This week, we used Ableton and Soundtrap to create remixes using samples from pop songs. We also compared the benefits and challenges using either software for this particular task.
We started off using Soundtrap, and quickly realised that it was very hard to line up all the tempos of each sample, as this had to be done manually, and had to be incredibly precise. Given the timeframe and the complexity of lines up the samples, I didn’t even get one bar of useable audio.
Shifting over to Ableton, it became quickly apparent how much easier this task would be using this software. Ableton automatically synced up the tempo of the audio samples, which made it much easier to work with, as well as being able to pitch shift to match the keys of all the samples. Although Ableton seemed a lot more daunting due to how unfamiliar I was with it, I felt comfortable doing simple things on Ableton, as shown here, with me creating a short loop of some well known samples.
After messing around with Ableton and Soundtrap for a while, we then spent the rest of the lesson using sound pads and other forms of hardware for music making. Here is some of what we used:
· MPC One
· Circuit tracks
· Roland TR8
Overall, this was a very hands on-lesson, which challenged me to learn lots of new software, as well as experiment with sound pads.