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Taking your show on the road.

Following on from last thread about control surfaces etc. 3 of my mates are into EDM production too. How can we take our shit on the road without physically being able to play trance melodies in perfect time on the keyboard and have like a million arms to control drops etc.

Ableton live my friend said but how does it wor he says you can play a riff into it and it will quantise and bring it in onbeat etc.

Would we need 4 laptops - bit of a crap act 4 lads sitting at laptops clicking things. Is there a way we could get out our midi gear and laptops and play out like as a live act. Same songs but like Live!

Help

yep a laptop and some midi controller if you want something simple... i don't see the question, what is it? what to help with?

Simplified question

How do artists do a live show when they clearly are not playing drums / bass / synth / melody / fx all at once?

Some trance melodies would be difficult near impossible to play live to anyone less than a concert pianist. Do programs like ableton live help with this if so how?

quote:

Originally posted by Sonic_c Simplified question How do artists do a live show when they clearly are not playing drums / bass / synth / melody / fx all at once? Some trance melodies would be difficult near impossible to play live to anyone less than a concert pianist. Do programs like ableton live help with this if so how?

infected mushroom used to do (i don't follow them anymore) a really big track on cubase (not actual vsts and everything more like audio clips) then it would be the basis for the live act, on top of that they played with some filters and stuff, thats quite about sums up most of the live acts today... i havent seen anybody actually play their whole track by hand...

so as i said, a strong laptop with a good portable soundcard, a midi controller and a long preperation at home is the simple pack... some get more complex with a mixing deck and actual synths and samplers playing...

Ok so its more like live effects and the whole looking busy while pre made samples play out. THe act are busy twisling nobs or on vocals or whatever but most is already done right?

quote:

Originally posted by Sonic_c Ok so its more like live effects and the whole looking busy while pre made samples play out. THe act are busy twisling nobs or on vocals or whatever but most is already done right?

im afraid so.

I noticed underworld used to use a massive mixing desk live, I've tried to use smaller 8 fader mixers, but it doesn't work because you'll often be running 20-30 channels and trying to get immediate hands on control with that.
Looking at other acts, you have daft punk, who basically have a bunch of really expensive synths with flashing lights, and play a completely pre rehearsed (if not pre recorded) set, behind robot masks.
Noticing a common theme? They're all huge acts with almost unlimited budgets and ROADIES. They have the time and the money to spend on getting a really good setup that works for them. Even though they have all this money, I think you'd find that they still play a relatively prerehearsed set, where the songs sound very similar each time they play them. So whats the difference between this and just spinning a bunch of their own tracks? Thats a good question, since at least if they span their tracks in a traditional DJ set format, they would have an unlimited selection of tracks, and not just what they can play/ have rehearsed.
Also, just think about the loading times on your samplers etc. Its a complete show stopper to get those machines going. And what happens when something goes wrong, like ableton Live needs to be restarted? That can take 5-10 minutes on my machine when its running at full pelt, so how do you keep your audience entertained? How's your computer going to hold up to having more than one session running at a time?
This is the problem with live electronic performance. No one has come out with a format where you have adequate control of the set list and performance of the songs. You, one person cannot control 30 channels of instruments at a time. Its just not possible.
If none of you play a "real" instrument, its not gonna work out too well for you I suspect, since you simply won't have the ability to manipulate the song in real time well enough. For stuff that might help you bring in a live element, have a look at the monome, a good controller (novation remote might work), and a hellishly powerful laptop, but just think about what your doing, chances are your going to spend a lot of money on redundant gear, trying to get a setup that your comfortable with.
To answer your question about how to play those riffs, its called an arpegiator.

quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips . To answer your question about how to play those riffs, its called an arpegiator.

I know this lol any monkey can play some chords and click arrpegiate up - No offence monkeys its just your so simple little creatures

anyway I seen dark by design live. A hard trance producer he had a laptop and a rack and really just stood there. COme to think of it the thing crashed and he shouted at the tech guy. 5000 pilled up ravers wondering wtf is he doing lol. I dont want that to be me

Re: Taking your show on the road.

quote:

Originally posted by Sonic_c Following on from last thread about control surfaces etc. 3 of my mates are into EDM production too. How can we take our shit on the road without physically being able to play trance melodies in perfect time on the keyboard and have like a million arms to control drops etc. Ableton live my friend said but how does it wor he says you can play a riff into it and it will quantise and bring it in onbeat etc. Would we need 4 laptops - bit of a crap act 4 lads sitting at laptops clicking things. Is there a way we could get out our midi gear and laptops and play out like as a live act. Same songs but like Live! Help

r u just keebord`s your wanting to use?

quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips I noticed underworld used to use a massive mixing desk live, I've tried to use smaller 8 fader mixers, but it doesn't work because you'll often be running 20-30 channels and trying to get immediate hands on control with that. Looking at other acts, you have daft punk, who basically have a bunch of really expensive synths with flashing lights, and play a completely pre rehearsed (if not pre recorded) set, behind robot masks. Noticing a common theme? They're all huge acts with almost unlimited budgets and ROADIES. They have the time and the money to spend on getting a really good setup that works for them. Even though they have all this money, I think you'd find that they still play a relatively prerehearsed set, where the songs sound very similar each time they play them. So whats the difference between this and just spinning a bunch of their own tracks? Thats a good question, since at least if they span their tracks in a traditional DJ set format, they would have an unlimited selection of tracks, and not just what they can play/ have rehearsed. Also, just think about the loading times on your samplers etc. Its a complete show stopper to get those machines going. And what happens when something goes wrong, like ableton Live needs to be restarted? That can take 5-10 minutes on my machine when its running at full pelt, so how do you keep your audience entertained? How's your computer going to hold up to having more than one session running at a time? This is the problem with live electronic performance. No one has come out with a format where you have adequate control of the set list and performance of the songs. You, one person cannot control 30 channels of instruments at a time. Its just not possible. If none of you play a "real" instrument, its not gonna work out too well for you I suspect, since you simply won't have the ability to manipulate the song in real time well enough. For stuff that might help you bring in a live element, have a look at the monome, a good controller (novation remote might work), and a hellishly powerful laptop, but just think about what your doing, chances are your going to spend a lot of money on redundant gear, trying to get a setup that your comfortable with. To answer your question about how to play those riffs, its called an arpegiator.

look at the grates like jean mechial jare{oxgen part one} all this guy does is make all the synth sound`s computed on his keybord and play live from scrach.

Re: Re: Taking your show on the road.

quote:

Originally posted by airwalker1 r u just keebord`s your wanting to use?

Thats all we have right now and a korg synth do you use just one laptop or loads?

Re: Re: Re: Taking your show on the road.

quote:

Originally posted by Sonic_c Thats all we have right now and a korg synth do you use just one laptop or loads?

the reason i asked matey is because it seems the best way of{well,not fucking up on the big night} just pratise getting a little groove on the go and take it from there.pure spontainious playind that`swhat people love.

just press play on the track and turn knobs on a mixer not connected. no seriously ive been thinking alot too on this and it would be interesting to see how people are doing it. i assume u use the clip-view in ableton and trigger diferet parts, both audio and midi. then have midi controller to control, level, bass, treble (and the triggering maybe?) and also maybe filter and release on synths? i dont know im just guessing how it could be done, i want to do it myself soon. but i would need some kinda sick midicontroller.

Idk who plays live nowadays cause everything always sounds the same who knows. But my friend and I get together and play a whole live set. It's always sounds different of course. We use a few electribes, a few kaos pads and a midi controller. You just have have to know your sounds and patterns well on the machines. You can also use ableton and use loops, again you just have to know your loops/patches well for things to go together and you can have fun playing live.

quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips I noticed underworld used to use a massive mixing desk live

^ That's the most feasible way I can think of to do it.

If you could find a way to get 30+ channels going at the same tempo through a mixing desk, you could have the main elements of two or three different tracks playing at once and fade them in and out as you pleased and maybe manipulate stuff like filters and other synth parameters in real time. When you wanted to play other songs you could gradually switch out new elements and switch synths or patches as necessary.

Of course, this would require a lot of preparation as far as knowing which synths and samples you were going to route through which channel of the mixing desk, when to switch which samples and patches, etc.

Cool so?

If i leanred say 10 basslines on the keyboard even if it was just an off beat pattern changing note.

My friend learned like 10 chord sequences

My other friend pre programed 10 drum sequences and messed with filters live

We got some fine ass bitch on the mic

Some dudes hitting cowbells and generally making noise we could take it on the road.

Now where do I find

a) some mates
b) a fine ass bitch
c) A keyboard player
d) and some backing folks

LOL

quote:

Originally posted by Sonic_c Now where do I find a) some mates b) a fine ass bitch c) A keyboard player d) and some backing folks LOL

Adult Friend Finder

Lol yeah ill start there

Ive wondered this lately also, if the machine crashs and your playing live what do you do? I mean most the time it wont, you obviously have the best kit you can get make sure evereything is updated and running as it should. But if deadmau5's or anyone else's for the matter laptop crashed what happens next?

Anyone here play live know the answer or experience this? It just puts me right of even relying on it to do a set. I suppose the done thing would be to swicth to the cdj or turntable, lol just answered my own question - anyway would love some thoughts on this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVR1dgDecM4

Chicane plays his stuff live all the time. Easiest way to do a live show is to differ from your studio material by using instruments people recognize.

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