Yep, it's out.
I'll send it again.

Hi mate, received your mail, will be responding to it tomorrow.

About live:
I found an old article, were he said the background stuff comes from DAT, drumtracks are thrown out and replaced with the live drummer (or both at once eg. SMBU), keyboard-playable-lines are played in live. and in another interview way before that (jilted-era) he said, he always had a safety-drumroll on one track, so he can ... urrr, moment, I think I wrote about that a long time ago, that should be found above or somewhere else here around.

cheers

liams just gets a cd player to play jilted and fotl while he puts in a couple of bass drum beats here and there. :P

What do you mean by 'live-loops'?

Loops are loops, so they aren't live, but I guess you mean that he triggers them manually from the kb?
Yes, you're right, see, you said that the stuff in between the tracks sounds like shit (- at the four gigs they played this year, you were able to get pure, unmixed, liamish synthie-sound. Maybe you remember the bubbly sounding LFO-stuff he did? Just a simple analogue standart thing, every beginner could turn the LFO knob up & down and would get a similar result.
Sounded good? Nope, I thought he was bugged off or too lazy to use edited, better sounding samples (eq'ued and so on). -)

The normal tracks (and links) were pre-recorded, so also pre-mixed and of course mastered, that's why they sound like from CD and not as shitty as the manual unedited bridges he played.

But he did it a lot better some time ago, remember the Poison-live-version from the Breathe-single? There he played in some cool noises from the JD990 which were fitting just great.
There wasn't a difference in sound-quality, it was like made for each other.
I don't understand why Liam got so lazy. Maybe he thought no one would notice that it sounded crappy. But at least we two did. Or he had other reasons letting it slide this way.

Na, the W30 is much less than the MC505, only the sequencer might be a tad better, but I don't know, haven't used a W30 either.
No, Liam isn't just muting & unmuting, he's playing LIVE (but mostly synth-lines and stuff, no drumstuff as I noticed),
you can easily watch him do that on the epunks-video.
Like I mentioned above, the songs are splitted and some lines are played by him, some are sequenced.

I haven't said he's got his beats in the akai, but I'd bet he's got them on the drummachines (SP1200, BD and Snare, sureshot...), and the drumloops on some sampler or the W30 itself (although I don't think so, the W30's only got a few seconds sample-ram with 12bit resolution, so he can't have long loops on it).

Afaic he uses the Tr909 unsequenced as well (as also seen on the epunks-vid).

Greets,
Ekko

The songs themselfes are splitted into tracks (for example Firestarter, there's the Breeders-sample lying on one track,  the synthiesounds each have a single track or else are coming live from the synth's, drummachines are pre-recorded onto outboard-samplers (not W 30) and so on). Those are sequencer controlled (W 30).

To keep the setup easy & Liam visible behind all his gear, most 'small' things like fills are sampled and triggered either by the sequencer or Liam himself, instead of having all synthies with him on stage.
A well known answer in an interview some time ago was "I always have a safety-drumroll beside me, so if my finger slips off the keyboard -which happens all the time- I can just roll it in" or something like that.
That says a lot about how he works and sets up his stuff life.
If you went to a gig and heard him preparing all the samples while hiding behind that black kerchief, you might have noticed that all samples are just triggered very shortly and mostly aren't played out till the end.
So if he fires a sample, he can't be playing all his W 30's all the time.
Dunno how much W 30's he has on stage, I think it were four or five. Some ore for samples and at least one is for the live-synthies.

What do you mean by modifying / Preprogramming?
He's got it all sequenced. Just like recording in the studio, but with playing some elements in himself.

If you look at it this way, Prodge live is a boring thing (at least from the technical and musical side).
That might be the reason why Liam started with the congas and later added the drums and stuff. He must have bored himself to death up there...

Greetings,
Ekko

Youz want it, so here is it... :-)

Opinion on Buzz:

It's nice, it's complete, it's good for laptops, it's like the more clever version of rebirth and it just sounds good.
I used it for nearly a year and you can do fast and neat songs with it.
I had an older version, I should add. It's been a while.

If you want a good synth with a matrix try out  Reaktor from NAtive Instruments. Sure you heard about it, you can do all the wirering-things you can do in Buzz, and much more.
It's quite difficult though, takes a LOT of time to get into (I consider myself not that much of a highspeed-learner, so just give it a try, I got it together as well...).
And you can do things that will blow you away. Listened to the actual Crystal Method-Album? Much much software and very much Reaktor can be found.

I understand Flightcranks opinion on software and it's really a religious fight, like "Mac or PC?", "Logic or Cubase?".

I mostly use hardware, because I get more inspired by it, but I wouldn't say software is more limited than hardware.
In fact, hardware is.
A question of taste.
The thing pi**ing me off with that software-stuff is that it just is unstable as heck.

And to fruity loops:
It's more a toy, if you ask me, although it grows so heavy at the moment, it might become quite a cool software workstation soon.
And I ALWAYS use it for beats, because it's got the tightness of a MPC and no latency, which is, why it grooves like hell when programmed right (shuffle, stereo delay and volume envelopes!).
Simply the best software beatbuilder.
And you can work very fast with it, when you have to. Like me. A very nice 'under-pressure'-instrument.
Plus, plugin processing goes well, you can use it like a subgroup for drums and import the sliced up beats into Cubase or whatever sequencer you use.

Well, I love it.

It's a little bit like a software w-30, if you ask me... :-)

Cheers mates!

No idea, I can't tune in right now, but Liam claims to have played in all the stuff himself (Piano figures, pads and everything melodical). I don't believe him though, some of the stuff sounds too machine-arpeggio-like, doesn't it?

That's the right way ;-)

But as said, get the Ultrafex II ...!

Still cheap but way better than No.1

Never put a mastering tool into the AUX-ways.
An exciter is always only used on the main out.

Meaning you have to use the master insert-points or directly between mixer and DAT, like you said.

Using an enhancer on a single sound is very dangerous, because enhancers and vitalizers add some frequenceys
(the even multiple harmonics of the ground-tones), which will cause the effected signal to sound different, mostly more clear and just more 'lively' than the rest. Which is the effect you want to have on the master signal.

Of course, you might wanna use it for weird effects on just some certain channels, but that's quite experimental.

And never switch it on before you are satisfied with the mix.
An exciter is always the last instance of the mixdown, but if you think you can leave it out, don't use it.

It mostly comes right after the limiter.
As said, it's the last thing you put on the mix, because everything that would come after it (Eq or whatever alters frequencys) would change the overtones/harmonics.
Which *might* sound odd on some stereos.

Much fun

www.Digitalfishphones.com

Really professional plugins for dynamic editing and overall sound shaping.

If you really plan on buying the Ultrafex make sure you get the Ultrafex II.
We have that thingie here, it's one of the better machines from Behringer (ahem...), the Exciter is very good. Also used on some Prodigy-tracks.
It sounds very typical, you might get that harsh FOTL
3 and 12kHz-rattle.
I'm not sure about BGAT, sounds like they used something different there, but it might just be my ears.

Exciters should be used wise, they can make the song sound very stressed.


...but they kick ass!


There are two sorts of people out there, people who love exciters and people who hate them.

Have fun with the gear,
greetings
Ekko

Use THD and Dominion from Sascha Eversmeier. It's fro free, written by a student, and the new producer from Michael Jackson (some strange italian HipHop / R'n'B-guy) uses them.
And most people around here.

I'm sure it's exactly what you need!

Maybe you could use something like an Exciter or a Vitalizer as well.

Wavelab is great, but TC Spark is even better, not for sample-processing, but for pure HD-cut.
Hard to learn, but once you get into it, it's way faster than wavelab. Only available on Mac, though :-(

Recycle is cool, but more of a toy, if you ask me.
The right thing for people like Funkst

A total shame, yes.
No way in Fruity, at least not as uncomplicated as you described.
I mostly use the same sample multiple times, which is extremely uncomfortable and uneconomic, but the only way.

I don't get why Fruity lacks this function, really.

Well, in Logic and Cubase:
Just take the sample and copy it and work the copy into the right form.

Great opportunities in Fruity Loops (especially that it works in VST and Logic).

But how do i stop a sample in the middle of it's loop on the sequencer in Fruity Loops?
For an example: We have a vocal sample in WAV that says "Drop the beat" .
If we want it to shout out loud: "(Drop)(Drop)(Drop)(the beat)".. It will sound like this: "(Drop) (the/Drop) (beat/the/Drop) (beat/the/Drop) (beat/the) (Beat)"....["( / )" = symbolizes many sounds at the same time..].

And the velocity function on the step-sequencer only allows us to change the sound, at the same step that the sample begins... so how do we cut a sample in the middle of.. it??
I think this function must be available in the program, or else the manufactures has work to do in further versions of Fruity Loops!

You can't stop the sample somewhere in the song.
You also can't exactly stop the sample in its middle.
Not without changeing pitch.
Well, you can, but then you have to use the
volume-envelopes which can be accessed over the sample-window. Then you'd just have to try shorten the decay and release times as long until it cuts sharp through the middle of the sample.
The problem is, that you now have an altered sample, because Fruity Loops processes sample-editing mostly destructive. Only plugins are processed non-destructive.
So you'd have to put the original sample in it a second time, if you want it in its full form as well.

But there's another way which should be the solution to your problem.
In the sample-window look at the page with the envelopes and check the box 'Cut itself' or "Cut by itself' or something. Then change both alterable values to 1.

Done.
Now the sample

Ok, thanx for the tip!
I'm heading for the Fruity land right now, to check out the drum-edit opportunities and maybe i'll smoke some bana skins.

Well well, then greet Captain Cabin from us all.