It is no secret that Argentinian artist Alexis Cabrera is a firm favourite here at Trommel and with good cause. Whether it is live performances, stunning productions or just generally being one of the nicest guys in the business Alexis is a cut above. So, it came as no surprise that he has been asked by The Source to showcase a sliver of his production prowess by way of his super creative approach to utilising a single sequence to provide a multitude of sonic options by way Ableton’s very handy Chain plugin…
Can you breakdown what is going on in your tutorial?
Basically, the idea is to create different elements using only one sequence. Then I used this sequence to split into 3 different sounds to make a bassline but without overlapping notes. After this, imagination is the limit because you can send this same sequence to different kind of sounds to create for example Melodies, Chords, Arpeggios, etc. etc.
Where or who did you learn this technique from?
I have never seen anybody doing this, it just came to my mind once when while I was playing a sequence I was testing different sounds in my Mutable Instruments Shruti and for a moment I liked how it sounded switching between different sounds using the same sequence, so then I just thought to do it in Ableton and Voilà.
Does using Ableton’s own plug-ins get the best results? What is the reason for using this particular technique?
In this case, I used the powerful tool called CHAIN, this was the way I found to split one sequence into different sounds. Normally I use my hardware to get sounds, but in this case, I used some VST instruments for the demonstration only.
Is this something you would using on all your tracks?
I use this technique in my tracks, but not always. Sometimes I use this technique as a starting point and then I take it from there.
What track of yours have you recently used this technique on?
In my recent INFUSE EP ‘Acidicty’ there is a track called “Boulevardò” Where I made the sequence for the bassline with Arturia Beatstep Pro and from there I sent the same sequence to percussions sounds from my modular system (module RINGS) and then different random sounds from another module called BRAIDS, so everything is switching constantly between different sounds.
More info on Alexis Cabrera
Trommel Podcast | Facebook | Resident Advisor | Soundcloud | Bandcamp | Discogs
More info on The Source
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