Live Looping Jam With Cello, Ableton Push, Samplepad Pro, Water, Rice & Wine Glasses

Sunday Synth Jam: This video captures a live looping + sampling + cello + vocal + broken glass performance, Indiana Teenagers, by Spearfisher, featuring Cicely Parnas

Technical Details:

Cicely Parnas performs on cello, e-drums, wine glass & vocals; and Peter John performs on Push, rice, various percussion (including a Mbira from Zimbabwe). Watch for some creative use of a bucket of water and rice, some ‘crazy audio routings and MIDI maps’ and a little creative destruction.

17 thoughts on “Live Looping Jam With Cello, Ableton Push, Samplepad Pro, Water, Rice & Wine Glasses

    1. I really curios about 2 things.
      how looping in the beginning works? I see only one stereo mic, for percussion and cello, so i assume it go on one channel? If so, how you layer all this?
      And the moment with the broken glass (nice one!), after a few bars there is this sound again, how thats done?
      Good work Spearfisher!

      1. At the beginning I have a single loop device in ableton, set up to record a bar from the stereo pair in the cello- it’s just a one bar loop that I double twice when she drops the little bowl into the bucket, 4 bars now (so it doesn’t go BLOOP every bar lol!)
        Later we reopen that channel after it has been slowed down by a fifth (took a while to figure that out…) so the first loop (d minor) can be in the key of my mbira (G minor/Bb maj)

        And good catch with the broken glass sound! I have that mic set to open up only for the moment she smashes the glass and since we had broken like 20 glasses I’d recorded it earlier in the session – so it’s just a recording of an earlier one that I stuck in the session.

  1. ok why the intro was amazingly creative ,it was far to long ,you all need to get real we the club going people hate lame long intro’s,2 and a half minutes for a intro is quite pathetic,but i will say the intro was very creative ,you all need to stop 2 minute intro’s .

    1. The intro was great. Nothing wrong with club music; I am a fan, but it is more than okay to make songs with dynamic range and movement. Listening is just as important as dancing, and not all songs need to be utilities for mixing.

    2. I also make club music, and this isn’t that – not all music is made for the club! Music can be for dancing, sure – but sometimes music is for contemplation or serenity, or to experience change over time or say something deep, emotional or poetic. Once you realize that music isn’t for a single purpose you will find much deeper joy in it.

  2. Amazing. When I saw the thread, I immediately thought “This is going to be another Burpy Farty Genre Video”. I was pleasantly surprised. These two have great talent. Thoroughly enjoyed this.

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