Playing Electronic Music Live

Lukeys · Joined: Oct 26, 2005 Posts: 7 Location: Italy

Hi Everybody!
I lately purchased a MacBook 2,16 which I'd like to use with an M-Audio Ozonic to do some live electronic gigs (Ambient/Chillout/Downtempo and a bit of IDM).
Unfortunately I am a traditional keyboard player who has always played in bands and I can't hide my confusion about doin' an entire live gig all by myself with only a laptop and a Midi controller.

So i was wondering how it should work:

- Do I have to play over a preprogrammed rhytmic/harmonic accompaniment and play melody live ?
- Do i only have to use fx,faders and send over a preprogrammed song (a sort of live mixing) ?
- Do I have to improvise everything from playing to fx ?

You'd probably say "sorta of all" and i'd really like to do so but i think it would be rather difficult to do everything and still giving an aesthetic sense to it all , at the beginning at least !

I'm a happy owner of Reason 3 which i'd like to use for this purpose too .
I Also got Live Lite 4 bundled with the Ozonic (which i could update to version 5 that features full Rewire support).

How do you suggest to get this thing started ?

Thank You so much in advance

seraph

kara · Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 2:51 am Post subject:

It all depends what 'image' you want to propose to the public....
If you want to perform as a live player and not as some laptop DJ which plays allso a couple of melodies on top of sequences you'll have some work to do.

We play as a duo a complete 2x 45 minutes live JMJ (jean michel jarre)show, so we have some experience.
The first advice that I could give you, is forget the laptop ! Public still don't like to laptop on real live performances.
We use a PC as special (see bellow) sequencer, but we build a custom rackpc with integrated touchscreen which is build in my gear rack and that people don't see as a PC.

The whole liveset is build in EnergyXt but you can do the same in Live.
We have separated all songs in different MIDI parts (sequences) which can be triggered with my left hand on my keyboard. The advantage of a setup like this is that you can perform the song in function of the reaction of the public, you can stretch the intro, verse,outro as long as you want...
Another important issue is the gear, believe me it isn't very trustworthy for the public to see a guy on stage with just 1 keyboard and play a 16 track song all by his self. Even is it is possible, if you set it up the right way. My main keyboard is a G2X and which the allmost unlimited posibilities of controllers I could do the whole with just the G2X. But for the visual aspect I have 2 keyboard on a double keyboard stand. My second is a AN1X, pretty good to do JMJ styles pads.
That way I trigger parts with the G2X and play with some filters and play with the right hand the pads on the AN1X.
To make the show complete, all melodies are played by my partner on a WX5 windcontroller with wireless MIDI interface. This is allso an important visual aspect for the public. She is free to move on stage and to interact with the public.

Allso keep in mind that you'll need some fill-tracks to play realy live while your next song loads in your setup (live or what so ever). Silence is something to avoid at all price during a live gig, you loose the public... Hence my second keyboard where I can play during loading of the next set.

Don't underestimate a live gig like this. If you want to do it and give a real professional image, it is a hugh work to prepare it. The preparation of you first live show, which was years agoo, took a year of preparation and rehearsal. And every season we spend months on changing, introducing new song and renewing existing ones.

Feel free to ask other questions Smile

Other opinions may defer of course....

k

Lukeys · Joined: Oct 26, 2005 Posts: 7 Location: Italy

Hi ! Thanks Everyone for your responses !

Well, I do wanna work hard to prepare my show.i know this is not simple at all like everything when you wanna make it sound and look good!

I'd feel more comfortable with a traditional musician approach rather than a Dj one.

Well, about laptop. i could hardly step back for now. i'va always been on stage with bigger keyboards (Motif Es 7 (with plg DX and AN installed) and 88 weighted keys master) , wonferfull but cumbersome stuff which I'd like to get rid for a while, at least for this project.

I'd prefer few little stuff and just remained focused on the music.
It's part of my current desire of "minimalism". Smile

I know small rig don't make scenography but I could remedy with lights and videos.

What I would like to understand now is how to use my equipment (MacBook,Ozonic,Reason 3 and probably this Live Lite 5) to its best to prepare the performace.

I could use rewire between Reason and Live to use Live only fo Fx on some tracks and use Reason to generate every sound from the rhythmic to melody passing through harmony.

What Do You Think About It ?

Still thanks

kara · Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 5:40 am Post subject:

ok so let's go with a laptop Very Happy

I don't know anything about reason beside what I've read about it.
But I think, this could be a possible setup
-Rewire reason to live
- Make in live your set. This could be multiple midi clip's which you can trigger from your keyboard with your right hand. This way you have a flexible setup and you can construct your live song like you want. PLaying 8 or 12 bars intro doesn't matter, you decide since you are looping the clip.
And you could split your keyboard to 2 midi channels, sending the right part directly to reason. This way with the right hand you can play pads, melody whatsoever.

Now having said that...., I'm allways paranoia about a PC hangup during a live gig. So I keep the pc setup as simple as possible !
Another approach could be that instead of triggering midiclips, you use ONLY live and you sample beforehand the reason loops that you need.
For the right hand you could load vsti's directly into live.
Unlimited possibilties....

Another important issue when you play live, allways have a plan B ready in case your PC hangs. I allways have a couple of setups in my G2X which don't need my PC. That way, at least, we can play something while the PC reboots. Like I said before, silence during a live performance is a killer thing.

Hope this helps

k

Mohoyoho · Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:47 am Post subject:

Kara has good points. Computer mess ups do happen. Keep Live simple with sample loops and a minimum of VSTs. Even though it will indicate you are using only a little CPU power, Live will hiccup or crash when used with several VSTs, especially Reaktor. If you have a hardware synth with a sequencer, I would use that.

I've seen a few performers with a single keyboard put on great shows. Jonathan Block puts on quite a show with one keyboard. electro-music's own Howard Moscovitz used a G2X with multiple splits to headline a show we put on down here in Tenn.

I think you could easily program your backing tracks in Live or Reason and play along with them. But as Kara said, have Plan B. Computers will crash. It's happened to Michael Peck and me more than once, but because there are two of us, one can cover. We once played live on Chuck van Zyl's Stars End radio show in Philadelphia. Just before we were to air, Michael's laptop refused to boot up. I gave him mine, even though it had none of his setups. He quickly fashioned some Live setups that would just get us by. Too bad he didn't back up his Live setups to a CD or DVD. He could have loaded that into my computer, and our performance would hardly have been compromised.

On the other hand, a similar thing happened to me, except with a Waldorf Q hardware rack. It was my laptop that got us through the spots where the Q would have been featured.

Have Plan B ready, because you will need it.

Lukeys · Joined: Oct 26, 2005 Posts: 7 Location: Italy

Thanks Guys,

Wow, 2007 and still laptops are not safe for live ! Very Happy

Anyway I must confess Plan B was the first thing i thought about , I swear!

i also wanna bring with me an mp3 player or something so I can simply playback the show if nothing wants to work that night !

Well, I'd like to use 4 audio tracks in Live with audio from Reason (4 couple of stereo ReWire channels):

On 2 tracks i could use Live FX on some Reason sounds and on the other 2 i could simply use for playback of backing tracks and play "dry" sounds from always Reason. (also 3 couple of rewire channels would be sufficient).

What Do You Think About this solution ?

Kassen · Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2007 11:45 am Post subject:

I think laptops can be perfectly safe but you need to configure them for live usage, only run processes you know you need and stick to stable versions of programs. For example I know Live 4.14 is very stable on mine so I never upgraded beyond that as the versions since then haven't been reported to be that stable and I don't need any of the new versions.

For my own sequencer I keep a version that I know to be stable and only move updates into that after a *lot* of testing. I don't think the "stable" one has ever crashed on me, I experience it as more dependable then Live.