Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Make some music, have some musical tips or questions ? Well, why not bung them in here !
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beetles
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Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by beetles »

I've been reading that FSOL interview where they talk about "Link Theory" and I'm wondering if it would be possible to create an album length piece of music in one long project, then create individual tracks after.Currently I create tracks and then mix them together afterwards and hope they mix together seamlessly.I suppose FSOL might not have had the luxury of doing this in the past? But today's DAW setups should cope shouldnt they? Anyone had a go like this? I think the longest I've put together trackwise is currently about ten minutes long.


Heres the interview:

"LINK THEORY
Having listened to FSOL's new Lifeforms album, I felt its dominant feel was one of fluidity; how did they achieve this effect?

Cobain: "I guess the radio shows have been quite instrumental in building up that sort of flow of consciousness feel. [Throughout the last year FSOL have put together a number of broadcasts for Kiss FM]. Because with that we tend to bury things in huge reverbs and overlay tracks on the top. We do a lot of dubs between the ADATs and Macintosh (running ProTools), get it synced up to Creator, and we'll have maybe a sequence coming in at the end of the track which then flows with some overlaid samples into another section. So we keep bouncing it back between those formats until we've got it to sound fluid."

The album was recorded in a linear fashion rather than being edited and compiled at a later date?

Dougans: "Yes -- linear, but flexible." Cobain: "It's an overall aesthetic that we've been working towards, and links and morphing are an extension of that. With this whole idea of non-linear music I think people's minds are tuned to the abstract like they've never been before. We've spent a lot of time writing links and what we've come up with as part of this 'link theory' is the idea that a track should only be in for as long as it's working, which means that you have to retain a critical awareness of what you're doing. Our whole mentality is getting away from singles, and that's not such a good thing, because the best way to sell albums, traditionally, is to have singles."
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Pandemonium
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Re: Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by Pandemonium »

I think it's possible, but I also think you won't get the FSOL effect...
It's possible for albums like drone / beatless / minimal ambient,
but in the FSOL case I think they have themes for the tracks,
sketches of melody, keyboard sheets and stuff...
and then as they say they write links for the themes, and so you get one long connected piece,
and later you decide which theme+link creates which track.
You're doin' too much, do less.
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mcbpete
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Re: Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by mcbpete »

Yes it's definitely possible (and yeah I'd say FSOL go with Pandemoniums suggestion), this is my last album -

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Ross
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Re: Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by Ross »

I tried to do it once, the piece still worked as a bunch of different pieces, but I had it running in one big file in Logic so I could return to certain VST settings/loops/samples throughout the record quite comfortably. I got about 45 minutes of it structured, but never got round to actually getting to that level of detail. The album is currently on a broken hard drive and may never see the light of day, sadly!
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Tito Lozano
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Re: Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by Tito Lozano »

@Pete: when your album will be? i like listen something from you, nothing new from years !!!!

@Ross: Fuckin shit Ross hope you can make something with it,perhaps a repair shop of electronics & Pc have solution for recover :(

@ Beetles :I´m not a big time producer and not had experience that you (Beetles) or the rest of Fsolboards (friends) but yeah, i used link theory to work on 1 set on reaper and/or use PC out line for put kaossillator filters,and get 2 render from Pc (with original recording from daw with original fx from vst) & 1 from kaoss Recording( ,i made this for my last works ( spritual world sampled & a new world sampled, demolution,and finally the antique toy ep)

this is made on 1 take on 1 set daw

https://archive.org/details/Noisesurfer ... ateVersion
https://archive.org/details/Perishable

Link Theory on another : Chill out or Space by KLF are in previous time to FSOL the reference of Link Theory...

hmmm about DAW,i found this site for work a project fast in any place without use or have your own PC studio for make a song,always you can get file and then worked on your own Daw or mixing plug.

http://soundation.com/studio
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mcbpete
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Re: Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by mcbpete »

Tito Lozano wrote:@Pete: when your album will be? i like listen something from you, nothing new from years !!!!
Pff, no idea mate - I'd love to say we'll have a new album in the next 6 months but it's on hiatus indefinitely at the moment due to personal & work commitments .

All I can suggest is to keep your eye on our news page (or use an .rss news reader to get notified of any changes to the site - http://www.ilovecubus.co.uk/v2/rss.xml ). At the moment I'm mainly doing remixes and exclusive tracks for compilation albums....
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Ross
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Re: Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by Ross »

Tito Lozano wrote:@Ross: Fuckin shit Ross hope you can make something with it,perhaps a repair shop of electronics & Pc have solution for recover :(
Nah, click of death I'm afraid, will cost me £500+ to get it done. Maybe one day.
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mcbpete
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Re: Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by mcbpete »

Ugh - suffered the click of death back in 2004. I managed to get some stuff from it by putting it in an external case and then copying as much as I could onto another drive. Nowadays I'd also tackle it with: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec (despite the name it's not just for photos)
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Ross
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Re: Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by Ross »

Tried using it as an external drive - sadly just clicks away the same. I think it's beyond saving by software. I might try freezing it, apparently that can help when it reaches the click of death. If I had a freezer...
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beetles
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Re: Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by beetles »

Think I'm gonna give this a shot.I reckon this approach will help me achieve a more fluid feel between the tracks.I just dont think I've been giving my transitions between tracks enough attention.Thanks for the comments / advice.
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Ross
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Re: Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by Ross »

You've really got to treat your transitions like actual tracks if you want a Lifeforms/Dead Cities kind of flow. It's what I did on Safernoc, which is why half the tracks on there have two minute intros/outros.

The other way is taking a collage approach to the work, which is what I did on Leaf Pass. There, I actually intended the album to be three 20 minute long pieces, which is why much of the music and field recording overlaps, and lots of the tracks reprise each other. I only split it up into 16 pieces months down the line when I realised it could also be a 'normal' album, and it ended up flowing better than any of my other records.
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Re: Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by impurfekt »

I've often thought about this as well (making an album in one project file). I see Lifeforms as the standard for how cohesive an ambient album should be. The only hardware limiting factor I can think of is RAM. Even then, you can freeze RAM heavy tracks over time. What holds me back is concern for the file becoming corrupted. In my experience (with Logic), the more complex a track, the more likely it is to become unstable. Perhaps if I weren't using any 3rd party plug-ins this would be less likely...

An alternate approach is to limit oneself to a smaller number of synths and drum kits; maintaining a consistent texture throughout the album. A tendency toward long intros and outros helps as well. The next step is to master the album and purposefully overlap the tracks somewhat. That could get tricky.
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Re: Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by tryptych »

How have I missed this thread?

Anway, it can get pretty clumsy.. especially when you have 50-100 (or even more) individual tracks per song, submix group, tons of heavy plugins etc.

You can always open two instances of the DAW and "continue" where you left off..
from the source flows the endless...
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epitome
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Re: Making an album in one DAW project - Link Theory

Post by epitome »

Just been pondering this myself... On the one hand, it would seem the best/easiest way to make flawless transitions between each "track" (as technically you're doing just one long one), but as tryptych said, I think it would get messy. Then again, as Ross said, it would be handy for re-using bits across the different tracks.

Overall, I think I'll stick to doing each track as its own project.
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