’s own Dennis DeSantis, here’s our friend Michael Hatsis of New York’s Track Team Audio / Warper Party / Dubspot with a really unusual way to achieve scratching effects.

You know the Ping Pong effect for its clichéd, stereo-panning echo effects. But here, it goes an entirely different direction: now that Live 8 has added new delay modes, you can create some special effects that don’t sound like the typical effect. Mike manages to warp and bend Ping Pong into something that sounds a lot like scratching. He warns that “this is not meant to replace vinyl nor will it produce a totally authentic sounding scratch sound.” On the other hand, you start to get some sounds that are reminiscent of scratching but sound unique, which I think is a Very Good Thing.

Live 8 users, download the template:

http://www.trackteamaudio.com/videos/scratchtemplatelive8.zip

There’s also some nice discussion happening over on the Ableton blog. (Main request: automation / dummy clips for more sound-warping power.)

Video: Total misuse of a ping pong delay – scratch effects

(And those of you Pd/Max/SuperCollider/Chuck/Reaktor users out there, maybe this will inspire some DIY effects along similar lines.)

Previously:

Ableton Live 8 Creative Tutorial Videos: Using and Misusing Groove Extraction

Ableton Live 8 Creative Tutorial Videos: Misusing Frequency Shifter

(and, yes, much as I love Live 8, I welcome other tools, too – anyone interested in tutorials to request / tutorials you want to make?)

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18 Comments

Dennis DeSantis

Brilliant.

This is an excellent tutorial, and exactly the kind of thing that I love when people uncover.

April 27, 2009 @ 8:01 am

(noou)

yeah, i agree.
you should get to know him.

April 27, 2009 @ 8:35 am

regend

i’m anxious for the Serato/Ableton thing…it’ll bring real turntablism into Live

April 27, 2009 @ 8:53 am

NO way

dude that is the WORST school

April 27, 2009 @ 10:01 am

eisnein

that sounds effing great! keep up the good work Mike!

April 27, 2009 @ 10:18 am

dyscode

“this is not meant to replace vinyl nor will it produce a totally authentic sounding scratch sound.”

Can someone please explain to me why this line is there?

I mean:
Is Hatsis apologizing for creatiting a unique scratch flavor by thinking creatively outside the box or are DJs so stupid these days? ;->

April 27, 2009 @ 2:19 pm

Peter Kirn

I expect Mike is trying to head off comments by vinyl purists — especially on YouTube. ;)

April 27, 2009 @ 2:21 pm

ABFS

I cannot describe how glad I am that this gentleman took time out from kidnapping Socrates for his final project and hanging out at the Circle K to share this with us.

April 27, 2009 @ 2:30 pm

!INCLUDE

Yes,
Thanks Peter, That was the idea. Youtube is a great resource, but unfortunately there are lots of comments that are not very constructive. Just wanted to preemptively sort this out.

Michael

April 27, 2009 @ 2:42 pm

!INCLUDE

Thanks for the comments and glad your enjoying. This was a fun one to make. I’ll be making more of these for dubspot so If you have any suggestions please let me know – mhatsysATgmail

April 27, 2009 @ 2:45 pm

al

yeah pretty good
id been making a vst plugin thats pretty much
the same idea
live realtime scratching type sounds
not a vinyl replacement just a weird but cool effect

while making this made a live timestretcher
gives u about 3 octaves of pitch manipulation
but tempo stays the same

will be online soon for download
but due to family bereivment aint been able to get them finished

April 27, 2009 @ 4:35 pm

Faça Scratch com o Ableton 8 « www.ilankriger.net

[...] Fonte: Create Digital Music [...]

April 27, 2009 @ 6:55 pm

Bjorn Vayner

We can thank Claes Johanson for these improved delays. Its one of the last things he did at Ableton before he left with 3 other Abe’s to form a new music company and win a 25k startup grant. Before all that he was part of the Swedish Vember Audio. http://bitwig.com/blog/

Claes Rocks!
Its amazing what you can get a developer to do for a few Belgian Beers.
Can’t wait to see which audio application they came up with. Apparently its some kind of car or a sequencer?