live electronics

[tavravlavish]

I feel like live electronics would be a lot more fun than producing, my friend comes up with some amazing shit right on the spot that progresses into pure excellence. anybody have experience with both? care to compare and contrast? i feel like doing live shows with samplers, loop station pedals and drum machines would be alot of fun after a lot of practice.

[vivace]

I feel like live electronics would be a lot more fun than producing, my friend comes up with some amazing shit right on the spot that progresses into pure excellence. anybody have experience with both? care to compare and contrast? i feel like doing live shows with samplers, loop station pedals and drum machines would be alot of fun after a lot of practice.

Each to his own. I used to do a lot of live improvisation, but in the end I prefer the amount of control over detail during producing, rather than 'accidently' stumbling upon funky grooves. Which you can reproduce and exploit in a production.

[sainttex]

It's definitely more interesting to the person making it on the spot since it's all new to you too, as opposed to playing a track out you've already heard a gazillion times. It never really keeps my interest though, getting that level of studio perfection, depth and variance just isn't going to happen on the spot.

I'd rather hear a well thought out set of perfected pieces over improv any day. A great middle ground is setting up some solid bits and pieces in Live to play with along with your complete tracks, you can really do some amazing stuff this way.

[boomstix]

i agree, more fun for the performer, less fun for the audience.

[tavravlavish]

i agree, more fun for the performer, less fun for the audience.

yeah this may be true, but i mean if you really knew what you were doing and could build up something then drop into something completely different and make it really enjoyable and interesting. maybe not for genre like dubstep but more experimental electronic music, something a fresh that doesn't fall into a certain genre. when i listen and watch my buddy do it i hear something simple and good turn into something that sounds completely different but still has the same base that it started out with, if he could make good transitions into different ideas blah blah blah it would be pure gold for a live show. if you planned it out and made a set out of it i think it would probably be a lot more enjoyable than watching someone do the usual live deal.. i dunno just a unfinished thought, something i think id rather get high to and or listen to and watch at a live show.

[collective]

i agree, more fun for the performer, less fun for the audience.

the you haven't seen any good live pa(s).



Dan Bell (dbx as he goes by live) - with 2 909s and Minimoog (legend)
Monolake - and the monodeck (legend)
Bruno Pronsato
Lee Curtis
Simon Flower

the list goes on and on, and if you think these acts are boring, then why the fuck are they legends. Especially the first two.

I could go on for hours, its great for the audience. there is just a lack of people who properly know how to do a proper live pa.

[boomstix]

i agree, more fun for the performer, less fun for the audience.

the you haven't seen any good live pa(s).



Dan Bell (dbx as he goes by live) - with 2 909s and Minimoog (legend)
Monolake - and the monodeck (legend)
Bruno Pronsato
Lee Curtis
Simon Flower

the list goes on and on, and if you think these acts are boring, then why the fuck are they legends. Especially the first two.

I could go on for hours, its great for the audience. there is just a lack of people who properly know how to do a proper live pa.

fair enough, maybe my comment sounded a little harsh.

I'm not saying that it can't be done well (and i never mentioned boring) its just that the whole point of improvisation is the random element, the risk of it all going wrong. each to their own i guess but that's not really what i'm into. having said that there would probably be heaps of people who would be into it.

[nowaysj]

The sort of inverse of this is attempting to capture that inspiration and blood lust of live performance in studio production. That's also been a dream of mine. It's hard to do. It's doable, and tools like live really can go a long way. I've just never been able to completely loose it in the studio the way I can when jamming with real world instruments and fx.

The live pa does require a high level of craft and artistry to pull it off. But I think the rewards are higher. Everyone is along for the ride. The performer, the audience, it's more about the shared experience, the uniqueness of a real moment in an otherwise purely artificial reality. It takes a real artist to create these types of experiences. It's rare. It's what I hope music technology is heading towards. Seems like minimal techno lends itself to live tweakage, no?

I say go for it homie

[ninjadog]

In my experience watching performers who use hardware is always way more fun and exiting than watching a dj spin records (unless there turntablists) or watching some laptop guy pointing and clicking and tweaking the odd controller knob. Seems to me they usually have less of a crowd, but the people that do stick around and watch are way more into it.

I always wanted to go the hardware route as well, but thought it would be too expensive. Than I found a mc-307 in a local pawn shop for pretty cheap. I saw this guy Novatron and he totally re-inspired me to get into doing live pa's. So now I am in the process of building up my rig (once I get a job and the cash starts flowing that is)
http://www.youtube.com/user/nortavon#p/a
can someone tell me how to embed that vid?

[nowaysj]

In your post, the last button right over the text field is video. Hit that, then paste the url from the address line of just the video right between the video tags.

in this case:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qwfd7UmahQ

[ninjadog]

Ah, thanks.

[wormcode]

I feel like live electronics would be a lot more fun than producing, my friend comes up with some amazing shit right on the spot that progresses into pure excellence. anybody have experience with both? care to compare and contrast? i feel like doing live shows with samplers, loop station pedals and drum machines would be alot of fun after a lot of practice.

It's extremely fun. I did live sets for years, and I still love it... but the worse part is all the equipment. Loading it up, making sure you have all the required wires and power adapters, then unloading it all and setting it all up, then breaking it all down and packing it up after a few hours, and probably not sober. Of course there's always the missing wire or 2 as well. I started keeping extra RCA/TRS and MIDI cables in the car. Then of course worrying about theft or accidents. One time some drunk bitch came up to look at the setup and she tripped and threw her drink into the air, a good amount of it landed right on top of my sampler..there was 2 of us so I started cleaning it off quickly as my friend kept playing. After a while we started bringing another friend along to help watch out for stuff like that, and also so he could keep an eye on the equipment. Of course, if there's not a lot of equipment involved it's not as big of a problem. On average we were working with about 7-10 instruments, plus mixers, so it can be a bit of a headfuck. After a couple of years or so of doing it often it becomes second nature though.

There's also not a ton of creative control, like you can't sit there and draw out automations, you have to do it with your hand.. and it gets harder if you have to go through several menus on a small LCD screen. You can avoid this by programming MIDI beforehand, but that goes against "live show" in my opinion, so I never used any MIDI besides MIDI clock & MTC (which can be a real bitch in itself, especially if daisy chaining). Another thing I absolutely hated was the smoke in clubs, my equipment and bags would stink like cigarettes for days!

[nowaysj]

what continent u on? Europe in general smells like a big old filthy ashtray, anyways.

Re the set up - pain, but after a while, you can do it in perfect darkness without thinking about it.

Now adays, with midi controllers though, you can map out your controls, so you don't have to go through 128 x 64 lcd's. I think using computers live is totally viable now, so everything should be more controllable on the fly.
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[ehcsztein]

i feel like doing live shows with samplers, loop station pedals and drum machines would be alot of fun after a lot of practice.

I say go for it. If nothing else it will definitely open you up to new ideas and approaches for studio composition. There are many, many, ways to approach a live performance. The trick is to find the one the fits right for you and then learning how to exploit your gear to make it happen. Familiarity and practice makes all the difference.

The sort of inverse of this is attempting to capture that inspiration and blood lust of live performance in studio production. That's also been a dream of mine. It's hard to do.

This is my current challenge. Getting a bit bored with performance and feel that once I commit the material to a studio release I’ll be able to move on to better things. I have my approach/signal flow worked out pretty well and just need my audio interface and use of a better machine for recording it all at this point. My current rig will not handle tracking out 12 simultaneous channels of audio lol.

[phrex]

In your post, the last button right over the text field is video. Hit that, then paste the url from the address line of just the video right between the video tags.

in this case:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qwfd7UmahQ

this distorted hoover got after 30 seconds on my nerves actually

this reminds me on a really wicked outdoor minimal party where a friend invaded the tables and selected some proper dubstep