Become a Pokemon (Live Dub)
By miraclemiles on January 11, 2026 11:49 pm
Hey, we're back for week two, congrats! It's taking some adjustment to get back in the habit of making a weekly song. Hearing everyone's tracks last week and reading comments was a big inspiration.
This week's track is a live remix of the Cyber Forest song Become a Pokemon. One of my faves we did. It's a little hard to believe I did the first version of that here on WB back in 2020!
So I made this live dub for two reasons:
1. I want to practice doing live performances of songs (more on that story below)
2. To celebrate the release of the Cyber Forest album Space Crimes! It's out now on Bandcamp and streaming in the other places too. We had these jams over the past 5(!) years, I produced many of them as Weekly Beats songs, and last week we finally released the album, huzzah!
› About this live performance version, and live performance journey
‹ About this live performance version, and live performance journey
- Live with the full trio somehow would be awesome, but this is a playback remix performance.
- Performed on the Push 3 standalone, then edited to make shorter. I bounce tracks to audio in the Ableton project I produced the song in. Then chopped the song up into clips and loops. Then I pull the performance tracks into my live performance Ableton template project that has effects and shortcuts for getting around. Added some labels and colors and other little prep steps, then loaded it onto the Push and performed it for my dog and cats. Recorded the performance and wished I had more time to run through it a few more times. Brought the recording back into Ableton and edited it from 18 minutes to what it is now by cutting out big chunks of repetitive messy noodling. Probably cut something really cool out. Since I did this all today, and this was the first time I have tried this song live, it's not perfect or polished, but it's what came out in that one loooong take. It would be ideal to practice it a few more times, and maybe even get a nice 3-5 minute version in one take, that's the goal.
- Sometimes I play some live parts on top of the pre-recorded stuff I'm playing back and tweaking, but did not do that today unfortunately. All sounds here were in original recording, but some are more emphasized.
- I'm glad this jam today reminded me that playing songs back live can be fun. The prep can be tedious. But jamming with songs is something I want to continue practicing and getting better at. With having so many things to practice, it's nice to get a reminder of what to bubble up to the top of the list.
- This live process is still new and evolving. In 2025 I finally checked off a bucket list item and performed some of my songs live in front of people at a synth open mic. That's how I developed this performance project template on the Push 3 (wanted to keep the gear light for a 20 minute set, and in the summer, I throw it in a backpack and bike to the club).
