Dume Poutet: Real-Time Sound Design

“Most of the time I’m recording music - then the point is to then transform it,” says Dominique “Dume” Poutet of collecting and working with sounds. Under his own name, as Otisto 23, and with a variety of collaborative projects - including a series of albums and performances with jazz pianist Laurent de Wilde, Dume has experimented with numerous genres, playing a respectable list of instruments. In addition to his work as a musician, Dume has furthered his specific expertise with Ableton Live as an Ableton Certified Trainer.

As a child, Dume started learning music early, studying piano at a classical conservatory from ages six to 16. Adding keyboards and accordion to his instrumental arsenal (“the accordion gave me the opportunity to play professionally, at the age of 14,” he says), Dume found his way to working as a sound engineer and producer at 19. In 1995, Dume first worked with music software while playing with Cosmik Connection, a jazz/drum n’ bass trio. 

With such diverse musical experience under his belt, Dume was still blown away by his first exposure to Ableton Live. “I became a believer,” he says of first working with Live via a friend’s recommendation. In particular, Dume makes use of the real-time processing capabilities of Live’s effects. “I discovered that I could easily transform a musical signal tightly, and musically - as an instrument.” Dume’s favorite real-time sound design tool in Live is dummy clips: “During live sets, I can either sequence effects behaviors in advance using dummy clips, or modify effects with my MIDI controller,” he explains. 

Dume’s music has taken him around the world, with Live as his main tool for performing, producing, and recording in decidedly non-studio settings. He advises that a traveling musician should develop a stable and flexible rig, which, for him, contains Live and an audio interface at the core. Dume has also produced a Live Pack of four Live Sets, featuring his own custom setups and audio material collected from his personal studio work and recordings done while traveling. He offers the following stories behind the four Sets:

FLY! –“This is the most personal, because all the samples are born from my piano. Drum sets, basses and all other sounds have been recorded live and transformed in real-time, while performing, with my friend Laurent de Wilde.”

LOAN –“Loan is an artist from the labels I work with. Her music is fully electronic, but also organic. Powerful but comfortable drums, deep basses and broken 4/4 loops. Plus, it fits with dubstep’s BPMs.”

UNDER KONTROL –“Under Kontrol is a real human beatbox crew. They were beatbox world champions in 2007. They are individually all great musicians, each one in a personal way. They are the first collaborators to tell me, ‘don’t use any effects on our sound.’ So you hear the pure human music!”

MONGOLIAN EXPEDISOUND –“This is one of several volumes from a full collection. This is an audio log book. We choose a region of our planet, go there, and try to bring back something more than music - but at least music. We start to exchange ideas with local musicians and bring back hours of samples. Then, the audio material is shared with several electronic music producers. These sounds come from our crew’s first journey to Mongolia.”

Now, it’s your turn to transform Dume’s sounds in real-time - download the free Live Pack.

Download Dume Poutet's Live Pack here

Filesize: 485 MB, Requires Live 8.2 or higher.