
Making Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" in Ableton by Jim Pavloff - messel
http://www.victusspiritus.com/2009/12/24/making-prodigys-smack-my-bitch-up-in-ableton-by-jim-pavloff/
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transmit101
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. :)

~~~
chrischen
I think we still see innovation in games, but what's happened is there are
also more clones. So every year we get a bunch of first person shooters, that
are more or less the same type of game but with different storylines,
graphics, and environments. So this drowning by copycat games makes it seem as
if innovative new games are not being produced as much anymore.

~~~
ido
It has always been this way (at least as far as I can remember, I've had a PC
since '86), you just don't remember the 1,000,000th space
invader/pacman/tetris clone.

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zandorg
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.

~~~
messel
Will forward these comments to my brother. He's a long time digital producer
although I'd be hard pressed to get him to mix together
ambient/electronic/d&b/whateverIlove.

Sounds like a pretty sick and expensive setup. Nice job putting it all
together.

~~~
zandorg
Actually, I bought the mixer after I couldn't split about 10 signals to the
soundcard any more! I had splitters going into splitters and it was a mess.

Then the mixer I bought had FX inputs, so I bought the outboard FX units. Then
I read about the S950 and bought 2 . They have 8 outputs which you can run
through a mixing desk and EQ, adjust gain and volume, and even put an FX unit
on a drum.

The great thing is all this equipment was bought on eBay in just a couple of
months.

I put together a spreadsheet of the costs. The Akai's, mixers and effects
units came to about £1000. The Xpander wasn't cheap, but I bought that in
2004. The organ was about £200 including postage.

But the point is, you can build a retro studio quite cheaply and experiment.

~~~
brunoc
I'm impressed that you still use hardware samplers. It's pretty much the first
thing that I would think of replacing with a computer (quasi unlimited
sampling memory, unlimited storage, etc). I have a S2000 somewhere, gathering
dust...

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apu
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.

~~~
messel
So much passion, focus and energy get's funneled into one life of the legends.

Humbling to watch epic artists at work. There's nothing in my life that has
ever held a candle to the master level creators. It doesn't stop me from
trying though.

------
agazso
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.

~~~
Keyframe
I am curious how does this work business wise? Since there are quite a lot of
samples from other artists/songs, who gets paid how and how much in order to
release something like this to the market?

~~~
hack_edu
Rights-clearing in electronic music and hip hop is usually quite complicated.
Taking a beat or riff from a song is fair game, as it could not in any way be
claimed to serve as a replacement for the original work. Often though, big
named folks like Kanye West or Daft Punk will clear their samples before
releasing, just in case.

I believe the payment is a flat rate, through rights clearing houses and the
artists' agents.

~~~
Keyframe
Do you have any more info on this perhaps? I know when I'm working on a TV
show or basically anything that will get screen time I have to work out
through sheets of paperwork where I list every single sound item in the video,
including main background track(s), background noise tracks (imagine a distant
bg music from a radio down the street) etc. I have to list Name of the track,
artist that played it (since it doesn't have to be an original author - I
guess they somehow settle that on tier 2 then), basically any music that is
longer than 8 beats - but common dogma is to include those also, just in case.
It's very tedious process and I hate it, since when I shoot some scene where I
don't have a total control over environment I basically have to know which
song is playing by whom from a few seconds byte. Sometimes I just don't use
great footage because I couldn't identify the song playing in the bg.

As I understand (I have to check it) those sheets are then handled by legal
dpt. in production company that sends that sheet to the authors union of sorts
in whichever country this show is played in and they send the bill either to
the TV house or production house, or sometimes both based on total songs
played in that month or something like that. It's hell. It gets even more
complicated when the product is to be standalone (as in a movie or show that
gets sold around).

I also vaguely remember legal dpt. used/uses some sort of online database with
all possible songs/authors from various distributors where they can pay and
clear rights via them. I'm not sure if this still exists, if not - there's a
great startup idea _nudge_ nudge* for someone here.

~~~
messel
That sounds like a system in SERIOUS need of hacking to improve usability.

~~~
vdm
You are correct. Moreover, from talking to people who work therein, I get the
impression that broadcast production is full of such systems, with
overengineered unhelpful software if any.

------
swombat
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.

~~~
mikeryan
Even in the late 1990s they had powerful audio editing software. The first
version of ProTools came out in 1991 and there were a ton of cheaper tools as
well.

I'm not saying they didn't do this on thousands of dollars of equipment but in
1997 there's nothing you saw on this video that couldn't be done on a single
piece of software (ok maybe two) even then. It wasn't the dark ages.

And get off my lawn.

~~~
texel
You still couldn't chop audio nearly this easily, or move it around visually
like you can in Ableton. Most of the manipulations were probably done in the
sampler, so they all had to be done by ear, and sequenced out using MIDI. I
think the big time-saver now is the "elastic" audio capability built into
modern sequencers, allowing you to easily realign transients within the audio.

~~~
mikeryan
Yes you could, both Cubase and SoundForge we're ~$500 products that would
allow you to do multitrack editing like this on a PC.

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samuarl
This article goes into a bit of detail on some of the gear and a few pictures
of the setups used by Liam Howlett, post 'Fat of the Land' at least.

<http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Oct04/articles/prodigy.htm>

~~~
dgallagher
Liam Howlett used Reason (among other things) to make Always Outnumbered,
Never Outgunned. I'm not sure what was used for their latest work, Invaders
Must Die, but it's likely similar software given their live setups for the
last few years have been powered by several Macbook Pro's (along with other
equipment).

Truly a master at his craft though. Here's a hacker who started making
professional electronic music mostly the old way in the early 1990's, and has
successfully transitioned into the digital age. If you've listened to Prodigy
long enough, you end up coming across music they sampled in the most unlikely
of places. It's like an endless easter egg hunt. I can't even begin to imagine
how dynamic Liam's record library is.

BTW, if you've never seen them live before, you don't know what you're
missing. Seen them three times already and they easily outshine NIN, Manson,
and Rob Zombie in terms of live energy. The type of crowd they attract is
energetic and intense. But bring a pair of earplugs if you don't want to go
deaf. ;)

Edit: Check out Nekosite if you want to know more about the band:
<http://nekosite.co.uk/>

------
bocalogic
Most of the names mentioned here are brand name, well known musicians.
However, thousands of people use Pro Tools and Ableton to create amazing
music.Problem is you do not know about them. Only the heavyweights get the big
marketing.

As mentioned, the same can be said for the gaming industry, or any other
industry. Technology has pushed the cost lower and created opportunity for the
lowest common denominator.

The problem with "audio" in general is that it is taken for granted. MP3's on
ipods sound terrible. CD's have replaced vinyl character. High end speakers
have been replaced with Bose. Deflation in audio, like many other industries.

Using Pro Tool and/or Ableton is not easy and takes a lifetime to master.

As a career, like most others industries, the bids are going to lowest bidder
with mediocre experience.

Audio is so important and often neglected.

Happy Holidays to All!

~~~
whatusername
Damn kids get off my lawn! The problem with "audio" is all this recorded music
stuff. Real music is played by musicians. Why do people think that a shiny
little disc or (even worse) bits on a hard-drive could ever replace that.

:)

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dmose
Props for this link. These guys were true pioneers that pretty much started
the whole 'rave scene' back in the 90's. I saw them live in Toronto once,
fantastic show.

~~~
hnhg
I'm by no means an expert on rave but you're definitely wrong about them
starting the whole scene.

~~~
radley
Actually, it's pretty fair to presume that they were pioneers of rave. True
they weren't big at the same time as the Happy Mondays, Primal Scream, or
Westbam, but they were releasing tracks as early as '91:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prodigy>

And unlike their predecessors, their production is far more in line with the
rave sound and iconography that any other group of that era.

~~~
hnhg
They were around from the beginning but they had a lot of contemporaries too.
Like I said, I'm not an expert but rave culture arguably got going in 89 with
the rising popularity of house and then techno (this still sounds fresh from
89 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6musPMSe24Q>)

Around 90 and 91 it moved to a focus on more hardcore techno and breakbeat. Mr
Kirk's Nightmare by 4Hero was around 1990, which sounds quite primitive now
but quickly spawned records like those produced by NRG, Prodigy and G Double
E. Prodigy were part of a much wider scene but had the talent and music to go
mainstream.

Apologies to anyone if I've got this wrong. I was about 10 back then but I
have plenty of friends who lived through it (and indeed were DJs back then!)
so I've picked up a lot.

Here are some tracks from 91 and 92 that I can recall as being representative
of the scene:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCoCTkC0oL0&feature=fvw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCoCTkC0oL0&feature=fvw)
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mRIW4ZHHCg>
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS2w6o2llHQ>

~~~
radley
No worries. I was actually producing my first underground events back in '90
in San Diego. Obviously I wasn't in the middle of the makers, but I was
moderately aware of what was going on.

We didn't really have "techno" & "breakbeat" until '91, but there were hints
of it. Meat Beat Manifesto were doing industrial breaks using the drum samples
that came into popularity later on. I don't have time to go into history, but
there's also the US techno influences that came into play in '90.

I can share one story: back in '89 hanging on in a tiny record shop in San
Diego known for industrial, new beat, and dance music. They got in some
domestic imports. We gave them a listen and thought "these are really great,
but where are the lyrics?"

~~~
hnhg
It would have been great to see those early events in San Diego. I'm very
envious! One thing we did have back in the early 90s here in Manchester was a
great radio station called Sunset (it quickly became a commercial mainstream
station, alas). Some shows can be found here:
<http://durftal.com/music/bonus1/index.html>

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Scott_MacGregor
Great song, I have seen these guys live more than once. I never realized that
it was mixed like this. Very interesting post. The mixer is a very talented
guy indeed.

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bengl
It could to without those people popping up all over the place. Other than
that, awesome reconstruction of an awesome song.

~~~
joezydeco
"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?

~~~
tumult
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 synthesizers) or to anything you play in.

The sequencing would have been done with a hardware sequencer (unlikely) or a
PC tracker or MIDI sequencer (more likely.) Record the outputs onto tape for
mixing at the studio.

~~~
joezydeco
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.

~~~
teeja
Especially back when most CPUs were about 200MHz tops, drives were _much_
smaller, and turning on a single reverb brought everything to a screaming
halt. (Freezing trax was not an option.)

One of the better DAWs at the time was Opcode's Vision (still is, tho they
went out of business back then)(Live didn't exist, Pro Tools didn't have MIDI
worth mentioning) and the first decent plug-ins were just being released...
nothing worked together and crashes were frequent.

Very tedious ... not to dis _this_ production which is madly skilled. I'm
still not convinced that Prodigy did all that in software.

~~~
goatforce5
Here's Herbie Hancock demonstrating a Fairlight CMI synth/sampler on Sesame
Street in '84-ish:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKoisNv1ftw&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKoisNv1ftw&feature=related)

