Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

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splitcane
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Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by splitcane »

I was listening Surgeon's live recording and started to think in general, how much functionally overlapping gear (e.g. drum machines), are needed or used in live setups to manage transitions or offer sound variation.



Anthony seems to have TR09 running through the live set (same pattern with the left panned low tom? :shock: ), but also Mutant Bassdrum kicks in time to time. Otherwise I counted there to be max 4 synth lines on parallel on top of the drums.

Do you use/need multiple drum machines in your live setup to handle transitions or provide sound variation? Naturally you can vary your drum tracks more than having just plain 909 running, but how do you then move from one drum kit to another?

Or do you prefer to keep your live setup simple and more drastic sound variations between the tracks will be done only in studio?

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by Lost to the Void »

How the mighty have fallen... That set is terrible. Push button arpeggios, some truly aweful sounds and nothing that could identifiably be called Surgeon! Wtf is he doing? The modular road has led him down a blind alley.....??.

There is no real right or wrong way to put together a live PA.
Just do something that works for you.

For me I want the experience to at least have the same flow as a DJ set, as live PA's can have a habit of transitioning from track to track badly and losing all the energy. I've always operated this way when it comes to playing live electronic music, which I've done for 18 years in various setups.

My current live PA setup is currently

MPC Live
Analog 4
Minilogue
Lito Ice
Bunch of fx

The MPC Live does all the samples, mostly drums, loops and weird textural shit, and is broken up into 2 sets of stereo outs "left Deck and right deck" which I can then mix between via the desk.
The analog 4 is also split, 2 sounds from 1 output, 2 from another, these are also treated as left deck and right deck.
The minilogue is sequenced by the MPC live and is run just as a stereo output.
The Sismo gets clock from the analog 4 and runs a mono out.

So essentially I can mix, just like a DJ between the main elements, which are covered by the MPC and AT, and the other 2 synths tend to do lead parts.
It makes transitioning easy as the percussion never needs to slim down to facilitate moving between songs, and also I don't get stuck with 1 kick sound or whatever.
I'm probably going to dump the A4, I've grown tired of forcing myself in to the Elektron way of working, which is essentially the bottleneck of my setup.

You just have to work it out yourself really, it has to be something conducive to your workflow, you need to be comfortable with it, understand it and be able to operate it smoothly.
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arkos
Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by arkos »

I've no idea why he is using the modular live for playing the kick, I'd make a bunch of different ones and sample them for variety and use the modular for other sounds....

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splitcane
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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by splitcane »

Thanks for your replies.

I have had so far in my setup some self-sufficient machine (e.g. Elektron Machinedrum) as a B-deck, which would allow me to keep rhythm going on, while changing patches on on A-deck for track transition. Naturally some synths are also mixed in on the desk during transitions.

I was now thinking myself to utilize the Machinedrum more on primary tracks and ditch some other drummachines. Maybe I'll next try, whether I can compose the transition tracks in parallel and in all my gear and route more sounds from Machinedrum via separate outputs to my mixer.

Experimentation time -->

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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by Vorlis »

Lost to the Void wrote:
So essentially I can mix, just like a DJ between the main elements
When I switched to this way of performing it was much more fun and manageable, especially with transitions and keeping the energy up!

I was looking another synth for my "right side deck" and had my eye on the Monomachine, but I never even considered splitting the A4 stereo out like that, 2 for 1 side and 2 for the other! I'll be all over that tonight, good man!

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by Lost to the Void »

Vorlis wrote:
Lost to the Void wrote:
So essentially I can mix, just like a DJ between the main elements
When I switched to this way of performing it was much more fun and manageable, especially with transitions and keeping the energy up!

I was looking another synth for my "right side deck" and had my eye on the Monomachine, but I never even considered splitting the A4 stereo out like that, 2 for 1 side and 2 for the other! I'll be all over that tonight, good man!
Yeah, it makes life a little more complicated when in the middle of transitions, because, well, you`re not just mixing two records together like some lazy ass DJ :twisted: but it`s worth it. And it means you patterns on the A4 go something like this
"song 1 sequence"
tracks 1 and 2 for song 1, tracks 3 and 4 for song 2.

"song 2 sequence"
tracks 3 and 4 for song 2, tracks 1 and 2 for song 3

etc etc. So you need to keep track of shit.


Yeah splitting out the A4 just made sense to me, you don`t really need all 4 synths for 1 track, I mean, each is dual osc with sub osc, so.... Unless it`s your only synth in the setup, then maybe it makes sense. And you don`t really need stereo, it`s going in to a PA.
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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by rsntr »

Another approach to handle transitions without doubling gear is to use a looper. The way I do it is to loop incoming stuff from a hardware synth within the Octatrack. That piece of equipment is then free to play the next element. Depending on how you set up the Octatrack you can also layer loops. Blawan for example uses a Boss 4 channel looper I think.

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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by [wesellboxes] »

splitcane wrote:I was listening Surgeon's live recording and started to think in general, how much functionally overlapping gear (e.g. drum machines), are needed or used in live setups to manage transitions or offer sound variation.
This might be of interest

https://vimeo.com/225625900

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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by [Ø] »

thanks.

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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by rsntr »

[wesellboxes] wrote:
This might be of interest

https://vimeo.com/225625900
Back then Surgeon used the Octatrack as a looper and for some backing tracks , I think (haven't watched the whole video but I was actually at that workshop).

About 1-2 months ago I saw him play live and as far as I can tell he just used the modular and the Beatstep, definitely no Octatrack. Sounded not less complex in comparison to his live sets with the Octatrack. So I assume that he uses more than just 1 voice for synth sounds from the modular and sequences them with 2 channels from the Beatstep and maybe the Turing Machine in the modular.

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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by SixOfOne »

I watched that video and I like what he's saying about improvisation in theory but in the end any set I've heard from him on the modular all sounds very similar. I know he talks about limiting yourself being a good thing but going with just a modular seems to be too limiting sound wise. Given the unlimited choice of modules out today it shouldn't be limiting but every recent set from him online is very easy recognizable.

Also in that video, he programs drums live I'm assuming but the only other sequencing seems to be coming from the Turing Machine which spits out random voltages so I don't see a whole lot of room there for improvisation.

I saw him live as Trade with Blawan and really enjoyed it but I don't think I'd enjoy just him on his own for an hour.

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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by Lost to the Void »

SixOfOne wrote:I watched that video and I like what he's saying about improvisation in theory but in the end any set I've heard from him on the modular all sounds very similar. I know he talks about limiting yourself being a good thing but going with just a modular seems to be too limiting sound wise. Given the unlimited choice of modules out today it shouldn't be limiting but every recent set from him online is very easy recognizable.

Also in that video, he programs drums live I'm assuming but the only other sequencing seems to be coming from the Turing Machine which spits out random voltages so I don't see a whole lot of room there for improvisation.

I saw him live as Trade with Blawan and really enjoyed it but I don't think I'd enjoy just him on his own for an hour.

Yeah. Surgeon was the total don of dons for me.
Though he is having fun, his live stuff is just blip de bloop arpeggio techno, with obvious sounds and patterns, and has lost all the uniquity and menace of the Surgeon sound.
I can't listen to those live sets for more than 10-20 mins, they sound exactly like they are, someone pushing buttons on gear looking for sounds to make a tune.
It's like listening to someone who has just sat down to make a tune, but just that stage of songwriting, for a full hour.
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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by dubdub »

Jeez, that Live set is boring. Yeah, there's a reason why almost nobody plays a fully improvised Live Set, it rarely works. There are some people that can do it but they usually use simple and straightforward gear with a limited sound palette like Roland XoX and simple vintage stuff like a Juno or something, not a fucking modular.

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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by HowieRis »

Not a fan of that, although I do like his latest EP (Convenience Trap - particularly pt3).

The most "wtf" stuff I've heard are sets where he's mixing his modular into a regular DJ set so he's got some Blawan track or other with the incessant "BOOPBOOPBOPBEEPDEEBEPPs" over it which... yeah... I guess he's gone full 'hardware performance' now which is probably a good thing, relatively.

My favourite sets of his are when he was dissecting material on Ableton and just remixing on the spot.

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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by heyitsleyy »

Lost to the Void wrote:How the mighty have fallen... That set is terrible. Push button arpeggios, some truly aweful sounds and nothing that could identifiably be called Surgeon! Wtf is he doing? The modular road has led him down a blind alley.....??.

There is no real right or wrong way to put together a live PA.
Just do something that works for you.

For me I want the experience to at least have the same flow as a DJ set, as live PA's can have a habit of transitioning from track to track badly and losing all the energy. I've always operated this way when it comes to playing live electronic music, which I've done for 18 years in various setups.

My current live PA setup is currently

MPC Live
Analog 4
Minilogue
Lito Ice
Bunch of fx

The MPC Live does all the samples, mostly drums, loops and weird textural shit, and is broken up into 2 sets of stereo outs "left Deck and right deck" which I can then mix between via the desk.
The analog 4 is also split, 2 sounds from 1 output, 2 from another, these are also treated as left deck and right deck.
The minilogue is sequenced by the MPC live and is run just as a stereo output.
The Sismo gets clock from the analog 4 and runs a mono out.

So essentially I can mix, just like a DJ between the main elements, which are covered by the MPC and AT, and the other 2 synths tend to do lead parts.
It makes transitioning easy as the percussion never needs to slim down to facilitate moving between songs, and also I don't get stuck with 1 kick sound or whatever.
I'm probably going to dump the A4, I've grown tired of forcing myself in to the Elektron way of working, which is essentially the bottleneck of my setup.

You just have to work it out yourself really, it has to be something conducive to your workflow, you need to be comfortable with it, understand it and be able to operate it smoothly.
So you ditched the octatrack ? If you don't mind me asking, why and what do you prefer in the MPC ? I'm pretty interested in it but I saw it at the store and it's fucking huge, not sure about the touchscreen part as well, some hindsight into it would be nice, cheers.

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Re: Functionally overlapping gear in live setup

Post by Lost to the Void »

Well, the Octa was also being used to sequence external gear and in that respect it's quite limited and frustrating.
I find step sequencers shite for anything but drums anyway, but doing chords and complex parts is a nightmare with the octatrack.
The mpc has better sequencing than the Octa.
Also the sample playback/polyphony is basically unlimited and I do quite complex sample stuff. For my live setup the MPC live just makes a lot more sense.
I considered having the Octa sit over the main mix outs of the pa for more manipulative madness but that overcomplicates things.
The touch screen is awesome, super responsive and clear.
The MPC live is just amazing IMO. Massive sample ability, fantastic sequencing, easy to use, perfect size.
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