Making Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff • Hacker News Board

Re: Making Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff

#11

Post by joezydeco » Thu, Dec 24, 2009, 4:44 PM UTC

tumult wrote: post #5

joezydeco wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Those that love law or sausage shouldn't watch either being made"...but in this case, extremely fascinating. But how much of this technology existed in 1997? How did Prodigy really make the track?

Mostly hardware rack samplers. I think Liam used (uses?) Akai S1100 or a similar model. You play in chunks of audio to them, trim the waveform to the part you need, optionally build a keyboard-split/layered patch with it, and then play it via MIDI. They also have some envelopes for pitch modulation and other stuff you can use. You can do this with sounds you make yourself (The Prodigy frequently samples their own syn…

Exactly my point. This stuff was way harder without all these nice comfy ProTools and ACID GUIs. The keyboards never had interfaces that were easy to use when doing things like trimming waveforms. Must have been hella tedious.

Re: Making Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff

#12

Post by transmit101 » Thu, Dec 24, 2009, 5:11 PM UTC

The producer here is clearly talented, but the fact remains that notwithstanding Liam Howlett's setup in the late nineties, today's most basic music production software is a country mile more powerful than that which produced some of the most memorable music of the last twenty years.

I often think that there exists a clear analogy between electronic music and video games. The computer games of the 80s and early 90s possessed a simplicity and level of fun - often characterised as playability - which was to a certain extent lost when the exponentially-increasing power of hardware in the late 90s led to programmers to concentrate on all encompassing 3D effects at the expense of simple fun.

Likewise, I feel that many musicians today get too caught up in the neverending technical possibilities offered by their software (and digital hardware) at the expense of good, simple music which hits a spot close to the heart.

All the gear, but no idea - to coin a phrase.

I'm not sure what you'd call the musical equivalent of playability, but I think more musicians should bear it in mind. :)

Re: Making Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff

#13

Post by zandorg » Thu, Dec 24, 2009, 5:31 PM UTC

I once thought Prodigy used mod trackers (those in-game chip tunes), but I found out they just use loads of Roland equipment.

After years of using soft samplers and synths, I recently moved into a bigger house and set aside a whole room for my music studio. With that much space, I now have:

+2 Akai S950 samplers (with enough memory for about 16 drums)

+3 mixing desks (2 vintage, one newer - the Yamaha vintage makes everything sound great

+Already had an Oberheim Xpander and a Bit 1, and a Crumar Toccata organ

+2 outboard compressors, UC200 chorus pedal

+Laptop with 192khz soundcard to master and sequence MIDI

My basic tactic is to make the entire track sequenced - recording only vocals and the non-MIDI Crumar Toccata - and then record it straight from the desk. A hardware mixer mixes better than Cubase can mix.

So overall, the older equipment was harder to use, but to my ears, sounded more 'real' than computer instruments. But I'm not in any way saying a music setup is 'better', just different, and sometimes different is what you want.

Re: Making Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff

#14

Post by thechangelog » Thu, Dec 24, 2009, 5:32 PM UTC

transmit101 wrote: post #12

The producer here is clearly talented, but the fact remains that notwithstanding Liam Howlett's setup in the late nineties, today's most basic music production software is a country mile more powerful than that which produced some of the most memorable music of the last twenty years. I often think that there exists a clear analogy between electronic music and video games. The computer games of the 80s and early 90s p…

"All the gear, but no idea - to coin a phrase."

Love it. I think this is a universal rule. I've seen it apply to music (electric guitarists with their pedals), graphic design (with Adobe CS), renovations (shiny tools) and conversation (superlative vocabulary).

Re: Making Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff

#15

Post by transmit101 » Thu, Dec 24, 2009, 5:39 PM UTC

thechangelog wrote: post #14

transmit101 wrote: post #12

The producer here is clearly talented, but the fact remains that notwithstanding Liam Howlett's setup in the late nineties, today's most basic music production software is a country mile more powerful than that which produced some of the most memorable music of the last twenty years. I often think that there exists a clear analogy between electronic music and video games. The computer games of the 80s and early 90s p…

"All the gear, but no idea - to coin a phrase." Love it. I think this is a universal rule. I've seen it apply to music (electric guitarists with their pedals), graphic design (with Adobe CS), renovations (shiny tools) and conversation (superlative vocabulary).

Totally agree.

Re: Making Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff

#16

Post by andr » Thu, Dec 24, 2009, 5:43 PM UTC

agazso wrote: post #4

I am curious how he found the original songs whose samples are mixed into the song. I guess in an interview the authors told about it, but hard to believe that he recognized those pieces by ear.

In the sleeves of most CDs you can find a list of credits for every track, which include people that took part in the production, as well as other songs that were sampled in the track. There are also databases online which show what song samples what.

Re: Making Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff

#17

Post by alain » Thu, Dec 24, 2009, 5:52 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #7

Back when Prodigy did this in the late 1990's they must have used tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment... samplers, synths, sequencers, filters, etc... Today, the entire thing can be done in a single piece of software. Wow.

Actually he uses a lot of software. There's ableton + several vst plugins like ozone izotope, waves L2, waves GTR : it still costs thousands of dollars...

Re: Making Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff

#18

Post by agazso » Thu, Dec 24, 2009, 5:53 PM UTC

andr wrote: post #16

agazso wrote: post #4

I am curious how he found the original songs whose samples are mixed into the song. I guess in an interview the authors told about it, but hard to believe that he recognized those pieces by ear.

In the sleeves of most CDs you can find a list of credits for every track, which include people that took part in the production, as well as other songs that were sampled in the track. There are also databases online which show what song samples what.

Thanks, now that you are saying I remember what a CD looked like :) Seriously, it was so long I had a CD in my hand I didnt't think about that.

Re: Making Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff

#19

Post by apu » Thu, Dec 24, 2009, 5:56 PM UTC

That was amazing to watch. I have often wondered how awesome it would be to see great hackers at work in a similar way. I've had the luck to watch one or two sit next to me and work (during school), and it's mind-blowing how fast they are, and how they go about fleshing out a quick skeleton into a full piece of work.

Now with software like Etherpad, I wonder if soon we'll have screencasts of the making of great code.

Re: Making Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff

#20

Post by adw » Thu, Dec 24, 2009, 6:09 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #11

tumult wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly hardware rack samplers. I think Liam used (uses?) Akai S1100 or a similar model. You play in chunks of audio to them, trim the waveform to the part you need, optionally build a keyboard-split/layered patch with it, and then play it via MIDI. They also have some envelopes for pitch modulation and other stuff you can use. You can do this with sounds you make yourself (The Prodigy frequently samples their own syn…

Exactly my point. This stuff was way harder without all these nice comfy ProTools and ACID GUIs. The keyboards never had interfaces that were easy to use when doing things like trimming waveforms. Must have been hella tedious.

You can do a lot of it by ear on an Akai or the like...