I’m having a hard time deciding which gear to buy…

The Lounge Other Gear
#43

**Choice of gear for Live performance?
Besides the obvious reason: depending on style and character of the music?..

I guess you can use any HW gear for live performance if you know how to work it right. But since you’ve only got two hands to turn knobs, press buttons and play keys, (and a couple of feet to stomp on boxes and pedals) a nice sequencer for some structuring of parts could do the trick.

You could either find a good hw sequencer (i’m barely familiar in this territory) or take the Hipster DJ approach and go ‘full laptop’?

I recon a laptop fitted with Ableton Live pulls it off quite well, triggering patterns with some random midi controller like the Push, Apc mini or launch XL, cue-ing up stuff all nicely synced/slaved to the clock. While cue-ing up stuff you can move around quickly to tear the soul out of any hardware synths you got hooked up by twiddling knobs and effects?

Thought i’d start a new thread that could be kinda neat

#44

I have a laptop and Live 10, but what’s the fun in triggering a few scenes?

#45

They have an OP-1 already, it’s the OP-Z they’re considering.

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#46

Does the Octatrack feature live looping?
I like the 4 bank looper on the kp3 but what I absolutely HATE about it, is that you can’t overdub a bank!

So is there something like this on the OT?

#47

Yes though using “pickups” for the traditional sense of “looping” isn’t that great in my experience. But, using “flex” machines you can get a much better looping experience.

pickup/flex/static are the the playback machines of the Octatrack in case you didn’t know.

There are better machines out there for loopers but the OT can do it.

#48

Ok thx

#49

Can you easily overdub looped recordings?

#50

I think it depends on the style or direction of the music you are trying to make i guess and the dynamics of the total mix? Is it a track by track approach with distinctive parts, hooks and stuff or a pond of perpetual ambient sounds without structure or maybe pumping out more machine-like grinding beats?

Fiddling hours with a modular setup, craft-beer and a vape to get a Berlin sound, flipping switches, throwing wires around without having a clue, but getting the desired result of unexpected random enlightenment and happy accidents? All good.

I myself try to do some ‘structured’ more song-based material with distinguishable parts and somewhat ‘controlled’ dynamics. (with room for playing around, aaccidents and error) But i imagine some repetitive schranz industrial techno can also move the dancefloor and open portals?

So therefore parts and scenes to me are not all that bad. (though i’d very much would like to do it all without the laptop) To me it’s more about the movement and dynamics/organics of sound while keeping a leash on the direction.

The weapon of choice (any hardware synth) is eventually up to personal preference and budget. Though some hardware, when aiming at performing live’ might lack those hands-on features and need a more technical approach.
I kinda think the Roland Boutiques are kinda nice to play around with while still having pre-programmed sequence-parts (like with ableton) When and what to throw into the mix for unexpected/desired results.

If i’d have the money i’d buy a Moog One and throw that in the mix, or maybe buy the classic Virus, but i will probably save up for the Behringer Odyssey Clone!

So anything goes.

(quote from a silly classic movie: whats your pleasure, sir)

#51

I like your style of working! Thanks for sharing it with us.
Sure live is a very powerful performance tool and maybe, I was wrong…

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#52

Quick update:
So I bought the Octatrack Mk2 of eBay for 980€.
I have it for a couple of days now and I have been enjoying it so far!

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#53

Congrats.

Best way to play live with it is to load up a long static machine mix that your spent weeks preparing, then mute the other 7 tracks and hit play.

It leaves you with one arm free to wave to the crowd.

That’s what I do :innocent:

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#54

Dont forget to turn the knobs of your muted tracks, edpecially with hardware boxes people think you are doing something very special

2 Likes
#55

On a quick side note though, the Deluge still seems like a cool gear. So I will keep my eyes on that! :wink: