Ableton Live

and stuff that I've bought online and then also use a trigger on the kick and the snare for blending you know different sounds for different songs yeah and then I have a couple of the Roland BT-1 triggers for depending on which kit I have pulled up which this is kind of the nerdy thing.

So everything runs off Ableton live.

Okay.

And every song is a scene.

That was at MESS, which is, I believe, Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio in Fred Square.

And I also went to Ableton Live which is a music making program and that was the music program workshop and then that was also really inspiring to be in a space where there are a lot of emerging artists and a lot of people just starting out as well and knowing that you can make music quite intuitively without structure was also something that I learned throughout the process which ultimately led me to Many Hands Bank and them hosting their volume press launch and it's essentially like being able to showcase work alongside so many other artists that were also just experimenting and playing around with music themes has been, yeah, it's been such a great joy and pleasure.

And, um, I would say I'm still learning a lot.

A lot of my songs I've kind of only just started working on.

I'd also love it if you could leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

And if you want to support my work, you can go to brianfunk.com. I've got tons of Ableton Live packs, tutorials, samples.

You can check out my book, The 5-Minute Music Producer, which gives you $365.

short music making activities to help you get started, stay inspired, and finish more music.

When my daughter was one years old, so it's been almost 17 years, I had a chance, I had an opportunity to, there was a place called Dubspot, have you heard about that? It was a music production school in New York for a while.

And they were looking for someone who knew Ableton Live really, really well and who was into techno and could teach.

And I needed a job at that point.

It was a low point for gigs.

It was a little harder to make ends meet just with the hustle.

uh and touring and everything and also having a you know a new family and i didn't want to be away all the time anyway i didn't want to miss out on that so it was really good timing where you know uh this guy brian jackson he's a he's another music i've known forever and he's still teaches with us at 343 labs now he's an ableton certified trainer but he he was one of the first ones in the states actually he reached out to say, hey, they're looking for someone at DubSpot to teach Ableton Live who makes techno.

I'm like, hey, here I am.

Because even though I never really wanted to professionally be a teacher when I was younger, I've always kind of naturally... been that right I like I've always you know in college I did music production they have this major studio composition it's like combining audio studio engineering and music composition together into a major at Purchase College here it's a SUNY school State University of New York and you know, people would come to me like, Hey, show me how to use the sampler.

And then I was like, right, I've got to do this on my own.

And I got into live looping using Ableton Live.

I learned a little bit about that.

Got some help from Dahi, who I worked with since on that when I actually learned how to do it properly.

Um, Fred Again, if you've heard of Fred Again, is a great example for, like, uh, live electronic production, like, performances.

Um, so, like, he'll, um, he'll use, like, a, a pad that has all these, um, triggers and stuff, and it's, like, m- mainly mapped out with, like, Ableton Live.

So, like, it'll be to a performance where they'll be changing.

Um, but, like, he's done...

...

he basically is, like, practicing, like, how he would play it, and then, like, he's taking samples that are, uh, samples or tracks that are from his project file and, like, kind of reworking it in a sense.

Kinda like how the, the, the Ableton Live, um, interface works, like, where there's, like, the whole live aspect, like, where you can just kinda live loop and, like-

Yeah

As somebody who built, you know, Ableton, it's interesting seeing the hardware there.

Like you said, as you move forward in your journey, you didn't abandon that and you didn't become, all you need is Ableton Live now.

I mean, did that ever cross your mind at any points? Were there points where you were, I've made this tool, I've made my perfect music making tool and everybody else loves it too.

Why do I need anything

My thoughts about the big picture are secondary anyway.

But I think there was never really a discussion about in which direction to go apart from maybe one point in time when the DJ culture very much... started to embrace new technologies, basically at a similar time when the CDJs came out and native instruments started to build DJ software.

And there was a moment where we thought if it would make sense to fork off a DJ version of Ableton Live.

Something, you know, like one of those classical DJ softwares.