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A few thoughts on live performances - hopefully a few inspiring tips
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scobbah
Kiriyama
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991
Posted : Jun 21, 2007 23:58
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Ciao friends!
I have thought about posting a few of my thoughts on the live subject for quite a while now. Please, spare with me as I have worked the night shift and therefore I am quite tired, but I will do my best to share a few of my thoughts here.
First, I am a student on a limited budget. I have to work during the summer in order to afford my studies at the university, hence I cannot save up a lot of cash and buy myself the latest and most expensive gear. I cannot even afford a laptop as the situation is today, yet I love to make music and I enjoy to play in front of a crowd, which is something I believe we all here have in common. But I am not a DJ but an amateur musician so I only do live performances (with very few exceptions). But I can I really play live when I do not own a laptop?
I do not wish to indulge in discussions about what is live and what is not, but I wish to encourage any artist who performs 'live' to do what they can in order to make the performance as exclusive and special as possible. It is supposed be something special to go and hear an artist live. As a music lover with my deepest rots in non-electronic music, I have always loved to see live performances. Not the show itself but I want to be surprised when I see a band. I want to hear things which differ from what I hear when I listen to their CDs. The sames goes for electronic music, of course. When I am on the dancefloor, I do not wish to experience an artist's liveset as something that comes straight from CD. Live as a concept ought to be realised to the greatest extent the tools of the artist(s) can offer.
So before we get back to the subject, I would like to make a short summary:
A) An artist's liveset should be something special and the tracks ought to not sound exactly like they do on CD. If the tracks sound like they do on CD, I can listen to them at home if that is the case.
B) An artist ought to fully use his/her tools in order to make the liveset as live as the tools allow them to.
So I cannot afford a laptop and I am not a DJ, yet I wish to do live performances. How can I do to make my live as 'live' as possible? How can I as an artist give the crowd a special experience - a question every artist here should ask himself/herself.
I do not believe that only those who can afford a laptop should be allowed to do livesets, but anyone who produce his/her own music and wish to give the crowd a special experience. Even some people who do own laptops do not fully take advantage of their tools to make a special experience for the crowd, but that is another over-discussed subject. So the question is, how can I as an artist make a special experience for the crowd without a laptop?
One of my ideas as regards posting this thread is to encourage other artists who today refrain themselves from going on stage because of the fact that they do not own a laptop and therefore they think that they cannot play 'live'. Here is a few of my ideas on how you can make your liveset more special on a limited budget and perhaps some of my ideas can inspire a few artists to take their first steps on the path of preparing a liveset and then go on stage.
A) If you can afford it, buy a synthesizer. I got a cheap MIDI keyboard, an Oxygen 8, and I have connected it to my Korg MS2000R. Neither of these products are that expensive and if you choose to invest your money in a synthesizer, it will both allow you to do 1) more on stage and 2) expand your arsenal of tools in your bedroom studio and thus give some new colour to your productions. I bought the Oxygen 8 a few years ago for 100 € and I got the Korg MS2000R about two weeks ago for 200 €. 300 € is still probably cheaper than to buy a laptop, the latter being a tool mainly adding options to your live performances but not to your studio creation.
B) Make special live versions of your tracks, especially those which you have released. This is a forever on-going project (you can never have too many versions of your tracks to choose from when you prepare a liveset) but it contributes a lot to your live performance, I believe. How boring is it not to stand on the dancefloor and hear a track which sounds exactly like it does on CD with only a few tweaks added from a synthesizer (most common being sweeps and general FX)?
It does not have to be a major project to make a live version of a track. If it is a released track, I usually import the mastered WAV into Cubase, chop up the major parts of the track - rearrange them - make new breaks and add new leads, atmospheres, breaks and FX. This is a great way to surprise your listeners when you perform on stage and give them a special experience.
To make it easier to go back and add new melodies/pads that are in key, I recommended you to keep notes of your tracks and their primary keys, unless you do not have a memory that is better organised than mine is or a good ear (I have tinnitus and therefore have difficulties sometimes to identify the key of the track). Remember, if you are unlucky you may loose your old project files in a harddisk crash (I burn my finished projects on DVDs and save them in a special case). If you have a poor memory but still have the project files, it is still annoying to switch between the projects in your sequencer to check which key is in use during which parts of the track.
You probably know loads of tracks of other artists by heart, and when you are on the dancefloor - you hear the track being played and on some occasions you mentally see and expect the next part of the track coming. "Ah, and now this part comes!", you may very well think - but it does not! Surprise!
C) Get one of your tracks remixed by another artist. It contributes to your liveset in the same way as live versions did in the B example above.
D) My most recent idea is, to premix a few of the tracks in your liveset. If you choose to do so, you can pay attention and work with other stuff on stage. I will try this out this weekend: Since some tracks are premixed, I will sometimes eject one of the CDs from the CD players. I will then insert another CD on which I have burnt miscellaneous rhythmic loops (I will not try drum loops as there are already a bunch of drums in my tracks and I fear muddiness to become evident), ambient atmospheres and other noises. I will then blend those with the track(s) being played at the moment. Suppose you only have the CDJs (mixing) and your synthesizer (adding sounds) on stage since you do not own a laptop yet, using a third CD will give you a third option of live manipulation.
E) If you are skilled enough, you can render a light version of your track where you have removed for example a few leads and then play those live. I would not recommend it to fellow beer lovers, but it is jolly fun to see an artist mastering the keyboard on stage. Although I think this trick of live manipulation was more common in the past (the Karahana video comes to my mind with MFG, I think, playing leads live in the most expressive way), I wish to remind you of this technique.
F) Try to have different live intros (and outros if you have such) if you suspect that the crowd may already have heard the intro you thought of using at the beginning. Suppose you heard an artist the other week and now you are once again on the dancefloor and the artist executes the same intro again - would you not think "ah, here we go... again!"?
I guess these are my tips for you right now. I hope some of them have inspired you to make your liveset more special and exclusive. I also hope that some who previously refrained from the idea of going on stage doing a liveset now feel more confident - you do not have to have a laptop! A laptop would be a lovely addition for me as I have tons of ideas I wish to realise, but as for now I can only do as good as my tools allow me to. And the examples mentioned above are a few of the tools available more or less to everybody (except of playing leads live then, if we speak about my livesets  ). If you do not own a synthesizer - do not despair! - you can still make an exclusive and special performance!
Again, I love to be surprised on the dancefloor and I am so through with this experience of standing on the floor hearing the same stuff over and over again. Hopefully we will all be more surprised by the artists on the dancefloors over the globe in the future.
Thank you for reading and feel free to express your thoughts and share your ideas on how we, who cannot afford a laptop, can make our livesets more special and more exclusive.
All the best,
kiri 
  Aural transmissions from the deep forests of Sweden
www.dvsmrecords.org - 'Patterns II EP' by Silent Horror out now! |
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psybratt
Devic
Started Topics :
23
Posts :
442
Posted : Jun 22, 2007 00:35
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without laptop .. one way to do that comes to my mind...
put some loops of kick and bassline on a CD .. play track from CD with loop function ON .. then add in some tunes with synthesiser or other CD with some synth loops .. kinda tough .. (maybe need more than 2 CDJs on the stage..hehe) ..
but something that is done in live act .. shuffling patterns/loops and beats .. i like Opotion E but can be difficult to work out ..
but good topic for sure .. looking forward to what others have to say .. 
peace,
Devic |
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Spindrift
Spindrift
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33
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1560
Posted : Jun 22, 2007 03:00
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Even if you say you don't want to indulge in discussion about what's live or not I have to protest a bit.
IMHO having a CD with remixed tracks doesn't make it more of a live act even if it might make it a bit more interesting to listen to.
And having one synth to play some sounds of top of a CD is close to faking it I would say.
If it's not live be honest and don't call it live.
And don't call it a DJ set if you bring a premixed CD either.
A laptop that you can run a live set from is not that expensive.
For around €300 you can pick up a second hand laptop that will do the job.
I anyway like to avoid running loads of heavy plugs in a live environment and you only need so many instruments/fx running live as you can control in each track.
So any stable 2ghz+ machine can do the job if you optimize your tracks in a smart way, and still leave you a lot of flexibility to make a performance that is not "live" but live.
In the worst case just bring your desktop.
Anyway...that's my opinion on the matter.
Only take on live gigs if you are equipped to do them and are going to at least try to create something that is more live than a DJ set.
Instead of putting on a premixed CD and add some barely audible sweeps from a synth on top, which seems to be a quite standard live set in this scene, I much prefer having the artists focus on putting the tracks in an order that makes sense for the crowd there and then.
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scobbah
Kiriyama
Started Topics :
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991
Posted : Jun 22, 2007 10:55
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Thanks for your reply, Spindrift.
I want to stress that my main point here is was to share some of my ideas on how you can make your liveset more special on a limited budget, something everybody would benefit from. It was meant to encourage people to make their livesets as exclusive as possible whatever their tools are.
Furthermore I do not know whether to take this as something aimed at me or if you speak in general terms - And having one synth to play some sounds of top of a CD is close to faking it I would say. At any rate I do try play a good number of leads live (of course the less difficult ones which I can manage to play whatever my current condition may be) - but still it will not be in MFG style since my skills are not that of those guys.  On this point, I cannot see the difference having the leads rendered from a hardware synthesizer than from a laptop, of course. But if you speak about added sweeps and general FX on top of tracks for 90 minutes, I would agree with you that it is close to faking it. It might be considered close to faking it even if it is better than nothing - but here is where my first post has a valid point: you can take a better advantage of your tools than to just add sweeps if you have the option of bringing a synthesizer on stage whether it is software or hardware.
Regarding premixed CDs, I strongly dislike the idea of premixing the whole set and go on stage. I have seen this too many times and a perfectly executed set (with perfect mixes and where all sounds are perfectly mixed etc) just sounds sterile to me and robotish, lacking the human touch given to the set by human "errors". About my own set, I wanted to try out the idea to premix a few tracks (that is, 1 or 2 of my shorter ones) which would give me the time to insert a third CD to add multi-layered samples. On this point, I cannot see much of a difference from adding noise from a laptop, more than that the laptop gives greater possibilities to choose exactly which samples I wish to add. Now I can only make my own multi-layered samples and then decide which to add on the fly, so of course there are limits. Like I said, this weekend is going to be the first time where I try this out. Perhaps I will find myself having time to insert the third CD during my longer tracks with ease, let us see.
Quote: Instead of putting on a premixed CD and add some barely audible sweeps from a synth on top, which seems to be a quite standard live set in this scene, I much prefer having the artists focus on putting the tracks in an order that makes sense for the crowd there and then.
I fully agree with you here. Anyone whether they use a laptop or play backtracks from CDs have the possibility of putting the tracks in an order which makes sense there and now. Of course, premixing 1 or 2 tracks compromises this idea to a minor extent, but I have chosen to do so myself for this weekend (it is just a test, really.. I will see how it works out) in order to give me more options of live manipulation in other areas of the set.
Again, I do not know whether to take some of your points as though they were aimed at me or if you speak in general terms but hopefully I have given you some answers in case they were aimed at me. Please, let me stress that my main point here is to encourage people to make their livesets as exclusive and special as possible, both for your own sake but mainly for the sake of the crowd.
Whatever terms we use to define 'live', I still rarely find myself surprised on the dancefloor whatever tools in use and that inspired me to post this thread. Even if this thread was primarily aimed at those who cannot afford a laptop, even laptop users are free to post their tips on how people can make their livesets more exclusive (and interesting).
Aural transmissions from the deep forests of Sweden
www.dvsmrecords.org - 'Patterns II EP' by Silent Horror out now! |
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Seppa
Started Topics :
8
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485
Posted : Jun 22, 2007 12:07
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hey man !
if you don't have the money for a laptop than anything that works for you is a good thing. You seem to want to do a live.
Many artist play waves on their laptop actually doing a dj set on live with their own material and still call it live. I don't agree to much with the definition of live in this case. you don't have a laptop and try to make one anyway..... thats good, it doesnt matter if you play a synth on top of a premixes cds or cds with beats..... its still a live to me cause you are performing and you're trying to do what you can. so good luck !!!!!
The day you'll have laptop you'll probably come up with something good because of your attitude in that matter.
Also like sprindrift say you can get a laptop that will do the job for very cheap..... just look for the good deal maybe on ebay.
Again good luck and have fun !!!!! |
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Spindrift
Spindrift
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Posted : Jun 22, 2007 12:32
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@scobbah
My little winch was directed to everyone and not anyone in particular.
If you manage to do more with your hardware than a few sweeps and don't have all tracks premixed you're already more genuine than 99% of the liveacts in the scene, so all credit to you.
Anyway...glad midsommar and best of luck with your gig!
I might post back later with some suggestions on ways to make a live set with abelton later.
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scobbah
Kiriyama
Started Topics :
35
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991
Posted : Jun 22, 2007 12:49
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@Spindrift
Thank you for sorting that out for me and thank you for your encouraging words! Glad midsommar to you to and I would appreciate if you could contribute with some of your ideas whenever you have some time to spare.
I thought I would write a tutorial myself after the weekend on how you can timestretch tracks in Ableton using hitpoints without compromising the sound (just a regular timestretch often tend to compromise the sound, e.g. slightly change the pitch of the kick on a random basis) and then sync the tracks to Ableton's master tempo. Then you can load the tracks on different audio channels and route them to different outputs on your soundcard (if your soundcard has two outputs or more) and then connect the different outputs to a DJ mixer. In this way you can decide which track to play on the fly and mix them in the same way as you normally would using 2x CDJs but without having to use CDs at all, thus improving the workflow (in the end it is about your preferences, perhaps some will find this not an improvement in the workflow but at least I do ).
Aural transmissions from the deep forests of Sweden
www.dvsmrecords.org - 'Patterns II EP' by Silent Horror out now! |
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chans
IsraTrance Junior Member
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17
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57
Posted : Jul 4, 2007 09:22
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this is on of my favorite tricks in a live set...when i have a general drumloop playin along with live synth riffs i always run the kick, bass and hats channels through dblue glitch n link the amount control knob to my midi controller knob...so when u have to add a break to the track i jus tweak the knob to full n there u have some crazy fx...it might sound somethin usual to those who do live sets quite often but imho, the crowd really digs those kinda breaks...u can also add a filter n link the cutoff...hope that helped...cheers!!! |
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Dennis the menace
DevilsDennis Sparris McHilton
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128
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2899
Posted : Jul 4, 2007 09:50
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Quote:
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On 2007-07-04 09:22, chans wrote:
this is on of my favorite tricks in a live set...when i have a general drumloop playin along with live synth riffs i always run the kick, bass and hats channels through dblue glitch n link the amount control knob to my midi controller knob...so when u have to add a break to the track i jus tweak the knob to full n there u have some crazy fx...it might sound somethin usual to those who do live sets quite often but imho, the crowd really digs those kinda breaks...u can also add a filter n link the cutoff...hope that helped...cheers!!!
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glitch 
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groovemachines
Started Topics :
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57
Posted : Jul 4, 2007 16:50
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Spindrift
Spindrift
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Posted : Jul 4, 2007 17:47
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If one is using a laptop with Ableton there is many ways of setting up your Live set.
A couple I've been experimenting with:
The way that is most obvious is to bounce down what you not will control live to a stereo track and leave some 2-3 synths running as VST's for realtime playing and/or tweaking as well as have a bank of loops and fx you can throw in when you like to.
Pros of this method is that it's easy to prepare and hard to fuck up too bad during the set.
Cons is that it's still not very live, and if you are playing many tracks and like to use different synths live for each track it will demand a lot of resources and might compromise stability, so it's good if you can reuse the same synths a lot.
To make a proper live set you would use the session view and bounce down different snippets to different slots to get the basic parts of the song structured as patterns.
You would then be able to control the arrangement live so if you find that people seem to think it's time to move on to the next part you just jump ahead with the press of a button.
You still might have some live synths to tweak, but the main focus will be to arrange the track up live.
Obviously the pros of this method is that you get maximum live control over the tracks and can create something really fresh and custom made for the crowd on the spot...depending on how far you take it you could get to a point where you are pretty much creating music in real time.
The cons is that it takes more planning, preparation and rehearsing and leaves lot more room for error.
(``·.¸(``·.¸(``·.¸¸.·`´)¸.·`´)¸.·`´)
« .....www.ResonantEarth.com..... »
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