This is not how I perform at all nor most of the live acts i know that use a sampler. I use a combination of synths and samplers live and have control over the full arrangement and every individual sound as much as I want. You have a vague idea of what a sampler is and how people are using them. That view is completely incorrect though 
You’re talking about using full stems, not samples. A sample can be a single drum hit that you can manipulate just like a kick on a drum machine and actually in many more ways than most drum machines. A sample can be a cat’s meow, a door slam, a lawnmower starting up, a single hihat. And all this can be sequenced just as you would on a drum machine and manipulated live with just as many or more parameters, live.
A sampler is not just a backing track player or stem player. A sampler can even contain a single cycle waveform that you loop to create an oscillator that you then can influence with the same tools you’d find on a subtractive synth.
1 Like
dtr
42
I had a lot of distractions in those 20 years 
Also performed live a lot in those 20 years, with very diverging projects: trip-hop-ish, IDM, techno but also audiovisual media art.
The takeaway: don’t wait to go out to perform until you think everything is perfect, ‘cause it will never be. And that’s one of the beauties of real live performance.
If you really want to challenge yourself
to do something else than the shiny cool ableton dudes, do it all with devices that don’t have pattern memory like DFAM. Not the easy route though!
(I use devices with and without pattern memory combined)
3 Likes
Romann
43
it turns out that there are no restrictions. everything are is live performance or everything are is sampling in live performance to one degree or another.
and it’s just a different approach to performance, with or without a samplers.
and i just wants to understand if I definitely need a sampler and if there are artists who don’t use a sampler?
1 Like
What do you want to know besides the answers already given?
Do you want to know more about what a sampler is?
1 Like
Romann
45
Sorry) I didn’t mean specifically you and how you use sampler or daw. and definitely yes, I have vague ideas about the sampler)
and I’m slowly understanding it might not be necessary)
Is there something you miss in your current live workflow?
Romann
47
I’ll try to figure it out on my own. everything has its time) thnx!
same here with a small eurorack case, can do lot of fun stuff as well. Queen of Pentacles plus Eloquencer and mixer and fun times.
I think this is also a valid way to perform. Make stems of submixes of your tracks; use live loops; use fx; use four decks; play the bass from track A beside the drums of track C and the pads from track B; scratch in some vocal samples. Turntablism is just as powerful, difficult and musical as other modes of playing.
3 Likes
Did you say “Octatrack”? ( 
)
1 Like
Romann
55
topicstart “What is live techno?” so deep)
i totally agree!
1 Like
What is love?
Baby, don’t hurt mi!
No moa!
3 Likes
Improv and live are two separate things. Most likely when it’s live, it’s just pre-prepared sequences and knob twisting with a setlist.
Where it gets interesting is when you program the parts on the fly and even improvise unquantized on top of that.
ccr
58
Yes, I also think of this as involving two separate (and fairly independent) dimensions: ‘live’ as involving something happening in the moment and with the possibility of interacting with a space, its audience, vibe, etc. (including DJ transitions, track choice, fx, etc.), and ‘improvised’ as not predefined and created-in-the-moment (even though it might be building on well-rehearsed performance practices).
Loving your choice of artists, they are some of my favourites too, have you watched any live performances from them for ideas and to see what they use, there are good vids on YouTube of Varg, Rrose, Carsten Nicolai etc
1 Like
I really like live improvisation of electronic music. I feel the instrument really gel well with it.
On Friday we do a Synth Battle Royal where we do live, improvised set of 10 minutes. It’s really neat, and everyone does it at his/her own pace, some takes time and explain what they are doing, while other just jump in. I try to just jump in to see where is goes. I sometime fail miserably, while other times I just make it happens and it works!
Check it out and feel free to ask me for help if you want to join. You actually have to SSH into sdf.org to get to the chat room in order to register to the SBR!
1 Like
