Free Tutorials, Techno iPhone Ringtone from Francis Preve, Celebrating Single “Caboose”
Sound designer, technologist, and remix artist Francis Preve sends us some gifts of techno and technology to celebrate his first solo release. For your brain, we’ve compiled the tutorials he’s been working on for Beatportal, which together provide a really great look at some basic music production skills. For your ears, we have his new Ableton-produced single “Caboose” which, coupled with a Josh Gabriel remix – and a free iPhone ringtone exclusively provided to CDM by Josh’s label Different Pieces.
Being a technologist often makes actually finding time to make music a big challenge. But I’ve always been impressed at Fran’s ability to do both. Whether this is your type of music or not, it means that when he talks about techniques, he’s talking about stuff he actually applies in his work – and he has eight Billboard Top 10s to prove his remixing skills, including one for Justice. Here’s what he had to say to CDM about making Ableton Live into a way of reimagining just two samples into a whole track:
The interesting thing about the production of Caboose is that – with the exception of the drums – it was made entirely from two very short vocal samples, entirely in Live 7. There were no third-party plug-ins or softsynths. Every sound was either looped and effected, or placed in Simpler and sequenced, or ‘Sliced to MIDI’ and manipulated. Even the bass is that same vocal sample, tuned down two octaves, distorted, then filtered and compressed. The process itself was so much fun that I’ve since incorporated aspects of it into the follow- up tracks I’m working on now.
In the meantime, Francis has compiled for us a complete index to the tutorials he’s been developing for Beatportal, including synthesis, sampling, effects, Reason’s new Thor synth, and other skills:
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Producer/composer Simon James, aka Corky Burger, has produced over an hour celebrating Bob Moog. Dr. Moog’s voice booms over a rich and wildly eclectic mix of music built on his instruments, interspersed by the voiceover from an old Moog Music demo piece. The timbral variety that results speaks volumes. While the mainstream press in their obituaries for Dr. Moog last year sometimes described his analog synths as outmoded or dated, these sounds are actually becoming more familiar to our ears over time, not less. With Moog still producing new instruments (Little Phatty, Moog Voyager), software emulations of the classic models, and virtually every software and hardware instrument deeply impacted by his designs, Bob is alive everywhere you look.
