Ridiculously Amateur Question

[ScreamAtTrees]

I built a DAW in my apartment 6 months ago and started playing around in Ableton/Massive.

The company I work for hosts a huge Xmas party — we brought Girl Talk in a few years ago and every year after that has seemed like a slightly-less-interesting re-hash. This year it's Super Smash Bros performing. The good news, however, is that they're holding a battle to open the show — so I get the opportunity to play live for the first time as an electronic artist. I've played other rock gigs in the past but they've been relatively low-fi without much technical involvement.

Now comes the tricky part — what do I need to make sure I can plug my laptop in to the PA / Sound system? I'm running everything through an M-Audio FastTrack Pro when I produce in the apartment — do I just show up with that and some RCA / TRS cables?

Obviously they'll have more information as we get closer to the event, but I wanted to check with the forum and see if there was any insight I could grab beforehand.

Thanks for the 101.

[blinx]

Yup, front of house/sound guys should have Direct input boxes that will take your TRS and convert to an XLR if they need to do anything more to get you patched in. But 1/4" TRS is acceptable for most situations i imagine, but i bet money they run you into a DI.

I usually run my 4 TRS > RCA line outs to my dj mixer, so i have 2 stereo sends coming from ableton then i send front of house my Master from the dj mixer using an rca > XLR patch cable. Works really well and by having the dj mixer in the signal path i can do dj stuff and adjust gain controls on the fly.

If this is your first time playing out, i would take some extra time and run through tearing down/setting up your laptop, controllers and interfaces as if you where doing a live show. Dont want to spend all your stage time just tyring to get up and running at your first gig. Id also suggest not bringing anything you DONT need in regards to keyboards/controllers. Bring extra cables (usb, trs, xlr, rca) and bring power strips and extension cords if you have some. I have a whole kit i bring of extras just in case, and to often than not, youll need something extra and DO NOT COUNT ON THE VENUE/EVENT STAFF TO HAVE IT. Hopefully its a decent guy running the show but if there bums they wont have shit to help mcguyver your setup into working.

[[asterisk]]

^this... and Ableton would be your "DAW". Assuming by built you mean you put together a workstation in your apartment so just giving ya a heads up on the terminology before somebody else is a dick to ya good luck on the gig!

[Karoshi]

Hahaha love the name, screamattrees