KVR Audio

qringo · Post by **qringo** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 7:13 am

Hi

I'm part of a trance/hardcore live PA and we're looking for ways to make our live set more live. At the moment I'm meerly mixing our finished tracks with CDJs while our guitarist and MC plays over them. I'd like to have more live elements than just the guitar and vocals, but for the life of me I can't figure out anything. We've considered splitting the tracks up into several peices and adding effects that I can control, to create basically a knob twister set, but that's not really what i want to do.

Keep in mind that these are fairly structured songs and not a loop based jam thing, otherwise I'd just take all the pertinant stuff and drop it into Ableton Live and go for it.

Not only looking for suggestions but also interested in hearing what other people do for their live setups.

Thanks
Ryan

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 7:35 am

qringo wrote: We've considered splitting the tracks up into several peices and adding effects that I can control, to create basically a knob twister set, but that's not really what i want to do.

So, what IS it, that you REALLY want to do?
Why not go for a bit of the old playing then?

kara · Post by **kara** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 8:32 am

I don't understand neither what you want ?
If i understand right I see two possibilities...
1. You split your songs in clips (parts) and drop them in scenes in Ableton Live. Then you can start you scenes when you want, even transposing them in real time, playing with effect,.... from your kayboard on scene.
2. You just play live on your keyboard, you know the good old way.

Don't see a solution between that ?

Rony

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:50 pm

We play live synths and drums over our sequenced parts. We use an old OctaPad to trigger a DrumRack in ORION and I play my K-Station in place of one of the sequenced parts. I could just use the K as a controller but using its sound makes the live show sound different from the recorded version.

Paul_FX · Post by **Paul_FX** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 1:34 pm

We used to run a rig with an S5000 sampler and an alesis data filer. The filer passed midi in to the S5000. Unfortunately this whole system was a bit buggy.
Now we use Devine machine - the live loop mode is amazing. Check out the DM forum here on kvr..

Paul

paradiddle · Post by **paradiddle** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 2:06 pm

Since you are playing trance, why not try playing some of the arpeggiated pattern on a keyboard on top of the others? or just basic chords? With a program like energy XT, you can easily program the arpeggiated pattern and play chords with the other hand on a keyboard split. You don't have to do everything but some of lines in your music.

You can then have some room for spontaneity. There's always room for jamming even if everything is pretty much arranged.

or you could play some percs on top. Get a snare drum and leave the snares off. You wouldn't believe how many sounds you can get out of one, ya can play the rims, rimshots, play it with one stick and muting with the other hand, ect. You can look for and octopad and play some sampled sounds.

intel · Post by **intel** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 4:35 pm

hire Go Go dancers.

qringo · Post by **qringo** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 7:47 pm

Why not go for a bit of the old playing then?

Because we're already playing all the playable instruments. With our songs the complexity of the trance and even basslines are too complex and fast for me to be able to play along live. I'll check out EnergyXT like the other person suggested and see if I can simplify some synths to the point where i can trigger riffs easier, that might be a suggestion.

or you could play some percs on top

That's a good suggestion. We could get one of those mini electronic percussion units and go at it over the main kick, which would be cool.

So far what we're planning is 2 laptops - one for our guitarist and mc, with the the guitarist feeding into Guitar Rig and our MC feeding into something that'll give us a good range of vocal distortion and effects (any suggestions?).

The second laptop will run all of the tracks in some form or another. We're thinking of having all the tracks seperated up into various set parts - perhaps Drums, Bass, Synths, and effects. Each will have a few effect controllers that I can use, that I'll manage with an Evilution UC-33.

All this will feed into a mini mixing board that'll go into the DJ Mixer. We'll probably add onto the mixing board an electronic drum pad as suggested. I've thought about a sampler but I know nothing about them and I dunno how i'd integrate into it. There's also the possibility of some turntablism tricks off the dj mixer.

All in all i'm thinking that's a lot better! But keep the suggestions and examples coming they're great.

SONICBYTES · Post by **SONICBYTES** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 7:59 pm

Hi qringo,

I'm not really sure what you're looking for. But probably you'd like to try ERA or EST. Both plugins are mainly step-sequencers/grooveboxes, specialized for live-use (pattern-recall etc.). They have special drumgrid/pianoroll modes.

- ERA is a pure midi-out plugin and triggers/modulates other plugins.

- EST triggers/modulates it's own 12 built-in samplers

They work fine in the *brilliant* eXT

Hope that helps..

Bye
Holger

paradiddle · Post by **paradiddle** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 8:28 pm

We'll probably add onto the mixing board an electronic drum pad as suggested. I've thought about a sampler but I know nothing about them and I dunno how i'd integrate into it.

If you are thinking of getting a sampler and an octopad for percs and other things, you might wanna have a look at the roland sps-s. It's an octopad but you can sample with it. I've been looking at it recently. The only drawback is that you can't transfer sounds for the usb or something, you have to use compact flash cards to transfer from the computer. Interesting product though.

Making live performances more live