You know... actually playing the music, like they used to do in the old days!
live performance of experimental electronic music...
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- KVRAF
- 7540 posts since 7 Aug, 2003 from San Francisco Bay Area
I've been working on material with a friend for a couple of years, and we eventually intend to perform live (in a couple years when my kids are a bit older). I've been thinking about what we could do to make it an "authentic" live performance, and here's what I've settled on: three keyboard players, a live synth drum kit drummer, and singer. Nothing sequenced, nothing prerecorded. Probably playing to a click track so we can still use arpeggiators, but that's as far as it goes. Also, one or two video projectors, with one keyboard player triggering video loops for different parts of the songs as we go along.
You know... actually playing the music, like they used to do in the old days!
You know... actually playing the music, like they used to do in the old days!
Incomplete list of my gear: 1/8" audio input jack.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 13126 posts since 7 May, 2006 from Southern California
This is great, a ton of awesome input here. One of my co-workers suggested that it's very important to always have a back-up plan because there is nothing worse than a worst case scenario causing complete silence in the middle of a set. He also warned that being too ambitious is an excellent way to fail.
One thing that I always fail to take into account is the atmospere of the venue. Most of the places that I plan on playing are friendly to laptop musicians and glorified DJs but I guess I just want to set myself apart from the rest. Perhaps that's a mistake, especially since they are pretty chill coffee bars and such. I might end up spoiling the desired atmosphere of the place by bringing too much energy. The last time I played was at an indie rock night at a Jazz club... my set was a good 18dB louder and several times more abrasive than any of the other acts. Luckily, I palyed at the end of the night and the most of the people that were still at the place were pretty well aware of what to expect.
I'm a one man band so my primary obstacle has been figuring out what I can do on my own. As it is, I'm controlling things with my feet my fingers, hell, I even wave my head through the D-Beam on the V-Synth when I don't have any other options. Another one of my co-workers happens to create 3-D animations in Blender and Softimage and he is willing to loan me his projector and possibly even perform as a VJ for me. If nothing else, I'll just bring my wife's laptop and have the Winamp Milkdrop visualisations go on in the back ground.
@Runagate: Here in Long Beach, Longshoreman is a highly coveted position... the waitinglist is at least as long as my arm.
Seriously though, you get paid six figures a year to work 15 to 20hrs/week, most of that work is directing the crane operators where to place containers in the ship yard. Don't get me started on crane operators!
One thing that I always fail to take into account is the atmospere of the venue. Most of the places that I plan on playing are friendly to laptop musicians and glorified DJs but I guess I just want to set myself apart from the rest. Perhaps that's a mistake, especially since they are pretty chill coffee bars and such. I might end up spoiling the desired atmosphere of the place by bringing too much energy. The last time I played was at an indie rock night at a Jazz club... my set was a good 18dB louder and several times more abrasive than any of the other acts. Luckily, I palyed at the end of the night and the most of the people that were still at the place were pretty well aware of what to expect.
I'm a one man band so my primary obstacle has been figuring out what I can do on my own. As it is, I'm controlling things with my feet my fingers, hell, I even wave my head through the D-Beam on the V-Synth when I don't have any other options. Another one of my co-workers happens to create 3-D animations in Blender and Softimage and he is willing to loan me his projector and possibly even perform as a VJ for me. If nothing else, I'll just bring my wife's laptop and have the Winamp Milkdrop visualisations go on in the back ground.
@Runagate: Here in Long Beach, Longshoreman is a highly coveted position... the waitinglist is at least as long as my arm.
Seriously though, you get paid six figures a year to work 15 to 20hrs/week, most of that work is directing the crane operators where to place containers in the ship yard. Don't get me started on crane operators!-
- KVRAF
- 12235 posts since 18 Aug, 2003
Excellent point. I've seen that happen to a band I was on a bill with, everyone in the audience kept checking with each other to figure out which sounds were being made by the one guy who looked like he was doing something but made no discernible sound.xoxos wrote:give the sound guy a stereo mix, not channels. a 'megaband' i worked with lost sound from entire members because it was so chaotic no one noticed the sound guy had a couple of channels switched off.
Cabinfever had some excellent points. Watch your gear. Make sure folk can see that what you are doing is obvious in what they hear.
One guy, his laptop and nothing else is not exciting to watch. It might still sound great, but it's not for watching. I'm not against using a laptop, just try to avoid obscuring the audience's view of you with the screen, and try not to use it as the sole instrument you're playing.
I take a different view of some things already stated. I'm not against knob twiddlers, as long as the knob twiddling is readily reflected in the sound (possibly because I'm a knob twiddler, but folk haven't complained about my sets yet). Such that you'll want the audience to think "hey, he just made the sound change by turning that knob." Visuals are okay, but no amount of dancing bears are going to make mouse clicking exciting. I'd also recommend not dancing around too much to you're own music, you're there to be the musicmaker, not some flailing egomaniac dickhead. But that might be a controversial view.
Looking over your kit list, it looks like a lot of gear to me. I think you'll want to slim it down a lot if it's just going to be you alone performing. For electronic music shows, there often isn't a lot of space to set up, and plugging/unplugging cables can be fairly time consuming. My live setup is generally a KP3, a mixer, an MPC and 2 or 3 pedal effects on a table, and even then I'd like to slim it down to shorten set up time (since most of the time, I'm one of the few not rocking the laptop, and the laptop folk start getting impatient/in the way). People dig the KP3 and its red blinking lights, though. Non-musician folk often comment to me afterwards about it.
Two valuable bits of advice I've gotten from others: always show up for sound check, if the venue wasn't planning on doing a sound check, insist that they do one; don't rely on batteries, lots of folk do and get away with it, but it really sucks that one time your batteries die.
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- KVRAF
- 2344 posts since 8 Jul, 2002 from Limerick, Ireland
Myself (guitar) and a bass player have been playing over pre-recorded drums & synths for years... but we 'look' like a conventional band 
Venus keep putting a mic stand in front of us - we do instrumental/shoegaze/twin peaks stuff... we just ignore it and make a little bubble between us - if the crowd digs us we make the bubble bigger and let them inside We even had folks dancing at one stage 
I guess what Im saying is that the easiest way to overcome 'Laptop Syndrome' is to write parts specifically for real world players - play some guitar (even midi guitar) or bass parts yourself/your mates... just give folks something to latch on to - to watch while they listen...
Death of the Prodigy Dancers indeed!
HTH
Dave
Venus keep putting a mic stand in front of us - we do instrumental/shoegaze/twin peaks stuff... we just ignore it and make a little bubble between us - if the crowd digs us we make the bubble bigger and let them inside
We even had folks dancing at one stage I guess what Im saying is that the easiest way to overcome 'Laptop Syndrome' is to write parts specifically for real world players - play some guitar (even midi guitar) or bass parts yourself/your mates... just give folks something to latch on to - to watch while they listen...
Death of the Prodigy Dancers indeed!
HTH
Dave
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- KVRAF
- 4798 posts since 14 Jun, 2004 from USA
okay, I'll now ramble on and on and I'll try for the 'aimlessly' approach....
when I have performed over the last 10 years or so (the many years before that were a different story), it usually is a mildly slimmed down set with a lot of pedals/processors, 2 keyboards(one sampler for beats and one keyboard for bass/keys mostly), maybe a beat up guitar that does nothing but feedback through several pedals, a couple of gizmo's (I'll explain this in another paragraph), and sometimes a CD player playing prerecorded atmospheres/and even some drums now and then. Everything is pushed down into a small 16 channel mixer with effects on all four sends. I have used a computer on stage sequencing everything, but I absolutely hate staring into a screen, so if I do, I use it mostly in place of the cd player, switching between patches on a modified metaphysical function occasionally or what not for atmosphere.
That said,
Obstacles - running out of hands and feet to work the wierdness. God, i miss my band mates when I think about playing live. I have used handkerchiefs and handful of capos on my keyboards to hold down keys on both my samplers (emulator) or keyboard (Korg Ms-2000) so that I can twiddle knobs and use the mixer almost like a DJ. I have long since given up on my actual material for live, as it's just easier to take some of my beats or basslines and just improv drone and fx over them with some practice. I will use preconcepted noises or the occasional one trick pony machine. Though it is good to have a few instrumentals on CD as a backup plan, I suppose.
Obstacle #2 - depending on the venue, as Brian said, there's always that one person who insists on standing there with you commenting the entire time or even criticizing you for not being dancable (or danceable enough). When I have performed with a group of people (my favorite, by the way), the crowd tends to give us more body space and respect. I like playing in Gallery shows because I can have my back to the crowd so that they aren't tempted to get behind the gear with you to see what you are doing (and step on your power cord and kill your set in a loud popping blip!) It happens, so watch where your cords are going.
Obstacle #3 - the sound guy - if you are doing it all alone, try to take as much of the process as possible out of their hands. Thats why there I have a mixer on stage with me. But beware that stage speakers are most often not pointing at you, so you'll be detached from your sound if you're not careful and stage monitors, if they exist at a venue, don't often work very well for full mixes. I would rent a rehearsal space a couple days a month to get a feel for being loud and 'detached' and also to get your setup and tear down time streamlined. I don't find it at all weird to have a submix going on in headphones I can reference if the sound system is out of wack.
things that can help:
Gizmo's - you know this part well, but these are a couple of gimmicks that I have used on stage for performances sake (I have very rarely recorded these factors, they seem best for show only). I have a couple of drum sticks, a metal tube, and a 40 dollar pawn shop electric guitar sitting on a guitar stand. I have that thing cranked through so many effects and knobs by the time it reaches the sound board, that when I finally turn it on and up and start playing like a dulcimer thats been a bad boy I get some great noises (I used to have the inside of a broken down upright piano that I would do the same thing)
I have even run 4 $10 dollar radio shack am/fm radios glued to 10 inch springs and attached to a large board, each running out to its own set of effects and then back into the mixer. By slowly rocking each back and forth for oscillation, turning the dial slightly every time you touch one, you could easily get 15 minutes of 'show' out of something like that. Just some ideas, but these 'performance art' tricks can help for the entertainment factor.
Visuals - are also helpful, only because they give people something else to look at other than a guy playing mad scientist behind a stack of lit up boxes, knobs, and keys (most of which very few will have a clue what you are doing) I even (out of desperation) bought a $20 overhead projector (the kind from grade school) at a pawn shop and had a girlfriend roll different color paints/liquids around on a large clear drum head projected on me for the entirety of my set. when she got tired, she handed them acrylic/water colors and let the crowd make art til the show was done. This is pretty ghetto, i know, but I couldn't and really still can't afford real computer projectors. And the crowd interaction was an interesting approach.
You are doing a good thing for your self by ghosting your local pawn shops. You seem to have a lot of interactive toys already, you should be able to put on a great show. We studio rats just have to abandon some of our creature comforts to play live.
And always bring a small stack of some burned CD's of your work to hand out or sell, that way you don't feel too misrepresented musically if for some reason your shit goes pear shape.
oh, yeah, and protecting our gear. Clubs/bars/warehouses/etc are super dirty dusty. You'll have to blow out everything you brought with you in your living room before returning back into your studio.
And invite a couple of your friends along -let them know you might need help loading and unloading the gear pr at least babysitting it while you're in the car or club (free roadies). This is often the scariest part for me as clubs and bars are usually in less than ideal neighborhoods. To help, i will usually wrap my stuff up in mexican blankets (in their gig cases of course)
but I digress...hope these are of some value to you.
For what it's worth, i would love to share a stage with you someday.
when I have performed over the last 10 years or so (the many years before that were a different story), it usually is a mildly slimmed down set with a lot of pedals/processors, 2 keyboards(one sampler for beats and one keyboard for bass/keys mostly), maybe a beat up guitar that does nothing but feedback through several pedals, a couple of gizmo's (I'll explain this in another paragraph), and sometimes a CD player playing prerecorded atmospheres/and even some drums now and then. Everything is pushed down into a small 16 channel mixer with effects on all four sends. I have used a computer on stage sequencing everything, but I absolutely hate staring into a screen, so if I do, I use it mostly in place of the cd player, switching between patches on a modified metaphysical function occasionally or what not for atmosphere.
That said,
Obstacles - running out of hands and feet to work the wierdness. God, i miss my band mates when I think about playing live. I have used handkerchiefs and handful of capos on my keyboards to hold down keys on both my samplers (emulator) or keyboard (Korg Ms-2000) so that I can twiddle knobs and use the mixer almost like a DJ. I have long since given up on my actual material for live, as it's just easier to take some of my beats or basslines and just improv drone and fx over them with some practice. I will use preconcepted noises or the occasional one trick pony machine. Though it is good to have a few instrumentals on CD as a backup plan, I suppose.
Obstacle #2 - depending on the venue, as Brian said, there's always that one person who insists on standing there with you commenting the entire time or even criticizing you for not being dancable (or danceable enough). When I have performed with a group of people (my favorite, by the way), the crowd tends to give us more body space and respect. I like playing in Gallery shows because I can have my back to the crowd so that they aren't tempted to get behind the gear with you to see what you are doing (and step on your power cord and kill your set in a loud popping blip!) It happens, so watch where your cords are going.
Obstacle #3 - the sound guy - if you are doing it all alone, try to take as much of the process as possible out of their hands. Thats why there I have a mixer on stage with me. But beware that stage speakers are most often not pointing at you, so you'll be detached from your sound if you're not careful and stage monitors, if they exist at a venue, don't often work very well for full mixes. I would rent a rehearsal space a couple days a month to get a feel for being loud and 'detached' and also to get your setup and tear down time streamlined. I don't find it at all weird to have a submix going on in headphones I can reference if the sound system is out of wack.
things that can help:
Gizmo's - you know this part well, but these are a couple of gimmicks that I have used on stage for performances sake (I have very rarely recorded these factors, they seem best for show only). I have a couple of drum sticks, a metal tube, and a 40 dollar pawn shop electric guitar sitting on a guitar stand. I have that thing cranked through so many effects and knobs by the time it reaches the sound board, that when I finally turn it on and up and start playing like a dulcimer thats been a bad boy I get some great noises (I used to have the inside of a broken down upright piano that I would do the same thing)
I have even run 4 $10 dollar radio shack am/fm radios glued to 10 inch springs and attached to a large board, each running out to its own set of effects and then back into the mixer. By slowly rocking each back and forth for oscillation, turning the dial slightly every time you touch one, you could easily get 15 minutes of 'show' out of something like that. Just some ideas, but these 'performance art' tricks can help for the entertainment factor.
Visuals - are also helpful, only because they give people something else to look at other than a guy playing mad scientist behind a stack of lit up boxes, knobs, and keys (most of which very few will have a clue what you are doing) I even (out of desperation) bought a $20 overhead projector (the kind from grade school) at a pawn shop and had a girlfriend roll different color paints/liquids around on a large clear drum head projected on me for the entirety of my set. when she got tired, she handed them acrylic/water colors and let the crowd make art til the show was done. This is pretty ghetto, i know, but I couldn't and really still can't afford real computer projectors. And the crowd interaction was an interesting approach.
You are doing a good thing for your self by ghosting your local pawn shops. You seem to have a lot of interactive toys already, you should be able to put on a great show. We studio rats just have to abandon some of our creature comforts to play live.
And always bring a small stack of some burned CD's of your work to hand out or sell, that way you don't feel too misrepresented musically if for some reason your shit goes pear shape.
oh, yeah, and protecting our gear. Clubs/bars/warehouses/etc are super dirty dusty. You'll have to blow out everything you brought with you in your living room before returning back into your studio.
And invite a couple of your friends along -let them know you might need help loading and unloading the gear pr at least babysitting it while you're in the car or club (free roadies). This is often the scariest part for me as clubs and bars are usually in less than ideal neighborhoods. To help, i will usually wrap my stuff up in mexican blankets (in their gig cases of course)
but I digress...hope these are of some value to you.
For what it's worth, i would love to share a stage with you someday.
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- KVRAF
- 10286 posts since 17 Sep, 2004 from Austin, TX
That's why I have a P5 glove. 11 dimensions of control! And before that a midi theremin.Jassyspork wrote: running out of hands and feet to work the wierdness. God, i miss my band mates when I think about playing live
I keep trying to get these "bandmates" but they are sluggish and busy all the time!
@justin: It's not like I'm doing anything with my life right now. I probably couldn't operate a crane, though. Do you really have some weird ax to grind with crane operators? Very, very odd.
Up here in Minnesota we just battle the yetis and hope for the best. No crane operators to be seen. The yetis are starting to gain the upper hand, though.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 13126 posts since 7 May, 2006 from Southern California
Jazzy your input, as always, is most insightful. The specific details you provide (the bit about the capos) help to get my mind moving in the direction of creative solutions. The perspectives I've gotten hear will definitely help me to shape a set that is, if nothing else, satisfying to me.
What it will come down to, in some respect, is weather or not my love for playing with toys comes across to th audience. The show that I currently have booked is pretty much a no brainer. It's a crowed of friends and like minded individuals... even if I crash and burn they will support me. Which is a good place to test this experimental set of mine. Once I start playing places outside of my comfort zone it will be a different story but thats half the fun. I need to thank shamman for making me consider scaling down my kit because that approach is proving most useful.
I would love to have "bandmates" but the fact is, I'm a very awkward person outside the internet. I'm not an easy person to work with and my wife and I are extremely reclusive. This works for me because I never spend enough time with anybody to get on their nerves. That way they see me as merely eccentric rather than nuerotic.
I believe I'm being a bit to ambitious at the moment in terms of conceptualizing a set that is about a month away. I already have an established set that I've practiced and rather than building a whole new one I could simply build on that one. The set I have been conceptualizing is based on songs that I haven't even written yet
I hope the perspectives provided here are as useful to others as they have been to me
Runny, I'm not being fair to crane operators... the ones that I've known were all tweakers of the worst calibur. Quit threatening to come to Cali and get yer ass down here, you'll figure out a source of income once your here.
What it will come down to, in some respect, is weather or not my love for playing with toys comes across to th audience. The show that I currently have booked is pretty much a no brainer. It's a crowed of friends and like minded individuals... even if I crash and burn they will support me. Which is a good place to test this experimental set of mine. Once I start playing places outside of my comfort zone it will be a different story but thats half the fun. I need to thank shamman for making me consider scaling down my kit because that approach is proving most useful.
I would love to have "bandmates" but the fact is, I'm a very awkward person outside the internet. I'm not an easy person to work with and my wife and I are extremely reclusive. This works for me because I never spend enough time with anybody to get on their nerves. That way they see me as merely eccentric rather than nuerotic.
I believe I'm being a bit to ambitious at the moment in terms of conceptualizing a set that is about a month away. I already have an established set that I've practiced and rather than building a whole new one I could simply build on that one. The set I have been conceptualizing is based on songs that I haven't even written yet
I hope the perspectives provided here are as useful to others as they have been to me
Runny, I'm not being fair to crane operators... the ones that I've known were all tweakers of the worst calibur. Quit threatening to come to Cali and get yer ass down here, you'll figure out a source of income once your here.
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- Banned
- 9890 posts since 14 Nov, 2006
As luck would have it, I'm looking for a new gimp.justin3am wrote:Runny, I'm not being fair to crane operators... the ones that I've known were all tweakers of the worst calibur. Quit threatening to come to Cali and get yer ass down here, you'll figure out a source of income once your here.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 13126 posts since 7 May, 2006 from Southern California
See dude! there you go, already getting job offers!debra1rlo wrote:As luck would have it, I'm looking for a new gimp.justin3am wrote:Runny, I'm not being fair to crane operators... the ones that I've known were all tweakers of the worst calibur. Quit threatening to come to Cali and get yer ass down here, you'll figure out a source of income once your here.
Hey Debra, just hypothetically, what kind of experience does one need to be a gimp? What is the base pay? I mean, I'm married so you know I'm subservient. If Runagate doesn't take the job, can uh, I interview for the *position*?
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- Banned
- 9890 posts since 14 Nov, 2006
Gee... umm... I never really asked any of them. They already had the suit & the ball gag on so i figured they already knew what they were doing.justin3am wrote:See dude! there you go, already getting job offers!debra1rlo wrote:As luck would have it, I'm looking for a new gimp.justin3am wrote:Runny, I'm not being fair to crane operators... the ones that I've known were all tweakers of the worst calibur. Quit threatening to come to Cali and get yer ass down here, you'll figure out a source of income once your here.
Hey Debra, just hypothetically, what kind of experience does one need to be a gimp?
$1000 a week... of course, no one has ever survived a whole week...justin3am wrote:What is the base pay?
Ah, your wife has trained you well. [monty burns] Excellent.[/monty burns]justin3am wrote:I mean, I'm married so you know I'm subservient.
Trust me, there will be more than one *position*justin3am wrote:If Runagate doesn't take the job, can uh, I interview for the *position*?
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- KVRAF
- 2910 posts since 26 Jul, 2005 from dun unda
The handy thing about laptops is, you could do almost anything with it "today", provided you have the right gear.shamann wrote:
...
Two valuable bits of advice I've gotten from others: always show up for sound check, if the venue wasn't planning on doing a sound check, insist that they do one; don't rely on batteries, lots of folk do and get away with it, but it really sucks that one time your batteries die.
In my case, my Lenovo N200 (with Cantabile/VSTHost as a means to open VST(i)'s) paired with my EDIROL PCR-M80 MIDI keyboard via USB (therefore, only a single AC plug is needed just for the laptop!) has been so far great. Even though the total "hardware" cost is about AU$1100, with freeware virtual instruments (shortcircuit, Helix) paired with some good freeware FX and soundfonts, the sky's the limit.
I've yet to come across a mishap with this setup prepared for gigging, and it's still playing on a keyboard with knob-twiddler options.
It's a win/win process.-
- KVRAF
- 12235 posts since 18 Aug, 2003
It's the screen and mouse click approach to laptops which are a real downer to watch. As you mentioned, laptops are great for replacing whole racks of gear, but because we spend so much time at the screen with a mouse when working on music, I think a lot of electronic musicians forget that it isn't visually interesting to bystanders. I find it somewhat alienating watching a guy hiding behind a screen on stage.MaliceX wrote:In my case, my Lenovo N200 (with Cantabile/VSTHost as a means to open VST(i)'s) paired with my EDIROL PCR-M80 MIDI keyboard via USB (therefore, only a single AC plug is needed just for the laptop!) has been so far great. Even though the total "hardware" cost is about AU$1100, with freeware virtual instruments (shortcircuit, Helix) paired with some good freeware FX and soundfonts, the sky's the limit.
I've yet to come across a mishap with this setup prepared for gigging, and it's still playing on a keyboard with knob-twiddler options.
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- KVRAF
- 2910 posts since 26 Jul, 2005 from dun unda
ZOMGLAPTOPFAEC!!11.shamann wrote:It's the screen and mouse click approach to laptops which are a real downer to watch. As you mentioned, laptops are great for replacing whole racks of gear, but because we spend so much time at the screen with a mouse when working on music, I think a lot of electronic musicians forget that it isn't visually interesting to bystanders. I find it somewhat alienating watching a guy hiding behind a screen on stage.MaliceX wrote:In my case, my Lenovo N200 (with Cantabile/VSTHost as a means to open VST(i)'s) paired with my EDIROL PCR-M80 MIDI keyboard via USB (therefore, only a single AC plug is needed just for the laptop!) has been so far great. Even though the total "hardware" cost is about AU$1100, with freeware virtual instruments (shortcircuit, Helix) paired with some good freeware FX and soundfonts, the sky's the limit.
I've yet to come across a mishap with this setup prepared for gigging, and it's still playing on a keyboard with knob-twiddler options.
You don't have to hide behind a laptop screen if you're standing up playing...
If one prepares, perhaps one could control everything straight from the MIDI controller rather than having to turn to the screen between songs. 
PS: If the understanding's straight, how I'm speaking from this kind of usage is laptop as a tone generator, not laptop that plays backing tracks while you play a seperately-powered keyboard.
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- KVRist
- 196 posts since 4 Dec, 2006
i love using my laptop while performing - in the tone generator sense. for example, my setup has been a mic -> audio interface -> laptop running reaktor & ABox 2. i have a few ensembles where the pitch and volume of my voice change FM and granular synth parameters. it works for me because it can get rather cathartic and the audience is able to corelate my voice to the sound changes. there can be latency at times (especially with ABox 2), but being that it's experimental it doesn't hinder me much.
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- KVRAF
- 2975 posts since 18 Sep, 2006 from Rosehill Cemetery
Awesome, I've always wanted something like that.runagate wrote: And before that a midi theremin.
"a confession without need of absolution, without need of redemption"