To avoid reposting on three different sites, I’m going to post my music productions in a notebook form as part of my Reckorder Project. If you fancy a listen, please check out the dedicated site http://project.reckorder.com which will house my own music productions and any useful stuff...

I was asked to edit the audio narration, put together the stills into an animation, and compile a suitable soundtrack for a recent Dramask project working with primary school pupils with special needs. Space Storm was made, devised, written and performed by pupils from Rookery Primary Schools...

Had the pleasure of working with pioneering community arts organisation Secret City Arts recently. This time it was for their Roots & Seeds project which explored the themes of putting down roots, being uprooted & seeking asylum with a wide range of participants from Tame Valley primary school.

I’ve just installed a great little app called Pocket. Its free, cross platform, easy to use and perfect for carrying around web pages you want to read offline. I love playing my guitar and especially learning how to play my favourite songs via the unlimited amount of free guitar tabs...

Very pleased to announce that the aforementioned album of remixes is now finished and available as a free download from Thursday 22nd November 2012 (albeit in a different form than the one i was anticipating!)

Omnisphere and Massive are two of my favourite synths both offering a pretty much unlimited pallete of depth and sonic exploration. With such depth comes a relative learning curve, so Producer Tech have created 3 online courses and sent alone 3 taster videos and a discount code for any...

Greetings and thanks for visiting my new website! Here’s a short overview and introduction of what the site is about and what it contains….

Had a go at a glitch hop track at the end of 2011 inspired by listening to some opiou, and here’e the result. Wanted to get that swing feel and some crunchy bass, nail a decent arrangement and give it enough space on the production. Very pleased with how it turned out, but  needed a...

One very powerful function in shaping a sound is the use of envelopes, although its something I’ve never  really utilised. Today i found a real clear & useful tutorial so thought id share it. This guy innerstatejt offers out loads of free tutorials and this just happens to be the...

Wicked tutorial from Reso breaking down how he makes those filthy bass lines Reso Production Masterclass Pt. 1 Reso Production Masterclass Pt....

I’ve had a fair bit of audio editing and soundtrack for community projects work over the last 12 months but havent been posting much of it. This recent one for Secret City arts was one where i learnt a lot about the history of our markets so thought it’d be a good one to share.

Very much looking forward to returning the Corby Cube in Corby to host a few more drop in Dj Workshops. Always get so much out of them in both the teaching and for my own practice, and was chuffed to see they’ve used some stills i sent from the footage i shot at their slam event last...

Here’s a cool tutorial with Mr Scruff taking us through his process of making a track Mr Scruff – Producer...

This project was mainly editing the audio recordings from a series of Dramask primary school workshops and adding some brian eno to add some ambience. Particpants in the workshops also created puppets and story board to be put into an audio/visual storyboard I put the audio to a selection of...

I was asked do put together a selection of images, into a short animation based on a script and edit & produce some recorded narration, for a lovely little project for community arts organisation Dramask. Pyn Stockman working with a KS2 group from Rookery ASD Resource Base to retell the...

This month’s tutorials feature a great breakbeat masterclass from Tommy D (Ctrlz Z/Skism) and a wicked free analyser which has really helped define that solid kick and the snare starting point, as well as mixing the kick and the bass so they sit well together. Following last months...

I’ve been working on an album of remixes recently, which will be made up of tracks from the last few years which i’m looking to put out as free downloads to all newsletter subscribers. I’m still very much a student, but i’ve collated 15 or so of the best ideas from...

As part of my Dj Narrative newsletter I put this post with 2 excellent video tutorial courses which have helped me a great deal in my own workflow so i thought id repost it on the Reckorder site now i’m carrying on building it. There are 2 free sessions though so you can see what there...

Dramask ran a series of workshops which explored various qualities of a hero with a range of primary school participants and i was bought in to create 3 final audio pieces for their end performance. The various audio accounts were recorded by Dramask in the workshops and then i edited them...

Off to Corby again this weekend for my second film shoot and a real nice dj gig at the other big date in the Core at Corby Cubes calender – The youth arts Slam! Not to be confused with the wrestling tournament of the same name, the Slam is a kind of big, end of project showcase...

I recently got myself a Canon 600d in order to take my filming and photography ambitions to the next level. The first outing was to get some good footage of my gig at Shambala Festival, but ive also been looking at filming events, and this weekend was my first commission with the new camera....

The Core at the Corby Cube celebrated its 1st birthday this weekend, with a huge event which bought together many of the contributers and artforms that have made up this last 12 months. It was a great event and i was on board delivering the dj & scratch drop in workshop which left me very...

Here would appear to be loads of ableton video tutorials \o/ They all seem to be from http://en.440tv.com/ and i assume that they’ve been very useful as they are all bookmarked so here are some of them A video on an Audio clip’s properties –...

So Tom Cosm is pretty much a Jedi of Ableton and an awesome teacher who shares all his stuff for free (coupled with a very cool way to make it all sustainable and grow) and this is a very innovative tutorial to get to another level of automation. This series of videos cover the use of the IAC...

Back from another very inspiring weekend hosting a Dj workshop for the lovely people at Lyric Lounge alongside my trusty compadre Tony from Blend Visuals This time the event was was held in a museum in a very picturesque part of the East Midlands. The wonderful hosts Catherine, Aimee &...

If ever there was a complete,  superb, and free guitar course then Justin Guitar.com would undoubtedly be it! \o/ I’m working my way through the beginners course at the moment and really enjoying it, but its worth noting that its gets into plenty of advanced stuff later and every lesson...

Back from another great weekend this time featuring two rather unusual happenings. The first was the rather sad news of an old bingo hall/cinema house which is fairly close to where we live being set on fire at some point on friday night. As we live fairly close we have, over the last few...

Just returned from a great weekend starting with an impromtu 11 hour dj gig / workshop with one half of Blend Av at the inspiring Northamptonshire based  arts centre – The Corby Cube. The Event was hosted by The Lyric Lounge and their lovely organisers Katherine & Aimee, who...

An audio soundtrack created for Secret City Arts 1st project which was exploring the canals around Brindley Place in Birmingham. This from the secret city website : “On a wintry weekend in February 2011, Secret City Arts invited the people of Birmingham to explore, discover, remember...

Following last years successful playscheme we (Dramask‘s drama workshops & my Reckorder music technology workshops) were asked back to do another one this year, this time focusing not on space but on the seaside. Similar to last year, Dramask ran the drama and i ran the music side,...

Ill Gates is a legend on the ableton forum and is the producer of my most favourite video tutorial which i posted on my website. This link is a fair bit earlier from the video but is very useful so i thought id post it as a seperate post in text form. Check his website for more. An exciter is...

A short extract to be performed at this years end of year performance Rookery School. The performance is a big collaboration of all students with Dramask and the teachers, and i was bought in to create this short piece similar to the Macbeth installation from last year. Here’s some info...

A story created by a group of special needs participants at a recent Dramask confidence building workshop at Brooke School. Here’s a little more info from Dramask “From September 2010 to July 2011 I spent one day a week working with students from Brooke School, initially as lead...

Dramask ran 3 awareness raising workshops with 3 schools as part of this years Celebrating Sanctuary and i was bought in to edit the spoken recordings and add music in order for the work to be played out as part of the Celebrating Sanctuary annual Festival. There were about 15 recordings and...

Mastering should generally be left to the professionals with it being an art untoitself however there are many things one can learn and develop in order to develop the final art of the production process and here are a few links i seem to have gathered along the way which may help shed some...

Recently I’ve spent weeks going through each of my samples in order to create a database that i could really use. For too long my ever growing sample library was becoming increasngly more of a hindrance to the workflow having to listen to too many samples and found i tended to go to the...

One of the things i always wanted to develop is my ability to work out the scale from a riff id made. On my search i found a great little app from for free which helps you find the scales on your guitar neck -http://cyberflotsam.com/phatphish/ Its free (although blatantly worthy of a...

May started and finished in two very different points, and bought about the aforementioned difficult choice, illustrated by this nice drawing that google has bought up, so for the benefit of my blog diary here’s the may drafts all in one suitably over-sized post. The month started with...

Been learning a lot about production recently and thought id have a go at producing a remix of M.I.A‘s Paper Planes track. Pretty pleased with how it turned out so thought id post it to see what other people thought. UPDATE – May 2012 – Added dload link to scloud for...

Ninja Tune’s talented producer Bonobo takes us through some great production techniques in this 3 part...

Performing as a live act is something i’ve only done for the first time recently, so this post will evolve as i learn more. Til then heres a few things that i’ve bookmarked which give a few different insights. How tom cosm & pitch black use ableton Live On Stage (And...

At our debut gig, two very talented individuals going by the names of Gregory Maximus Steel & Lkewis Hackett shot some footage, which has now been edited by the multi talented Acclaudian (who features in the video and plays with Klez Dennis) to create our 1st Slamboree promo video! Also...

So our first studio session of 2011 was with the hugely talented Mike Freear of Alphadrive fame and was a thoroughly enjoyable and very productive few weeks in the studio which resulted in the aforementioned Slamboree. Things are looking like they will be getting increasingly more hectic in...

In my work as a dj, i’ve had the opportunity to work pretty closely with various vjs over the 5/6 years, and its a collaboration i feel holds great potential. This is a brief post for now, but here’s a few links and things i’ve found which might be useful. Serato are...

A couple of useful videos for these two effects in Ableton Using Vocoder Using Beat...

Guitar rig is a quality effects rig for your guitar. I was pretty amazed by the sound when i heard my housemate rocking out with some of the presets, so here’s a few notes i wrote a long the way. Guitar Rig Setup Drop a version of guitar rig into the effects rack of an audio channel....

I really like the Thor synth in Reason but much prefer the sequencer of Ableton. Thanks to rewire you can use it how you like, and so for the unitiated here’s how. Load up ableton, then load up reason.  Midi in/record enable the track you want to play in reason In ableton select an...

Compression was a real mystery to me. Robin used to tell me of its importance but i could never get my head fully round it enough to use it in the early days. With that in mind i’ll do my best to pass on what i think it does. Compression basically gets your audio file and squashes it...

Eq is one of the most important effects in your arsenal because it allows you shape your sound and create space for it. All sequencers come with an eq and there are two types. One  is purely for boosting and cutting frequencies, and the other does that as well but also adds colour and...

Distortion i find most useful in making a drum break or a bass sound gritty. For drums it can really dirty up the beats and give them a nice old school breaks feel, and for bass distortion can give it that much needed character when creating sounds from scratch. Other than that i dont have...

Good scratching pretty much always sounds cool, and by far the best way is practicing and recording. However if you don’t have a turntable and/or havent mastered the art of scratching yet, there are a couple of options available. Like all sounds its not hard to find a decent scratch...

I’ve used various virtual synths over the years, and there’s a few that really stood out. Early ones were the pro 52 followed by the korg legacy, then a trial with atmosphere and the ever evolving in built ones in reason and ableton. Now i generally turn to Omnisphere though as...

If you’re producing your own music, there are (at least) two approaches to mixing down your music. Mixing while you go along and/or after you’ve arranged the track. I used to only look at mixing the tracks after i had an arrangement i was happy with, but nowadays i find that...

As with making a Phat Kick, making a great snare out of layering sample is a similar process though you can add more layer (i think 3 is plenty for kicks and a couple more max for snares). Again I generally look for snap, punch, and weight. Snares weight is around 200hz, and the snap is...

If you’re making electronic music you generally need a great kick and a great snare. A lot of work can go into making just those two elements in a lot of underground dance music tracks, but once you’ve got a few your happy with you can use them again so it’s worth spending...

Here’s a few useful tips for anyone starting with ableton from memeshift website...

Here’s our first free download from our new Slamboree band! A breaks remix of Prokofiev. Its hosted on Freear’s site til we get a premium account, but we’ll be posting all future tracks on our soundcloud account, and our Facebook page. Hope you enjoy and we’d love to...

Over the last few weeks i’ve been working with the very talented Freear on our aforementioned musical collaboration, and it’s resulted in a brand new live band called Slamboree! I should make clear that the road to Slamboree didnt start with our musical collaboration. My own...

I really like the launchpad as both a performance and compositional tool, and its proved really useful in djing and music workshops. However there are restrictions with it, so below are some of the useful links and solutions i’ve found along the way. In its normal form there is a great...

A nice little video tutorial on how to play a song i’ve always wanted to be able to. Here’s part one. And Part...

I’ve been taking 6/12 months off to get some groundwork done, so i can really concentrate on my music and djing in 2011, and i’m pleased to say there’s already 3 collaborations on the horizon, all of which i’m really looking forward to! One is with one of my favourite...

This is something that i really should have started way earlier. In all sequencers you can setup a template set, so that when you load a new song, you have all the tools you need to start. This took me a while to do i think because i was still working out my process, what i needed, how things...

There are thousands of useful tutorial sites for electronic music production out there, so i thought a seperate post which i can add to would be useful. Kind of like a blog roll. Feel free to add your own  in the comments below. A nice easy to remember website...

Once you’ve got a killer track how do you get it heard. The game is constantly changing in the social media world and i’m going to write a specific post on the topic, but i just wanted to share this email that i recently received from a local up and coming singer. She’s just...

Sidechaining was something that used to confuse me but then i saw an early video by Tom Cosm who simplified the process nicely. Basically sidechaining is using one audio source to trigger a compressor on another audio source or in more simple terms, it is normally used for making room for the...

One of Ableton 8′s features is a new improved Warping system. Its different from previous so i thought id post a very useful video from Medway studios There are a few great tutorials out there but this has really helped me in the past. Any more please do post them in the comments...

The FCB 1010 is a 10 pedal midi foot controller from Behringer. Its fully programmable so you can use it with any software. Took me a while to get my head around it, so here’s the useful links which helped me. As i mentioned in the guitar rig post there were two great video tutorials...

I’ve not delved into the world of Max for live as i dont have a copy but it is on the list as it seems to really open up the modular nature of ableton. It also seems quite complex so i thought id drop a few links to some help that i’ve perused and seem to have bookmarked Theres...

I’ve made various notes over the years whilst music making which i vowed to put up on the site. This is one of the first notes i made when trying out the lite version of ableton. They seem to be more things i like about ableton and so pretty obvious reading them now, but hopefully...

Nice little feature of cubase that i found really handy is the Play order function. When you’ve created sections and want to try out various arrangements, use the play order function to save copying and pasting. (Turn it on with that button above) and/or follow the instructions in this...

Gating is basically turning the sound on and off. In electronic music you can create some really cool effects with gating, and you can either use a plug in, or achieve the same thing by chopping up the audio. Chopping up the audio is straightforward and using as a plugin is described well in...

Here’s a few cubase tips and links i found useful when i used it. Think they may have took a while to find, so hope they prove useful at some point. Addressing Memory problems – http://forum.recordingreview.com/f23/memory-problems-11099/ Video tutorials on how to use cubase...

Didnt realise but ableton and cubase both offer pretty decent options when working with video, which open a whole new world of possibilities. I’m pretty new to this, but these are the useful links i’ve found. I’ll add more as i find them. Ableton Live Video Editing from Tom...

Vocals can really bring a track to life and there’s a load of ways you can use the most richest of instruments. Obviously a mic gives unlimited options from bringing in someone who can sing, or speaking through an effect, and once you’ve got any sort of recorded vocal audio, you...

For bass sounds there are two options i use nowadays. One is to use a vsti such as Trillian or Massive, and the other is using samples or loops. Loops are self explanatory and there are some amazing packs you can find full of cool stuff to cut up and make your own. Trillian is amazing for...

There are two three ways achieve that cool glitch effect/sound. Chopping up audio, resampling and using efx. All can be used to different effect, so here’s a bit about each one. Chopping up audio can be a very satisfying (and often lengthy) process. You can chop up anything you can...

The first portable controller keyboard i bought was remote 25 sl. I was particularly drawn the the automap features and the fact it had all the controls you could want. In reality the drum pads arent that useful and there are some things that have been improved in the newer version. Overall...

The nocturn is a really useful and affordable little midi controller. It can be used for basic dj functions, but i find it most useful in the studio. Using the automap software which comes with it, setup is pretty straightforward. Basically you open the automap version of the instruments and...

I use mainly use drum rack for my drums now due to its routing possibilities, but i used battery for a while and made some notes as i was getting used to it, so here they are for anyone who is looking to try it out. 1. Select soundcard (Asio Driver), Sample Rate, etc and Route outputs of...

When i first bought Omnisphere i watched all the tutorial videos which gave e all the necessary information to operate it. There’s a lot of videos so I wrote a few notes to help me remember the most useful bits. I’m not sure if they’ll be useful to others, but here they are...

I havent used this for a while, but i think its a great tool for manipulating loops and there’s loads of great new features with the more recent updates. Spectrasonics have all the tutorial videos covered on there site –...

Here’s a few things i noted down after i bought my tannoy reveals 1. Get some good ones. As much as you can afford. Active if possible (No need for amp) Do search for best info on the relevant forums 2. Get a decent pair of stands – This reduces the audible vibrations 3. Read some...

Chances are you’ve got plenty of sounds and instruments in your chosen sequencer, but what if you’re looking for a certain sound, loop or layer? Well there’s (at least) 3 options available. > Sample it from a record, find it on the web or make it yourself. The reason for...

I’ve always found the language of music really interesting, and there’s a lot to be gained from learning the lingo. How you are taught, often determines how interested it becomes, so if you’ve a vague interest in music theory, these 4 episodes of how music works are a really...

I’ve only had a very brief play on cubase 5, but the groove agent one was of the many cool new functions. Here’s a nice little introduction video showing how to use a breakbeat to create a 4/4...

For beats i’ve always been interested in understanding how to make a really good breakbeat from scratch. There are obviously many ways so here’s some of the things i’ve learnt or found along the way. The first tutorial i found was from this future music article below. I did...

Arrangement is a part of the process that i’ve found difficult in the past. Its good to remember that in music there are structures that work, and using these as starting points doesn’t compromise your intention of innovation. Coming up with parts is often a very natural process,...

Part 3 of a short video series that cover very simple but often overlooked functions of Ableton Live and Production Ableton Live Quick Tips 3 from Tom Cosm on Vimeo. And 10 tips from Tom Cosm 1. To reset a parameter (knob or fader) to it’s default value, select it and hit delete. I am always...

Here are a few of great tutorials from guitarist Chris Willits How to get sounds from your guitar into your computer using pedals, pickups, and Ableton Live. Processing sounds with ableton effects in audio effects unit Recording drums (use for...

This is a post with random but (hopefully) useful tips i’ve found on ableton. A quick tutorial looking at some very handy hints, tips and tricks in Ableton Live 8. Includes arming and soloing multiple channels, the use of racks and how to save audio clips, presets, racks and channels to...

Live looping is a great thing both in and out of the studio. A few of my musical inspirations are ninjas at it, and have inspired me to start getting to grips with it both as a composition layering technique & as a potential performance tool. Beatbox artists like Dub Fx pictured about use...

Baobinga & I.d aka the body snatchers, shed some light on making a breaks...

Some cool tutorials from Sub Focus. The first one is in 4 parts where Subfocus takes you through making all the elements of a drum & bass track & the last one is in 2 parts where he talks about making a bass in massive & some beats. Sub Focus – Computer Music #128 (part 1)...

I found this very useful from Chase & Status when learning how to get those classic rolling drum & bass...

A great site for ableton users and a group that freely share their information. Here’s how to get a sound going out of the in built synth Operator. Operator Wave Shaping from Bjorn Vayner on...

Here’s a nice guide from Point Blank for how to make some dubstep in Ableton. If you like this short guide, then go check out their site www.pointblankonline.net as they offer a range of (paid) courses & other video tutorials. How to Make Dubstep part 1/5 – Beat Warping in...

Another great breakbeat masterclass, this time from General Midi UPDATE > Seems they’ve been took down aside from part...

This is a great masterclass from Ctrl Z who takes you through the process of remixing the Freestylers. Well worth following to the...

If you’re interested in creating, recording, remixing or producing, music there’s various tools which are useful. There’s so much professional information out there, and a lot of it is fairly common knowledge nowadays, so I wasn’t sure if its worth writing a post about...

I wrote a track called Drop Beats Not Bombs in around 2007. It was the first breaks track i felt happy with & was intended for 2 gigs – One for the night itself where i had the honour of playing the opening set of the re-opening of the Que club, and one was for our 2nd Project X...