With laidback, exotic grooves and richly-coordinated interlaced cello, saxophone, turntable, and electronics, Archie Pelago’s music relies on some serious technological savvy. To be sure, all you really need to play instruments and computers and turntables together is to get into a room and start jamming. But to realize their specific musical vision, the trio of Hirshi, Cosmo D and Kroba have turned to an advanced Ableton Live rig, centered around The Bridge to couple Serato and Live. Here’s a look at their music – and all the gory details that combine to make their setup tick.

Grab the free EP for some music:

END004: Shrinin EP by Archie Pelago by end fence

To be honest, after a lot of launch hype, it hasn’t always been easy anecdotally speaking to find a lot of people using The Bridge. The software, combining Ableton’s clip-launching facilities with Serato’s digital DJ setup, perhaps demands a lot conceptually and musically of its users. But boy, are these three using it – and pushing its envelope to the breaking point. I caught up with virtuoso cellist and technologist Greg Heffernan (Cosmo D) at the lovely Percussion Lab party in New York. Greg sends a full description on how the setup works technically, as he originally wrote for the folks at Ableton (who I imagine were quite interested). There’s a lot to follow, so happily, there’s a gear diagram, as well:

To start, there are three of us. I play cello, Zach ‘Kroba’ Koeber plays saxophone and Dan ‘Hirshi’ Hirshorn is on two turntables + mixer. We play our instruments into and alongside Ableton, recording, manipulating and effecting our sounds on-the-fly. Dan provides the rhythmic foundation for our music and because of The Bridge, all of us are in sync with each other.

I’m running my cello into a MOTU Ultralite Mk3 Firewire interface, which is connected to my MacBook Pro running Ableton and Serato simultaneously. I use a Behringer FCB1010 foot pedal (connected via an M-Audio UNO [MIDI] interface into my computer) to record clips of my cello playing, cue effects and generally navigate around the Session View of Ableton. I record my cello live into the Session View as clips, then run these clips through an effects chain on an effects rack. I then use the two expression pedals on the FCB1010 to crossfade between my ‘dry’ cello sound into an effected sound. The effects are controlled with two Korg Nano Kontrols situated below my laptop. I also use a Korg nanoPAD to play sampled clips of various found audio.

Zach’s setup mirrors mine, to an extent. Using a mic to capture his live sax sound, he runs his signal into a Tascam US100 [audio] interface which goes his computer running Live. He uses his FCB1010 to capture and record clips of his own, alongside a Korg nanoKONTROL to control effects. The reason why we chose the FCB1010 and the Korg nanoKONTROL is because they’re relatively inexpensive, easy to carry around the city and on the subway, and have a lot of buttons, knobs and faders for their size. Zach’s computer is connected to mine via an Ethernet cable and his Live set is slaved to mine via Midi Sync, so we’re always locked in the groove together.

The linchpin of this whole setup, however, is Serato and The Bridge. In addition to my running Ableton, I have Serato running via a Rane SL1 [mixer] also connected to my laptop. Coming out of my laptop is a cable going into an external monitor. Dan uses this monitor to display Serato, enabling him to do what he does with his two turn tables, Serato control vinyls, and his Behringer DJ Mixer. Because of the Bridge, my Ableton rig is locked in with whatever he’s spinning, whether it be our original dubs or tunes that inspire us. With everything sync’d up, Zach and I, through our instruments and software, react musically and rhythmically to Dan’s DJing. Dan, via the effects on his mixer and control of his vinyl, reacts musically to us as well.

In terms of audio routing, my audio and Zach’s audio are running into Dan’s mixer, so he’s mixing our sounds as much as he’s controlling Serato.

The Gear

Cosmo D:
1 cello
1 MacBook Pro 13″
MOTU UltraLive Mk3 Firewire Interface
2 Korg nanoKONTROLs
1 Korg nanoPAD
1 Behringer FCB1010

Zach:

1 saxophone
1 MacBook Pro 15″
1 Tascam US100 interface
1 Korg nanoKONTROL
1 Behringer FCB1010

Dan:

1 Rane SL1 DJ Interface
1 Behringer DJX750 DJ Mixer
1 Dell 17″ Flatscreen Computer Monitor
2 Turntables (Technics SL 12000)
2 Custom needles.

Lots of cables.

In Videos

New York public radio station WNYU hosted the trio on their program Table Tennis. Three highlight excerpts below, followed by the full program for those of you who want it:

For those of you who aren’t quite ready to leap into The Bridge yet, but do want to loop your instrument, here’s a great place to start. Cosmo D talks about his live looping process in Ableton Live, at the site Bangbang.

And in an interesting way of visually interpreting their music, dancer Genna Baroni choreographs a dance to a track from the trio’s Chocolate Waveplates EP in a music video:

There – now no one has any excuse for not dancing at an Archie Pelago jam. The setting and videography is pretty informal, but it’s nice to see movement as a way of interpreting music.

Music:
Chocolate Waveplates EP Sampler [Slime Recordings] by Archie Pelago

And lastly, a live show from earlier this year at Glasslands in Brooklyn.

Official site:
http://archiepelago.com/

dj sniff, aka Takuro Mizuta Lippit, has been a leading figure in experimental turntablism and experimental music in general. Following studies in New York and Tokyo, he’s been a key artist and curator in the scene, as well as a top practitioner of turntable technique that pushes the envelope of what the record player can do. I got to spend some time with him in the basement of STEIM, the cutting-edge “electro-instrumental” research center in Amsterdam, as he jammed on his rig.

Combining a computer running Max/MSP with interactive physical control and conventional scratching and mixing, Taku’s rig is a kind of hybrid meta-instrument, a one-man ensemble of sound. In our video, he first gives us an extended improvisation. It was literally just him messing around when I happened to flip on the camera; this flows out of him both as a soloist and with other musicians (including acoustic instrumentalists). Then, he walks us through that gear.

Some of what you’ll see, apart from the obvious turntables and a one-of-a-kind custom device of sniff’s own creation:
Mac mini
Cycling ’74 Max/MSP (you can’t see it, but via his custom patches, it’s doing the sampling)
Stanton SCS.3m Controller
Novation Dicer DJ Controller (the little, triangular device propped on the edge of the turntable)
Foot pad

The “Crossfader Trigger Sampler” is the heart of the rig, what Taku says he had to learn to play. It’s powered by a PIC18F microcontroller, though these days you might well choose a different option. (The device was designed in the pre-Arduino days.)

Take a look:

I’m listening now to dj sniff’s album, titled simply ep. It’s actually nearly a full hour of music, perhaps best described as experimental turntable jazz. I love Taku’s inscription on the back, from the liner notes, as it says a lot to me about the relationship of performance and recording media:

“With every scratch, our memory of a past is suspended and we hear and here the now.”

dj sniff is curating and playing STEIM’s PATTERNS + PLEASURE festival next month. We’ll be in Amsterdam, and will be doing a Handmade Music call; more on that shortly. I just hope I can fight through jetlag and make some music down in STEIM’s bowels.

More:
http://www.steim.org/
http://www.djsniff.com/

More dj sniff:

At STEIM in Tokyo, 2008:

BIRDY NAM NAM – THE PARACHUTE ENDING from Steve Scott on Vimeo.

This is the music video you’ve always dreamed of getting when your track gets a music video. It’s been round the Web a few months ago, but I only discovered it today via the lovely 8-bit punk Anamanaguchi (see our interview), on their Twitter feed. It’s like what you worked out when bored in grade school Chemistry class with your best friend who planned to become a comic book artist for a career, scrawled in the margins of your notebook. There’s an evil Egyptian alien sarcophagus shooting what appears to be evil sugar cubes from orbit. There’s a crazy space alien superhero who’s all Shriner and Freemason and gets special powers when he replaces his hand with a vegetable squid … thing. And good triumphs over evil, which is what we all root for. It’s the sort of trippy album art we don’t get any more, but animated.

The animation, creative direction, and concept are by Will Sweeney, who under the name Alakazam Label makes fantastic, far-out illustrations, toys, and animations with edible acid-neon colors, and hamburgers for heads, and organic tendrils like pasta or vines or tentacles wrapped through the dreamscapes. You can see more of Sweeney’s work:

http://alakazamlabel.com/

Steve Scott directed the video, did concept design, and did his own compositing, which shows you he knows his stuff. Scott, based in Australia, has his own brilliantly wonderful stuff.

Birdy Nam Nam are a French DJ crew, cool enough to name drop Peter Sellers references in their actual name. They’re proper turntablists in a world in which that has become a rarity, with the prizes to match. Remix did a good write-up of their work in 2006; the best way to keep up with them now is to follow MySpace and, unfortunately for the world’s other continents, to live in Europe.

Justice did the production, in case that wasn’t evident; the marriage works.

And, seriously, special squid vegetable hands?

Credits:

Will Sweeney – Concept designer and Illustrator
Steve Scott – Director, Concept designer and compositor

James Littlemore – Editor / Compositor
Geoff McDowall – Animator
Ed Willmore – Animator
Roland Edwards – Animator
Dele Nuga – Digital Painter

Lottie Hope – Producer
Dan O’Rourke – Executive Producer

Not To Scale – production

Thanks to Big Active

Theoretically, all of this could have gone on Create Digital Motion, but I love watching a video that makes me feel differently about the music. Having that experience, to me, is what it’s all about.

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.

Marvin Suggs and his Amazing Muppaphone was just way, way ahead of his time. But if you haven’t already seen it making the rounds, you owe yourself a little video watching break to check out Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs, Inc., an audiovisual dreamscape in which disembodied heads form electronic drum heads and spin on turntables. The work is produced by Chris Cairns of Partizan Lab, who has a striking resume of commercial spots and worked with folks like Lady Sovereign.

The good folks of Motionographer get the scoop on the production background, and interestingly note that the music is scratching away in Scratch Perverts’ weapon of choice, Serato. Be sure to spot that story, as well as the official film site:

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc. [Motionographer]
http://www.neurosonicsaudiomedical.com/

If you have any interest in video turntablism, you won’t want to miss dj rndm’s detailed review of the Video-SL by Serato, which allows fluid scratching of video from the Serato digital DJ solution. Thanks to Todd, Josh Randall, and everyone else who sent this our way.

And yet no one has really produced modern Muppaphone technology. Shame. (Hint: get some friends, some socks, and don’t forget googly eyes.)