Electronic Music Technology - Deep Dive 5

There are many ways to create techno, but the vast majority will depend upon the use of loop-based step sequencing as a compositional method.  Techno musicians, or producers, rather than employing traditional compositional techniques, may work in an improvisatory fashion, often treating the electronic music studio as one large instrument. The collection of devices found in a typical studio will include units that are capable of producing unique timbres and effects but technical proficiency is required for the technology to be exploited creatively. Studio production equipment is generally synchronized using a hardware- or computer-based MIDI sequencer, enabling the producer to combine, in one arrangement, the sequenced output of many devices. A typical approach to utilizing this type of technology compositionally is to overdub successive layers of material while continuously looping a single measure, or sequence of measures. This process will usually continue until a suitable multi-track arrangement has been produced. There can be as many layers as the composer requires with today’s software such as Fruit Loop Studio.


Once a single loop based arrangement has been generated, a producer may then focus on developing a temporal framework. This is a process of dictating how the summing of the overdubbed parts will unfold in time, and what the final structure of the piece will be. Some producers achieve this by adding or removing layers of material at appropriate points in the mix. Quite often, this is achieved by physically manipulating a mixer, sequencer, effects, dynamic processing, equalization, and filtering while recording to a multi-track device. Other producers achieve similar results by using the automation features of computer-based digital audio workstations. Techno can consist of little more than cleverly programmed rhythmic sequences and looped motifs combined with signal processing of one variety or another, frequency filtering being a commonly used process.


In recent years, as computer technology has become more accessible and music software has advanced, interacting with music production technology is now possible using means that bear no relationship to traditional musical performance practices: for instance, laptop performance (laptronica) and live coding. In the last decade a number of software-based virtual studio environments have emerged, with products such as Propellerhead's Reason andAbleton Live finding popular appeal. These software-based music production tools provide viable and cost-effective alternatives to typical hardware-based production studios, and thanks to advances in microprocessor technology, it is now possible to create high quality music using little more than a single laptop computer. Such advances have democratized music creation, leading to a massive increase in the amount of home-produced music available to the general public via the internet. Artists can now also individuate their sound by creating personalized software synthesizers, effects modules, and various composition environments. Devices that once existed exclusively in the hardware domain can easily have virtual counterparts. Some of the more popular software tools for achieving such ends are commercial releases such as Max/Msp and Reaktor and freeware packages such as Pure Data, SuperCollider, and ChucK.


Let’s elaborate a bit more about some of the techno effects that are quite commonly used in this genre of music:


The term “echo” was used more often in the early days, and is sometimes used today to refer to the distinct and distant repeats of a signal, while “delay” refers to anything from the same, to the short repeats heard as reverb, to the complex, long, manipulated repeats of an intricate digital delay line. Either way, they are both really the same thing, just used differently. All these effects had their origin with guitar add-in hardware that is still in use. The techno world uses software that allows you apply this to any electronic sound that is computer generated.


An example of delay effect:





Digital reverbs, like their sibling delays, offer more power and a greater variety of settings. And in addition to doing some approximations of spring reverb sounds, digital units usually offer more “lifelike” reverberation as heard in anything from an empty room to a large concert hall. Some of Raja’s recent work use digital reverb effects extensively. For example, the track ‘Rangu Rangu’ from Prem Kahani (2009 Kannada) uses reverb extensively with the Irish violins playing the preludes and the interludes.


A very nice example of violin reverb processing:








Here is an example of reverb with guitar: 

Phasers split the signal and shift one path out of phase by from 0 to 360 degrees through the entire range of the frequency spectrum, and blend it back with the dry path so the moving in-phase/out-of-phase relationship can be heard. When the two signals are totally out of phase—at 180 degrees (or, technically, 540 degrees or 900 degrees, etc, because the shift keeps moving)—they cancel each other out, creating what is called a “notch”. But a number of factors interact to give a phaser its characteristic “swooshing” sound. If you recall our example of ‘Shwashathin Thalam’ from Achuvinte Amma (2005 Malayalam), (this song is discussed in the Techno baroque melody post) some of the synth bass is processed using the Phaser effect to achieve the rapid change to the synth bass signal at the end of the charanam (this is my theory).


An example of a guitar based Phaser effect: 

Usually considered the big brother to the phaser, the flanger is indeed related in a sense, but achieves its heavier, some would say more oppressive sonic results by imposing more control over its placement of the notches created by the phase relationship, rather than spacing them evenly as the phaser’s sweep does. 


An example of guitar based flanger effect: 

True vibrato, as distinct from the volume-chopping tremolo effect often mislabeled as such, is an actual wavering of the note above and below pitch to create a sort of harmonious “wobbling” effect.  Digital vibrato tries to create harmonics and filter them out selectively to create a vibrato effect using software.


Fade In, Fade Out are facilities available with most software packages today. These effects make the signal volume rapidly swing from one end to the other creating a volume fading. For example, the track ‘Ishtakkari’ from Sooryan (2007 Malayalam) uses this effect extensively. Though we are discussing electronic music, here is an acoustic fade out, nicely demonstrated:

A piano, cello based acoustic example of brilliant acoustic fade out...

Distortion came from the world of electric guitars where using pedals, guitarists fuzzed up the raw signal. With software filters, it is easy to introduce distortion of one or more channels. This produces a ‘buzz’ like sound which is distinct from the synth bass sound. Distortion effects are quite common with Raja’s recent compositions. All the tracks of Cheeni Kum (2007 Hindi) use digital distortion effects as you will hear a hiss accompanying the keys work.


Here is a good demo of electronic distortion, though the melody is terrible:





There are several more custom effects depending on the software package you consider. Most Indian music for films will have several manual and MIDI inputs that are custom created for the track. 

1. The techno effects are primarily used to enhance the manual work. 
2. Several tracks have percussion, synth bass, synth strings, rhythm added to the track. Interludes get played either on independent keyboard or gets added to the track by way of additional tracks on the AWS itself. 
3. In my view, Raja continues to have them played separately on synthesizers and the MIDI input is mixed at the AWS. The key result of the techno effects on synthesized or manual instruments is the obfuscation of instrument timbres. 
4. The overdubbing of synth work over manual instruments was done even in the hardware synthesizer days by Raja. However, the software overdubbing with some additional techno effects leads to further difficulty in identifying instruments as they all become inseparable even with good quality recording. 
5. When you throw a 100 track (software tracks) to a 24-track studio tape for the final cut, there is already some loss. When things go from a CD to MP3, things get worse.

Courtesy Wikipedia for some technical definitions