When I was kid, I only knew B.B. King as a caricature of himself. He was a large, round man, always smiling, played old-time music on a big black guitar worn high on his belly.

I first gave the man some serious thought while watching an episode of The Cosby Show; I still didn’t know much about him but I knew that guest stars on the show were usually legendary in some way, and so I paid attention. I thought he was entertaining and fun, nothing I hadn’t heard before, somewhere, but that piercing mellow guitar tone instantly made his music a signature.

Fast forward several years…

I had learned to play a decent blues shuffle over the years but never really studied it; it was something I did as an afterthought, da da, da da, da da. My friend Teddy Morgan decided that had gone on for far too long and popped a CD in the van, and it was there, on some anonymous stretch of Midwest interstate, that I was introduced to the music of B.B. King for the first time.

This music was alive; it was a living, breathing soul brought to life by a ferocious but restrained rhythm section and a powerful voice punctuated by a sharp, quick guitar. It was the sound of generations of music that came before it and hints of the directions it would take in the future.

It’s no surprise that a young me would dismiss B.B. King as something vaguely familiar, because he was familiar; I was born into a world whose music had already been shaped by him. His contributions are almost swept away by the sea of people he inspired.

B.B. King is blues music, one of those delicate genres whose relevancy today is maintained mostly by its legacy. But, oh, what a legacy.

So I’ve gotten a few questions about my Ableton Live “series,” some of which I’ll answer eventually but here are a few I probably should have touched on:

Will my [so-and-so] computer work for this?

Chances are—yes? Currently I use a 2011 Macbook Pro, with a quad-core i7 and 16GB of RAM. It’s getting a little wheezy now, but at the time it was hot potatoes and I’ve never had an issue with my Live setup. For years before that I used a 2006 Macbook with a duo core and 4GB and never had any issues, either. If you’re having CPU issues, there are a bunch of things you can try to reduce the load.

I’ve got a [so-and-so] interface, will that work?

Chances are—yes? My opinion on interfaces is that they all sound good these days. I mean, it’s really hard to buy a bad sounding interface. If you’ve got something that’s working for you and sounds good and gets along with your computer, by all means stick with it. It’s easy to buy a crappy interface with bad drivers, though, so if you don’t own anything yet it’s worth researching reviews from people with the same computer you have.

Why aren’t you using USB MIDI?

USB MIDI is pretty awesome, really; MIDI isn’t that resource heavy and a USB bus is more than enough for it. (And you get bus power too!) The main reasons I shy away from it are:

1. I use the Roland SPD-SX as my primary MIDI controller, and at the time I bought it the USB drivers were a little screwy. I’ve used its USB bus since then but I stick with MIDI, just in case.
2. I need more than one input, so to have enough ports I’d need to run a USB hub, which is more tiny little cables with delicate connectors than I feel like dealing with.
3. USB spec only allows for runs of ten feet, anything longer than that needs a powered repeater cable or a powered hub in between.

Basically, it’s mostly a matter of personal convenience, and a little peace of mind. If you’ve only got one or two controllers and they’re all fairly close to you, or if your interface doesn’t have standard MIDI ports, USB is the way to go.

Welcome to a third post of a behind-the-scenes look into my Ableton Live setup. The first posts are something of a primer, describing the gear I use and the basics of setting up a mix; from here, I dive a little deeper into the Ableton waters. If this is your first time here, or if you’re new to Live, you might want to start at the beginning.

The Click

One of the first things I set up in a typical Wits session is the click track. A click is a really helpful tool on the show; I use it both as a quick reference before counting off a musical number and occasionally as a metronome when a consistent tempo is helpful. Live has a built-in metronome which is routed by default to the cue mix, but since mechanical beeps are a little less than inspiring I prefer to use clips on a dedicated track.

Continue reading →

Here’s the second of a bunch of posts about how I use Ableton Live. In my first post I talked about lots and lots of gear, and, as it turns out, most of that gear actually does something!

The 4Pre handles all the audio coming into and out of Live and needs to be set up first. That’s done in the Audio tab of Live’s preferences:

Continue reading →

For my first foray into describing how I use Ableton Live, I figured I’d start with what I actually use it to do and what gear I need to make that happen. A pretty typical Wits session will look something like this (click thumbnails to see full size):

If you’re super-new to Live, this screen might look a bit intimidating, but it’s all pretty simple once you know the basic layout. Let’s dive right in.

Continue reading →

Of all the things I’ve learned about using Ableton Live, the biggest is that it will result in questions. Lots and lots of questions, like: What’s the laptop doing?, or Where are those sounds coming from?, or I saw you hitting a lot of pads, what’s with that?, or Are you checking your email from on stage?

So, I thought I’d take advantage of an afternoon off and share with the world my Ableton Live setup for Wits, which has more things going on in the laptop than per usual for me.

Live can handle a lot of needs, and my Wits setup covers them all pretty gracefully. I’ll break up this tutorial/sneaky-peek likewise:

• Gear, lots and lots of gear
• Monitoring and routing
• Click tracks and scene changes
• Instrument sounds
• Loops and backing tracks

Now, one of the best things about Live is it’s really versatile, I mean, REALLY versatile, and there are about 100 different ways to accomplish any given task. If you’re an Ableton wizard you might sigh and shake your head sadly when you see my setup but this is what’s working for me. For the sake of these posts I’m gonna assume you’re not an Ableton Wizard but, at the least, have a working knowledge of Live and how to get around it.

Cool? Cool. First up: the gear.

Happy 2015! Here’s hoping it’s one giant cookie carnival for everyone.

For the next week or so I’m driving around the Midwest with my friends in the Backyard Committee. It’s a great lineup of musicians and our first night was a blast — the music is a bit on the rootsy, Americana side with a lot of room for improvisation and trying out new ideas. Lately the shows I’ve been playing have been a little more strict, at least in the sense of learning very specific parts and arrangements, so having some room to stretch out makes for fun nights.

Along with the drumming duties I’ve been assigned the role of recording engineer — the plan is to record every show and release a live album of the best material. It makes the shows, for us at least, engaging on another level as every night is essentially a recording session, albeit one in front of people. For the recording geeks out there, we’re double-micing every source, with one line going to the front of house and the other line sent to my mobile recording rig, a Universal Audio Apollo with eight additional preamps supplied by a Audient ASP880 feeding into Pro Tools. It’s a quick setup and on these smaller stages avoids any issues with splitters or negotiating with house engineers. Knocking on wood here, but so far things are sounding great with no hiccups.

Check out the dates on the fabulous old-school poster below, and hope to see you if we’re coming to your town!

I am playing all sorts of drums on Chris Kosa’s new record, In Real Time—we recorded it a while back and I’m excited that it’s coming out soon. I was sick as a dog in the studio with the flu but somehow looking back it was still a lot of fun. Here’s a preview of the first single, “Radio Wave.”

Minnesota winters have never been, oh, say, pleasant, but this year has been a little rougher than normal—record snowfall, an extra-long season, and our new friend the polar vortex. One thing that did make it a little more bearable was a fun collaboration between artist Lexa Walsh and musician John Munson called Fever Songs. A tiny cabin was built in the atrium of the Walker Art Center, turned into a recording studio, and a night was spent recording improvised music to lyrics and inspiration provided by patrons of the gallery. I engineered the “session,” then John and I took the tunes home to overdub a few things and I mixed it all down later. This was a really challenging and enjoyable project.