Why don't you play live shows?

My digitakt keeps crashing. I wouldn’t want that to happen at a live show.

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I think more electronic musicians should play live, and DJ less. There is such a small number of live electronic artists who perform in my city (Buffalo, NY)
I love to play live, but I see why others dont, because very little people care about that around here, they mostly want to go listen to heavy bass music and party.
Some exceptions sure
We are working on things here, making more nights catered to original artists, its a tough hill to climb, but its worth it.

I prefer to play out of town shows, I love meeting new people and sharing my work with others, especially other musicians that want to talk gear with me haha. i also love seeing new live musicians, its great!!

Haha I’ll stop trolling. Promise.

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Because my music just isn’t up to the standard to fill a venue enough they’ll pay me as a bookable act. I have played live in venues before but I’m just happy enough to push for more gigs when I think I’m ready and it’s good enough. It’s not a lack of confidence, it’s just a realisation and me knowing it’s not at a level yet to sell to promoters.

I’m totally cool with that though :slight_smile:

I feel triggered

I play once a month at the local pub with my op-1 for about an hour before my mate takes over on the decks. I have about 20 beats/loops ready on the tape and play them one after the other doing mute/tape tricks. It’s fun. Beers are free and most times peeps don’t pay attention although I get the occasional “what the hell is this!” when they realise the music comes out of the little machine.

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I don’t play live because every time I turn my gear on I end up doing crazy complicated experimental stuff instead of just focusing on beats, bass, melody, and getting quicker/better at switching things up a lot for variation… :smile:

I want to play live, I just can’t for the life of me focus on what I need to focus on to have a set ready, I always get carried away on some tangent…

Then there’s this…
I have 2 titanium plates and 12 screws in my left arm, guitar is my main instrument and this is the arm that runs the fingerboard. If I don’t play for a few months the muscles start to contract over the plates and I lose the range of motion needed to comfortably play bar chords or do far finger stretches. If I try to just play like I never stopped my arm will cramp and hurt and it’ll backfire on me to the point where I can’t play at all and have to let it heal. So to get back in the groove I have to start doing special stretches for days before I try to play, and then only play high on the neck where frets are closer and work my way down slowly over a period of days to a week with lots of stretching in between, just to be able to play again…

If I could only keep playing guitar continually and not put it down for a month or more, I could stay in the groove. But since life happens I end up not playing for awhile and the situation with my arm becomes this hurdle to get over and makes me not want to do it… This cycle has been on loop for years… :cowboy_hat_face:

One of these days (months, years :thinking:) I’ll get out there again…

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“live” for me has been one of four things at any given time on stage.

  1. which I dont do enough of, Playing keys, bass, and or a drum machine, in a group with other musicians doing other things. Played in prog rock/ metal bands, and hot topic hardcore bands, used to also program the songs and sing in a somewhat ebm/ industrial band many moons ago

  2. Solo as N3wT, Using my Analog Rhythm, syncing an A4 with patterns pre made that I will choose between, or create new ones, sending CV to a Pro one, and a small modular system. From there is all pretty much made as it happens aside a few lines I may throw in from time to time but still tweak heavily while creating new rhythms.

  3. Armageddon Party, either solo, with a singer, or bassist, is when I bring most of my sequencers out and “dj” between all my premade patterns, now that may not sound live, but when your juggling patterns between a rhythm, a4, spectralis, monomachine and tempest, while manipulating parts, levels, and effects…theres an art to that.

  4. Skeleton Dreams, which is whatever happens on my modular system from nothing patched, until I feel like stopping.

I also DJ from time to time, but usually feel awkward as hell doing it haha

it’s my goal this year to start playing out again, but I haven’t played an actual gig in about a decade. That’s because the last time I was onstage was a different musical life, steeped in the traditions of rock, jazz, and hip-hop, and I was playing upright bass and electric bass as part of a band.

The main reason I haven’t played live with electronics is I’m not yet at the level with electronic music that I am with those other more traditional musics, and I’m also much more responsible for the whole content of the performance rather than just a piece of it which is a very different challenge. I’m more or less ready to do the ‘relatively brief experimental performance at a hipster venue’ thing but I’m still quite a bit away from being able to do a cohesive 1-2+ hour set.for a more mainstream club/dance audience with DJ-esque expectations. There are many venues and varieties of performance in between those two extremes, but I think the contrast illustrates my point

speaking more broadly about electronic music performance it’s important to try to consider the larger context - there are a lot of social/musical trends out there that leads me to think we are on the cusp of a huge revolution and explosion in live electronic music (just look at the plethora of choice available in tabletop synths and drum machines these days vs 10 years ago), and I think going into the future we’re going to see audiences that are more and more receptive to and interested in this type of performance. The future live electronic music virtuosos and superstars are out there right now, woodshedding away and perfecting their craft, it seems less a question of ‘if’ and more a matter of ‘when’ - 10 years? 20 years? 30 years? seems a bit inevitable.

The effects of the electric guitar and electric guitar performance on popular music are still playing out to this day, whereas electronic music performance is still in a mostly fetal state despite the huge effect technology has had on music over the last several decades - it feels like most artists and performers are only scratching the surface of what’s possible and are working hard to even attempt to keep pace with the tech options available. People spend their whole lives getting good enough on an instrument to mesmerize a crowd hip to their genre, and I’ve had an Elektron box for what, 5 years at the most? I can’t think of many people that I’d consider virtuosos of electronic music performance (although there are some of you floating around this forum!), most of what I see is not very good, although it’s clear at this stage that most audiences aren’t very sensitive to this yet, although I feel this will change more and more over time. more people will begin to understand there is a big spectrum of live electronic music performance, all the way from straight DJ’ing to a full band with only synthetic instruments and everything in between. it’s interesting how the more advanced DJs/turntablists continue to blur the line between clever pre-recorded track programming and straight up instrumental performance (tone play for example). in fact I tend to learn more from watching DJs perform than live electronic acts, even though I have little to no desire to ever do a DJ set; the DJs are often much more accomplished and practiced at what they are doing and much more accomplished at maintaining musical interest over time and building a narrative - sure, maybe that’s easier for them given their methods, but it still shows a big flaw in terms of accessibility of many live electronic music performances. Surgeon talks about how he feels audiences give him a bit more leeway since they know he’s actually performing instead of DJ’ing, but on the other hand that guy knows exactly how to bang out hardass techno beat after hardass techno beat and has a lifetime of DJ experience to back up his hardware performance sensibilities

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I do play live but with my band and i’m doing something that is very different than my personal project.
We are 3 (drum - bass + keyboards) so its all played live, nothing is sequenced and i like that because there is place for errors, improvisation etc .

My personal electro project , no i dont play live. I just dont know how to adapt everything i do on the computer, my analog mono synth with no presets etc for a live performance. I guess i could record synth parts on my Octatrack but … i dont know… maybe one day. I like electronic music but most of the time i found it very boring to watch. I just dont see the point seeing someone pressing play and tweak some parameters. But sometime i see bands that give very good performance.

Also maybe im getting old. Packing all my stuff, boring sound check, travelling at night etc . Bha … i mostly like the creation part.

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That’s a really beautiful piece of music, almost church organ like at the end. Upload some more…

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Thanks Kalimari :slight_smile: I’m really glad you like it.
I love droney church organs.

there’s more music on the way.

the digitakt was master clock in that tune btw :wink: the unsung hero.

nice one

your hardware performance videos are some of the most inspiring that I’ve come across on Youtube :slight_smile:

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yea big time. Daren’s A4 acid videos sold me on it :slight_smile:

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A difficulty is taking what you do in the studio into a club or live venue environment and making a connection with a crowd. If you’re an established artist with a recognised sound it’s easier because people have familiarity with your music and know what to expect. If you’re new to the crowd you need to connect in another way than familiarity. I find one way is supporting an established act that has a similar sound or if you’re the main act you gotta be sht hot.

I think if it’s a smaller crowd and it’s more a showcase this is easier than playing to a club crowd, less pressure to fit to the crowd as they are there for you to showcase.

I love seeing any live electronic music because I make it and have an interest in what the artist is doing but I’ve seen so many live acts bomb because they get up and do their thing without engaging the crowd which isn’t their fault, just what they’re doing doesn’t work. It’s why when I’ve done any live stuff I always plan it and adapt it to the gig but it’s also the reason I haven’t done anything in a while as I’ve nothing I’m happy will work with established nights or events.

I have been djing out and play my own productions but that’s different as djing is easy to change and work to the crowd.

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@louderest @pidgeo Thanks that is very nice of you to say :fist_right: :fist_left:

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Summer in Detroit made me buy my first bit of hardware

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I think a great deal of music is about being clear about goals and expectations. As long as you’re honest about those things, it’s all good.

Personally, I have a blast playing live sometimes. I’m sort of burned out on playing in Louisville because I’ve done it pretty consistently for 20 years now. I’ve scaled back significantly (didn’t play solo last year for the first time in 15 years (gulp) and am focusing on just playing little bursts out of town when I have the time, money, and motivation. Playing in new spaces, meeting new people/making new friends, and hearing new sounds is still about as magical as it always was. On that note, I have a 10-12 show tour this summer I’m working out from Montreal back to Louisville this July that I’m already pumped about! :slight_smile:

From what I’m reading here I think it becomes quite apparent that the context in which people are working has a great impact. I can imagine that a place with little or no live electronic scene isn’t very encouraging to try and get on stage. I’m based in The Netherlands and there’s a lively scene here, academic electro-acoustic, modular noodling, free-party tekno, commercial dance etc. Many opportunities to get out there, from small self-run to large professional events.

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IMO, there needs to be a change when it comes to live electronic music. Seeing someone hunched over a laptop just doesn’t cut it, and it is somehow worse than a DJ playing vinyl. At least the record decks can be thought of as some kind of instrument when a DJ knows what they’re doing. The laptop just looks geeky and will never be thought of as an instrument. And is it even worse when the Apple logo is showing. Go on sucker, continue advertising Apple for free!

Also, guys please stop wearing baseball caps when playing. :sunglasses:

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