By Francis Preve
Back in the old days, before Ableton's Beat Repeat and iZotope Stutter Edit made Guinness Book-grade edits a matter of algorithm design, producers would create stutter edits by hand, slicing and re-editing recorded leads to create intricate rhythms-within-rhythms and clever turnarounds. While today’s software tools offer countless new ways to glitch up your leads, the “set it and forget it” approach can often lead to predictable or even sterile results—no matter how cool the preset is. For “Servo,” the debut single of my new project Sentinels, we decided to go back to the future in creating the main hook.
Step 1.
First, I sequenced the Moog riff using Ableton. The truly unique thing about the lead is that the MIDI data consists of a single note, C. Every bit of the melody is derived from pitch-bend automation. This is far more precise than relying on glide or LFOs for creating swoops, and the time was well spent since it allowed for much more control.
Step 2.
I recorded the Moog, adding a few alternate takes so that my colleague Billy Jay had enough material on which to work his editing magic. Every time he created a cool four- or eight-bar series of edits, we consolidated (rendered) the result and color-coded it. By the end of the marathon editing session, we had 15 to 20 chunks of audio that we could then arrange and further re-edit as needed.
Step 3.
We added tightly automated effects like reverb bursts and bits of delay—similarly to my collaborations with Wolfgang Gartner, “Yin” and “Yang.” The combination of unusual Moog sequencing, painstaking re-editing, and detailed effect automation results in a lead that just wouldn’t have had the same vibe if we let cool software do all the work. All in all, the lead alone took three full days of studio work, but we’re pretty sure it was worth it.
12-2011 KNOW: Stutter Editing by KeyboardMag
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