Berlin School long form tracking

garden

I’m curious how others here handle the problem of capturing the performance of long-form Berlin School work on iOS.

When working with tape, you get the sequence running, and then start fiddling with it continuously… tweaking the knobs, adjusting the mix, raising and lowering modulations and resonances and envelope times and so on according to whim or plan. You might even do this on one or more sync’d tracks, to get things nice and interesting.

You might add an effects track or three, inserting swashes and clangs and warbles.

Then you do the lead. A meandering, evolving jam or composition that takes up the entire length of the piece.

And we who love the genre know that, despite its reputation, it’s not really droning and repetitive. It’s ever-shifting, and at its best truly melodic.

So… how the heck do you do this with an ecosystem of apps that focus on loops and scenes? How do you capture a long track of control changes, so that the sound of your sequence really does evolve, and that evolution is reproducible? How do you record that full length solo?

Do you use a more conventional linear DAW like Cubasis or Logic? Do you record the control changes on a separate track or tracks, for access and editing?

Or do you stick with the AUM setup, or Drambo, and use a module like MIDI Tape Recorder to preserve the gestural performance?

I ask because I grew up doing the “classic style” on the equipment of the day, and while I’ve been tinkering with reproducing it in this environment, I’m beginning to see/feel this critical limitation. So I’m wondering… if you do this, how do you do this?

Proppa

Out of many possibilities AUM would be my first thought: so host-able, so route-able and prints per Channel.
Then a timeline editor to edit / arrange in (I’m still on desktop for that part but there are options on iOS).

PS could you recommend any Berlin School artists or pieces that come to mind?

espiegel123

@garden said:
I’m curious how others here handle the problem of capturing the performance of long-form Berlin School work on iOS.

When working with tape, you get the sequence running, and then start fiddling with it continuously… tweaking the knobs, adjusting the mix, raising and lowering modulations and resonances and envelope times and so on according to whim or plan. You might even do this on one or more sync’d tracks, to get things nice and interesting.

You might add an effects track or three, inserting swashes and clangs and warbles.

Then you do the lead. A meandering, evolving jam or composition that takes up the entire length of the piece.

And we who love the genre know that, despite its reputation, it’s not really droning and repetitive. It’s ever-shifting, and at its best truly melodic.

So… how the heck do you do this with an ecosystem of apps that focus on loops and scenes? How do you capture a long track of control changes, so that the sound of your sequence really does evolve, and that evolution is reproducible? How do you record that full length solo?

Do you use a more conventional linear DAW like Cubasis or Logic? Do you record the control changes on a separate track or tracks, for access and editing?

Or do you stick with the AUM setup, or Drambo, and use a module like MIDI Tape Recorder to preserve the gestural performance?

I ask because I grew up doing the “classic style” on the equipment of the day, and while I’ve been tinkering with reproducing it in this environment, I’m beginning to see/feel this critical limitation. So I’m wondering… if you do this, how do you do this?

Loopy Pro can do this. You can record clips as long as you want and they can be non-looping. You can also record performances in it’s session mode and not use clips at all just capturing linear recordings of the performance in a variety of ways.

Loopy Pro isn’t just a loop recorder/player,

espiegel123

What I just posted applies to audio recording. If your goal is capturing MIDI plus AUv3 automation then what I said doesn't apply and you'd want to do it in DAW that had MIDI and automation recording (since AUv3 parameter tweaking is higher resolution than midi tweaking of parameters).

HotStrange

@espiegel123 said:

@garden said:
I’m curious how others here handle the problem of capturing the performance of long-form Berlin School work on iOS.

When working with tape, you get the sequence running, and then start fiddling with it continuously… tweaking the knobs, adjusting the mix, raising and lowering modulations and resonances and envelope times and so on according to whim or plan. You might even do this on one or more sync’d tracks, to get things nice and interesting.

You might add an effects track or three, inserting swashes and clangs and warbles.

Then you do the lead. A meandering, evolving jam or composition that takes up the entire length of the piece.

And we who love the genre know that, despite its reputation, it’s not really droning and repetitive. It’s ever-shifting, and at its best truly melodic.

So… how the heck do you do this with an ecosystem of apps that focus on loops and scenes? How do you capture a long track of control changes, so that the sound of your sequence really does evolve, and that evolution is reproducible? How do you record that full length solo?

Do you use a more conventional linear DAW like Cubasis or Logic? Do you record the control changes on a separate track or tracks, for access and editing?

Or do you stick with the AUM setup, or Drambo, and use a module like MIDI Tape Recorder to preserve the gestural performance?

I ask because I grew up doing the “classic style” on the equipment of the day, and while I’ve been tinkering with reproducing it in this environment, I’m beginning to see/feel this critical limitation. So I’m wondering… if you do this, how do you do this?

Loopy Pro can do this. You can record clips as long as you want and they can be non-looping. You can also record performances in it’s session mode and not use clips at all just capturing linear recordings of the performance in a variety of ways.

Loopy Pro isn’t just a loop recorder/player,

Seconding this. It was gonna be my recommendation as well. AUM + Midi Tape Recorder is viable also but Loopy Pro is the best when it comes to that, imo.

garden

Does loopy record cc on its own, no audio?

Thanks for the suggestions, but the main thrust of the question is more, “do you make this genre of music, and if so, how do you choose to handle these characteristics?”

israelite

Screen recording. Regards from the city of Berlin

espiegel123

@garden said:
Does loopy record cc on its own, no audio?

Thanks for the suggestions, but the main thrust of the question is more, “do you make this genre of music, and if so, how do you choose to handle these characteristics?”

I do make that kind of music and go straight to audio. My preference is to focus on the performance rather than capture midi to edit later. Just my preference.

Loopy does not yet have direct midi recording though capturing midi is easy with any number of AU… but I rarely do that since I prefer committing to audio.

garden

@espiegel123 said:

I do make that kind of music and go straight to audio. My preference is to focus on the performance rather than capture midi to edit later. Just my preference.

Loopy does not yet have direct midi recording though capturing midi is easy with any number of AU… but I rarely do that since I prefer committing to audio.

There we go. Thank you.
It’s how we all we did it back in the day, of course. I’ve been so committed to midi-as-recording for so long, it has become foreign to me. Maybe I should think about that.

oat_phipps

@israelite said:
Screen recording. Regards from the city of Berlin

Most hilarious post ever. Thank you for this

BroCoast

I make a sequence in Drambo, duplicate it a heap and make variations.

thesoundtestroom

I do a lot of Berlin School stuff, and I do it all in Cubasis.
Here is the start of the process I use.
https://www.youtube.com/live/bYJDWbJ5DU8?si=ynO8XDArec8FanYS

And here is the finished track with video footage.

bygjohn

Lots of great advice here already. My additional thought is that some of the best Berlin School music (in my opinion, I hasten to add: YMMV) was recorded either “live” direct to stereo or using minimal overdubbing, so it might be worth exploring using AUM and going straight to audio rather than micro tweaking parameters after the event. NB this is just a suggestion, not an attempt at a “should”.

I’m thinking of the early Klaus Schulze albums in particular.

garden

Nod. Klaus Schulze is where this all started for me. And of course Tangerine Dream. But TD’s famous early live albums - very different from Schulze sitting on his carpet surrounded by equipment- were possible because they had three performers. So the multitracking approach was important to me very early on.

MIDI changed all that, and I became concerned with the reproducibility of the music… both the stored composition and, when possible, the performance gestures. This overtook my style for a long time. And I guess I’m stuck in that paradigm - I certainly should revisit live audio - but, well… it is what it is, as they say. So think a lot about how to do what I know, with what’s novel.

Thanks for thoughts and examples, all.