My philosophy is that close to a band. I write the songs and play them loosely the way they are written but have a lot of room for variation. I’ve seen great improve bands that can entertain me, but I am always more into the idea of a dynamically written song over a free flowing one.
Right now I am just using a MD and MM with a mixer and KP3. (I have my POs and Volca to plug in for added fun but not required.)
Run down of how I got my latest set.
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Load a bunch of fun samples and drum hits into the MD…
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Pick a general style. Usually is good for me to pick a tempo first then write a few in that tempo to see where it goes. I decided 130BPM kinda bordering on some dancey late 90’s vibes.
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Write a bunch of a songs. Before even deciding how I was going to perform the set, I just wrote a bunch of songs and decided how to organize them on the machines. I gave each song 8 patterns of space so I knew I could hold 16 all together but ended up going with A,B,C,D banks with 2 songs each bank and E,F,G,H with 4 songs each since some were not needing 8 patterns. Those are my more jammy songs with less of an idea of song arrangement.
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I practiced each song individually a bunch to see get a loose idea of how I want to perform them live (like memorizing a set workflow for each song to get into and not loose track of where I’m at). Recording the jams to video also helped me motivate to get it to a place I like so I can share the videos.
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Figure out how to blend the songs. Thats where the KP3 comes in. I figured it would be best to make a loop of the portion of the song I’m playing and then queue up the next song on the MD and MM while the loop plays, then build in and mess with the loop of the last song to make the transition. It turns out its a lot of fun and give a really fun back and forth feeling while performing so you’re not just sitting focused on one instrument. I think the crowd can recognize it a little and helps them anticipate the next song is coming up.
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Practice the set and play it live That’s the scary part!
Here are some of the jams I recorded: