u/_chrisoquist_

Inputs 1 and 2 on my 16Rig stopped working, and I suspect that there's some very obvious reason staring me in the face I'm not noticing, because it hasn't been moved, sustained any damage, or experienced anything else that might have affected it. It's about a year old.

In the screenshots above, I'm running my Polybrute into the front inputs 1 and 2.

AudioFuse Control Center shows that signal is coming in, the second screen shows the main mixer tab, and the third shows the routing matrix.

Even though Control Center sees the signal, all I see in Ableton is a split-second bit of activity in the meters for Tracks 1 and 2. (Sometimes but not always, this registers as an audible and very brief squawk).

If I connect to the back inputs and set 1 and 2 to "rear" on the 16Rig, same exact thing.

If I connect the synth instead to inputs 3 and 4 on the back, I can hear it, and Ableton now shows the signal (last screenshot).

Is the solution really obvious? I'm hoping this isn't a defect with the hardware.

Last week, I played my first-ever live show not as a drummer, a 40-minute piece commissioned by Chicago Art Department that incorporates atmospheric climate data as part of a series of events on environmental justice (also a benefit for a local environmental reform organization).

The entire performance is here:
https://youtu.be/-02kc3Pen-k?si=leTn3BLmJ1I0b0W8

My goal was to have the whole piece transition so slowly from a very ambient cycling to something quite dissonant and propulsive that you can barely notice as it's happening, but eventually you realize you're in a completely different place.

I am very happy with how it came out, but I did not make my life easy by committing to playing as much of this live as possible, including semi-improvised sections, with a hybrid hardware and software setup and a tremendous amount going on in Ableton that I felt like could collapse at any moment. Particularly because the set relied on a lot of live looping and continual change, anything going wrong would be committed for the rest of the piece.

Once I started, though, it felt great. Room was pretty full (someone I had never met drove ninety-minutes with his two sons to see the set, which blew my mind) and I got some insane feedback that I'm not sure was people just blowing smoke: one person told me it reminded them of Jon Hopkins and Alessandro Cortini 🤯

Note, while I played a lot of this live, I wrote/recorded a ton of automation into effects prior to the show, so that the sound could evolve predictably despite a lot of the recording happening in the moment.

There's enough going on here that I thought I could share some of what I'm using in the set.

• Everything runs into an Arturia 16Rig and then into Ableton.
• The beginning is all Polybrute, with virtually no processing. I made the patch from INIT, intending to capture the sort of intimate but sort-of religious sound of a medieval portative organ, which I fell in love with watching Ludowic on YouTube. While originally, I emulated the chiff and short attack/decay of a real organ, I eventually wanted something that lent itself more to an ambient sound even without effects, so I gave it very long attack and delay which I play with live. There's a bit of noise, LFOs detuning the voices very subtly, and as I play I'm also using the pitch wheel a bit for subtle bends. Nobody can tell me this synth doesn't have character, wow.
• Soma Cosmos: This thing is wild, and the drifting and blurring nature of it allows long sequences to continue to be interesting. I'm taking advantage of stereo here by running the Lyra-8 into the left channel, and my bass into the right, but using the Drift setting to have them move in space and escape their strict "sides."
  • Once the Polybrute hangs on tonic, I begin looping the Lyra-8 (which thankfully stayed relatively in tune), going into Source Audio Nemesis for delay and then Oto Bam for reverb (I think I used the "Ambient" algorithm for its character but shortened the decay time quite a bit - there's too much going on later for extremely long tails. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to use the "Sharp" knobs to give the notes movement, and the way the higher pitch notes bend (kind of reminds me of a whale) ... much later in the piece, I manually reroute the Lyra chain directly into the interface to add a non-looping series of sounds over the rest of the instruments.
  • After recording the Lyra, I switch to the electric bass, which I mostly play with a cheap violin bow I got on Amazon. It's capable of really cool, cello-like sounds and I am especially obsessed with the way you can get harmonics to sound. Bass goes into Land Devices Hunter for distortion and Poly Verbs for reverb (using the Inchindown Oil Tanks IR).
• Some of the drums are pre-recorded, some triggered live:
  • The kick drum is a blend of 808s (low end only) and 909s (high end only), coming in at different times gradually. The 909 goes into Valhalla Tape, which I automated the blend of beforehand. Triggered these samples live using the Novation Launchpad on the desk.
  • The snare is a blend of a snare drum sample I recorded years ago in studio with my band RIBS (I think a 14" Pork Pie maple snare), blended with some crunchy plastic wrap sounds I recorded at home. Triggered live using the Novation Launchpad on the desk.
  • The shakers are a stereo split of a plastic shaker (Meinl Luis Conte Signature Double Live Shaker) I recorded at home, run through a ton of effects, with some glitchy reversing happening. Tons of distortion.
  • I also added some foley sounds I recorded (my 2-year-olds toy cars, some garbage paper and plastic, keys I had lying around) here and there, looping at irregular intervals with the drums.
  • There's a click track that comes in (it represents the beginning of 100 years of data - the second dataset used in the piece) and later fades out
  • I also recorded a cheap tongue drum I had lying around, into an Audix I5 and a Retromechanical Labs 432k distortion pedal, via a Franklin MP-10 (awesome and super useful pedal). This is recorded live but the loop parameters and fades are set up in advance.
• I'm using a few other softsynths in the piece:
  • Newfangled Audio Generate - the gnarly minor 2nd that plays towards the end - volume and distortion modulated
  • Felt Instruments Ciemno - this kind of Reznor-y guitar-ish thing that comes in later is actually a very soft pianet patch compressed to all hell and distorted heavily, which goes into Ableton Beat Repeat for some granular repetition.
  • Native Instruments Monark (maybe the oldest VST I own and still sounds massive) plays the rising Shepard Tone which comes in at the end.
  • There's also a bit of Felt Instruments Nisko to add some bass. I was really concerned before the performance about letting the bass build up and not being able to control it, so I did some high-passing of a lot of the tracks and filled in strategic parts of the piece with this, pre-recorded.
• I also recorded the room the concert was held in a few days before, using Earthworks SR25s in stereo, and an SM7B into a Franklin MP-10 and then into a Gamechanger Audio Light Pedal, using a Tascam Portacapture X8. This is used in a few different places of the piece to add ambience and feedback.

Effects. I honestly don't remember everything I used, but a few things to note:

• The Polybrute track eventually turns into this glitchy, factory-like jangly thing - this is me gradually blending in a pretty gnarly Arturia Fragments preset I made.
• There are crazy amounts of distortion on every track: Arturia Coldfire, Noise Engineering Ruina, Nudist Audio Nudistort (horrible and awesome), Felt Instruments Brut, Audiothing Arguments. Arturia Dist TUBE-CULTURE is one that I'm modulating by hand, on the Polybrute track, through the piece.
• Wavesfactory Trackspacer is the MVP of the entire set. There are multiple instances on many tracks, helping me find space by ducking stuff out as new instruments come in.

The atmospheric climate data, two sets of figures in spreadsheets shared with me by Dr. Paul Bloom, a physicist at North Central College (who also provided a lot of ideas), was used in a number of ways:

• To modulate the distortion of a number of the tracks (especially the Polybrute and the dissonant stuff going on at the end)
• To modulate the volume of the Shepard Tone and the minor 2nd at the end
• To modulate the distortion and a few other plugins on the master bus toward the end of the piece
• To modulate the volume of the ambient room sound I captured prior to the show.

I didn't know what to expect going in but I'm so proud of it. I hope you enjoy. I was happy enough with the set that I took all forty-minutes straight from the DAW and put them on streaming and Bandcamp.

Happy to share a Bandcamp download code with anyone who wants it.

Hi all - I'm playing an ambient/electronic set at Chicago Art Department in Pilsen tomorrow night and donating all the proceeds to P.E.R.R.O., a local environmental justice org. The music incorporates atmospheric climate data in a few ways.

If this is your thing, please consider dropping by. It's a great cause and CAD is a pretty cool space. Here's something I uploaded while I was writing the music for the performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is9oNDFX64g

Info here: https://www.eventbrite.fi/e/chris-oquist-liminal-drifts-live-electronicambient-tickets-1988363658227

My neighbor and friend Josh is piloting a new industrial/darkwave night at New Rose in Pilsen tonight. Entry is free! We're really hoping it's successful so that this becomes a regular night.

If this is your thing, please consider coming to hang out:
https://partiful.com/e/kTE1EwykzmKtICJtccIf

Thanks all!