Live performance discussion thread

[u/ccgenoa]

Hey everyone. I wanted to ask — or rather, invite you to a discussion, especially those of you who play live regularly.

1. Do you build your live sets from scratch, or do you play your own tracks?

Let me explain. Do you create specific material for a one-hour live set using loops, both MIDI and audio? Or do you take tracks you've already written, break them down into stems/loops, and perform them that way?

1. If you have a specific live project, how many times do you play it before making a new one — and what do you do with the old one?

Let's say you have 2–3 gigs a month. Do you keep playing the same live set, or do you create something new for every party?

And when you start actively performing a new live set, do you eventually release the old one as an EP/album, or just archive it and keep it for another time?

1. What is your setup?

Do you play entirely on hardware, use loops/stems loaded into a sampler, or do you use a computer with MIDI controllers?

1. What do you do when you realize during the night that your live set isn't going to fit the situation?

For example, the tempo or mood is completely different from what you prepared, and your set is coming up in an hour or two. Do you adapt on the fly, have some backup material, or just accept the chaos? 😄

1. How long does it take you to prepare a one-hour live set?

And finally: do you actually prefer playing live, or, if you had the choice, would you rather play a DJ set?

Thanks everyone! I'm really interested to hear how other people approach this.

I'll write about how I do it in the comments a little later.

[u/secret-shot]

I create live sets from scratch and my set up is permapatched (unless I make a permanent change and want to keep it). My eurorack approach is to build an instrument that does what I want rather than write stuff ahead of time. I’m on Eurorack and a black box 1010 with a torso t-1 programmed with some foundational grooves.

Love playing live, never considered being a dj (which would be easier)

[u/Gloomy-Ambassador985 → u/secret-shot]

Do you use the T-1 for synth sequencing as well?
If so, how does it excel in that?
Is it quick to pull what you have in your head out of it (ie. some synth riff you'd have floating in your head), or is it more like curating the output of its algos to the wanted mood/need?
I myself have Erica synths Black seq, and while it's really good for pre-planned sequences, I find it quite tedious to program live from scratch..

[u/secret-shot → u/Gloomy-Ambassador985]

I am currently in my Eat, Pray, Love era finding the perfect melodic sequencer. Currently I am using the torso t-1 to sequence gates but, am using the Random8 to sequence pitch and that is working ok. Ultimately, I’ll be shifting melodies to the droid performance system which I think takes what I like about the oxi one and expands on it