How exactly does one make electronic music live? It’s a question pondered by many of us who have seen laptop DJs up on stages but never gotten a glimpse of what’s going on behind the screen. With such a studio-oriented genre, it’s a lot trickier to make live sound than if you have a physical instrument that just feeds sounds into an amp. How can one conjure that same spontaneity with beats made weeks, months, even years prior to a show?
For many producers, including University of Oregon doctoral student Nathan Asman, the answer is the digital audio workstation Ableton Live. Ableton, which has gone through 18 versions since Live 1 was debuted in 2001, allows its users to crossfade and sequence tracks live in addition to creating their own compositions at home.
“It allows really seamless work flow between composition and performances, which is exactly what I do,” said Asman, who leads the Eugene-based electronica trio Hamilton Beach. “I’ve been using it for eight or nine years, and I still find new things about it.”
Asman will impart the gospel of Ableton Live this Friday the UO stop of the 2016 Ableton University Tour.
He’ll co-host two workshops at the UO School of Music & Dance in Room 173: one for beginners from 3 to 4:45 p.m. and another more advanced workshop from 5:15 to 7 p.m. He’ll also be presenting a composition, “Trio 1-465,” in which he uses a programmed roller mouse to control Ableton-generated sounds. At 9 p.m. that night, he’ll play with Hamilton Beach at the HiFi Music Hall as part of their “A Night With Ableton” event.
The annual Ableton University Tour, now in its third year, features speakers and musicians extolling the program’s virtues and hosting workshops and performances at universities across the globe. This time around, they’ll be demonstrating Link, a new Ableton update which allows two separate Ableton users to wirelessly sync their devices and play music together.
“Making music with computers tends to be a solitary pursuit,” said Thomas Faulds, brand manager for Ableton. “This is sort of a way for people to get out of the studio, basement, what have you and share tricks and inspirations with other people.”
Asman will co-host the UO event with Oregon Interactive Lunch (OIL), a University of Oregon campus group that hosts presentations by tech-savvy students across varying fields.
OIL director Steve Joslin has been using Ableton for about five years and, along with Asman, is enrolled in the Performance with Data-Driven Instruments doctoral program. Lately, he’s been using a Gametrak game controller to make sounds with Ableton, just as Asman’s been doing with his roller mouse.
“It’s an expandable, great live program,” said Joslin of Ableton. “But it can also work great as a studio program. That’s why I go back to it.”
If projects on the scale of Joslin’s Gametrak or Asman’s mouse sound daunting, Joslin says there’s no need to worry.
“I would encourage anyone who’s interested in making music at all to come and check it out,” he says. “I think this event is really here for everyone, not just for advanced users.”