Beatmaker, iPhone, and Elf pt.3 – Execution

After transferring the samples to the iPhones we practiced, tweaked, replaced samples, and adjusted levels until everything worked together. We also rehearsed a rough song map (very rough) to get an idea of how the song would build. We practiced with a 5:00 counter to get a sense of time.

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Joel set us up a small mixer and I used a modified (to fit) 1/8″ to RCA monster cable to get us into the sound system. From this point we just executed the plan. The biggest limitation is with only 16 samples it’s a bit of a struggle to keep it from sounding too monotonous. A few pointers:
1 – The second iPhone’s samples keep things from feeling too repetitive.
2 – Spend the first 1:30 building up the drum elements. This lets you demonstrate to the crowd what, exactly, you are doing up there.
3 – I plan one high-toned part, the guitars, to cut through the other synth elements. Then I mapped it to a 4-bar segment. This makes it really easy to cut on and off, quickly changing the dynamic of the song.
4 – There are a few filter sweep / drop points in the song. We coordinate when those will happen and I count them off to Daniel. At my “off” point he triggers the prepared 2 bar filter sweep. At the end of that, he triggers a new vocal sample and I start my playback again. I thought it would be tricky but in the end it really wasn’t as difficult as I’d expected.
5 – Toward the end of the song two things happen. First, I move into the effects channels and start triggering the delay set at a high rate and then move into the Bitcrusher. It’s a nice glitchy distortion that allows me to control the amount of nastiness on the fly. Second, the counter video we’re playing has a 30 second audio build in it. It fades in, and includes some of the song’s samples. Eventually it overtakes the sound from the iPhones and ends the track for us.

I do recommend you set your iPhone to airplane mode, perform a full restart, and load your sample kit as soon as you boot the app to ensure that everything loads cleanly.