Tracker Mini Live with Lennard Ypma | HÖR Berlin

1. Could you tell us a bit more about this project? What made you decide to use the Tracker Mini Live? 

I’ll start off with answering the latter, as it will explain a bit about the project as well. I have traveled quite a bit over the years and used to take my laptop and some gear with me whenever I could. When I lived in Portugal for a couple of months for instance, I brought my electribe and 303 so there is always the option to make music. However, I wanted a more relaxed and lighter traveling experience. Time for drastic measures; new gear. First I dug in my head and considered cheap old gear like something from the Yamaha QY series, but no rendering and no sound card would mean, no finished tracks without a computer. Thus, I changed my view to look for a small portable studio. As I was exploring the market for the smallest studio I could find, I obviously ran into some competitors with even smaller machines, with some things that initially might have looked better on paper, but I looked into my personal values.

E.g., A machine that fits in my back pocket, or a little larger machine that is nice to hold and has a bigger screen plus dedicated buttons? Well easy, choice in my book as it still feels like holding feathers compared to my electribe etc. I wanted a machine that, if left alone for a moment and you grab it again, is intuitive enough to get back into quickly!

Now I have a little studio in my bag so it is time to get started and learn what tracking is all about. While trying out all kinds of functions of the tracker, I made some random radio-recorded remixes, ranging from salsa to old soul etc. As this was just for my own education, I felt after a month or two, it was time to dedicate myself to the type of music I more frequently do. Namely, House, Acid, and West Coast Electro. After making a couple of tracks and having an idea how to create a more consistent sound within that range, I noticed that, although 48 instruments would limit me, it would be feasible to make a live set. There are bands that have way fewer instruments…

I have played with gear setups live for over a decade and really liked the idea of trying to fit a whole set into one machine. Plus, almost all my hardware is currently in a storage facility, so except for my 303, the Tracker Mini is my lifeline to creating music. This makes it the obvious choice to take it live as well! Cujrrently, I am commuting over 2 hours one way to my current job; the perfect time to make music. I travel to where a part of my roots lie, Rotterdam and The Hague. This scene is known for their rough electro, gabber, hardcore, etc. When I was young, gabber was captivating, but I grew towards electro and house quickly. In this live set, I tried to connect the worlds of the Chicago House scene and West Coast (The Hague) Electro.

2. Transitions – How are you doing all of this with one tracker? 

As there are 255 patterns to fill I started out with making a few potential tracks our outlines over a range of roughly 10 patterns. In the first version of the live set, I just put the patterns after each other and just used hard pattern switches. Frequently, it’s not a problem as it can be quite fun to switch back and forth quickly between patterns, giving a bit of a merging veel sometimes, but now I wanted something different. Therefore, I definitely did some prework on programming some patterns in between where there is an overlay in the music and have some tracks I can mute and unmute switching patterns. It depends on the transition of course, but what I like to do is use the performance view to make it sound a little more natural when muting a tracks with some delay on it for instance.

3. I see you are using a pedal with your live set, can you tell us about how you are using it?

I would say 2 big reasons. First, the pedal has a mode where it serves as a stereo compressor/distortion unit. I really like this, as I can change this a little (or a lot) on the fly. Where I already program distortion in advance when I create the instruments, it is nice to be able to play with compression easily when I alter other things in the performance mode, for instance. And second, I use it to dub moments on the master as I punch in the music, and the tails keep going also when I turn off the effect. I really like the typical spring verb sound, which I use depending on the track and vary in the output/summing amount. Although I really like the compression/distortion verb and delay on the mini as well, I like to use them for different purposes. The Tracker’s own fx I use more on the sound design side and of course, in the performance view!

4. Listening to your set, you have a smooth, cohesive sound throughout – how do you find the limits of Tracker Mini when designing a set like this?

Well, Thanks! To be honest, I have put a lot of time and energy into this set. When I just bought the mini I thought I would whip up a live set quickly and perform somewhere in no time. But I noticed that every time I programmed something new or pulled in random instruments, it would sound a little off to me. A lot of things I deleted again rather quickly. I came to find that using a limited amount of drums was actually key to making the set cohesive, but it was also necessary when looking at the earlier-mentioned limitation of 48 instruments. Now, I only use a limited amount of kicks, for instance, but make sure to pitch and filter them differently. Normally I would have used a kick drum with the filter on a given frequency and roughly move the filter the same way down as I might pitch the kick down. I also move the filter frequency up when moving the actual kick pitch down, I basically have a new range of kicks that feel different when you play them but still have something cohesive throughout the set. Furthermore, as I was saying, this set focuses on the Chicago sounds merging with The Hague West Coast Electro. There are certain elements I picked for that specific sound, which you can hear throughout the set as well. And acid of course, always acid if you ask me;)

What I also wanted to add is the melodies I all program in advance because this greatly influences everything, and I don’t want that to be off. Therefore, I do experiment with notes in the live set, but only through repetition patterns and such in the performance mode.

5. What are your biggest performance tips when using Tracker Mini for a live set? 

Let’s start with the performance view right away then: I would also say that the way you choose your performance mode can influence your sound and sound consistency for the whole set. So if you want to go Aphex Twin, you choose a very different pallet than when you go the Larry Heard way, for instance. It takes quite some fidgeting and trying to get it right for a whole set, I would say. Because, preferably, I don’t adjust that in record mode during the set.

However, record mode can be really nice during the set! I would still program in new drum patterns on the fly when I feel that it is needed somewhere. Furthermore, shifting notes for a range on the go is really fun and can sound great!

Lastly, there are basically two easy ways to completely switch patterns, at the end of the pattern, using the indicator to the right or left, or a direct switch. I mentioned the direct switch earlier in the transition question. But to elaborate just a little on why it can be nice to switch back and forth quickly, or with a certain timing is because the music keeps playing with the current numbering also in the next pattern. Depending on what you have programmed next, it can actually sound really nice, switching back and forth quickly and timed at the right moments. I haven’t used it a lot during this set, but it can be very useful!

Programming live can be tricky, and sometimes changes might go a little beyond what you expect with the random fill options. If you want to go crazy during the set, go for it! I play a little more conservatively, I suppose. In my case, I’ve experimented quite a bit with what kind of live additional programming works in the set and what suits the sound I want to achieve. E.g. You don’t hear a lot of quick rolls, although that can be super cool, it did not fit the sound I wanted to achieve. What I really like is if you already have a filter on an instrument, I use the fill option on the fx slot of drums with different filter LFO rates here and there. The pattern changes enough to be interesting, yet the timing, etc., again is the same. To me, that can hit the sweet spot between change and coherence.

Find more of Lennard Ympa’s music on Bandcamp or Soundcloud

Or on Clone in their online shop or through their distribution, and hopefully, you can find a record in your local store that specializes in electronic music!