Your 1st live gig(s). What u learned & what u changed after?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

I recently played my first live performance with the dark trinity. I had 7 songs in my set. Each song was located within a separate bank.

As I it was my first performance and I had very little time to prepare, I did not want to fuck up or leave anything to chance, therefore I set each song up covering around 6-12 varying patterns within a bank. This meant that I knew where the peaks and lulls would be, the intros and outros etc (I used masking tape to write stuff down).

As a result, I did not really ā€œfeelā€ my way through each track but sort of motored on through like a robot. Manually, all I did was mute/solo tracks on A4 (which sometimes embarrassingly did not work as I had forgotten the sound I was trying to mute was not trigged on that particular pattern), fiddle with my performance macros set up on the A4 (which, to be honest mainly controlled filter cutoff settings) and a small few preprogrammed scenes/performance macros on AR. The OT was my main pattern changer & sample player, but I mainly just used it as an fx unit (e.gā€¦ delay + high pass filter for transitions). I chose not to use the ā€œtransition trickā€ and instead changed pattern on the AR first, then gradually closed the filters on the track which was playing out. I then used OT to change pattern of the A4 to same as AR.

Due to the pre-setup nature of everything, I found that I did not have as much to do as I had predicted. It was fun because it was worry free but it was by no means overly challenging. I now know that next time out I want to do things differently.

I am going back to the drawing board. From now on when I am making tracks I am trying to think ahead to playing live and think of things like performance/scene setups. I am also trying to change the tracks in that set to be more tweakable in a live setting. Iā€™m going to try and get to know the 3 machines much better to be able to improvise liveā€¦ Iā€™d never have the ability for Dataline like jiggery pokery, but a little improv at times to spice up a dull set.

It also came to my mind that many people use only one pattern on each machine when playing live. Though that sounds scary, perhaps this is something Iā€™ll try nextā€¦ though I like to set songs up over a number of patterns as itā€™s a bit easier to coherently record a finished track to Ableton when they are arranged that way.

Would anyone like to share their first Elektron gig experience and tell a little about what you learned and how your performance changed thereafter?

Cheers!

Martin

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Elektron House Gig A Success Thanks for all the Advice!
#2

Interesting. The thing is, I didnā€™t change anything after the first drum machine gig :smiley: was just full of adrenaline and enthusiasm. You canā€™t rebuild the sound of gigs at home or in the studio.

Setup: Machinedrum, MBase, Minitaur, Blofeld and my colleague Ableton Live. No tracks, just patterns with some content to start with plus program changes for the Blofeld.

What I learned there: the Minitaur bass is just awesome, cuts through the mix even in a muddy sounding setting and this plus the kick is all you need to get people moving. Shimmery details (Blofeld) get lost. I have to limit myself to not crank the drive up so much. Thatā€™s the great part of A4 macros: you can define ex ante in what parameter regions youā€™d like to stay. Impros work perfectly. I now remember that I even had an iPad with me (Samplr app) and that I spent a lot of time doing crazy stuff with that app although having just downloaded it the same day. You need some reliable backbone (Machinedrum/Minitaur in the described case) and then you can just throw other things in to taste.

P.S. https://soundcloud.com/marc-und-moritz/121216_mk7_live_techno-mp3 people went completely crazy on that sound!

Other learnings: 1) you have to be in proper ā€˜shapeā€™ when improvizing high-energy sound (might be different with more ambient stuff), this gig lasted almost 2 hours and our second gig lasted 3 hours, lol. Bpm were much higher than practiced in advance. People didnā€™t let us stop and you canā€™t just stop at a private party, especially not when things work so great. In clubs you get slots, there itā€™s not that much of an issue. I was in a state near delirium, still pushing energy through the speakers. 2) the sound of the A4 is perfectly optimized to cut through in a live setting. 3) donā€™t become hyperactive, let the people enjoy small changes.

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#3

After my first gig with Elektron gear I remembered to always, always, ALWAYS, make sure the MD is playing back in extended mode and not classic.

Shit sounded cray

:slight_smile:

#4

Interesting point. I can just imagine how a well-prepared p-locks-heavy set might sound in classic mode. However, other the people than yourself might not notice anything unconventional. I learned the opposite: no need for extended mode except for program changes etc here and there :smiley: classic mode most of the time, one track per note, live tweaked knobs instead of p-locksā€¦

#5

i played my first live electronic gig in 1999, with a Nord Lead II, Yamaha A3000, and a Q70 sequencer

loved it.

#6

Itā€™s only after I started recording my live-sessions I noticed that I was doing " to much " sometimes = when twiddeling I hear things differently > doing less but at the right time gives better results < if you donā€™t mind that the audience notices that youā€™re relaxed and do nothing sometimes :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: .
The public often dousnā€™t hear what you do live and whatā€™s being programmed but theyā€™ll notice your moves and link those to the music ( this has been tested - examp : if you clap your hands and someone puts on the light - our brain will link those actions - even if thereā€™s no link at all = if thereā€™s allmost no time-interval ) so Iā€™m pretty shure thereā€™s a lot of performers who act. :wink: .
If you need challenges thereā€™s options enough to create them.

I think itā€™s easy to do to much , thinking that you donā€™t do enough, difficult to do nothing, ( these things happens when I stress )
Itā€™s mastership to do the right thing on the right moment ā€¦ I think good preparation and knowing your set is the clue here ā€¦ and in doing so avoiding stressā€¦

From former groups I played with I remember things going wrong when musicians tried to play above their level ( this happens themost with guys who donā€™t rehursal an practice enough but they wanna be on stage - boost their egoā€™s ) - OK for rehursals but live a disaster. One thing is to be exited and nervous because youā€™re going live wich is a good thing. another thing is to stress because you try to proove yourself and others of skills you donā€™t really master. Challenge yourself live ??? YES
Stress yourself live ??? NO

#7

Hi Martin,

I cant share my experience, because I havent played live yet, but good that you decided to share yours for those of us, planning to do so in the future :slight_smile:

I`m sure you will be more prepared next time and come up with more ideas on how to setup your tracks.

Good luck and best regards.

#8

Yes! Thanks for sharing your experience. I would like to perform live someday and synths still feel fairly new to me so Iā€™m really not sure when it will happen. Did you record any of the set?

#9

@vos: great post. Yes, not doing too much is difficult. Like the painter who paints just one, fat, red line on a wall, which looks beatiful despite being just one line. not a chaotic mess.

#10

@Martin: A further thought on the full tracks vs. just single patterns plus impro issue mentioned in the opening post: I think that 4 patterns per track are a good compromise. Intro/outro, medium energy, high energy, going crazy. You can then jump back and forth to play with the level of energy, and youā€™re always free to keep tracks muted and/or improvize on the fly with those sounds, but you can do that anyways. No. 4 is typically the one that I keep overwriting live, 1-3 to jump back to something stable. I changed my approach to full impro lately, but am going to get back to that approach for the sake of replayability.

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#11

One thing that I rarely see utilized is the individual pattern lengths on the A4.

I found it immensely valuable and extremely usable live to make 4 bar patterns but start the ā€œsongā€ with only the first say 8 steps enabled. As i bring sounds in and out I also increase the length of the pattern, introducing more complexity and progression in the melodies

Leaving one track open with some bread and butter patches you know well to allow some improvisation is also really nice. I am more familiar with patches Iā€™ve made myself, and tend to try and push them into alien territory in the studio to become more familiar with the limitations of each sound so I donā€™t turn them into mush when playing out live.

Another useful and very handy feature of the OT is the CUE function. Again another feature that I donā€™t see used nearly as much as it should be, but a great way to audition stuff before bringing them in to the mix.

Thanks for sharing your experience! and hope some of these tips help

#12

Yikes! I imagine this sounded radically different;)

#13

I actually have recently bought a cheap used Blofeld for said ā€œshimmerynessā€ and more without realizing itā€™s such a deceptively complex machine. I have barely used it as Iā€™ve been working solely on the three black boxes.

How do you rate the blofeld in a live setting sequenced by something like the OT?

Also, you say that you play live, with your partner using ableton. Iā€™m starting a similar project with another student. Heā€™ll do glitchy atmosperic Ableton/MaxForLive stuff and Iā€™ll ad some techno rhythms from AR and A4. Any tips for a duo who are starting out on how to incorporate software and hardware in a live setting? Experiment, experiment, experimentā€¦ I guess.

#14

@Vos. Very helpful tips. Much appreciated!

#15

Thanks MK7. Yeah, this seems like a good compromise. I think Iā€™d be a bit nervous using a single pattern.

#16

No, I did not plan to record and that was a mistake as I canā€™t really remember how I played and have no real cues on how to improve next time.

An even bigger mistake was not insisting there were monitors positioned close to my area. I was relying on the main speakers which were pointed away from me. Dā€™oh! I had no idea how it sounded most of the time:(

#17

Great tip. Thanks for sharing this, nirun. As I said, I need to explore these machines much more deeply!:wink:

#18

I actually have recently bought a cheap used Blofeld for said ā€œshimmerynessā€ and more without realizing itā€™s such a deceptively complex machine. I have barely used it as Iā€™ve been working solely on the three black boxes.

How do you rate the blofeld in a live setting sequenced by something like the OT?

Also, you say that you play live, with your partner using ableton. Iā€™m starting a similar project with another student. Heā€™ll do glitchy atmosperic Ableton/MaxForLive stuff and Iā€™ll ad some techno rhythms from AR and A4. Any tips for a duo who are starting out on how to incorporate software and hardware in a live setting? Experiment, experiment, experimentā€¦ I guess.[/quote]
The Blofeld is an awesome synth, both ā€˜on headphonesā€™ and on stage. One of the most important and most dangerous parameters is the filter drive. The filters are so sharp, Iā€™ve never heard a similar filter on a non-Waldorf device. The Blofeld sounds so brilliant and crystalline, really nice. Great partner for the OT.

Regarding Live: Iā€™d suggest to just press play in sync. You as the hardware drum machine guy are responsible to keep it in sync, because you donā€™t have any latency. Let him do his crazy stuff. You might consider using Live for send effects via a mixer, but Iā€™d not recommend routing all your sound through the computer. Keep things parallel and donā€™t spend much time with syncing issues, just these two tips. Plug the hardware into the mixer, computer into the mixer and have fun :slight_smile: btw, when we had a more complex routing, a computer crash even crashed the MD (during a gig, of course), I switched to backup no. 2 (iPod), rebooted the MD, switched to backup no. 1 (MD straight to the mixer), etc. what for? itā€™s so simple to just keep things independent. Great combo that has a lot to offer. I know that this is a hardware-focused community, but Live can really provide some crazy stuff.

Edit: just remembered the source of those issues: power supply (although it was a laptop)! Use different power outlets, if possible. At least be aware that power issues might be the source for strange behavior of laptops/machines.

#19

I was sweating bullets during the opening of a set once when my p-locked, heavily filtered white noise intro was replaced with super loud blasts of white noise. The crowd definitely noticed but I luckily found the culprit after what was the longest 30 seconds ever.

My first gig doing my solo electronic thing (played in bands for many years before) was at a house party with a Electribe EMX, Roland SP-404SX, Korg KP-3, a microkorg, and one Mackie Thump PA speaker I bought and received the day before. I wasnā€™t sure how it would go as I never even shared my electronic music before, but the crowd was dancing like crazy to my mostly improvisational tunes (was looping bass lines and melodies live from from the microkorg into the KP3).

Everything is going great, everyone is getting down, so I decide to eat a hit of acid I have in my wallet, and give away a few to some friends. About an hour and a half later Iā€™m hitting the same key on my microkorg and itā€™s producing a different pitch every time, like a low speed LFO is modulating the pitch, except there wasnā€™t any LFOs modulating anything, it was my perception, so at that point I had to stop and let my friends mess around on my gear while I joined the party.

So yeah, I donā€™t take acid during gigs anymore.

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#20

My first gig was 13 years ago with gear I donā€™t own anymore, but Iā€™ll tell you what Iā€™ve learned from playing with the Analog Four in the past year and a half:

This may seem obvious, but make sure youā€™ve saved all your kits and patterns before you get on stage! Sometimes weird shit happens and kits get reverted to a previous, unfinished state, which can spell disaster, or at least extreme confusion!

If you can, take the time to properly label all your performance macros so you know what they are.
Also, keep similar sounds on the same tracks (bass on Track 4, percussion on Track 2, etc.) to avoid confusion.

If you donā€™t use it, make sure the Chain/Song mode is disabled. And double-check which Pattern Change mode youā€™re in.

Make sure the Transpose function is off too! Iā€™ve had instances where I couldnā€™t recognize my pattern because everything was up one octave. Fucking thing always finds a way to get activated (I do use it every once in a while).

I used to think that synchronizing pattern changes in my setup was a good idea - trust me, itā€™s not. Makes for a much more fluid performance if you switch patterns independently.