Point Blank Music School: 1-2-1

First of all I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and say thank you to YOU for sticking around. Hopefully you have found some great new tunes during 2015...and if not the year isn't over yet, so there's still a chance :) Also thanks to everyone who have submitted music. Without you there wouldn't be awesome new music around!

As you might know, I have been taking part in Point Blank's Ableton Live Online Production Course and while this week has been without a new masterclass (due to the holidays), I did have my 1-2-1 Skype video chat with the instructor Freddy Cuin. 

While the session only lasted 20 minutes (and it felt even shorter), we actually did cover quite a lot of steps, tips & tricks for the track that I shared with you in the last post. At first I was a bit overwhelmed with the many changes Freddy made to my track, but that did not concern me too much, knowing that the entire video chat would be recorded for me to watch it later at my own pace. 

So what did Freddy do with my track? First I will let you listen to the track as it was:

The first thing Freddy noticed (and maybe you did too) is that there's no groove or swing in my track. He then started to modify my impulse beat track and make the audio clips shorter and moving them around. After a bit of trial and error he got it right and I too was starting to see the sense of adding swing.

Next Freddy started splitting up the different sounds from impulse, grouped them together and created a "Drum Bus" track. That last step is where he began to go a bit beyond the content of the first two weeks. However, it was a very good learning point and I had no problem following his steps when I re-watched the video chat the next day.

So what did it end up sounding like? I had some trouble exporting the track properly, but here is a clip of the drum bus track. Try to compare with the track above and see if you notice the difference.



Notice that lovely swing? It's not 100% perfect, but I like it :) Keep in mind that I might change this track a lot, add some more melodic parts or scrap it all together. But one of the students participating in the course also mentioned: "I've learned a lot in 20 minutes, more than I would if I was trying to find out stuff on my own". That goes for me too!

More info on the course I am taking: CLICK HERE (via Point Blank).
Also visit Point Blank to see all their programs and offerings: www.pointblanklondon.com