Let's discuss live performing

[godfreyjones]

Hola everyone!

For many years I've been thinking about performing live but I've always found some excuses ( lack of equipment, not enough produced material, etc). I feel like it's time to cut the crap and get to it. Maybe some of you are in the same situation and we could use this thread to discuss techniques, equipment and general approach to live performing.

One of the first problems you have to face is probably deciding the core piece of equipment you'll be using to run everything.
My synth setup would be a Rytm and a digitone, and at the moment I'm deciding between buying a new laptop or getting a dawless solution ( akai mpc live being on top of the list) + some fx pedals.
I feel like the laptop is a more versatile solution. You have the unmatched power of a full DAW + vst plugins, you can use it also to produce on the go, etc. But a Hardware option seems more reliable for live situations.
-Those of you who are already experienced in live performances, would you recommend the hardware route based only in reliability?
-Also, how much do you compromise your sound processing live, meaning how much of your performance are bounced loops?
I'm gravitating towards a laptop setup because, for example, I tend to group my drums and apply some heavy processing, and when I cut out some elements of the group the overall sound changes. How would you guys approach these in a hardware only setup? Having different loops bounced with different elements muted?

Overall laptop solution seems more tweakable but I'm not sure if that's even a real necessity while perfoming, since there's too much going on and you probably need to simplify your job on stage.

Thoughts?

Cheers!

[td3l]

Bit of a timely topic for me as I just debuted my live set on Saturday night.

In general, imo, your choice of gear should depend on the ways in which you want to present movement and activity in your music. Do you want to work a drum machine? Tweak synth timbres and filter cutoffs? Get deep into the mix by bringing elements in and out in a dynamic fashion (i.e. almost in a dub sort of manner)? Your choice of gear will define your Frame of Improvisation, so you simply need to decide what sort of frame you'd like.

In general, Ableton will absolutely be your most flexible and adaptable choice for a sequencer/sampler/host. It's also a good place to start because you can easily reconfigure your template if you want to go a different direction at any point.

I would argue against the concept of hardware being inherently more reliable. My setup has a mixture of Ableton core + some hardware -- when I played on Saturday, it was my hardware reverb that was fucking up at soundcheck, and Ableton which provided the solution (I routed my reverb send into my audio interface and just ran a Valhalla instance for verb). n=1 anecdote, but it just goes to show.

how much do you compromise your sound processing live, meaning how much of your performance are bounced loops?

This goes back to what I mentioned about movement in your music, and it's an individualized thing. If you look at what you typically produce in the studio, which elements tend to be static beyond bringing them in and out of the mix? Those are good candidates to be bounced down without much loss in overall control. If every sound you use is overflowing with detail tweaks, on the other hand, then yes your compromise will have to be much greater.

tl;dr just use a laptop for starting out. Two suggestions though: 1) be cognizant of your CPU usage and leave yourself a healthy amount of leeway. It *will* start adding up fast. 2) Do NOT go cheap on an audio interface. Your reliability or lack thereof will most likely depend this piece. Get something reputable like an RME.

[godfreyjones]

Thanks for the repply td3l. I see your point on the decission being a personal matter of defining your own impro. frame. I guess it's all about sitting down with your machines and seeing what's what you would enjoy most masnipulating live and what's realistic also.

About the hardware question, what scares me more is actually a kind of hybrid setup computer + synths. I already own a RME interface but what's throwing me off is the insane pricing of the new macbook pro, and then having to drop some more cash on a sync box to run my elektrons in sync.
In your case, is your hardware only pedals or you run some synths in sync with ableton also?

[td3l]

Ableton 9 is very stable and efficient in my experience. My macbook is an older Air which my missus picked up for me from a coworker back when I was poor in grad school. I think it may even be a 2013 model. I successfully ran 16 audio channels (with clips on Pro mode warping), each with an EQ8 instance for filtering, plus 2 channels midi sequencing, 2 instances of Valhalla shimmer (one covering for my hardware verb), and a Tuner channel on a pre-fader send so that I could watch for osc drift on my Erebus.

Erebus and 0-coast were midi sequenced through the RME. Also have a TR-8s and MPD18 synced over USB, and two Korg Nanokontrols.

All of this on an older Macbook running at 48khz / 24 bit. I did admittedly raise my buffer to 1024 samples just to give myself extra headroom on the CPU. Some latency offset is required on the different devices to get them all in sync, but that's why Ableton has that function.

FWIW I briefly considered upgrading to Ableton 10, but upon doing some research found lots of complaints about drastically worse CPU efficiency, so I abstained and stuck with 9.

Just get a used or refurbished macbook from the last couple years and you should be completely fine to do a hybrid setup, especially if you are running audio clips and Abletons stock FX in lieu of CPU hogging 3rd party VSTs.

[Lost to the Void]

I would never run hybrid live.
Live is my main thing, has been for..fuck.
2 decades basically.
I think I've played electronic music in just.about every iteration, and hybrid is the one I would least trust. Either all software or all hardware has the least risk of problems in my experience.
There are more variables to go wrong. And something will go wrong, the more you play live, the more these random variables happen.
I don't think it's worth the risk personally.
Currently I'm all hardware (though I did play an all software set recently).
As for the insurance and outs...there is simply too much for me to talk about. It's been in my mind for ages to write a guide to live performance.
There's so much to it.

In brief I think it's important to maintain a DJ set-like flow. Too many live PAs make the mistake of basically going down to kickdrums between transitions and losing the flow.
I approach my PAs as a 2 deck setup in how I arrange and execute, so I can literally mix between two "songs" on the desk, whilst having control of the elements within each song.
And make sure your kickdrums are different. A set where only 1 kick drum is used all the way through really starts to sound monotonous quickly.

[td3l]

I disagree with the idea that hybrid is inherently the most risky. I consider it a lot less risky, for instance, to have "active" synth parts handled by an actual hardware synth being midi sequenced instead of a VST instance to which I'd need to assign midi knobs in order to have control.

Lots and lots of highly-established techno live acts use hybrid setups successfully. It's probably the predominant form nowadays. I wouldn't discourage OP from using one if that's what works best for him creatively.

[Lost to the Void]

There is more to go wrong.
It's that simple.
Software hardware interface will go wrong when you least expect it.
You will encounter weirdness at gigs.
All the power, the lights, the smoke, the vibrations, the travelling. All this shit adds JuJu in to the mix.
And with hybrid you are just throwing the odds higher.
I've seen so many people have sync issues, and I've had them myself with a hybrid setup, and it's never an easy fix in the club.
I mean regardless of your setup, something will go wrong at some point. In my experience, I try to minimise that, and by avoiding hybrid I have less issues. Or at least issues that generally will fix more easily "in the field".
I can only speak from experience and it would be stupid for me not to.
I'm not saying don't. I mean play a gig with your dick wired to the mains if you want, I have no road experience so I can't advise on that.

[0dd]

With regards to flow. I finished making patterns (tracks) for my first gig yesterday, I made one bank of 16, and from each one to the next I kept 3-5 tracks and sequences the same and color coded them so as not to memorise each transition. Sounds ok when tried home. We'll see how it goes on Saturday.

[td3l]

There is more to go wrong.
It's that simple.
Software hardware interface will go wrong when you least expect it.
You will encounter weirdness at gigs.
All the power, the lights, the smoke, the vibrations, the travelling. All this shit adds JuJu in to the mix.
And with hybrid you are just throwing the odds higher.
I've seen so many people have sync issues, and I've had them myself with a hybrid setup, and it's never an easy fix in the club.
I mean regardless of your setup, something will go wrong at some point. In my experience, I try to minimise that, and by avoiding hybrid I have less issues. Or at least issues that generally will fix more easily "in the field".
I can only speak from experience and it would be stupid for me not to.
I'm not saying don't. I mean play a gig with your dick wired to the mains if you want, I have no road experience so I can't advise on that.

All I'm saying is that more points of failure != higher probability of a failure, automatically. A system of 3 components which each have a failure rate of 1% will fail less often than a single component with a failure rate of 5%.

I trust something like a RME interface + synth more than Ibdo a 3rd party VST, but that's just me. Anyway, being pedantic now about probability

[Lost to the Void]

I don`t particularly trust anything, RME will fuck up too. You do enough gigs and you will experience hair tearing failure on anything.
It`s not individual things it`s the software hardware interplay that is the added uncertainty, in my experience, with a higher rate of shit going wrong. Generally sync going out of wack.
In fact laptops in general, have the highest probability of going shitwards at a gig anyway.
Mac or Windows, the amount of random "this was fine in the hotel/soundcheck earlier" crapped out laptop madness I have seen and experienced at gigs is bleargh.

[Ben Kohonays]

I would say the only advantage to a hybrid setup would be if you can work it so that if shit goes sideways with software, you can continue with just the hardware, and vice versa. Which is almost the same as taking two different setups out to play live.

[0dd]

Going back to the op and going back to Steve's old advice; don't start with the all-powerful setup. Start simple and add stuff every iteration if you feel you can handle it. I'm starting with just the tr8s. It will probably be a bit minimal but hey, it's a start that I can handle. Next time I'll probably have a monologue and think I'll stay with ''just'' that for a while. Next would be something for weirdness as I feel I'm stepping away from run of the mill techno. I was fearing the tr8s couldn't go that way, but I pushed it a bit recently and it definitely can. Hmmmm maybe even get some weirdness before a synth. Fun times a coming.

[Lost to the Void]

Can you play loops with the TR8S?

[0dd]

Yes, 180sec per sample, 300sec stereo or 600 sec mono sample max. Although if say you have 1 bar patterns as I do for tommorow, only 1 bar of the sample is looped. So say I have a 7 bar loop sample, I also need a 7 bar sequence for it to play out. Which is ok I guess, but I made 1 bar variations to manually swap when I want, and not to play as a sequence. Maybe a mistake but that's how I went for this gig.

[Vorlis]

@odd have a smashing time tomorrow mate! I found It’s very easy to fly through your patterns/sequences live way faster than normal than in rehearsal, so make sure to have a few extra tracks justin casey! One more tune! One more tune!

[0dd]

Yeah rehearsing right now, 16 tracks for 2h is 7.5min per track. Way too much for playing around with one bar.

[Lost to the Void]

Yes, 180sec per sample, 300sec stereo or 600 sec mono sample max. Although if say you have 1 bar patterns as I do for tommorow, only 1 bar of the sample is looped. So say I have a 7 bar loop sample, I also need a 7 bar sequence for it to play out. Which is ok I guess, but I made 1 bar variations to manually swap when I want, and not to play as a sequence. Maybe a mistake but that's how I went for this gig.

So you can't have varying bar lengths for parts? Everything needs to conform to a "master" bar length?

[Lost to the Void]

Yeah rehearsing right now, 16 tracks for 2h is 7.5min per track. Way too much for playing around with one bar.

I tend to work in a framework where I give 3-4 minutes per track. Sometimes less for tracks that are just a groove.
It means you need a shed load of material for a 2 hour set though.
It's a lot of work.
Especially if you are a massive fucking prick like I am and insist on making a new PA for each gig.

[Ben Kohonays]

Especially if you are a massive fucking prick like I am and insist on making a new PA for each gig.

You like to make it hard for yourself. Or interesting, depending on viewpoint. You should go on tour then you can play the same stuff every night till the tour's finished haha. I bet that would get tired pretty quick.

[0dd]

Yeah rehearsing right now, 16 tracks for 2h is 7.5min per track. Way too much for playing around with one bar.

I tend to work in a framework where I give 3-4 minutes per track. Sometimes less for tracks that are just a groove.
It means you need a shed load of material for a 2 hour set though.
It's a lot of work.
Especially if you are a massive fucking prick like I am and insist on making a new PA for each gig.

Yes, I am that sort of prick. It's getting boring just after rehearsing, I couldn't imagine doing the same set 10 times.
Yeah that kind of fluidity would seem a bit easier to go through, 7 minutes of knob twidling on just a drum machine is a bit uninspiring. Maybe add more tracks today..
And on the other question, channels have their own patter length, up to one bar and that 1 pattern can be chained into 8 variations for up to 8 bars, and up to 16 patterns for 128 bars. So if one of the channels is 3/16 it's gonna be 3*128/16.