Words, by Chris

Things I used during Noisevember

There’s a lot here. I’m horribly spoiled, I know. Not all of this got used on everything, clearly, but there were definitely bits and pieces I kept coming back to.

A photo posted by Chris Whitworth (@chris.whitworth) on

Computer stuff

The actual computer(s) I used are broadly irrelevant as all the software is cross-platform, but:

  • 13” Retina MacBook Pro
  • Dell PC of indeterminate vintage running Windows 7.

Ableton

  • Live 9 Suite - for everything. I’d planned on using my iPad for some stuff, but I lost a bunch of work in Korg Gadget in the first couple of days of the month and swore off it for the rest. The Live workflow really suits me - I sketch out ideas in session view and assemble them in arrange; the interface arranges things closer to the way they are in my head - I just wish there was a note view as well as piano roll. I’ve also been genuinely impressed with its reliability: I’ve spent probably close to 100 hours using it this month and it hasn’t crashed once, even with many tens of third-party plugins installed. I use Visual Studio at work and it crashes several times a day, with only two or three plugins.

  • Operator and Analog synths - for more-or-less everything. They’re not the most characterful things in the world, but they’re great workhorses; Analog does a passable Moog-ish classic dual-osc substractive thing, and Operator is a great FM synth that doesn’t actually break your head when trying to understand it - and also, because you can also run all four oscillators in parallel rather than just as FM modulators, it’s great for polysynth pads - the 80s sounding synths in things like Colours in the Sky are basically all Operator. Their biggest advantage is they fit so neatly within the Ableton workflow.

  • Effects - again, all over everything. Mostly delays, chorus and compressors (the Glue Compressor just sounds great; the standard Compressor is fantastic for surgical jobs). Also, on the last few tracks I got pissed off with my usual mixing/mastering tools and reverted to EQ-8, Saturator and the multiband compressor - and was pleasantly surprised. Utility is so so useful for controlling gain, reducing or increasing width, etc.

  • Lots of drum samples from various Ableton add-on packs. I don’t know which ones because unless I just went for a straight 909 kit or whatever, I tended to just scroll through the invidual hits until I found one that I liked, and build a kit that way. I switched my allegiance from LinnDrumm to 606 for retro-style 80s drums this month, I think.

  • Grand piano - all the NI pianos sound terrible; I’ve never understood why. The Ableton one doesn’t sound great, but it’s definitely better.

  • Latin percussion - this is basically indispensable and basically the only source of pre-programmed percussion loops I use regularly. All the bongos, cowbells and other miscellaneous acoustic percussion comes from this pack.

Plugins - instruments

  • impOSCar2 - anywhere you hear a massive thick poly pad or unison lead (and it’s not Operator, as mentioned above) it’s almost certainly impOSCar2. This thing just sounds huge. Programming is a bit of a challenge because of the… unconventional panel layout (aping the original hardware) but there’s some amazing sounds to be had from it. Underworld are big fans of the original OSCar and that’s enough of an endorsement for me.

  • NI Massive, FM8, Absynth - almost only for presets. A useful source of ideas, though. They’re all terrifying and intimidating to program (like a lot of NI stuff) although I’m getting the hang of Massive, maybe?

  • NI Razor - all the bass sounds in Ice come from this, chopped and sampled. There’s a lot more to this synth than I understand, but the presets are great for stupid noisy stadium EDM nonsense.

  • NI Monark - for when I wanted a proper Moog-like sound. Really heavy on CPU though, so I didn’t use a lot it. Obviously, used on Fun Fun Fun.

  • NI Drummer instruments - everywhere. Not a “real” drum anywhere. Mostly Studio Drummer; a bit of 60s Abbey Road and a bit of Vintage. I can’t play or program especially well and some of the preset mixes and kind of heavy handed but for a pseudo-realistic drum sound it’s about as good as I’m going to get.

  • A whole pile of sampled instruments: NI Vintage Organs, Scarbee MM-Bass, Scarbee Rickenbacker Bass, NI Session Strings Pro and probably more. The Komplete 10 Ultimate selection is a mixed bag but there’s some genuinely useful, playable things in there.

  • Plogue Chipsounds - can’t remember where; it’s definitely in there on at least one track, though.

Plugins - effects

  • Valhalla Vintage Verb - if you don’t own this, you need to go out and buy it right now. It’s bargainously cheap ($50), will emulate basically every classic studio reverb unit ever, and sounds great. It’s on everything.

  • Valhalla Shimmer - almost the opposite end of the ‘useful studio reverb’ spectrum from VVV, this is the full Eno. I don’t use it a lot but for massive chiming shimmering reverbs with minute-long tails, it’s exactly what you need. The couple of lazy ‘fade into space’ tracks use this.

  • NI Guitar Rig 5 Pro - Anywhere you hear a guitar, it’s gone through this. There are still some desperately annoying bugs (like it resets the config back to a default one sometimes if you close and re-open the plugin window) but it does a really convincing impression of a frighteningly huge range of kit and it’s far less likely to annoy my neighbours than trying to record from my actual amp.

  • NI Solid Mix series - used for mixing nearly everything up to about halfway through the month, when I got fed up with my mixes being really bottom heavy and I went back to using EQ-8 and Glue Compressor (see above). Lots of character, but I found myself wanting quick controllability rather than having to work with the relatively heavy colour of Solid Mix.

  • NI Supercharger GT - used here and there but I couldn’t get the hang of it properly tbh.

  • Celemony Melodyne - because I can’t sing in tune, even if it’s only three words and four notes. Also used in on Fun Fun Fun to bring the synthesized vocal into tune.

  • iZotope Ozone 5 - for mastering. I can’t really use it, as you can pretty much tell, but there are some useful starting-point presets. It’s really easy to go overboard, though.

Other software

  • Sibelius - only used this for the O Waly Waly arrangement, and it drives me mad because it’s an engraving tool, not a composing/arranging tool. There are bits of the Sibelius workflow that actively work against you composing or arranging in it. That said, it was a useful exercise in discipline to try it. And as an engraving tool, it really is fantastic.

Instruments (yes, real ones)

  • Fender Telecaster (Classic Player Baja) - a surprisingly versatile guitar for a Tele, thanks to the four-way blade switch and ability to put the pickups out of phase. Still all jangly and indie as hell when it wants to be though, but also does a thicker, warmer sound than most Teles. I probably spent more time playing this guitar this month than I have since I got it, and I remembered why I fell in love with Fenders (and specifically Telecasters) all over again. I’ve got a couple of other electrics but didn’t use any others this month.

  • Aria Pro II bass - I’ve owned it 18 years and I still don’t know the model. Avante series, the internet tells me. Solid wood body, two pickups, split-coil neck, soapbar bridge. I like this bass.

  • Fairly old Yamaha electric piano

  • Novation MiniNova - a frustrating little thing. It’s got this amazing synth engine and it sounds huge, but it’s impossible to program and the two-octave mini keyboard is essentially useless. And the arpeggiator sync still has problems two years later. Good for inspirational noodling about on though.

  • Beaten-up old Yamaha acoustic guitar that is dreadful to play but has a surprisingly rich sound still. I’ve owned this longer than any other instrument; probably over 20 years.

Other hardware

  • Yamaha MG124CX mixer - everything runs through this. I have it set up so that the group buss sends to the inputs on my soundcard, and the soundcard outputs are routed to channel 11/12 of the mixer; the mixer output then goes to my amp/speakers. The idea is I can send anything to the computer as necessary by switching it to the group buss rather than the master stereo. It works pretty neatly and it’s a nice, quiet and pretty clean-sounding desk.

  • Edirol UA-5 USB soundcard - this is well over 10 years old (it was reviewed in Sound On Sound back in March 2002) and it still works flawlessly. It’s the reason I still run Windows 7 on my desktop at home, too, because there are, sadly, no Windows 8/10 drivers for it.

  • Shure SM-58 - for the two seconds of vocals you get to hear. I don’t like it much - the presence boost thing is really annoying and unflattering to my voice - but I don’t have a decent condenser except for…

  • Tascam DR-40 recorder - used to record the acoustic guitar. Really properly good mics on this thing. But it’s an offline recorder so hard to use in a studio context.

  • Novation 49SL MkII keyboard - along with the mixer, the hub of the studio. I don’t use the faders/knobs on it much as setting up the mapping is kind of tedious, and Automap is rubbish.

  • Novation Launchpad - I sketch a lot of ideas out in session view before putting them together in arrange view, often by just playing them on the Launchpad.

  • Novation Launchkey Mini - a surprisingly credible mix of keyboard and Launchpad, actually. Really great for laptop working, and I found myself reaching for the mouse far less than I expected.

  • Akai LPK-25 mini keyboard - just about servicable as a portable keyboard, this lived at work for the duration. They keyboard is awful but it’s better than pecking notes out one-by-one with a mouse, just about.

  • Sennheiser HD-25 headphones - just a good, solid pair of professional cans. They’re very loud and reasonably comfortable to wear for a long period - but as with all headphones, very fatiguing.