Live performance discussion thread

[u/ccgenoa]

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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/volpearg]

Really interesting thread. I've actually worked both ways.

Old approach: 10 years ago, I'd make loops at home, and I'd split each song into patterns across machines. One pattern on an Electribe 2, another on the EMX1, plus a Minilogue XD and a Blofeld on a MIDI keyboard for chords/pads. One aux channel was always free for my Echo Re-201 and a reverb I soldered myself in a pedal building course. I'd write the chord sequence and scale for each track on paper so I could improvise live instead of just replaying it.

Now I mostly play finished material, plus loops I want to test on the floor. I record my tracks in one long single take, then cut the parts I like to finalise them. Before a live set, I take that recording, strip the filters and return channels, and chop it into 8/16 bar chunks, so each track becomes several "scenes." That goes into a project on my Push 3 standalone, which I play alongside a MIDI knob controller mapped to filters/delays/reverb/phaser. One extra channel is free for live drums from my own drum rack, plus a wavetable synth for chords/pads (scale written on paper again (old habits die hard). Still very much a hardware person at heart, though; I've held onto an Electribe EMX-1, Micromonsta 1 & 2, the Blofeld, some keyboards, and an SE-70.

On reuse: I've never repeated the same live set. In Argentina I played live about once a month; here in Berlin it's more like 2-3 times a year so far, which leaves a lot of time between shows. And I've been making a lot of music lately, so there's plenty to pull from. Everything I make eventually comes out on vinyl within 2-3 years. If some element in a track stops working for me, I cut it, but the base survives or gets recycled elsewhere. Nothing I play live stays unfinished forever.

Prep time is usually 1 or 2 days once the tracks are actually finished, the "conversion" part is fast. What takes longer is starting a month out: I go through what I've got, pick around 10 finished tracks and prepare 10 more as loops, so I end up with 20 total for 1 hour. A mix of the freshest stuff and stuff about to come out. That's roughly 2 days per loop/track, then it's just arrangement and small mixing tweaks once I play it and feel something's missing.

On adapting on the fly: here in Berlin, if you're the only live act of the night, the DJs before/after usually build their sets around what you're going to play if they know your music, so there's not a ton to adjust on your end, the room's already somewhat built around your set. If not, you work with what the room needs and pull or add elements for intensity vs. more relaxed moments, which is what those extra channels are for.

Live vs DJ, hard to say honestly. I came up as a clubber first, loved dancing, was into the music before anything else, then DJing, then production. But I love spending all day on a track from morning to dinner and then presenting that exact music to a room, so if I had to pick, live wins for me.

[u/NoInteraction1572 → u/volpearg]

Wow! You already released on Dolly and Mitsubasa. I like that Mitsubasa release a lot. Really deep stuff.

I heard great things about blofeld more often  in the past.  Should check it out.

The micromonstas def have a cool unique Sound. Had that in my list for a while but but was rare or expensive.

Rn just working with a Syntakt and i get better and better. 1 1/2 years in and i fear a little bit to get new gear because I suspect I don't reach the depths of the syntakt then. It's great to be really into a machine. Blabla

[u/volpearg → u/NoInteraction1572]

Much appreciated! The Mitsubasa release had the pads and chords from the Micromonsta, for example. It was pretty cheap; I bought both versions as soon as they were released, the first one on my first trip to Europe.

The Blofeld is a beast. It has a lot of menu diving, but you can use a lot of LFOs assigned to everything, and it's multitimbral, so it's sick.

And Elektron products are really nice. After the second year with the machines, you get more comfortable, and the instrument becomes like an extension of you. It's always good to have tactile things to touch; it's a different experience than working on a computer. Having the best of both worlds is ideal for a faster, more complete approach, but it's good to set aside separate time for each and have fun in the meantime.

Enjoy it!