Steve Knots is an experienced producer and performer who's been DJ'ing with Ableton Live since 2007. Check out how he uses automation as a teaching tool in his interactive hands-on Session Lesson tutorials!
Steve Knots
- Pittsburgh PA United States
It was the year 1999. Steve Knots shut himself in his bedroom with one turntable, a crate of records, an MPC2000 sampler and a cassette recorder.
Abandoning all social life for a season, he emerged with a production style based on live-mixing electronic loops and dub-style FX.
Clearly this was a perfect match for session view in Ableton Live. When a CD-ROM fell out of a magazine offering a free version of Live 4, he picked it up and was hooked… as if struck by a bolt of electricity from a malfunctioning strobe light.
It seemed like a dream. Striving to express creative ideas, battling technical issues, fighting home studio acoustics and neighbors and the never-ending pressure of rent and sleep. Was this a blur or was it real?
He devoted himself to learning the craft of music production, attending the Sonic Arts Center in NYC to access the mystical wizardry of audio engineering.
He then began a decade of DJ’ing with Live… improvising remixes on the fly, playing multitrack sets, miking up soloists and looping instruments, performing from New York to Europe and back.
During this time he also bolstered his professional skills by working as a live sound engineer, mixing bands, setting up approximately ten zillion cover acts who all want their monitor mixes just a little bit louder.
He’s held multiple DJ residencies, performed internationally, designed more party flyers than anyone wants to see, and helped start a technical training school in Pittsburgh.
Steve now teaches online using a unique tutorial format called Session Lessons. These are guided tutorials he invented to bring the tutorial inside Live, where we can use automation as a teaching tool.
Session Lessons give the student a hands-on learning experience which is far superior than anything a video can accomplish.
In his community, Steve helps run the Pittsburgh Ableton User Group, streams on Youtube and Twitch, gets down on the dance floor, and releases tracks through various labels on Beatport.
Very approachable. Would definitely recommend a conversation.
Find out more at https://www.mixitecture.com and https://ahdjs.shop/
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