Why am I so mindful of performing live when I haven't done a gig in years!?

The Lounge General Discussion
#21

will I be able to do this live?

Doesn’t matter, I’ve done it at home, I have the stems, I can replay them on stage if I want

how will this sound live in a venue?

Doesn’t matter, One can never know. Big sound changes everything, it’s better to be ready to adjust the sound live. I’ve heard the dullest studio 909 kicks really shine on stage. With experience you know that those little details won’t matter much. None will notice how that reverb is so subtly mixed when everything is drowned in the natural reverb of the place you are in. So keep a dry version of your sounds just in case.

how will I condense this set up to play live?

Doesn’t matter, I’ll just record stems, put them in my Blackbox, hook a midi controller to the Blackbox, use all 3 stereo outputs to proccess sounds with pedals live and enjoy the moment. That’s one small flycase or backpack setup that never fails. I may even have space left to take a small synth to improvise acid lines.

It’s not like I’m gonna move 5000€ worth of gear from my studio to the stage for a 100€ tip, so everything has to condense to 2 / 3 boxes anyway.

I think it’s ultimately telling me that I still want to get back to playing gigs.

True. A good gig is so much better than, say, releasing stuff on an obscure label. That’s just “real”. There aren’t that many real things these days.

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#22

Haha! The most awkward peice of gear in the world! I do like mine though, weirdo chunk of oddball that it is.

#23

I do this because, even if I never play most of what I make, it helps me push my writing into different directions. I enjoy playing ambient loops or noodling on a synth patch or whatever, but I don’t always push myself towards the composition side of things. it helps to have an imagined audience who I want to entertain so i don’t just tweak a snare sound for an hour.

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#24

I’ve been starting to wonder lately if the live performance is something I should really be thinking about at all when composing a song…

Maybe figuring out how I’m going to play songs live should always be a separate step …

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#25

Yeah this is a huge factor for me too. I once played a gig with a guy who brought 4 full size vintage keyboards onstage for a 30 minute set that was mostly sequenced. At a show where none of us got paid. Meanwhile I thought I was being ridiculous with a Nord Modular and Octatrack.

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#26

Same!

I also fall into the mental trap of “how can I pull this off live?” as the original post even though I know an actual live PA will most likely never happen again.

#27

Many neurotic habits are highly beneficial to the musical creator, this is one of them. Even if you never play live it’s stretching you out into new challenges, and that’s all good.

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#28

It’s a great approach and if I were you I’d make a decision that you are planning to play live as soon as you are ready and you find an opportunity to perform.

I used to make music and later I would work out a way to perform it live. This time I’m doing it in reverse. I’m making a live set from scratch, and when this is finished I’ll hopefully perform it in venues, and finally I’ll make an album from it. This has pushed me into a new workflow that I’m loving and the tracks I’m making are different than usual.

I’ve just started to make videos of live performances in the studio. The videos I make with a smaller setup are basically rehearsals for gigs. I’m working out a structure for the way I will play them, so that I’ll remember to use each aspect of the track I’ve created (although I plan to mix it up in future when I know the material and processes really well). So each performance is essentially a full track that is mapped out in my mind rather than on a timeline in a DAW. Requires a lot of concentration, but it’s really helping me to develop as an electronic musician. This is motivating me to practice because I’d like to film it in one good take (no edits). By doing this, I’ll have something to share online and in the process get to know the material well enough to be confident in doing a full live set.

Anyway, I think what I’m saying overall is that having a clear goal to play live can give you a lot of motivation to get things done, but even if you never do play live, it’s great for getting you to think/work in different ways, and most of all, it’s fun.

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#29

I would say that the performative aspect of dance (music) makes actually performing tracks a super helpful approach.

It never feels right when I sequence something out in the DAW.

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#30

I’ve taken a hiatus from music making for the summer. I do dabble into ideas but nothing serious right now.

I have never performed electronic music live, but i always think I want to. After my first album, every song I work on, i try to keep in mind that I may play it live some day. I wish it would help, but the organization of a live set is difficult in a Dawless world to me. I don’t own a computer good enough for diddly squat.

Every song i try to make into a live set kind of gets ruined due to the lack of material in my brain. But yes, making music with the thought of playing it live does spice things up a lot.

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#31

It’s going to sound like I make crazy experimental music, I don’t, but I don’t want my live setup to limit what I can record. And I don’t want to bring a whole truck of machines to play live. So I do whatever I like in the “studio” and when playing live, I’ll recreate what’s possible on the spot, and use stems for the rest. But the core of the setup is mostly akin to dub mixing stems and loops I exported from my DAW projects. That way I can do whatever I want when producing, and have a way to play it live.

On the other hand, I’ve always been interested in the idea of creating a whole original live set with drum machines and set, and then record a performance of my tracks. Kind of like Simian did for Whorl. But that’s intimidating!

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#32

i worry about my abilities of playing drumset live atrophying…
all this electronic stuff is for me and my 19 followers on soundcloud where i unleash

ive never really considered performing my electronic stuff live, considering how long it took me to get to a level of proficiency on my main instrument…its just for my own satisfaction.
were i to give it a go, id be a fumbling mess.

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#33

that’s totally ok … until it’s on youtube :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

i would not care even about that, but loads of that stuff appear on each and every gear-related search.

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#34

It’s interesting reading different takes on this, also interesting that you get a sense of peoples’ musical genre from their descriptions.

My previous band process/experience has been to work on tracks in my own time/space, then take that into the rehearsal room with the band… for an undetermined/variable amount of time.
I would never feel ‘ready’ until the manager would put a gig/tour in the diary… at that point the focus would have to shift and you’d be working backwards from the first gig date.

What I’m doing now, being self-contained, just removes the rehearsal part of that process, my next step would be to put a gig in the diary. :bulb:

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#35

Ha ha.
Same here. As soon as i buy gear, i’m influenced by portability and live playabilty. Bit ridiculous.
But, must admit that since des monthes, i less use memory on my gear and play live more frequently. So… the right choice is buy gear that would permit live

#36

I have definitely been working the exact same way recently. I think it comes from playing in a band that has the same philosophy - our recordings are always geared at being a reproduction of our live performance rather than writing something and working out how to recreate it afterwards. There are obviously double layered bits/extra parts, but nothing that would be missed live.

On the flip side, I’ve recently been working out how to play a very old song from a previous electronic project live, and it was actually surprisingly easy despite using completely different gear. The song was originally written to be performed live though, so maybe that’s not a fair representation.

I do feel like I’m in a similar position though - stuck thinking about how every song could be done live, but also scared as hell at ever performing on my own.

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#37

a few years I was profoundly affected by this thought process. Most of my instrument choices have reflected this. My entire workflow revolves around this concept. I haven’t played my beats productions in ages. I feel better about my process though as my skills and confidence have grown.

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#38

Yes agreed. Being able to swap your sounds around tells you how strong your hook/song is melodically and is part of the ‘playing to the crowd’ appeal.

It’s also now got me thinking about well known tracks where it HAS to be played with a particular sound, like the sound is equal to/more important than the melody…

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#39

I also have this, and keep thinking I should work with someone else… I keep thinking it’d be great to have someone controlling/playing the drum/percussive elements while I handle the rest.

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#40

It was actually quite fun to work out how to do it, and good sound design practice - I originally played the main part on an MS2000 doing a sort of arpeggiated ambient thing but midi linked to an Alpha Juno as the bass. Managed to program both sounds together on the Sequential Pro2 leaving me a free hand to do other bits and tweak sounds.
There’s two of us, so individual bits can be a lot simpler, plan is to record a live video of it at some point though.

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