Hi there, whats up?
thought i’d start this topic where we’d like to hear about your Live performance rituals, setups, prepping, venue, and maybe share some personal take away notes on the experience.
Cheers!
My last ‘live’ gig (over a year ago at a small local venue) My setup was:
- a laptop + Ableton Live triggered by the Akai Apc mini, playng patterns & prebaked (sort of roughly mixed down/bread & butter) base tracks
- I had some Roland Boutiques setup fitted with pattern sequences (TR09, TB03) and used a Korg Volca Sample to do some extra percussive textures and outside beats/toppings.
- Ran it hrough some cheap mixer with send fx (hooked up to some external guitar pedal chain so that i could flip on/off and abuse the TB & TR. Chain consisting of a few distortion pedals, phaser and an additional echo ) The Mixer was to make shure frequencies wouldn’t clash too much and have nice volume fade-transitions
- I didn’t even sync clocks on the gear by midi, i just did it ‘oldskool’ like it were two turntables, dialing in the tempos by hand and trying to start the internal sequences to match in time by pressing play. This made it very exciting because you don’t always get it right, and some tempo’s might change, and forgetting its not aligning proper anymore. (i’d pre-listen on the monitor headphones before mixing it into the mix)
The most impotant thing i learned from this setup/experience…!
… and which piece of gear is absolutely indispensible: when performing live:
! Good in-ear monitor plugs of some kind !!!
Because it was a small venue and the ‘amateur-night FOH mixer, some random jerkoff’ was bored and annoyingly played around with instant presets on the recently aquired main mixer (which in effect could have totally destroyed my sound and effort) ! Monitors on stage were blasting like it was a live band performing, which were an assault on my hearing, besides making it very difficult to hear through the wrong set of headphones what was going on in my mixer. So i had to jack the volume way up. (not so pleasant) As you’ve only got one set of ears to kiss goodbye, when broken it’s goodbye to music making aspirations!
…
I cut that live set short for different reasons ending off with just playing a fully mixed down track i recently made and was proud of. I wanted to hear how it would translate in a live setting and so…
Having all hands free, and no more buttons to push/stuff to keep in check, but to stop the session with the track ending, i just went nuts doing my signature dance that instantly flushed away all feelings of being aggitated and angry with 3rd persons fucking up my performance)
So to recap: (Live perfomance take-away notes)
- in-ear monitor plugs (if the setting demands protecting of hearing) or otherwise a set of good (closed) headphones for proper monitoring
- Good hardware/software sequenser to drive and glue the set
- Any great sounding hardware synths/modules w the desired sound and character (+having some controllable instant tweaking knobs/buttons)
- room for error/happy accidents for it to be a fulfilling experience
What you can do without in general:
Some jerk-off preppy bored wannabe mixer experimenting with presets during your performance. (when you do your own mixing on stage sending out just a stereo mix L R only !) What a fucktard. They almost had to go out and buy new speakerswhen after a bare intro the 808 dropped in with way to much sub dialed in, a speaker-ripping punch straight to the stomach 
Ritual- I don’t really have one.
Set up - octatrack plus one synth.
Prep- er? I write music on my machines, then I go and play it? Same thing as when I record except people are watching.
Venue- where ever I get booked
Notes- never use in ear head phones, they are bad for your ears. Take away notes, keep the menu and phone number in your gig bag so you can order straight after the gig. Your food will be ready to pick up when you get there. Or you could even get them to deliver. 
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The day before a show, I do a setup with the gear I’m using live and do a trial soundcheck. Then I pack up that exact gear (plus any extra cables) for the show. Don’t have to think the next day, just grab and go.
I also have either printed notes or notes on an iPad re. performance elements, what parts on different devices work well together, and any live keyboard performance notes. It isn’t a “set list” because I like to adjust to the audience energy and play whatever material works best for the flow.
I also like to organize my gear so I can set-up or tear-down in minutes, and so that whoever is running sound gets a stereo pair of balanced 1/4” and that’s it. Most sound people seem to love not having to do any work except set good levels.
Private events, if you step away from your stuff for even a SECOND, have a cloth cover or better to put over your gear. There will sometimes be that guy (and yes, it’s always a guy) who feels the need to touch the blinky things without asking. Doesn’t matter that your gear looks as complex and expensive as the space shuttle, and that it’s obviously running some music, he just HAS to touch it, especially if he has a friend he needs to impress.
Biggest thing for me is being as prepared as possible for each performance so that if anything goes “wrong”, it will most likely have nothing to do with me, my equipment, or my ability to perform the music.
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Hmmm…
I like to layout my gear at a gig first… and get there mad early.
Then make sure power is all good.
Then midi is all good.
Then audio cables.
Sound check.
Chill.
I make all my patterns only 32bars for everything then mute and unmute tracks on the drum machine, synths, and sampler.
A few slots get sent to a big dub delay then reverb to make transitions nice and drawn out… but then again I make chilled out dubby techno and dancehall.
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Yes the adventurous ‘guy’ 
drawn by the blinking lights, nice tip about the cloth.
Lets see in few month or so, if more people share their experiences if we can make a ‘complete survival guide’?
thanks for sharing
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Getting some take away on the way home could be nice.
The few times i thought i had my stuff prepped, the actual date of performance always came much too soon, and i always wanted to stretch it. This in return gave me lots of stress, most of the time unfinished stuff while feeling underprepared. It resulted in ‘quick finishing up’ not taking the time to eat all day long. The crowd barely seemed to notice, but my stomach didn’t enjoy it with the anxiety doing it’s bidding. Haven’t eaten anything before the gig is not the best way to go. So ‘food’ is definitly not something to be underestimated, just like proper resting to keep the energy levels steady.
I can sense your laid back style. Probably the most enjoyable way to go about a gig. Nice!
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