For a new video series recorded at Riverside Studios in Berlin, we’ve asked talented studio producers to share their secrets on bringing live instruments into to electronic music productions. In this first episode, production duo Pan-Pot share how they record a traditional African kalimba into Ableton Live and resample it on the fly. Watch the full thing after the jump.

Pan-Pot On Recording + Sampling A Live Kalimba

This technique can of course be done with any instrument where you sample an individual note and play it in Ableton, but by finding an instrument with incredible warmth and tone and bringing those characteristics into your DAW, the final result sounds so much more interesting.

The microphone used in this tutorial (in case you missed it) was a Neumann TLM 102 – which generally runs about $699 on Amazon – but any large diaphragm condenser microphone will work very well for these types of recordings. Just be sure to properly position the mic as Pan-Pot demonstrates in this video.

The kalimba (which also often is called a mbira or “thumb piano”) is of an unknown brand – but there are very similar designs available that run about $40.

Sounds From Pan-Pot

Want to hear what some of the stuff Pan-Pot have put out recently sounds like? Check out some of their recent sounds:

We’ll be sharing more videos from this series in the upcoming months – special thanks to the wonderful Riverside Studios in Berlin for allowing us to film with their artists.