Always use a decksaver, that’s my tip.
8 Likes
the fewer wires you have to connect to get set up and going, the better. set up should take 10 minutes max, teardown, 5 minutes. If you can run your set in MONO, the sound guy will love you. Be friendly to the sound guy, even he or she is a jerk to you. They ultimately hold your sonic destiny in their hands.
6 Likes
sure, if you have 50 fans in a market, you can get a gig easy.
otherwise get some things up on soundcloud, and send a short, to-the point email to the booker. Don’t send an email that says “do you have any dates available?” Take a look at their calendar, and see what dates are unbooked, or if there is perhaps an act that needs an opener, try and lock that date down.
If they like what they hear, they will take a chance on you. If they don’t care for it all that much, they will respond with something like “how many people can you get to show up…etc” if they respond at all.
2 Likes
I don’t play shows that much anymore, but a few years back I did 20-30 shows a year which for me was a lot. My live set involves a lot of guitar playing, live looping and a sequenced machine, so I really need to plan and rehearse a set and I don’t have much room for improv in track structure while I play guitar. Might be a little different from how most of you play live.
Anyway here’s what I learned
- Keep it simple. You’ll need less time setting up and you’ll have a better idea of what’s going on during your set.
- Know how you want to sound live and try to make everything sound balanced on stage. If the soundguy has a good balance to begin with you’ll sound much, much better.
- Send a good and accurate tech rider ahead so the tech guys know what you want them to prepare.
- Interact with your audience. Don’t focus on your machines and instruments all the time. People like to know you know they’re there. Even if that means you’ll make a few mistakes. If you play tracks, talk to your audience in between tracks a couple of times. Make a joke, even (maybe especially) if your music is super serious and heavy.
- Mistakes are a part of playing live and they are what makes a live show a live show.
- Stay around after the show. People like to hang out a little at the merch table.
- If you want to be booked again: be nice to everyone. Thank the soundguy, thank the backstage manager. Don’t trash your dressing room. Venues like working with nice and easy-going dudes.
10 Likes
Yeah. As a technician sometimes I wonder how it happens that artists just seem to forget about basic human interactions. There s a whole machine behind making a show happen. It should just be common sense to properly greet and thank people when you arrive and leave. No technician is expecting a standing ovation but being completely ignored just sucks when you re working your ass off all day to make a show happen.
6 Likes
Call people.
Google bars and venues in your area in a radius as far as you’re willing to travel.
Ask who you would talk to about booking music at their bar.
10 or 20 calls and you should have a gig or two lined up.
This has a snowball effect and will eventually lead to less cold calling and more people looking for you.
That’s all I can say. Been doing it for years now.
here’s our “Bluegrass” band’s page:
and here’s my DJ page:
you can see that there are plenty of past and present gigs posted.
I get most of these now by people seeking us/me out. Then I can look at the calendar and call to fill holes in the schedule if it didn’t fill itself. I am booked almost everyday until September. With the exception being Sundays and even those have a few gigs scattered on them.
(didn’t totally mean to self-promote just sort of, but i think it’s a good visual. anybody can book gigs. just be personable and treat it like work)
2 Likes
nice to see a fellow elnaut being booked almost every day! 
BUT… with my ‘parmegiani_meets_gescom_meets_mika vainio’ music i really doubt id have the same success, not even close, not even if i was living in berlin or london
1 Like
If you can travel, Europe (and beyond) can be pretty friendly to that sort of sound in the right places.
heh yes, maybe… but not that i could travel much anyway bc im being occupied with my daily job/carrier in f. science 
1 Like
I go for a scale-able approach.
Minimal kit which can be expanded on, depending on how far away the gig is, what the stage setup is like etc.
Absolute minimum now, is just an MPC Live. Almost always take a mixer, but can use the in-house DJ mixer.
Then I add on (play on top) what I think suits the gig.
So, usually add a mixer - A&H QU24.
Almost always add a Wavedrum Oriental.
Synths - Nord G2 is my usual first choice.
Have also used Lyra 8 recently
Nord Lead 3.
Korg Kronos if I want to start filling the stage.
1 Like
if people are going to actually see what you’re doing, have more than one thing for them to watch. but don’t get too crazy.
be prepared for everything to be mono. I’ve never had a club run stereo (you do want a guy standing directly in front of the stage-left speaker to hear everything, don’t you?).
bring a power strip for all of your stuff.
depending on the venue and your setup, perhaps bring a collapsing table or keyboard stand for everything and set it up off-stage. have everything read to go. carry it onto the stage and plug it in. nobody likes to watch people set up/tear down.
don’t forget to do a “dummy check” every time you leave the house/car/stage/venue. you’re carrying a lot of crap around. don’t forget anything anywhere, like a dummy 
5 Likes
Reminds me of a Mylar Melodies tip - can be worth bringing your own DI box rather than relying on the venue. Many places would rather take mic level XLR into the desk than line level TS/TRS.
4 Likes
A lot can depend on what kind of venue you play. I usually play at multi-purpose venues, and they have a lot of stuff to work with, different options for outputs etc. But I’ve played at ‘clubs’ where they stare at a TRS with disgust and confusion.
1 Like
So I got sort of a weird one.
I accepted a gig at a local festival in my little sleepy town. There’s probably a cpl of thousand ppl passing through the festival in total and there will probably be about 30 ppl to watch my “set”. I have 20 minutes at noon on an outside stage. I have effectively 1 week to put something together (shouldn’t be a problem).
However I’m struck by two things which I’m kind of freaking out over.
1 option paralysis, what should I use!?
I’m unsure whether i should do something beat driven or something more mellow.
It’s the middle of the day so using the OP-Z will probably be out of the question as I won’t see anything on it.
So beat driven = Octatrack
Mellow = OP-1 Field (slowed down tape with lots of reverb)
2 should I care that this visually will be totally uninteresting for the audience?
Watching me pressing some buttons on some alien boxes isn’t a lot of show really.
is there anything i could do to spicen up the set visually?
The festival has never really had any electronic acts and the focus has always been rock and country. So I’m basically trailblazing.
The hive minds thoughts would be appreciated!
5 Likes
Play whatever gear is currently inspiring you the most. I’ve seen enough of your videos to know that you know what you’re doing with all your gear, so just use whatever you’re most into right now.
Fuck thinking about what the crowd might or might not like, if you’re into it, someone else will be.
9 Likes
This is just what I needed to hear!
I just need to toughen up and say fuck it! If they don’t like it fuck them!
11 Likes
Get a guitar strap for the OT and prance around playing scenes with gusto.
3 Likes
Back when I was playing live a lot, I was one of the only people doing live electronic sets so I used to get dumped into anything a bit weird or hard to classify, and I’d go play weird gothy breakcore to jazz audiences or whatever. I quickly realised that it didn’t matter as long as I was having a good time, the crowd would feed off that and get into it (except for some of the jazz crowd, whose palpable disgust just made me go harder 
)
And yeah, Fin nailed it there, grab your favourites and just go off, enjoy yourself and the rest will look after itself. Try record it as well, having live sets from festivals etc is a very handy tool for getting more gigs.
2 Likes
As already said, you having fun should be the main focus. Especially at these small gigs where not a lot of people might care anyway. That’s what these type of shows are good for. Learning what you like to do on stage without caring too much about the audience.
3 Likes
Haha i love that!
@Dr.K Yeah i get What you’re saying. I think the only downside you be that if I go to hard or experimental I might make an ass out of myself in front of people I meet everyday.
But! With that said, who cares what other people think…
3 Likes