How to make generative ambient botanica in Ableton Live transcript

<b>Hey there, my name is ZW Buckley, and</b> <b>welcome back to my YouTube channel.</b> <b>Today, I'm going to teach you how to make</b> <b>generative ambient botanica using just</b> <b>stock plugins in Ableton Live.</b> <b>Let's go ahead and jump right in.</b> <b>Here's a session that I'm going to be</b> <b>breaking down for you today.</b> <b>There are a number of instruments that</b> <b>are being triggered randomly across four</b> <b>scenes with various degrees of</b> <b>probability and automation.</b> <b>Since this is an entirely generative</b> <b>piece, I'm going to go ahead and let it</b> <b>play for a minute so you can hear the</b> <b>kind of music that it generates, and then</b> <b>we're going to spend the rest of this</b> <b>video breaking that down.</b> <b>So I'll go ahead and start the first</b> <b>scene and then I'll slowly bring up the</b> <b>fader until we're at level.</b> <b>[music]</b> <b>First, we should go over</b> <b>what botanica actually is.</b> <b>And I think the easiest way to understand</b> <b>botanica is to focus on the common sound</b> <b>palette found in the genre.</b> <b>It draws from EDM,</b> <b>Hyperpop, Ambient, LoFi, and IDM.</b> <b>And while that is a lot of different</b> <b>references for one genre to draw from,</b> <b>the sonic world tends</b> <b>to be pretty consistent.</b> <b>There are four sonic pillars of botanica.</b> <b>Acoustic elements like piano or guitar,</b> <b>spectral processing and effects, granular</b> <b>synthesis and processing, and field</b> <b>recording and nature sounds.</b> <b>And there are stock Ableton Live devices</b> <b>that achieve all of these sonic outcomes.</b> <b>All four of the sonic pillars that I</b> <b>mentioned are represented here.</b> <b>For the acoustic elements, I'm primarily</b> <b>representing those through two different</b> <b>tracks.

On this first one here, I have a</b> <b>kalimba sample instrument that I created,</b> <b>as well as the shimmering</b> <b>bard, which is from my website.</b> <b>And that sounds like this.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>On the other, I have two more sample</b> <b>instruments that I layered together.</b> <b>One is my in-laws old grand piano that</b> <b>was always lovingly out of tune.</b> <b>And this guitar that I created from</b> <b>sampling it in a antique shop.</b> <b>And those two together sound like this.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>I also have this resonant string</b> <b>instrument here that is very organic</b> <b>sounding in nature, but is actually</b> <b>entirely synthesized.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>And if you're curious about how this</b> <b>instrument came about in particular,</b> <b>I would encourage you to watch this video</b> <b>in which I break down that workflow.</b> <b>And here's what all of these organic</b> <b>elements sound like when played together.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>Now you could easily record all of these</b> <b>acoustic instruments yourself.</b> <b>I even have an acoustic</b> <b>guitar hanging behind me.</b> <b>But I really love making custom sampled</b> <b>instruments from the</b> <b>sounds in my own life.</b> <b>I tend to think about sampling as a</b> <b>documentarian practice.</b> <b>And if that's something that you're</b> <b>interested in learning more about,</b> <b>then I would encourage you to check out</b> <b>this video in which I go over the</b> <b>techniques and mindset of that practice.</b> <b>For my granular elements, I resampled</b> <b>Ableton's upright piano and I sliced it</b> <b>to a new MIDI track.</b> <b>And then I'm using expression control to</b> <b>randomize all of the loop parameters.</b> <b>And it creates these really interesting</b> <b>glitchy organic textures.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>I'm also doing some group</b> <b>level granular processing as well.</b> <b>That glitchy piano track and the two</b> <b>different acoustic instrument tracks</b> <b>are all being grouped together and ran</b> <b>into this rack that has three instances</b> <b>of beat repeat with various parameters in</b> <b>an LFO to randomize parameters as well.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>And finally, that glitch group plus my</b> <b>resonant string instrument that I showed</b> <b>you earlier is all being grouped together</b> <b>and ran through an audio effect</b> <b>rack that has two separate chains, one</b> <b>which is just an entirely dried</b> <b>pass-through signal chain.</b> <b>And the other then has an instance of</b> <b>grain delay followed by the</b> <b>multiband compression preset.</b> <b>And as we can see from this really fun</b> <b>visualization, a whole</b> <b>ton of the parameters on</b> <b>grain delay are being randomized by one</b> <b>of the two LFOs at the front here.</b> <b>And then the second LFO is being used to</b> <b>choose back and forth between the wet</b> <b>signal and the dry signal.</b> <b>And that sounds like this.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>A lot of botanica is really heavy on</b> <b>meticulous sound design that is</b> <b>intricately layered across the timeline.</b> <b>But since I wanted to go for an ambient</b> <b>and generative approach for this track, a</b> <b>lot of that sound design work is</b> <b>happening via effects.</b> <b>And that's particularly true when it</b> <b>comes to the spectral processing</b> <b>happening in this song.</b> <b>I'm introducing spectral</b> <b>elements in two main ways.</b> <b>First, I have on this return track an</b> <b>instance of spectral blur that I am</b> <b>feeding the resonant strings through.</b> <b>This effect is super cool in that it acts</b> <b>like a spectral reverb.</b> <b>But my favorite part about it is that you</b> <b>can use this out control to just</b> <b>reverberate everything that</b> <b>falls outside of the</b> <b>frequency range that you set.</b> <b>Think of it like a bandpass filter in</b> <b>which you can choose to either</b> <b>reverberate everything within the band or</b> <b>outside of the band.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>The second way in which I am using</b> <b>spectral processing is by creating this</b> <b>really complex chain on my Walk in the</b> <b>Woods instrument, which you</b> <b>can pick up from my website.</b> <b>Let's break down what's happening here.</b> <b>I'm going to go ahead and disengage every</b> <b>effect in this chain and then we'll build</b> <b>it up as we listen to it together.</b> <b>So here's the dry signal.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>And vocoder.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>Spectral resonator.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>Green delay.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>Reverb.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>And then OTT to pull everything forward.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>It creates this really glassy, watery</b> <b>kind of texture and it pairs really</b> <b>nicely as a contrast to the dry chain</b> <b>from this instrument, which is very much</b> <b>my nature and field recording element.</b> <b>And that sounds like this.</b> <b>[Music]</b> <b>Taken both together.</b> <b>[Music] And I made this instrument by taking a</b> <b>bunch of field recordings</b> <b>and drawing out resonances.</b> <b>So it's an easy way to get a cool pad</b> <b>sound while still</b> <b>using nature recordings.</b> <b>And if you're interested in exactly how I</b> <b>did that, you can</b> <b>check out this video here.</b> <b>I know that I'm referencing out to a lot</b> <b>of videos so far</b> <b>throughout this tutorial,</b> <b>but that's to keep this video</b> <b>from being over an hour long.</b> <b>And if anything, take it as proof that</b> <b>when I teach you</b> <b>something on this channel,</b> <b>it is an actual technique that I use</b> <b>myself and not just something</b> <b>I'm coming up with for clicks.</b> <b>But now we can move on to talking about</b> <b>the generative compositional aspects of</b> <b>the song because there is a lot of cool</b> <b>things to talk about there.</b> <b>So the generative nature of this track is</b> <b>happening on both the</b> <b>macro and the micro level.</b> <b>Let's start on the macro level and then</b> <b>we'll move inward towards the micro.</b> <b>I haven't discussed session view a whole</b> <b>ton on this channel, but one of the</b> <b>coolest features about</b> <b>it is follow actions.</b> <b>And if I select any of the scenes in this</b> <b>production, we'll see that all of them</b> <b>have a follow action set up,</b> <b>in which after it plays once, it will</b> <b>randomly move to any of the other scenes.</b> <b>And considering we're working at a tempo</b> <b>of 50 beats per minute, one measure is</b> <b>plenty of time for each scene to play.</b> <b>Additionally, on the macro level, I have</b> <b>this track labeled LFOs and its only</b> <b>function in the production is to house</b> <b>the LFOs that are being used to control</b> <b>the fader levels for</b> <b>each of the audible tracks.</b> <b>And I could have housed these LFOs on the</b> <b>individual tracks themselves, but this</b> <b>track then becomes a</b> <b>generative mixing console of sort.</b> <b>And I can use these level controls and</b> <b>the rate to make sure that they are</b> <b>balanced against one another in so much</b> <b>as I can control that</b> <b>in a generative process.</b> <b>And you'll maybe notice that I have every</b> <b>instrument group listed here that I</b> <b>talked about with the</b> <b>exception of my sub bass.</b> <b>And that's actually a great place to</b> <b>start talking about the micro.</b> <b>The whole reason why the sub bass is not</b> <b>being automated is because if we open up</b> <b>one of the midi clips for the sub,</b> <b>we will see that all of the midi notes in</b> <b>the upper right have</b> <b>these little triangles.</b> <b>And that means that I am using some sort</b> <b>of chance probability that is</b> <b>less than 100% for each note,</b> <b>meaning that even though the note is</b> <b>sequenced, it isn't guaranteed</b> <b>to trigger every single time.</b> <b>Editing the chance of each note is</b> <b>actually quite easy.</b> <b>You just go to the chance editor down</b> <b>here, which appears</b> <b>below your velocity editor.</b> <b>And if this isn't visible for you, if</b> <b>you're following along, you just need to</b> <b>click this little triangle here and a</b> <b>drop down will show up</b> <b>where you can select chance.</b> <b>Now, normally this is the time in which I</b> <b>would play an example for you, but</b> <b>because the probability is set to 4%,</b> <b>the likelihood of me hitting play and</b> <b>getting this for you without having to</b> <b>have it loop for a few</b> <b>minutes is pretty slim.</b> <b>Now I'm using this technique with chance</b> <b>probability all over this production.</b> <b>On walk in the woods, if I play just this</b> <b>first clip here, we'll see that in this</b> <b>chord, I have every single</b> <b>note set to a 20% probability,</b> <b>which means that it's not always going to</b> <b>play the four note chord.</b> <b>In fact, it's very rarely going to play</b> <b>the four note chord.</b> <b>Instead, it's going to give me these one</b> <b>or two note combinations, and that helps</b> <b>to keep things fresh.</b> <b>[music]</b> <b>And coupled with the volume automation</b> <b>from the LFO, we can hear that even</b> <b>though the sound is subtle,</b> <b>it is lively and it's evolving.</b> <b>One of the main reasons why I find chance</b> <b>probability so useful is that it ensures</b> <b>that every time a scene is</b> <b>repeated, it is different.</b> <b>The strings are different,</b> <b>the pad is different, etc.</b> <b>And chance probability allows you to</b> <b>create variety not by adding more things</b> <b>to your production,</b> <b>but by taking them away,</b> <b>which is a criminally underused technique</b> <b>in music production.</b> <b>And speaking of getting more out of less,</b> <b>let me show you a really</b> <b>cool arpeggiator trick.</b> <b>On this piano track, I have an instance</b> <b>of expression control that is randomizing</b> <b>the synced rate of the</b> <b>arpeggiator that follows it.</b> <b>But then the output of the arpeggiator is</b> <b>triggering this</b> <b>second expression control,</b> <b>and that is changing the band within</b> <b>which this rate is being set.</b> <b>So it's modulating</b> <b>that rate in real time.</b> <b>Additionally, I'm using the first</b> <b>expression control to randomize the</b> <b>steps, distance, and gate</b> <b>value of the arpeggiator.</b> <b>And because it's scale aware, every time</b> <b>it steps away from the chord, it is</b> <b>sticking with the scale that I am using</b> <b>for this production.</b> <b>And as a result, you get these really</b> <b>cool wandering arpeggios, which can sound</b> <b>something like this.</b> <b>I'm using this on both of my acoustic</b> <b>instrument tracks, so the arpeggios are</b> <b>always interesting and meandering, but</b> <b>they are never</b> <b>repetitive in any single way.</b> <b>[MUSIC]</b> <b>And when you take it all together, you're</b> <b>going to get a piece of music that will</b> <b>never be the same</b> <b>across any two measures.</b> <b>[MUSIC]</b> <b>If you've enjoyed listening to this song,</b> <b>I've uploaded a one hour study mix here.</b> <b>Thank you so much for watching.

Please</b> <b>consider liking,</b> <b>subscribing, and leaving a comment.</b> <b>I'm working really hard to grow this</b> <b>channel, and it is your support entirely</b> <b>that makes it possible.</b> <b>Till next time.</b>