This is the new shit…

OK. So probably a couple of years ago now I posted about my eventual aim to get Suburban Acid Saturation up and moving again, following a bit of an extended hiatus from life getting in the way…

Now it it time to update and unveil what is going on.

Over the last few months I have been auditing my equipment and working methods and working out how to effectively streamline the live set into something that I can get out and about and take places.

My aim was always to find a balance between a hardware and software based set – I love my knobs and flashing lights, but it was becoming increasingly hard work to shift everything about, largely because when you start using 36+ channels in a hardware setup things become heavy and cumbersome, and take a decade to set up. To this end I wanted a kind of modular system, something which could if needed be contained within a laptop, but I could add hardware to as I needed. I also wanted to integrate some of my older studio tunes which exist as audio parts only into these sets.

So I have made some purchases. The first of these is a new i5 Laptop, which is now running Ableton  (I guess it might be time to change the mission lol). The second is a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 audio interface, which I can honestly say is the best £400 I have ever spent.

This lets me bring the key components of my hardware set into the box for mixing, and also route audio out to effects or filters from the live synths before it comes back into the mix.

So, what have I been up to. The first job has been painstakingly saving all the midi parts from my old hardware sequencers, alongside audio recordings of those parts being played.  The next has been taking the audio stems from studio recording, and cutting these into suitable loops.

Now comes the fun part. By lining up the midi and audio tracks in pairs, I am able to use whichever part I want in the set. If I am taking the hardware I can use it. If not I have the frozen audio parts there and ready to take their place.

I have a way to go on this, and eventually this will include bringing drum sounds from my hardware drum machines into software samplers and so on.  I would like to bump up the inputs to the Laptop to the full 18 with an ADAT interface – this will mean I can shoot sound in and out and through my hardware boxes and FX in the studio for some serious mashing.

But small steps. Expect a new set soon, blending the twisted hard dance of Simulacra (now 10 years old, Wow!) with the hardware acid techno of the live set, and a few more ideas – think psytrance on PCP, with less sweeps and wibbles, but plenty of twisted basslines and hooks over a relentless jackhammer percussive background. And guitars. Always more guitars…