Native Instruments Battery 3 Artist Kits 2 и интервью с Алексом Хаке
Началось с того, что я, копаясь в сети в поисках каких-нибудь интересных сэмплов, нашел на каком-то левом сайте статейку о пакете сэмплов для Native Instruments Battery 3, созданном Gorillaz, некими Turntablerocker и самим Einstuerzende Neubauten.
First I was like “omg omg omg Хаке, я тебя обожаю!” and then “омг омг омг! Да это ведь не какие-то там, а ТЕ САМЫЕ ЖЕЛЕЗКИ! Теперь я могу играть на том, на чем играют сами Новостройки!”
Ага, легко сказать...
Я давно знал, что Хаке пользуется продуктами от Native Instruments и поддерживает отечественного производителя. Кстати, не зря - продукты действительно удобны, имеют немало возможностей и, что не мало важно, популярны, а это обещает море разных совместимых приблуд, начиная пресетами для Reaktor (да, послушайте Laibach - Volk) заканчивая наборами разнообразных сэмплов ударных, клавишных и многих других инструментов, среди которых такая экзотика как, например, “смычковое пианино” и hang drum. Знал, но даже представить себе не мог, что Einstuerzende Neubauten поделятся хотя бы рецептами, и уж тем более не ожидал, что смогу заполучить что-то с их кухни, и тут на свою голову нахожу информацию об этом пакете ударных.
Искал я его довольно долго. Пакет из разряда бесплатных, но бесплатно раздают его только среди тех, кто купил NI Battery 3, а я к их числу, естественно, не отношусь.
“-Фигня, все ведь воруют и все есть в сети” - сказал я себе и потратил 3-4 долгих месяца на поиски. Для многих это не такая уж необходимая библиотека, а это значит, что она вообще могла и не появиться на “черном рынке”, но все-таки ее украли (ага, бедные-бедные EN, бедные, как церковные мыши) и счастью моему нет предела.
Весит она немного - какие-то 84mb и очень жаль, потому что, мне кажется, в студии Новостроек хватило бы инструментов на пару гигабайт сэмплов. Да, а ведь сэмплов ЕН там всего треть. Обидно.
Скачав ее, я решил погуглить сайт native-instruments.com на предмет информации об этой библиотеке и нашел аж целое интервью с Алексом Хаке на всем понятном английском языке, с фотографиями!
Native Instruments Battery 3 Artist Kits 2 AMPLiFY
Native Instruments today released a free library add-on with three artist drum kits for the acclaimed percussion sampler BATTERY 3. The new kits were designed by NI endorsees Gorillaz, Einstuerzende Neubauten, and Turntablerocker, and are based on exclusive custom sounds from these artists" own productions.
The "Dracula Eastwood" kit by Gorillaz producer Curtis
Lynch provides BATTERY 3 users with high-quality drum
sounds destined for all kinds of urban grooves. It includes
an assortment of over 60 bass drums, snares, toms and
hihats that all carry a distinctive vinyl character.
The kit designed by legendary avantgarde rockers
Einstuerzende Neubauten includes a comprehensive selection
of their famed custom-built scrap-metal percussion
instruments, recorded in their own studio exclusively for
Native Instruments, and made available to other musicians
for the first time.
Какбэ невзначай ссылка на какой то непонятный архив
password = morz@magesy
TECH TALK WITH ALEXANDER HACKE
Interview by Robert Defcon, photography by Max Dax
Страница на сайте native-instruments.com для тех, кто хочет глянуть фото
Alexander Hacke is a musical chameleon of his own kind. For more than 25 years, he has been at the forefront of avant-garde music as a member of the seminal group Einstürzende Neubauten, in which he not only played bass and guitar but also advanced the use of computer technology. Recently, Hacke published his first solo album and dedicated a unique stage project named "Mountains of Madness" to the work of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. NI software features heavily in all of his work. In this interview, he discusses synth sounds of the past, the late entry of digital technology into Neubauten’s arsenal and his opinions about hi-fi.
When was Einstürzende Neubauten’s first encounter with digital technologies?
Everything started in the mid-’80s with a digital 32-channel tape machine. It already allowed automation of separate channels, which was a great advantage compared to analogue tapes. Then later, FM Einheit introduced the first Atari-based Cubase sequencer. The whole thing was so much trickier to handle at that time. Steps which are nowadays done within seconds took hours and hours in those days. Whenever you wanted something to be computed, you could go for lunch in the meantime. That’s why such a cumbersome technology could not immediately become a tool for us. But after a couple of years, we completely changed to Pro Tools.
How and when did Native Instruments become part of the game?
Native Instruments first sneaked into my focus in 1997, when I read their advertisements in magazines like Keyboards. At that time, the typical design of ads for musical equipment was similar to Yes album covers: space rock, thunder and lightning. I actually come from a very different direction, which is industrial; my favourite bands were Throbbing Gristle and Suicide. NI had ads containing x-ray pictures of skulls, which attracted me, so I got the first version of Reaktor. Everything was military green, felt like guerrilla warfare, and the first modules of Reaktor looked like ammunition crates. I also really liked the way NI connects to their user community: Several new features in Reaktor 5 were actually developed by fans. NI obviously trusts in the existence of enough creative people around the world to develop these ideas.
When did Einstürzende Neubauten start working with software?
Pretty late, actually-around the year 2000, after we finished Silence Is Sexy. It also took so long because I was convinced that Neubauten would cover a different realm in spite of my intensive private work with software. Maybe we just got more tolerant.
What was this transition like?
Well, the possibilities of this new way of producing also brought a lot of distractions with them. Technology is often not very helpful while working in a team. You delve much deeper into certain aspects on your own because you are free to leave conventional paths. Unintended mistakes often lead to interesting results - you play around to entertain yourself. That’s a great thing to do on your own.
In the Neubauten documentation “Only what is not, is possible” you said that computers may destroy or threaten band structures.
Absolutely. If people gather to make music together and the computer becomes part of the game, they play with the computer - not with each other. Basically, you have to try to use tools for your personal purpose and not get victimized by them.
On the other hand, computers nowadays allow a completely different way of communication. Now, you can simply travel the world with your notebook, visit friends and musicians and record material together.
This way of working is great and has pretty much changed my life. The possibility of nonstationary collaboration is so interesting: With my computer, I am able to move unfinished material from A to B, from one musician to another, to work on it on my own while travelling and then add elements together with anyone else.
Did your personal way of travelling change because of this? Have you met more musicians than you would have without these possibilities?
I was always convinced that working with other musicians outside of studios is much more effective, aside from the fact that traditional studio situations do not exist anymore anyway. People who are not used to working in a classical studio are often blocked by headphone situations or by acoustically shaped rooms. You often have so much more freedom in your work flow when recording in your favourite places or in rooms without overwhelming studio equipment.
Every musician spends so much time waiting: through travelling, before a gig, after a gig, in studios. It’s more obvious to keep yourself busy not with a Game Boy, but with arrangements or with sounds. That’s an intelligent way to use your time productively. You are also able to pick up things happening around you on a high-quality level. Finally, I recognized that when I travel, my approach to certain tasks differs so much from the way I do them at home. That is why I started catching trains for doing remixes, film music or certain other stuff.
Did whole albums result from this way of working?
Yes, for my album Sanctuary, I intensified this mode. The idea was to make an album like a road movie. The concept of a road movie is this: There is a project without a perfect script, only an outline or a few scenes. Often the structure of the story is just sketched out roughly. Then you hit the road with a small team and low technical requirements to develop the story on the road. Often the characters that appear in the movie only join in during the time of travelling. There are many analogies between the concept of a road movie and the way I created my album. By the way, for years the working title of Sanctuary was The Road Record.
Were the musicians you met on your trip familiar with the software you were using?
Actually, I have intensely promoted this way of producing. But first of all, I could offer this to my friends: Every time I arrived at a friend’s place, saying that I would like to record some stuff for my solo album, I could at the same time offer to help them with their own unfinished projects. There were musicians who had only just started to work with digital technology, and I could easily transfer my knowledge to them. A very anarchistic mode of payment: You do it for me, I do it for you.
You are carrying with you all of the sound-design knowledge that you have accumulated in the past 25 years.
Sure, I know how a certain room sounds and how to record this room. The Neubauten years have formed me this way, of course. That’s why programs such as Guitar Rig are so plausible to me-they simulate technical setups we are actually working with. It is a revelation concerning sound quality and usability. This is the art of software programming. With Neubauten, I learned lots of things pretty early that got integrated in software concepts and are standard nowadays-for example, being able to change a sound completely with only a few steps. If you don’t have a bass drum, you simply take a suitcase. In the end, you will turn the signal into something that sounds like a bass drum. You can change and manipulate every sound source. Blixa Bargeld used to say: “We don’t use synthesizers. Of course they can imitate the sound of breaking glass, but I prefer breaking it myself.” So we recorded these things, played them from tape or cut loops. A mechanic way of sampling, so to speak.
What other projects did you work on recently?
I have recently worked together with the artist Danielle de Picciotto and the Tiger Lillies. The Tiger Lillies is a trio, they started as street musicians with double bass, accordion and a rudimentary drum kit fixed to a baby buggy. The singer is a trained counter tenor, someone who sings with a female voice. And they have very, very evil lyrics, nearly obscene. For this project, I have put stories of H.P. Lovecraft to music. He was an American horror writer from the ’20s, like a B-version of Edgar Allan Poe. The idea of combining the Tiger Lillies’ acoustic sound with electronic elements has always attracted me. We are four people performing onstage; I play the electronic instruments, and Danielle is responsible for video animations and visuals.
What is the software setup for this project?
First, I had to build sound banks to have different sounds available in a live situation. I build my sample banks in Kontakt 2, especially now that it does surround sound. We are working with quadrophony in these concerts because Lovecraft’s stories are all about the incredible evil, the indescribable horror that creeps out into the world from its abyss. This can be realized in an especially impressive way with surround sound. In the beginning, the audience finds itself in an ordinary concert situation with the Tiger Lillies as protagonists telling the stories. But suddenly electronic sounds coming from all directions flood the space.
What makes Kontakt so special in your opinion?
Kontakt allows me to take events or sounds of all kinds, change them in whatever way and combine them with every other kind of sound. It is important for me to be able to build up my own systematic orders so I can customize the instruments to my particular needs. To have instant access while I am playing live, I have to be able to locate the sounds immediately. Therefore, the modular idea of Reaktor and other NI products pays off for me. All of these programs follow a pretty smart, logical construction: You don’t end up in endless menus; instead, you simply put together the things you need. The software is well-thought-out and very easy to use. Nevertheless, you can deeply dive into sound structures, into the so-called “nerd” areas. But the most important thing about these instruments is that you can work with them very fast, find tools rapidly, combine them easily, and they are built logically.
How long have you been working with samplers?
It’s been only a year since I started working with MIDI; the entire sampler concept is still pretty new to me. I come from the audio side; I usually record audio events or musicians at certain places. This means I have always worked with my own audio material-I have simply never used samples. And actually, I have never played pre-edited material on a keyboard, but rather arranged it on screen, like a graphic artist.
As a guitar and bass player, how did you learn about this kind of technology anyway?
My first electronic instrument was the Korg MS-20, together with its sequencer. It already had a half-modular structure and somehow predicted a lot of what Reaktor is based on today-the act of putting together what you want to work with from a row of modules. You never use all options at the same time, but you define a route. You define possibilities by restricting them.
The devices were huge in those days-a horror for every touring musician.
The portability of software is a great advantage, as is the possibility to save settings once you find them. I still work with the MS-20 from time to time, but it is absolutely impossible to save settings with this device. In the ’80s when the MS-20 was released, its manual contained blanks for taking down cable connections and button positions in order to recover settings that got lost. But still, it never sounded the same again. Nowadays, I can dive into the depth of certain sounds and save the result at the right moment. That is also a great improvement provided by computers.
What do you think about the attitude that digital sound sounds “dead”?
That is nearly a spiritual question. In the early 80´s , I stopped buying records altogether. I didn’t want to give my money to the music industry, and on top of this, records were really not practical or specifically handy for me. I spent all my money on cassettes instead. Not until the end of the ’80s, when I finally made some money with Neubauten, did I start buying audio CDs, which were just introduced at that time. The discussion about what sounded better had already started then, and until now, there is still no answer to it. Today, it is being discussed how good an MP3 file sounds compared to a CD. When I’m playing music as a DJ-which I am doing with another NI tool, Traktor DJ Studio-I really appreciate being able to carry my whole record collection around on an iPod. Being able to access this incredible amount of information so rapidly really thrills me. The entire discussion about sound authenticity is pretty useless, I think.
So what is it all about?
It is about working effectively, handling energies that exist and creating new energies.
First I was like “omg omg omg Хаке, я тебя обожаю!” and then “омг омг омг! Да это ведь не какие-то там, а ТЕ САМЫЕ ЖЕЛЕЗКИ! Теперь я могу играть на том, на чем играют сами Новостройки!”
Ага, легко сказать...
Я давно знал, что Хаке пользуется продуктами от Native Instruments и поддерживает отечественного производителя. Кстати, не зря - продукты действительно удобны, имеют немало возможностей и, что не мало важно, популярны, а это обещает море разных совместимых приблуд, начиная пресетами для Reaktor (да, послушайте Laibach - Volk) заканчивая наборами разнообразных сэмплов ударных, клавишных и многих других инструментов, среди которых такая экзотика как, например, “смычковое пианино” и hang drum. Знал, но даже представить себе не мог, что Einstuerzende Neubauten поделятся хотя бы рецептами, и уж тем более не ожидал, что смогу заполучить что-то с их кухни, и тут на свою голову нахожу информацию об этом пакете ударных.
Искал я его довольно долго. Пакет из разряда бесплатных, но бесплатно раздают его только среди тех, кто купил NI Battery 3, а я к их числу, естественно, не отношусь.
“-Фигня, все ведь воруют и все есть в сети” - сказал я себе и потратил 3-4 долгих месяца на поиски. Для многих это не такая уж необходимая библиотека, а это значит, что она вообще могла и не появиться на “черном рынке”, но все-таки ее украли (ага, бедные-бедные EN, бедные, как церковные мыши) и счастью моему нет предела.
Весит она немного - какие-то 84mb и очень жаль, потому что, мне кажется, в студии Новостроек хватило бы инструментов на пару гигабайт сэмплов. Да, а ведь сэмплов ЕН там всего треть. Обидно.
Скачав ее, я решил погуглить сайт native-instruments.com на предмет информации об этой библиотеке и нашел аж целое интервью с Алексом Хаке на всем понятном английском языке, с фотографиями!
Native Instruments Battery 3 Artist Kits 2 AMPLiFY
Native Instruments today released a free library add-on with three artist drum kits for the acclaimed percussion sampler BATTERY 3. The new kits were designed by NI endorsees Gorillaz, Einstuerzende Neubauten, and Turntablerocker, and are based on exclusive custom sounds from these artists" own productions.
The "Dracula Eastwood" kit by Gorillaz producer Curtis
Lynch provides BATTERY 3 users with high-quality drum
sounds destined for all kinds of urban grooves. It includes
an assortment of over 60 bass drums, snares, toms and
hihats that all carry a distinctive vinyl character.
The kit designed by legendary avantgarde rockers
Einstuerzende Neubauten includes a comprehensive selection
of their famed custom-built scrap-metal percussion
instruments, recorded in their own studio exclusively for
Native Instruments, and made available to other musicians
for the first time.
Какбэ невзначай ссылка на какой то непонятный архив
password = morz@magesy
TECH TALK WITH ALEXANDER HACKE
Interview by Robert Defcon, photography by Max Dax
Страница на сайте native-instruments.com для тех, кто хочет глянуть фото
Alexander Hacke is a musical chameleon of his own kind. For more than 25 years, he has been at the forefront of avant-garde music as a member of the seminal group Einstürzende Neubauten, in which he not only played bass and guitar but also advanced the use of computer technology. Recently, Hacke published his first solo album and dedicated a unique stage project named "Mountains of Madness" to the work of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. NI software features heavily in all of his work. In this interview, he discusses synth sounds of the past, the late entry of digital technology into Neubauten’s arsenal and his opinions about hi-fi.
When was Einstürzende Neubauten’s first encounter with digital technologies?
Everything started in the mid-’80s with a digital 32-channel tape machine. It already allowed automation of separate channels, which was a great advantage compared to analogue tapes. Then later, FM Einheit introduced the first Atari-based Cubase sequencer. The whole thing was so much trickier to handle at that time. Steps which are nowadays done within seconds took hours and hours in those days. Whenever you wanted something to be computed, you could go for lunch in the meantime. That’s why such a cumbersome technology could not immediately become a tool for us. But after a couple of years, we completely changed to Pro Tools.
How and when did Native Instruments become part of the game?
Native Instruments first sneaked into my focus in 1997, when I read their advertisements in magazines like Keyboards. At that time, the typical design of ads for musical equipment was similar to Yes album covers: space rock, thunder and lightning. I actually come from a very different direction, which is industrial; my favourite bands were Throbbing Gristle and Suicide. NI had ads containing x-ray pictures of skulls, which attracted me, so I got the first version of Reaktor. Everything was military green, felt like guerrilla warfare, and the first modules of Reaktor looked like ammunition crates. I also really liked the way NI connects to their user community: Several new features in Reaktor 5 were actually developed by fans. NI obviously trusts in the existence of enough creative people around the world to develop these ideas.
When did Einstürzende Neubauten start working with software?
Pretty late, actually-around the year 2000, after we finished Silence Is Sexy. It also took so long because I was convinced that Neubauten would cover a different realm in spite of my intensive private work with software. Maybe we just got more tolerant.
What was this transition like?
Well, the possibilities of this new way of producing also brought a lot of distractions with them. Technology is often not very helpful while working in a team. You delve much deeper into certain aspects on your own because you are free to leave conventional paths. Unintended mistakes often lead to interesting results - you play around to entertain yourself. That’s a great thing to do on your own.
In the Neubauten documentation “Only what is not, is possible” you said that computers may destroy or threaten band structures.
Absolutely. If people gather to make music together and the computer becomes part of the game, they play with the computer - not with each other. Basically, you have to try to use tools for your personal purpose and not get victimized by them.
On the other hand, computers nowadays allow a completely different way of communication. Now, you can simply travel the world with your notebook, visit friends and musicians and record material together.
This way of working is great and has pretty much changed my life. The possibility of nonstationary collaboration is so interesting: With my computer, I am able to move unfinished material from A to B, from one musician to another, to work on it on my own while travelling and then add elements together with anyone else.
Did your personal way of travelling change because of this? Have you met more musicians than you would have without these possibilities?
I was always convinced that working with other musicians outside of studios is much more effective, aside from the fact that traditional studio situations do not exist anymore anyway. People who are not used to working in a classical studio are often blocked by headphone situations or by acoustically shaped rooms. You often have so much more freedom in your work flow when recording in your favourite places or in rooms without overwhelming studio equipment.
Every musician spends so much time waiting: through travelling, before a gig, after a gig, in studios. It’s more obvious to keep yourself busy not with a Game Boy, but with arrangements or with sounds. That’s an intelligent way to use your time productively. You are also able to pick up things happening around you on a high-quality level. Finally, I recognized that when I travel, my approach to certain tasks differs so much from the way I do them at home. That is why I started catching trains for doing remixes, film music or certain other stuff.
Did whole albums result from this way of working?
Yes, for my album Sanctuary, I intensified this mode. The idea was to make an album like a road movie. The concept of a road movie is this: There is a project without a perfect script, only an outline or a few scenes. Often the structure of the story is just sketched out roughly. Then you hit the road with a small team and low technical requirements to develop the story on the road. Often the characters that appear in the movie only join in during the time of travelling. There are many analogies between the concept of a road movie and the way I created my album. By the way, for years the working title of Sanctuary was The Road Record.
Were the musicians you met on your trip familiar with the software you were using?
Actually, I have intensely promoted this way of producing. But first of all, I could offer this to my friends: Every time I arrived at a friend’s place, saying that I would like to record some stuff for my solo album, I could at the same time offer to help them with their own unfinished projects. There were musicians who had only just started to work with digital technology, and I could easily transfer my knowledge to them. A very anarchistic mode of payment: You do it for me, I do it for you.
You are carrying with you all of the sound-design knowledge that you have accumulated in the past 25 years.
Sure, I know how a certain room sounds and how to record this room. The Neubauten years have formed me this way, of course. That’s why programs such as Guitar Rig are so plausible to me-they simulate technical setups we are actually working with. It is a revelation concerning sound quality and usability. This is the art of software programming. With Neubauten, I learned lots of things pretty early that got integrated in software concepts and are standard nowadays-for example, being able to change a sound completely with only a few steps. If you don’t have a bass drum, you simply take a suitcase. In the end, you will turn the signal into something that sounds like a bass drum. You can change and manipulate every sound source. Blixa Bargeld used to say: “We don’t use synthesizers. Of course they can imitate the sound of breaking glass, but I prefer breaking it myself.” So we recorded these things, played them from tape or cut loops. A mechanic way of sampling, so to speak.
What other projects did you work on recently?
I have recently worked together with the artist Danielle de Picciotto and the Tiger Lillies. The Tiger Lillies is a trio, they started as street musicians with double bass, accordion and a rudimentary drum kit fixed to a baby buggy. The singer is a trained counter tenor, someone who sings with a female voice. And they have very, very evil lyrics, nearly obscene. For this project, I have put stories of H.P. Lovecraft to music. He was an American horror writer from the ’20s, like a B-version of Edgar Allan Poe. The idea of combining the Tiger Lillies’ acoustic sound with electronic elements has always attracted me. We are four people performing onstage; I play the electronic instruments, and Danielle is responsible for video animations and visuals.
What is the software setup for this project?
First, I had to build sound banks to have different sounds available in a live situation. I build my sample banks in Kontakt 2, especially now that it does surround sound. We are working with quadrophony in these concerts because Lovecraft’s stories are all about the incredible evil, the indescribable horror that creeps out into the world from its abyss. This can be realized in an especially impressive way with surround sound. In the beginning, the audience finds itself in an ordinary concert situation with the Tiger Lillies as protagonists telling the stories. But suddenly electronic sounds coming from all directions flood the space.
What makes Kontakt so special in your opinion?
Kontakt allows me to take events or sounds of all kinds, change them in whatever way and combine them with every other kind of sound. It is important for me to be able to build up my own systematic orders so I can customize the instruments to my particular needs. To have instant access while I am playing live, I have to be able to locate the sounds immediately. Therefore, the modular idea of Reaktor and other NI products pays off for me. All of these programs follow a pretty smart, logical construction: You don’t end up in endless menus; instead, you simply put together the things you need. The software is well-thought-out and very easy to use. Nevertheless, you can deeply dive into sound structures, into the so-called “nerd” areas. But the most important thing about these instruments is that you can work with them very fast, find tools rapidly, combine them easily, and they are built logically.
How long have you been working with samplers?
It’s been only a year since I started working with MIDI; the entire sampler concept is still pretty new to me. I come from the audio side; I usually record audio events or musicians at certain places. This means I have always worked with my own audio material-I have simply never used samples. And actually, I have never played pre-edited material on a keyboard, but rather arranged it on screen, like a graphic artist.
As a guitar and bass player, how did you learn about this kind of technology anyway?
My first electronic instrument was the Korg MS-20, together with its sequencer. It already had a half-modular structure and somehow predicted a lot of what Reaktor is based on today-the act of putting together what you want to work with from a row of modules. You never use all options at the same time, but you define a route. You define possibilities by restricting them.
The devices were huge in those days-a horror for every touring musician.
The portability of software is a great advantage, as is the possibility to save settings once you find them. I still work with the MS-20 from time to time, but it is absolutely impossible to save settings with this device. In the ’80s when the MS-20 was released, its manual contained blanks for taking down cable connections and button positions in order to recover settings that got lost. But still, it never sounded the same again. Nowadays, I can dive into the depth of certain sounds and save the result at the right moment. That is also a great improvement provided by computers.
What do you think about the attitude that digital sound sounds “dead”?
That is nearly a spiritual question. In the early 80´s , I stopped buying records altogether. I didn’t want to give my money to the music industry, and on top of this, records were really not practical or specifically handy for me. I spent all my money on cassettes instead. Not until the end of the ’80s, when I finally made some money with Neubauten, did I start buying audio CDs, which were just introduced at that time. The discussion about what sounded better had already started then, and until now, there is still no answer to it. Today, it is being discussed how good an MP3 file sounds compared to a CD. When I’m playing music as a DJ-which I am doing with another NI tool, Traktor DJ Studio-I really appreciate being able to carry my whole record collection around on an iPod. Being able to access this incredible amount of information so rapidly really thrills me. The entire discussion about sound authenticity is pretty useless, I think.
So what is it all about?
It is about working effectively, handling energies that exist and creating new energies.