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I heard Daft Punk's show at Coachella a few months ago and fell in love with it. This post is an incomplete description of the bliss that I feel when listening to the set.
My favourite cuts:
3:00 - Robot Rock / Human After All
21:14 - Unknown arpeggiated chords
29:45 - Around the World / Harder Better Faster Stronger
47:08 - Aerodynamic (+ new bass synth backups!) / One More Time
48:54 - Listen for the repeater on the words "Music's got" and "Celebrate".
01:07:16 - Da Funk sampled (listen to 02:26 in the original for reference)
On the last two, it sounds like they've got a beat matched sampler, with buttons for repeating 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, or 1/32 of the sample. Here's what I think happens:
- You push one of the buttons (4, 8, 16, 32)
- It splits the sample up into the appropriate number of slices
- It gets the position of the sampler
- It finds the slice that the sampler is currently "in".
- It repeats that slice on beat.
- Finally, when the button is released, continues playing the sample from the appropriate position, as if it had been muted (basically, doesn't restart the sample).
One of the things I love about Daft Punk is their ability to take a piece of technology and do something very sonically interesting with it.
In "Indo Silver Club" (Homework), as soon as the beat drops (at 00:19) the main sample is muted on the downbeats. At high volume, it sounds like your ears are incapable of hearing the sample due to the massive bass. To top it off, at 03:40 they play the main sample muted without the bass kick, revealing the secret of their magic to the listener. When the beat drops again (03:48) the gaps left by the main sample are filled, and you are allowed to continue your booty-shaking.
In "Aerodynamic" (Discovery) at 02:28, a synth comes in playing the same arpeggiated chords as the (mindblowing) solo at 01:02. I didn't realize this until I threw the song into Acid and laid the soft synths over the solo.
In "Superheroes" (Discovery) at 02:22, the left channel plays arpeggiated chords, while the right channel is on delay. I can't really describe the effect, but it's worth hearing.
"Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" (Discovery) sounds like an exercise in vocoder manipulation. A vocoder takes in two signals, called a carrier and a modulator. The carrier is usually a voice, and the modulator is some kind of instrument, usually a synthesizer. The two are merged for the familiar result. The samples are established for the first half of the song. At 02:01 a huge change happens, where the established samples are modulated into insanity. They use a synthesizer plugged on the vocoder for most of the song, except at 02:36, where a guitar is used. I love it.
"Harder, Better, Stronger" is the song that got me hooked on Daft Punk. I heard the cut from 02:01 on a General Electric commercial but didn't know what it was. A month later, Jon and I swapped mixTapes, and there it was. I must have listened to it on repeat for at least an hour and a half. This was in Spring 2001.
There are many more songs by Daft Punk that I could write about, but I feel it would be best if you explored their catalogue for yourself. This is just the tip of the iceburg.
4 comments:
You don't play an instrument do you? Its kinda like someone who is into math trying to explain their fondness to someone who isn't. You either get it or you don't. In your case, you don't.
"On the last two, it sounds like they've got a beat matched sampler, with buttons for repeating 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, or 1/32 of the sample."
Have you tried Ableton Live's Beat Repeat?
Agreed tho, loved this set.
Your post really gave me some insights in how daft uses certain techniques to create their astonashing sounds.
I'm playing around with Reason for the past few years and I starting to understand how to create cool sounds, posts like this really help me understand, how to use certain devices.
I will now try to figure out how to use an arpeggiator to create the aerodynamic solo. I knew their was a simpler way to play those chords.
As for the use of a vocoder in harder, better, faster, stronger - this is incorrect. They use a talkbox to create the vocals.
And another thing. If you really want to know how they did their live sessions. It involved custom developed software, Ableton Live, numerous midi controllers en 8 Mac Pro's to get the job done.
The remarkable thing about their live performance was that they not only mixed their music live, but also generated the visuals themselves live, using Final Cut Studio and a program to convert the video signal to control the big LED displays en lights.
When I read this I realised how impressive their talent really is.
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