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how does live p.a. works?
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| mastercongo |
i dont even know what p.a. means lol. but i know it's used when it's an actual live electronic show. with equipment etc. what i want to know is how do you go about it? i mean how do you use the kicks? is it drum machines? i went to see infected mushroom and they use all kinds of stuff, keyboards, mixers etc. but i saw a video for underworld live, and i saw that they didnt use keyboards, so how do they make the melodies? do they have them pre-programmed on a mixer and just put it on, when it's time? does anyone have links to a site that explins a bit of that?
thanks in advance. |
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| Pjotr G |
naturally electronic acts don't play all 10 layers of synths live on some keyboard. The lines are all in a (or more) sequencer(s). This is a box that holds all the notes, so to say. It sends out those notes to other devices, such as synths (not necessarily with keyboards attached to it), samplers and the likes. All the audio outs of those devices get a channel on the mixer, and then you can go go go.
There is some flexibility in actually creating music on stage, for example you can put a roland TR in "write mode" and let it sync to the rest, and input notes as you go (works nifty, but you need alot of hands for that).
The sequences are usually pattern based, i.e. a 4 bar sequence loops until you decide you go on to the next pattern (i.e. song), this means you can structure the music as you go, by muting and unmuting parts/channels on the sequencer or on the mixer. |
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| mastercongo |
| Pjotr G thank you very much. that clears a lot for stuff i had on my head :> |
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| xls |
What a lot of people do is use pre-recorded bed tracks (drums, basslines and background melodic bits), and then play the main parts over top. This is most common with trance P.A.s, as older analog gear can be very finicky at times (doesn't always respond well to dust/moisture/temperatures) and you don't want it screwing up in the middle of your set in front of thousands of people. Some people argue that that's not really playing live, and that it's way easier. But there's still loads of work that goes into the preparation for the set, and with the proper gear, you're not necessarily as constrained to tempo and structure as one might think...
Check out Lab 4's (arguably the most successful Live PA around) explanation and justification of this method:
http://www.lab4.com/weaponry.html |
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