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Im trying to figure out how to approach making beats. Not cut and dry hip hop things, but more glitchy, ambient things, the kind of things Thom Yorke makes in "The Eraser".
any recommendations on gear / software / interfaces?
I want to something that i can manipulate with my hands, something thats creatively inspiring.
So far I've been looking at the Monome a lot. Anything else out there?

If i were to attempt such a feat i would run my keyboard through my modulation section on my pedalboard and use the drum voices to record, on my keyboard, a loop and just use that, or buy a used drum machine and do the same thing. There are also websites where you can make loops for free (I think), I'd check those out.

Maybe a something like a TSP teaspoon.

If you have an old gameboy lying around (you can find em cheap too!) you could look into nanoloop. It has a strange interface that forces you to think outside the box, the synths are also really rough, and can sound kinda glitchy. There's a ton of weird synths you can get on a gameboy as well here's a list!

If you wanna throw down some serious scratch get a tenori on
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SGwDhKTrwU[/youtube]

very cool interface, very organic, but very expensive (close to a grand I think)

Otherwise, I'd suggest step sequencers for beginning beat making. It's more fluid, it makes more sense usually. You could always pick up some old drum machine and try to bend it. Usually when I try to get more ambient I use a lot of echoes on more standard drum patterns, also LFO based effects work wonders if you time the sweep just so to the pattern playing. Mostly the problems I run into when programming and sequencing is that I want the live performance, and when I try and record the live performance, I want the precision of the programming.

And from my perspective I'd steer clear of the Monome thing, because it's so software based, you have to use the computer just as much, but I'm a very hardware oriented guy, it's always made more sense to me.

I use this. Its free and has a nice little assortment of kitshttp://www.rinki.net/pekka/monkey/#

Thom Yorke used Logic on a mac laptop for much of "The Eraser".

http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/ ... ack-179052

These are getting super cheap and are very powerful though not very portable.

http://www.rolandus.com/products/produc ... ductId=572

comtrails70 wrote:

akai_mpc1000.jpg

I know John Cale has been using an MPC lately.

MPCs are the hot option...but you can always go full-software like I do. Get some free Cool Edit Pro software and click, chop, add effects, and manipulate! It's probably tedious unless you learn that way. I make percussion sometimes from samples (or self-made samples), sometimes manipulated and pitched vocals and guitars, adding sounds and mirroring them an octave down...tons of fun!

Maschine is a worthy adversary.

I'm also an owner of and fan of the Monomachine.

Im pretty stuck on Propellerhead Reason and Ableton Live.

aen wrote:Im pretty stuck on Propellerhead Reason and Ableton Live.

This.

aen wrote:Im pretty stuck on Propellerhead Reason and Ableton Live.

short question: what do you need reason for if you have live (suite)? Apart from the different interface, how do you work? make songs in reason and chop them up in ableton?