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Performing live?
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Xamanist
Xamanist
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Posted : Apr 13, 2010 11:51
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On 2010-04-13 01:33, Colin OOOD wrote:
With purely electronic music, the definition of 'live' has by necessity to be somewhat different from the definition it has in eg. rock music, although many rock bands also use backing tracks.
To me, in electronic music, where many artists do not have traditional musical skills yet still manage to be very creative and interactive with their music on stage, 'live' means the artist is busy doing something the audience can actually hear.
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  Sérgio Xamanist
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Mindfields
Started Topics :
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15
Posted : Apr 13, 2010 14:53
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On 2010-04-13 00:18, SCircuit wrote:
To me, "Live" means your a musician, and your actually "being" a musician by playing something you've spent weeks learning the note patterns.
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If you are a good musician, it shouldnt take weeks to learn ;-)
We are working on how to play live in my group "Yum Kaax". I want to bring my drum pads in and play some percussion or simular, but i am afraid of the problem about not having monitors always, i guess i can use headphones.
but i am afraid since i saw the opening of Fusion 2007, where this percussion guy didnt have monitors or something, so everything was delayed and it sucked!
he had to get off the stage, must be the worst feeling ever.
I bet he was really good at playing percussion, but he ended up sounding like a novice who couldnt play  |
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SCircuit
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Posted : Apr 13, 2010 15:51
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On 2010-04-13 01:33, Colin OOOD wrote:
With purely electronic music, the definition of 'live' has by necessity to be somewhat different from the definition it has in eg. rock music, although many rock bands also use backing tracks.
To me, in electronic music, where many artists do not have traditional musical skills yet still manage to be very creative and interactive with their music on stage, 'live' means the artist is busy doing something the audience can actually hear.
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What do you mean by necessity? Is there something about performing live that I'm not understanding? How I'm getting it, complex filter / effect sweeps can be fully automated, difficult-to-reproduce sounds can be pre-programmed, and then any leads can be played live with automation.... right? I mean I know everything can be automated and preprogrammed, but then the only thing left to do live, is mixing and tweaking to adjust for that particular system.
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If you are a good musician, it shouldnt take weeks to learn ;-)
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At some point, early on while learning music, it must have taken weeks to learn complex note patterns and structure, and be able to play them flawlessly. Or is there another way to learn scales and not practice?
http://soundcloud.com/short-circuit
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Short-Circuit/446249920482?ref=nf |
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Colin OOOD
Moderator
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Posted : Apr 13, 2010 16:54
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On 2010-04-13 15:51, SCircuit wrote:
Quote:
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On 2010-04-13 01:33, Colin OOOD wrote:
With purely electronic music, the definition of 'live' has by necessity to be somewhat different from the definition it has in eg. rock music, although many rock bands also use backing tracks.
To me, in electronic music, where many artists do not have traditional musical skills yet still manage to be very creative and interactive with their music on stage, 'live' means the artist is busy doing something the audience can actually hear.
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What do you mean by necessity? Is there something about performing live that I'm not understanding? How I'm getting it, complex filter / effect sweeps can be fully automated, difficult-to-reproduce sounds can be pre-programmed, and then any leads can be played live with automation.... right? I mean I know everything can be automated and preprogrammed, but then the only thing left to do live, is mixing and tweaking to adjust for that particular system.
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For me, psytrance works the way it does partly because the timing of all the instrumenst making it is absolutely 100% precise - that feeling you get when the kick, bass, snare and hihat all smack down at exactlyprecisely the same millisecond over and over and over and over and over and over and over again cannot be replicated by any human musician. For me therefore, it follows that psytrance played 100% live will not work in the same way that it does when sequenced. This is what I meant; psytrance just doesn't work (for me) when everything is played live by musicians, although it can be very impressive to watch and get the crowd moving if a single act performs in this way amongst a lineup which consists of solo laptop-live acts. Can you imagine a party at which every act played like this? For me it wouldn't work; psytrance needs the rigidity of timing that you can only get from computers.
As you say though, adding human musicianship (ie. playing leads) on top of a sequenced track can indeed work well, and this is one of the things I was referring to when I said "'live' means the artist is busy doing something the audience can actually hear". Another thing you could do is manually tweak the filters and effects whilst the actual lead is sequenced; this takes less musical performance skill and is what OOOD used to do when we played live back in the Breathing Space days when we would always take our entire studio on stage, and although - like now - we would not change the arrangements of our tracks when we played, having this kind of control over the sequenced sounds in a track can really give it a different vibe each time you play it.
Mastering - http://mastering.OOOD.net :: www.is.gd/mastering
OOOD 5th album 'You Think You Are' - www.is.gd/tobuyoood :: www.OOOD.net
www.facebook.com/OOOD.music :: www.soundcloud.com/oood
Contact for bookings/mastering - colin@oood.net |
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Xamanist
Xamanist
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Posted : Apr 13, 2010 17:06
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I agree with Colin, but I think that there's a special vibe and liveness when the sounds that compose the music are mixed live.
Of course psytrance with a lot of breaks and effects make it much more dificult (not impossible).
Hallucinogen did it (I think) using audio desks, nowadays everyone can do it using midi controllers.
Affordable an easier to carry 
I'm not so into complex fast breaks, nor into putting a break every 8 kicks For trance music with a more progressive structure, it's very possible to mix the music live, and this way being able to extend some parts and shorten others, or change the structure according to the feeling of the moment. I miss projects that do this, and I have special pleasure in doing this in my new tracks. You can get a very live atmosphere when the music is being created in front of you, even if the lines aren't played all live (impossible)... Of course an extra guitar or synth line played live will give the show an even more organic feeling.
Sérgio Xamanist
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5meohd
Started Topics :
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Posted : Apr 15, 2010 23:23
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I have a question though.. I've now seen Dragon and JellyHeadz "live".
I watched both very closely and I could see that they just had a pre arranged set and a mouse...
I think Dragon was at least triggering new scenes/clips in ableton.
But for JellyHeadz I'm not sure, I think it was cubase.. but it literally looked like he was doing nothing except extra filtering/flanging/delays with the pioneer djm...?
Is this typical? to just have the set and do fx over the top with the "house" dj mixer?
Dragon had an m-audio midi keyboard and never touched it.
Electrypnose was very similar as well.. I personally asked him and he admits that he is considering giving up the "live set" and just dj'n his tracks with cds. He said he is a producer not a musician.... and he is the best imo.
I saw Bluetech as well... nearly the same thing... he had the same m-audio key controller and really only seemed to press 2 keys which were fx on-off controls..
and it seemed like he had this ONE master knob that would bring in the new track with an effect chains dry-wet value.. and the effect was related/dependent on which key he was holding.. then just let go of the key when the beat drops.
I think people need to really spend some time learning ableton and come up with some better live sets.... not necessarily playing keys or percussion but by using all of the amazing fx chain possibilities... and to actually use that damn session grid/follow actions!! thats what its there for is to be spontaneous!
you could have bass and drums on a buss so they will always be on time like OOOD says... but then from there its still endless for mangling and manipulation!
I'm sure i'm unique.. but I think lots of producers over estimate that the crowd needs a rolling kick/bass for the entire set.... I absolutely love long atmospheric break downs with acidic experimentation/step sequencer randomizations/fx blobbing-rinsing-sweeping.....
figure that shit out!!!!!!!!! |
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vision dream
IsraTrance Full Member
Started Topics :
59
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218
Posted : Apr 20, 2010 20:55
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On 2010-04-13 01:33, Colin OOOD wrote:
With purely electronic music, the definition of 'live' has by necessity to be somewhat different from the definition it has in eg. rock music, although many rock bands also use backing tracks.
To me, in electronic music, where many artists do not have traditional musical skills yet still manage to be very creative and interactive with their music on stage, 'live' means the artist is busy doing something the audience can actually hear.
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i agree with you colin and now have tod be with improve your skills on live. make all the performacne little diferent. this it's to me the best way to make a really live performance .. not a live set..!!
http://www.myspace.com/visiondream
http://www.facebook.com/visiondreamonjorge
Guadalajara  2010 |
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OpenSourceCode
Datavore
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660
Posted : Apr 20, 2010 22:32
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here's how I do it:
Each song is broken up into 4 stems:
1: Kick & Bass
2: Drums
3: "Dry" sounds (no reverb. usually leads)
4: Reverbed sounds
I use this method because most of my songs use only 1 or 2 reverbs as sends, with lots of tracks feeding into them so it sounds like they're in the same "room." So i bounce them together to keep that feeling.
Then i use this:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Bitstream3x/
to mix the tracks, dub stylee. 4 faders for stems, 2 more for DJ tracks and 2 more for FX. Right now the FX are tape delay and spring reverb, but i'm thinking about trying some other stuff. Plus the ribbon and joystick allow for lots of neat live tricks. (autofilter on the delay....etc etc). All the stems and FX get sent to a bus which has a limiter on it, bringing it up to (roughly) the level of the DJ tracks.
That keeps me pretty goddamn busy during a liveset. and it lets me really mess around with the songs in a LIVE way, while retaining the quality and feeling of the original tracks.
is that live enough?
Quantum Frog / Anomalistic
http://soundcloud.com/priapizzm/live-club-axxcis-tokyo-12-12-2010 |
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5meohd
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3
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55
Posted : Apr 21, 2010 01:21
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^^ for now... but soon you should do more  |
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