This is a video back from '94 of Autechre performing live in Moscow. How did they, or any other electronic collectives, perform their music live without laptops as sources of all the sounds and samples? What does all of the knob turning do? They can't just be eq'ing, because it is Autechre, not some lame dj's.
Posted by Floorfiller on Sep-11-2007 03:22:
there are hardware sequencers. knowing autechre they probably have a lot of home built cool shit as well...
Posted by ibizzzaaa on Sep-11-2007 03:28:
So they turn certain knobs and that produces certain sounds or what?
Posted by MrJiveBoJingles on Sep-11-2007 04:35:
I'd imagine that they have certain sequences programmed in beforehand and then modify the sounds / order of sequences on the fly.
Posted by SYSTEM-J on Sep-11-2007 12:46:
Probably the same way Orbital played live. That video looks much like any video of Orbital playing (sans the head-lamps, natch). You'll have to look them up for the technical details, but basically they have some things programmed in which they sequence on the fly, and I believe they play some other stuff themselves. On the "Live At Glastonbury" album, they start playing the bassline to Doctor ? but in the wrong synth, and have to start again.
There are two main legit ways of playing live in electronic music. The "Orbital way" is also used by The Chemical Brothers and a few other acts. The other way is to get a full band together and play analogue with instruments. Faithless, Way Out West, The Prodigy and Chicane use this method, among others.
Posted by RJT on Sep-11-2007 13:47:
Hasn't WOW done kind of a live PA thing before with just Jody, Nick, and Tricia?
Never seen them live, so I don't know for sure - but I think Myra mentioned seeing them doing something along those lines at Vision in Chicago years back.
Posted by SYSTEM-J on Sep-11-2007 16:07:
I've heard on here from people who've seen them they use live instruments. According to this interview they "...performed live with their bass guitarist, drummer and vocalists. Nick and Jody were each using M-Audio Oxygen 8 keyboards hooked up to PowerBooks to trigger and tweak their samples live in front of 2000 fans packing out the joint."
Posted by Matt on Sep-11-2007 16:21:
This thread needs some Underworld
Posted by richg101 on Sep-11-2007 16:42:
Re: How is this "performed" live?
quote:
Originally posted by ibizzzaaa
This is a video back from '94 of Autechre performing live in Moscow. How did they, or any other electronic collectives, perform their music live without laptops as sources of all the sounds and samples? What does all of the knob turning do? They can't just be eq'ing, because it is Autechre, not some lame dj's.
i bet they use a hardware sequencer, a couple of synths and a sampler/groovebox.
Posted by Ishkur on Sep-11-2007 17:10:
Re: How is this "performed" live?
quote:
Originally posted by ibizzzaaa
This is a video back from '94 of Autechre performing live in Moscow. How did they, or any other electronic collectives, perform their music live without laptops as sources of all the sounds and samples? What does all of the knob turning do? They can't just be eq'ing, because it is Autechre, not some lame dj's.
Before laptops, mp3s and wav samples, people used this.
Posted by julien2 on Sep-11-2007 23:34:
ever heard of samplers, sequencers, drum machines, and such ?q
Posted by ibizzzaaa on Sep-12-2007 02:12:
quote:
Originally posted by julien2
ever heard of samplers, sequencers, drum machines, and such ?q
NO
It's more of the question of how all of the hardware produce all of those particular sounds and samples.
Posted by Mr.Mystery on Sep-12-2007 04:33:
Re: Re: How is this "performed" live?
quote:
Originally posted by Ishkur
Before laptops, mp3s and wav samples, people used this.
Yeah, nobody uses that anymore...
Posted by Derivative on Sep-12-2007 12:40:
quote:
Originally posted by ibizzzaaa
NO
It's more of the question of how all of the hardware produce all of those particular sounds and samples.
There are many different ways of going about it depending on the module.
All analogue synthesizers generate their sounds from a Voltage Control Oscillator (VCO). Which for lack of a better description is a switch that changes the voltage in the circuit causing a variable, cyclical AC signal. The oscillation can be swtiched to a number of a basic waveforms, the most basic being a sinusoidal wave which has a fundamental frequency and absolutely no harmonics.
Sine wave oscillators and noise generators are the basis of pretty much all analogue drum machines and drum sounds. The infamous 808 for example derives all of its drum sounds by pitch bending sine wave oscillators and summing the signal with filtered white noise. All the high hats on an 808 are generated using unfiltered white noise, shaped using an amplifier envelope (which automatically fades it in/out). An 808 bass drum is a sine wave oscillator and a noise generator passed through a low pass resonant filter passed through a filter envelope stage which is passed through an amplifier envelope stage. Using the controls on the 808 you can vary the amount of filter resonance, the frequency of the sine wave oscillator (its pitch) and amplifier envelope attack and decay phases to shape the sound in several ways.
All of this is done electronically and the unit itself outputs a very small electrical AC signal. This signal is passed onto a transformer and then power amplifier stage which uses a massive voltage from a mains supply to increase the amplitude of the AC signal which is then fed to a speaker transducer. This transducer converts this variable AC signal into corresponding variations in air pressure which reach your ear and resonate with your ear drum. your brain perceives this stimulus as 'sound.'
A typical analogue synthesizer can have more than one oscillator and you can tune them against each other to produce more complicated cyclical waveforms. This your timbre.
you can sculpt your basic timbre using filters which are capacitors/inductors in series with the oscillator circuit that vary the reactance in the circuit thus attenuating the frequency of the AC signal above/below/at the point of a threshold point which you specify.
The basic signal chain for a simple analogue synth would be something like:
1) VCO (Voltage Control Oscillator) -> output
2) -> input VCF (Voltage Control Filter) -> output
3) -> input LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator) -> output
4) -> input Amplifier Envelope stage -> main output
CV/Gate is used to automatically trigger analogue synthesizers and form the basis of the sequencer.
CV/Gate has been replaced in digital audio with MIDI which is vastly more complex. It would take a thread in itself to explain what MIDI is adequately but at its most basic level it is a system of instructions that tell synthesizers what to do and when.
Since electronic dance music typically has fixed and very rigid timing, it was common to sequence many sounds instead of playing them by hand.
The TB-303 is a basic sequencer based synthesizer. You punch in the notes it should play on a 16 step grid. Then press play. It will automatically play this 16 step sequence and repeat it until you tell it to stop. During this time you may alter some of the synth variables such as its volume, its filter cutoff and resonance, its envelope attack and decay phase etc etc.
Posted by ibizzzaaa on Sep-12-2007 15:29:
Thanks for the detailed answer
It would be really nice to see a video that shows how all of this analogue hardware is used live. Sort of like those James Zabiela clips where he shows how he achieves certain tricks when mixes live.
Posted by azone on Sep-13-2007 06:28:
they did it the same way as depeche mode or any other electronics act. All the rhythmic stuff and most drums and percussion are playing back from synced adats, samplers and other synced tape machines. The artist is usually only performing pads or strings or maybe a lead on keyboards, guitars, bass, drummer etc... sometimes if a keyboard guy is good they'll play a quantized or syncopated bassline live if they can handle it.
