Live Deep Acid House Jam

Sunday Synth Jam: This video captures a ‘deep acid house’ synth jam, by Stefan Fuhrer  (aka Zeropage) at the Zeropage Studio.

You can listen to more Zeropage tracks below:

Technical details for the video:

  • Setup:
    • Roland Aira: TB-3, TR-8 7X7
    • Elektron: Monomachine, Octatrack, Analog Four, Analog Rytm
    • Korg: KP2 Mini, KP3+
    • VST
  • Recording:
    • Focusrite
    • Ableton

via Zeropage

17 thoughts on “Live Deep Acid House Jam”

    1. Agreed. I’ve been really bummed to see how many people there are like this, with tons of gear, making really boring, old-sounding techno, and uploading it to YouTube. Is this what it was all for?

      1. Hi dv

        While VST Plugins sound great they are not immediately suitable to be filmed. But hardware like Roland’s Aira, the Elektrons and Korg Volcas (with all the blinking lights etc….) are meant to be put on YouTube 😉 They are rather photogenic.

        You could invest in an original TB-303 but for the same money you do get an awfull lot of gear these days. Sure we didn’t push the gear to it’s limit in this jam. Thanks to the Aira we were enjoying that Roland old school sound and spiced it up a little with some modern elements. People have different skills and styles. You can find better and worse performances on YouTube. It’s not all thaaaat bad. It’s great that you can create electronic music with your hands and not with your mouse. Former laptop musicians (which nobody wants to see “live”, because there is nothing to see) seem just to discover the new affordable gear from Roland, Elektron and Korg and that’s why it’s trending. Some will give up because it’s too complicated, others will develop their skills and get better. I’m sure we will hear some great performances from this kind of gear in the next months.

  3. the sound is really good and you could make a monster track out of this….but …this 4 beats bassline is the same during 8 minutes…..after 1 minute my brain begins to tell me “variations are coming”…..after 2 minutes I’m bored and play forward…..I find even better sounds but the bassline is still the same…..Go ahead !!!! with minimum variations this can be very entertaining !!!!

    1. Isn’t repetition sort of the point in this type of music? But yeah, it probably works better on a dancefloor, with or without chemical or herbal assistance…

  4. Hey, thanks for posting our video. It’s a rather spontaneous jam (around a TB-3 pattern and some new fx pedals). All project files and Sysex dumps are saved to disk, so we can refine the patterns, mix and arrangement at a later time. Hope you can enjoy for what it is: Aira/Elektron Sunday Jam Action!

  7. I’ve heard Acid House way more repetitious than this that just works. Try some Hardfloor for instance. I liked this and I was under the influence of only my morning coffee at the time. I think Acid House is one of those genres you just “get” or you don’t. Well done!

    1. Leslie, that is well observerd! I’m in the middle of preparing some Goa / Psytrance tracks for a live gig and also did a 1 hour Goa DJ mix the day before the jam. I wanted to make a 140 bpm Goa style jam, but another member doesn’t like uptempo and prefered a classic 125 bpm Acid jam. So we came up with the compromise that we make Acid but use a typical Goa scale (Phrygian scale, that’s when you play just the white keys starting from “E”). So there are elements of Acid / House (like the tempo), but all the melodic parts, including the TB-3, use the “Goa Scale”. There’s a minor chord coming in at 2:30 which makes it sound Deep/Progressive House. The bass is hard and low as used for Goa, but it plays a funky (House) groove, the beat is pretty basic and works for both styles (126 bpm -> Acid/House. 135+bpm -> Goa). So it’s “deep” because of the Minor chord, it’s Acid because of the major role of the TB-3, it’s House because of the tempo, it’s Goa because of the scale and it’s a jam because of the production quality. it is clearly a Deep Acid House Goa Jam 🙂

  10. Clean sound but you really need all those machines to do something like that? I feel that something like these can be created with just 3 or 4 of those machines.

    1. Hi Marco. Yes , each of the Instruments alone would be enough to make an impressive track.They all have built in FX, parameter lock per step, 4 – 12 tracks and kind of a “performable synthesis”. We are currently feeding the machines with ideas for a live gig in August. This needs some time, so check back in a few weeks. This video just shows, as mentioned in the description, a “sunday jam” in our studio. It’s about the TB-3 old school Acid sound, not about what cool tricks you can do with for example the Octatrack or what gorgeous sounds the Analog Four can deliver. That’s for another video 😉

  11. there is something i have never understood , why people are using a computer with ableton live having lot of hardware machines ? That 3 elektron machines are a DAW replacement itself

    1. Hi Victor. Yes, they can fully replace a DAW. Ableton is used for the harddisk recording of the hardware synths. It’s not the camera sound you hear, it’s the Ableton recording. The gear can be connected to up to 16 analog ins in our studio. The pad sound coming at 2:30 is a VST instrument, because the Elektrons only have moderate polyphonie. Of course for a hardware-only live gig you could sample the pad to the Octatrack and do neat tricks with the Octatrack’s sequencer and performance possibilities or create a multi-layered pad on the Analog Four.

      I see some are disappointed we didn’t show more of the Elektrons. But the idea of the video was just a “sunday jam” with the TB-3 Acid sound.

      There is currently a lot of gear in our studio, because we are preparing a live gig in August. So check back in a few weeks for some true Elektron action

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