Nigel Sifantus » Drums

Progtronica presents: “Twisted Digits”

Nigel — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 23:13:41 +0000

I’ve never liked the modern emergence of “sub-genres”, the incessant need these days to boil down each kind of music into dozens of sub-categories. I have found that, although it provides a decent description of the sound of the music, rarely can music be so pigeonholed as to be put into a place that is so pre-defined. It also leads music fans to gravitate towards more music similar to what they already have heard rather than expanding their sonic horizons. I would never be the player I am today if I had this kind of mentality towards music “I like hard house but not deep house”. My approach through Progtronica is to take all of my influences and boil them into one succinct concept. Other than the basic forms of “electronic dance music” I have always has a secret love of progressive “math rock” and have played some form of that kind of music in many of my bands over the years. I had been looking for a way to do a tribute to this affinity in a Progtronica performance (mainly for my own self pleasure) since the beginning of the project. I can play a little guitar but mostly for making weird sonic feedback textures but then I found a secret weapon: the iPhone pocket guitar combined with Ableton Live 8’s new “Amp” and “Cabinet” effects. So I made this little ditty, switching from 7/8 to 6/8 with interweaving Don Caballero/King Crimson guitar lines all remixed live while playing the drums. This is a little bit different then my other recent videos but I like how it turned out and I’m sure you won’t find anyone using Ableton quite this way anywhere else.

Sidechaining with “The Stomp”

Nigel — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 05:24:46 +0000

After doing all the post production, polishing, and arraigning of all other logistical details for the release of the “Live For No One” EP, I’ve gotten back to exploring new production and performance techniques in Ableton Live. The most crucial of all of these has turned out the be the “sidechaining” of certain effects from some tracks within a song to other tracks, especially with compression. It is a technique that can range from extremely subtle and barely noticeable to quite pronounced and also can really change the feel and character of a song. More importantly, it makes the drums cut through the mix like a beast! In Ableton version 8, you can use this effect with Compression, Auto-Filter, and Gate, all of which can produce extremely cool sounds. The main technique I have been working on is grouping all the “ambient” tracks and applying sidechain compression to anything coming out of the drum tracks. Then I do the same with the Bass tracks but with slightly different ratio, attack, and release parameters. The result produces a pronounced movement between all the tracks, driven by the drums, which adds another element of rhythm to the music that is separate from the notes and sounds being played. This video “The Stomp” has a ton of compression sidechaining in this way and also a little of gate sidechaining which produces another great sound all together. In this track I am also live looping synths on my iPhone and mixing in a live produced beat using the Akai Mpd 24.

“After-Math”: a video dedicated to the internal and external volatility of the recent past

Nigel — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 05:41:25 +0000

Challenges and how we respond to them is large part of what makes us who we are. Of course everyone knows the cliché of “with crisis comes opportunity” but just what that opportunity is and how to execute it to its fullest potential is not always as clear cut. From an internal perspective the recent past has been filled with crises large and small that have resulted in improved situations, more complete understanding of those situations, creative inspiration and productivity. However, it was impossible without the cost of exhaustion, disappointment, and unpredictable levels of distress. This internal struggle has been reflected in the world at large with earthquakes, oil spills, economic and political upheaval, all of which have caused major shocks to the system for me personally as well as all else involved both directly and indirectly. All of these crises are at this moment determining what will happen with our lives and the world. Will we make the most of it? I feel like I have in my personal life but it took a lot of acceptance and action on things that were not ever easy. None of the world’s problems now are in any way easy either and I wonder if we humans as a collective have the guts to address them. I have seen too many individuals choose inaction over difficult choices with depressing results. When people work together they are capable of the most amazing as well as terrifyingly manipulative things. I hope that we can stand up to these challenges and restore a much needed combination of reason and fortitude to tackle what has occurred, and what has yet to come in 2011.

The debut Progtronica EP “Live For No One” is out and available for free preview!

Nigel — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 19:01:49 +0000

The time has finally come. The long awaited Progronica debut Ep has been officially released. In the coming weeks it will be available for all to purchase on iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Napster, and a host of other sites. In the meantime, I’m offering to preview and download for free the entire album. Check it out, pass it along, and watch out for the live Progtronica show coming to a venue near you.

130 Twisted Beats Live Mix

Nigel — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 00:17:21 +0000

I’ve been working on putting my newest tracks into my “Master Set” in Ableton Live so that they are performance ready. After an extremely long week (and long Saturday night to blow off some steam) I woke up ridiculously early and threw down this mix. It’s a bit raw but shows the new direction I’ve been headed with regards to tempo and sounds.

Progtronica Weekly Set #4

Nigel — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:25:48 +0000

Progtronica Ableton Live/Novation Launchpad weekly dj set. 2-11-20 by Progtronica

This week’s performance is the longest to date and has the most aggressive time signature changes. Here is the YouTube edit of the performance. To see the full thing visit this Vimeo link. Also I have provided the full audio to listen to here and download for free from soundcloud.

In other news, I’ve been experimenting with Ableton live’s “looper”effect which is loaded with live performance possibilities, but is also a tricky little animal. For those familiar with Ableton, a looper effect almost seems redundant since the whole program is based on looping. The effect, however, is a totally independent effect that works more like a “boomerang” guitar effect looper but is quantized to the tempo of the song. Using it I was able to do this little experiment creating a track with live layered drums. I haven’t yet totally figured out hot to have total control of this feature but I think is will work it’s way into my regular performance arsenal being that it is so dope nasty.

Progtronica Weekly Ableton DJ Series week 3. This Week with Live Drums.

Nigel — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:46:09 +0000

Progtronica Ableton Live Weekly DJ set Week 3, 2/11/10 by Progtronica

Performed on February 11th 2010, this is the 3rd installment of My “Progtronica Weekly Dj Performance Series”. All music created using Ableton live, mixed, re-sampled, edited, and mixed live using Novation’s Launchpad dedicated Ableton controller. This mix features the songs “The Beat Repeater” “Dreaming (feat beatboxing by Taylor McFerrin, Ryat and Shara Dae on vocals)”, “Progtronica 1 (with a small Cinematic Orchestra sample)”, and “Rolling with Strings” all from the upcoming album: “Progtronica – Live From Nowhere” due out later this spring. All the drum parts are recorded live me, then sampled, edited, and re-mixed. However, for this weeks broadcast there is some “real” live drumming mixed in to a couple of the tunes. All Live, all solo, all Raw! Progtronia weekly DJ Series 2010!

Progtronica Weekly DJ series part 2!

Nigel — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 19:39:42 +0000

Progtronica weekly Ableton DJ set part 2 – 2/4/10 by Progtronica

Here it is! Part 2 of the weekly Progtronica DJ series. This one is a little bit longer then the first one and incorporates a few new tunes. Featured in This week’s performance I mixed the tunes “Drum n bass for a Rainy day”, “Lets Face the music”, “Rolling with Strings” “Progtronica 2″ and part of “Progtronica 1″. The video in this post contains highlights from the 16 minute performance because with the restrictions of YouTube, I can only post 10 minutes of material. To hear the entire set click on the sound cloud player directly below the video. You can also download the mix for free. To do this simply click on the downward pointing arrow on the right of the waveform! Enjoy

Progtronica Weekly Dj Set Series Begins

Nigel — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:22:22 +0000

For the past 6 months or so I have been creating “Progtronica” tracks as solo performances using Ableton Live software and a few different controllers most notably the Novation Launchpad which has completely changed my musical approach. I have been creating music usually centering around samples of my own drumming mixed with found sounds musically based and otherwise, then manipulated them, re-sampled them, and arraigning them so that I could make live interpretations of my own composed music. I have been publishing these solo tracks as single song entities here on this site and on youtube, Vimeo, and now on Soundcloud where the tracks can be download for free (for the time being). The tracks I have compiled are in the process of being mixed, mastered and will soon be available as an album: Progtronica- Live From Nowhere.

My other main goal however, has been to find a way to perform more then just one track at a time, but to mix them together as a DJ and put on full sets of this music, complete with time signature and tempo changes. I have tried out several different techniques that all had some flaws in execution, but recently I had a lesson with LA based Ableton guru Thavius Beck who gave me a few key pointers that totally opened my mind to an approach that works. Many thanks to Thavius for giving me a few key pointers and understanding completely what I was going after. That was the first “music” lesson I had had in years!

So now I’m hard at work re-arraigning my tracks into one mega set that I can take into clubs and bring a totally new face and sound to electronica/breakbeat/drum n’ bass/ downtempo/whatever. In the meantime I am starting weekly DJ set broadcasts, the first of which is featured here with the full set available on soundcloud for streaming and free download! Performed on January 30 2010 on a full moon, this is the first full dj style Progtronica mashup. Featuring 5 songs from the upcoming Progtronica Album, ‘American Dream”, Progtronica 2, “Rolling with Strings”, “Progtronica, and “Lets Face the Music” are all mixed together live using Novation’s Launchpad.

Progtronica “Full Moon” dj style mega mix live 1/30/10 by Progtronica

This one is about 15 minutes long and is my first real attempt but I’m going to be doing these every week so in a little while this stuff should get pretty crazy. I also plan to get some live drums involved but for now I can create amazingly vast music with just my Laptop, a couple wires, and 2 little controllers. Kind of nice for a guy who’s lugged around a huge drum set, samplers, and midi controllers for years. Stay tuned…

The Beat Repeater video and Tutorial from Progtronica

Nigel — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:55:19 +0000

Over the winter break I spent time experimenting with mapping different effects on the Novation Launchpad using Ableton Live and stumbled upon this great technique to alter audio (mostly drum) loops live using this effect in real time using only the launchpad. It inspired me to create the video “The Beat Repeater” which featured this effect as well as some live drumming and many of my other Progtronica techniques.
After posting it I got many twitter inquiries on how I was executing this so I just posted this tutorial on just my special Progtronica Novation Launchpad “beat repeat” technique which will allow you to freak the beatz in real time a la squarepusher. Here is both the original video and the tutorial.