INTRODUCING: ABLETON LIVESCHOOL

Stoney Roads asked us at Ableton Liveschool if we’d like to write a weekly guest post on this blog you’re reading. Of course we said yes, so here it is, the first of many guest posts to come!

Our weekly series will include plenty of free Ableton Live video tutorials by our all-start cast of trainers, some awesome freebies from sample packs we are working on, artist features and more. Who’s Ableton Liveschool? let’s just say we’re located in the heart of Sydney, we’re the world’s first Ableton-dedicated training center and we have some of Australia’s finest producers and musicians teaching and writing our courses that are all focused on electronic music production.

ABOUT THE VIDEO

Liveschool recently sat down in our studio to talk remix production techniques with Chris Emerson, one half of the rapidly rising banger factory What So Not. The duo, which is rounded out by Harley Streten otherwise known by his house-hold name Flume (who actually taught and co-wrote one of our courses), initially gained their momentum after an edit they put together of Major Lazer’s Get Free a couple of years back. What started out as an unofficial bootleg was quickly picked up by Diplo’s Mad Decent imprint and released as a certified remix alongside the original on cold hard wax. More remixes soon followed for Van She, Kimbra, A-trak and a host of others, all utilising that same DIY approach of ripping the tune apart and re purposing with their own club sets in mind.

This “cut and paste” bootleg style of remixing has become something of a trademark for the duo, and was what drew Chris, an already accomplished DJ, towards producing in the first place. He’d download a popular song he’s feeling, rip it apart in Ableton Live and add copious amounts of bass, take it out to a set that night, move the room. A technique Chris cut his production teeth on, which helped pave the way for a string of solid original material. The duo have just released their second EP The Quack, being put out locally on the late great Ajax’s Sweat It Out label and internationally on EDM heavyweight Skrillex’s OWSLA imprint.

Their quick rise to dance floor greatness is not without its challenges, and Chris spoke to us at length about how the pair keep up their work-hard / play-hard schedule – revealing his approach to remaining productive and creative amongst a busy touring calendar. His approach was road tested on the first string of dates following the release of The Quack,which saw Chris manning the What So Not fort, single handedly looking after live show duties while Harley was bouncing around the globe touring the debut Flume album.

What So Not are generous and candid with their wealth of production knowledge, as well as this interview, Chris joined us in our live group-remix session as part of the Ableton & SoundCloud “Beat The Clock” contest – sharing his methods for creating big thumping drums. In this video, he also reveals some other drum processing techniques, such as using Ableton’s track delay feature to nudge the timing of his drum sounds to add a low slung and lazy groove to the track.

FLUME X LIVESCHOOL

As well as Chris Emerson sharing his bag of tricks, a large crop of Liveschool students have had first hand instruction on more of What So Not’s creative processes as Harley (Flume) taught and co-wrote our Arrangements: Structure and Flow focus module, in which he used his Flume and What So Not projects to walk students through step by step examples and techniques of turning ideas into finished tracks.

WHAT’S NEXT

Next post in this weekly series we’ve got a video tutorial lined up in which Yama Indra (aka GLOVES) will be giving you a crash course in writing classic house chord progressions, utilizing Ableton Live 9’s new convert harmony to midi feature along the way.