Mogees, a company in London, plans to change the way electronic music is performed. Their flagship product, also called Mogees, combines a high-tech vibration sensor and revolutionary music software to create one of the most unique products on the market. Mogees isn’t an instrument, so much as it is the maker of instruments; its vibration sensor allows you to place it on any object, and play it as a musical instrument.
Here is Mogees’ CEO and founder Bruno Zamborlin demoing Mogees at a TEDx event in Brussels:
The launch of Mogees is due mostly to two successful Kickstarter campaigns: one in 2014 and one in 2015. However, their enduring interest among electronic musicians is due to the sheer versatility of the product. Tired of using your coatrack to trigger samples? Why not try using a dinner plate? Or your kitchen table? The possibilities are literally endless with Mogees.
Mogees is also versatile on the digital side, allowing for use with popular production applications (Ableton Live, Logic, FL Studio, etc.), not just Mogees included (and expanding) sound library.
Look at what what percussionist Andrea Oboe was able to do with Mogees and a steel beam:
You can buy Mogees here. Even though they are based in London, they ship to anywhere in the world!
Struggling to find a Christmas gift for the music lover in your life? Get them a MMMMaven gift certificate! Certificates can be used toward any of our courses, and are sold for any amount.
Yesterday, Cycling ’74 released an updated version of their flagship programming application, Max. Version 7.1 comes with a ton of new features, here are 3 of our favorites:
1. Collections/Tags And Searches
Cycling’s website reads, “A collection is Max’s version of a playlist and can be made up of files that fit a certain criteria (for example, all audio files from 2011, back when audio files sounded better) or a simple list of things you want to organize”.
Essentially, Max now allows you to sort your patches in any way you choose, and recall them at a moment’s notice.
Building off of the concept of a collection, Max now allows you to tag a patch or project with keywords or phrases. This will allow for a more organized recall system, as tagging multiple patches you’ll need later with the same keyword will making finding them a lot easier.
2. Workspaces
Max’s new workspace feature lets you keep working right where you left off with a new workspace feature that re-opens all the documents you were using when you last quit. This feature will certainly save a lot of time and headache.
3. Plug-in Integration
Max now allows you to access all your VST and AU plug-ins from the patcher frame. Additionally, Max for Live devices can now be used directly in your Max patcher. A new inline plug-in view allows you to configure a custom view of parameters you care about – and hide the rest. And, you can easily automate plug-in parameters with Max messages.
4. Bonus!
And, of course, Max for Live has received a big overhaul as well.
Interested in learning to use Ableton Live to produce music? Take a look at some of our classes! We offer classes in production, synthesis and DJing. Swing by and chat with us!
Performing electronic music is, in some ways, uncharted waters. Since its release in 2001, Ableton Live has sought to make performing electronic music easy.
Gone are the days of just “pressing play” on your productions, and gone are the days of bringing tons of synths, sequencers and drum machines to your gigs.
Live makes turning your productions into performances easy, but how do you get started? Fear not! Here are 5 essential tips for performing with Ableton Live:
Controllers Are Your Friends
While using your mouse and keyboard is cheap and easy, it often restricts the speed at which you can launch clips and change parameters. Many companies, Ableton included, have solved this problem with Ableton-Optimized controllers. They all have different capabilities, but they are all designed to plug-in and play right out of the box. 3 of the most popular controllers are Ableton’s Push, Novation’s Launchpad, and Akai’s APC40.
Prepare Your Live Set
Many performers prefer to have their entire performance in one live session, as opposed to switching sessions between songs. This allows for seamless transitions between songs, as well as the ability to mix songs together. Because many controllers have 8 columns of buttons, it makes sense to utilize each column as its own “instrument”, if you will. Making one column for kick drum, one for snare drum, one for synth leads, etc, allows for an easy-to-understand interface, and one that can be quickly expanded with new songs.
Preparing Your Songs for Performance
Now that you have set up your Performance Session, you have to prepare your tracks to be put into the session. Stemming your tracks is the best way to do this. Because you’ll need to consolidate all your tracks down to 8, you’ll want to create stems with tracks that have similar functions. For example, bouncing all your kick drums as one stem or all of your synth pads as one stem will consolidate the number of tracks you use in your Performance Session, and make triggering parts of songs easier for you.
Chopping Up and Organizing Your Songs
While you can keep your whole stem as one clip, many performers choose to chop up their stems into song-sections (verse, chorus, bridge, etc.). There’s no formula here, just make sure that the chops in all your stems line up, that way you don’t get a verse lead playing during the chorus.
Once you have all of your songs chopped up, you’re going to want to organize them into a set that makes sense. Organizing songs with similar tempos, as well as “peaks and valleys” in terms of energy can only help your set. There isn’t really a formula to this, either. Experiment with organizational methods and set lists until you’ve found a set that flows and is easy to get around in.
Playing Your Tracks “Live” with Effects Racks
For some performers, launching clips isn’t enough to consider it a “Live” performance. There are many ways to to take you performances to the next level, but a simple and effective one is messing with effects racks.
Beat Repeat, Delay, Reverb, and EQ are fantastic effects to use in conjunction with launching clips. Try beat-repeating your drums, or drenching your vocal tracks in reverb. You can even map some parameters of the effects to a knob on your controller and go nuts with it during a performance. Using effects in this way ensures that no two performances will be exactly the same.
Whatever way you perform your tracks, remember to have fun with it. You can consider this a “Bonus” tip, but an enthusiastic performer makes for a night that no one will forget.
We are having a huge sale on Ableton classes this coming Cyber Monday. To get the deal, you have to put your email in here, or click the picture below.
Jacques Greene live is something to celebrate. Long known for his tremendous DJ sets–spanning everything from hip-hop to techno to R&B–the Canadian has brought out the gear to create a live set. Peep what it looks like via Resident Advisor here:
But now to sweeten the deal, Bowery Boston has added another talent to the bill.
Yvng Paul, part of the CLLCTVBOSTON, helps throw the Wave party, which we happened to write up just last week. One of our MVN graduates, Im_ThatSomebody makes a regular appearance there. Paul’s sets are bound to make you move. Check his recorded DJ set from April:
