Episode 46: What You Talkin' Bout Willits? Part 2

[numberwang]

Guitarist and electronic musician Christopher Willits continues his monthly series on tips and tricks for home recording. In this episode, Willits processes guitar loops using Ableton Live plug-ins, Pluggo plug-ins, and explains how to incorporate custom VST plug-ins made from Max/MSP.

Tune in once a month as Christopher shows us the many cool things you can do with recording software and some of the ways he produces his own music.

[istlota]

Oh ... so that is what you use Send and the Return channels for. Cool. I am starting to get a feel for the wide variety of signal routing capabilities that Ableton Live has ...

[obxjdt]

Must of missed some thing, I thought it was going to teach me about recording at home....
Who has the money to buy all the peddles & banks he has???
How about someone like me that has a guitar, computer, and a foot peddle??? Line in, and a few multi track/open source stuff.
Once you get your foot in the door, you get that stuff, but till then, what do we do???

[exzokill]

Must of missed some thing, I thought it was going to teach me about recording at home....
Who has the money to buy all the peddles & banks he has???
How about someone like me that has a guitar, computer, and a foot peddle??? Line in, and a few multi track/open source stuff.
Once you get your foot in the door, you get that stuff, but till then, what do we do???

The guy does have a pretty sweet setup and the Motu Travelor is pretty damn expensive, but really waht hes doing is giving an understanding of how teh stuff interfaces with each other. You can do this stuff alot cheaper to start if you wish. All you really need is a audio interface for recording, like the motu, and a midi interface to control the faders in ableton. For example, you could go and and buy an Line6 TonePort UX1 for a little over $100 bucks and use that as your audio interface. You could then use something like an Oxygen 8 keyboard by M-audio as your midi interface, to control your faders and such, and set your recording triggers and such. Pretty much all he ahs can be suplimented in some way or anoother for something cheaper, hes just pretty much showing us how he does it and to take what you can from it.

[obxjdt]

I get all that, but $100 here, $100 there, adds up quick. I'm not the type to buy on the cheap side either. If I'm going to buy, I want functionality, not price. But price is an issue when you're living pay check to pay check (you know, the whole "Starving Artist" thing)....:(
While I thought his setup/tips were good, it's wasn't geared for an average home setup. He was showing a pro quality setup that he was engineering himself on the fly.
I'd like to see what he uses while on tour, writing/mixing on the bus..... That might be more useful to people like me.....:cool:

[exzokill]

I get all that, but $100 here, $100 there, adds up quick. I'm not the type to buy on the cheap side either. If I'm going to buy, I want functionality, not price. But price is an issue when you're living pay check to pay check (you know, the whole "Starving Artist" thing)....:(
While I thought his setup/tips were good, it's wasn't geared for an average home setup. He was showing a pro quality setup that he was engineering himself on the fly.
I'd like to see what he uses while on tour, writing/mixing on the bus..... That might be more useful to people like me.....:cool:

I totally get what your saying. Although I do really love these segments I am actually a bit surprised Revision3 hasn’t released a show dedicated to Music and Home Recording from the ground up that covers a variety of instruments, styles, and software. I know there's a huge community of budding artists that could benefit from such information in this format. Maybe it will be a thing of the future, who knows, just surprised is all. Honestly if you simply want to get a foot in and star recording on your computer form your guitar, I recommend picking up a Line 6 Toneport UX1. It’s easy to use, simulates a variety of amps and peddles, and even comes with a free version of Ableton live lite. I started with line 6's earlier model of this called the guitarport a while back and using this definitely helped me get a jump start on home recording. I although didn’t start using Ableton until the last year or so as I was a little attached to Sony Acid, but since switching I've never looked back. I believe the UX1 runs about $130.00. You wont have all the midi foot control goodness that Willits has, but if you simply want to get some of those musical ideas down, this will do the job.