Live set | Tips&Tricks | Do's&Dont's | Gear |

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
innovine
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Re: Live set | Tips&Tricks | Do's&Dont's | Gear |

Post by innovine »

Don't add, mate, remove!!

If you're on a budget, you could lose the laptop, midiclock, the tr8 AND the MD and just replace them all with an MPC. It'll sound the same. You'd lose the opportunity to tweak and twist the drums, but on the other hand, just working the a4, track mutes and a few fx sends will keep you busy the whole set.
Be careful of making the noob mistake of hauling your entire studio out to gigs. Ask yourself, what gear are you NOT actually bringing?
I may have missed it if you mentioned it earlier, but since you haven't gigged before, I'll point out that that is a very large rig you are currently planning on bringing, with the laptop being a particularly unnecessary and technically weak element. I can say with confidence that when you do a liveset with all that you'll be drowning in workload, unable to enjoy yourself, and you won't even use some of the gear at all. I have gigged, this is good advice, I'm sure others here will say the same, and you should listen and consider it carefully. You have too many options, too much sound shaping ability where you don't need it. You think you need it, but you don't. For your first gigs you want more or less to be able to take your hands off the rig and have it play itself, so you can look around to see whats happening, and you've missed that point completely. And if you think you'll not be loaded because you have the machines filled with preprogrammed material, then ask yourself why you're bringing the machines to play back that, when a loop would do?. Do you really, really need three layers of drums AND also multiple synth parts on top to manipulate live? And all the track fx sends, levels and whatever else. You only have two hands. If you won't be tweaking it, put it in a clip in ableton.

If you are uncomfortable about dropping the laptop, do yourself a big favour and mix the tr8 and ableton loops together into a drum stem in ableton, and leave the tr8 at home.. Have the a4 basslines and essential elements all recorded as clips too, matching the respective drum parts, so your 5 min track is made up of a handful of clips, no more than that. And for your set improvise just a few bits of oneshot noises and percussive dibs and dabs over it with the MD, and tweak a cutoff for a lead sound in the a4. Aim to play along with your core material, not recreate it all live on the fly. You still need to select which clips to play and when, etc. while simultaneously building and managing transitions with fx sends and mutes.

I'm having a guess that you haven't done any actual tracks on this rig yet? Its good on paper mate, but I don't think its going to translate to the stage very well..

Alume
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Re: Live set | Tips&Tricks | Do's&Dont's | Gear |

Post by Alume »

Fair point, and I do value your opinion of course.

Your right I havent played tracks on it yet.

I'll see if I can simplify the setup here and there. I'm planning on practicing the whole thing whatever the setup, to death as well. So i wont stand in front of any surprises when it actually comes this far.

The tr8 can be dropped for ableton drumracks indeed.

I was so excited with what ive come up that I thought that it HAD to work. However its a good idea to setup something simpler, try out some stuff, map some midi's and get on with it.

innovine
hmmmmmm...
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Re: Live set | Tips&Tricks | Do's&Dont's | Gear |

Post by innovine »

Good luck with it. Don't forget to post an update or two as it develops!

Alume
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Re: Live set | Tips&Tricks | Do's&Dont's | Gear |

Post by Alume »

Will do man for sure:)

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Live set | Tips&Tricks | Do's&Dont's | Gear |

Post by Lost to the Void »

You really want to simplify, especially for the first year of gigging.
Nothing will prepare you for playing live in a club and all the difficulties, distractions and confusion and problems that will arise from that.
Once yu get more confident then expand, but i agree with viney, if stuff is just there for the sake of being there and essentially playing back, then it might as well be a loop.

i've played live with ableton as the heart of my setup for 12 years, never had any problems, apart from stuff unrelated. So its not a huge issue.
I eliminated ableton with my octa, just for a change more than anything, but its fine to use live if you have everything set up properly.

Weirdly enough I'm doing a one off gig this weekend in germany and I will be back on ableton for the first time in ages.
Mastering Engineer @ Black Monolith Studio
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Alume
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Re: Live set | Tips&Tricks | Do's&Dont's | Gear |

Post by Alume »

I've made this topic about two years ago and I'm finally diving in.

I dont feel bad about delay because I've learnt a crazy amount of stuff and I just wasn't ready when i started this tread.

So atm, I'm keeping it simple with the analog rytm accompanied by clips and loops from my own making in ableton. The idea is to start of with some ambiance to sort of reset the corwd and slowly build my way out of the fog into more focussed dance music. It will be a nice challenge as I've never really designed any music specifically for clubs.

The track design on the rytm is nice and intuitive and I can wack out a beat in 5 minutes so its also nice to keep on forging them and really get to understand the machine better. I'm starting off with a 30 minute milestone, get that dialed in my system, record a few takes and send it around for feedback. Then from there I can decide on where to go the other 30 minutes.


Of course I will also take everything in this topic in considereation.

I might add a synth later on when all goes well and i can fully say i understand the rytm, any suggestions on that? I'd like it to be small and portable, no drums, maybe some bassy mono with a beatstep pro?


Any suggestions or cool ideas on this setup, also what do you value as a listener of music in clubs? Ofcourse i like to keep my own sound and be authentic but i thought it would also be interesting to really forge this show into something for the crowd and have fun rather than really make a musical statement.

Also, any stuff i need to take in consideration regarding club systems(with it being mono etc). I dont think i'll gig intesively as I cant handle that physically, so i might be a bit picky about venues too.


Edit: After reading back this topic, the laptop should be in the background and i basically have controllers to control the levels of certain parts. The transistions is something that only time will tell, but i think i'll start of with transitioning kits on the rytm. In contrast to my other posts, this time I have started already so I'll get back when I feel comfortable with my 30 minute mark.

dubdub
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Re: Live set | Tips&Tricks | Do's&Dont's | Gear |

Post by dubdub »

IMO the whole point of a live act is to showcase the artists sound, so just do what you feel like.

Your stuff is pretty subtle, it might not translate on crap soundsystems. Keep it simple in any case, nobody's going to hear five layers and various details buried in the mix on a soundsystem.

Alume
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Re: Live set | Tips&Tricks | Do's&Dont's | Gear |

Post by Alume »

Yeah true that. figured it could be a lot more raw energy and stripped down.

@the sound thing, yeah i agree, though i'm going to try to make it a bit more ballsy and club friendly.


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