Dubstepforum.com

Hey,

I wondered if anybody performed live, you know rocking out with an APC40 or something similar ?
If so please tell me as much as you want.

I've been DJing for about 8 months and did a few gigs, and just dove into the production game (read: I still suck at production) and instead of just pressing playing play, mixing something in and doing some extras along the way, I thought it 'd be awesome to perform and produce with ableton and make it a true live performance.
My wildest dream is getting a live drummer involved.

Thoughts ?

Hey mate !

Step 1 : produce your track
Step 2 : sample your sounds (the common ones)
Step 3 : Use these samples with effects

This is the basics. I think you have to find your own way to do it

I use a launchpad (with Live), it allows me to launch pattern and sample, and to have access to 8 buses (i generally seperate bass, kick, snare, drum, lead/melody, fx/pads, and skank or vocal if there are. Then i have tons of effects on each bus that i manipulate with a midi controller (faders, knobs, ...).
Use send buses with effects like delay for instance, it makes your track go to the next level.

hope this will help to start

Saw Shackleton do his live thing the other day. Was on point.

Hi all,

Just trying to figure out how Im going to play my music live in a convincing manner with good showmanship, without looking like one of these 'laptop djs' (kinda hard when all Ive got is a laptop and a korg nanopad so far) - the thing is - I make all my music using just my laptop (FLstudio), and Im getting a demo mastered at the moment, but I will be wanting to do live gigs soon enough, and dont want to be seen to be 'just pressing play' - how do some of you guys get around this when all the elements of your tracks are essentially prerecorded anyway?

Cheers

Trying to figure this out myself. I hate the idea of just launching audio loops synced to a tempo. The route I'm going is to use Ableton's session view with pre-made blank clips. The idea is that I'll build the tune by launching audio loops for breaks/background noise, launch a 4-bar clip and play a synth line in, launch a 1-bar clip and play the percussion, play with some effects to create a bit of a build and then launch another clip and play in the kick and snare. I'm still in the early stages and I'm hampered by not having workable knobs/sliders (I've an old Axiom 25) but as soon as I get a job I think I'll invest in an MPD32 just for more tactile control. I think then I'll be able to shape songs to have a more live feel. Have a look through the "picture of your setup" thread. That can be pretty inspiring.

I'm looking for a new interface for performing live. What's good? Haven't played out in a while and I think there's something better than my Oxygen 8. What do you use? I'm running Abelton live, btw.

why not get a cheap controller and use a trial copy of virtual DJ? they give it out for free

Ha, I regularly day-dream about playing my music live. I always dream that I'm banging out new tunes on the fly with hardware, instead of just mixing tracks together. An obvious tip would to NOT fo what 12th Planet does. He just acts like an ass on stage 90% time. Well, from the videos I've seen anyway.

Get some decks and play your tunes, there's enough Ableton 'live' acts.

Just play the music, Ableton 'live' acts are poop Unless you're actually doing stuff live, but 90% of them are not.

(I just made this exact comment in the production forum)

You can do stuff live with Ableton though, really cool stuff in fact, it just takes a bit of planning to align your live performance and studio production.

when i do my live solo dubstep stuff i make all the songs i produce in two separate halfs that continuously run those through turntables and mix between the two i use live elements to like guitar and singing sample with a kaos pad abelton live is pretty good if you really want to just focus on electronic live sampling and stuff i prefer to actually play real interments like drums piano and guitar and sing but its all about what your trying to express musically. get abelton and do some tutorials and just let the creativity run through you

Yeah unless you're doing a bunch of crazy live remixing for some reason, I don't see why you'd even go that route. Like when I'm at home it's fun to go to town with the Instant Gratification mapping on my midi fighter, but it kinda kills the vibe when you do it live. People don't want to see you masturbating in the dj booth, they want to dance and have a good time (relatively speaking). No one says you have to stand there with your arms folded, have an awesome time and get out in the crowd. I saw Lucky Date last week and most times after he punched a track in he left the booth and just started having a good time hopping around stage, psyching up everyone. That's one of the joys of being a producer imo-the hard work is done beforehand, playing it out is the reward.

I'm working on a live performance thing. Right know, I've timestretched my stems all to 140 bpm and I have the drums + ambience in the background while I play the basslines and random samples with the pads. I also use a few knobs to filter bits. Also stretched and cut tracks from other producers to just play between my own. Doing it all inside Maschine, but still not quite where I want, would love to hear suggestions too.

It's an ongoing journey...

I've been playing live laptop sets for 8-9 years now. I'm constantly re-thinking and experimenting with ideas for how to produce a live set that is both enjoyable for the audience (most important) as well as challenging and rewarding for me to play (close second).


I think the first step is to figure out what kind of style and flow you want your set to have.

Some people do individual songs in succession (with a short pause inbetween each song). Those are usually the most "live" or reconstructed types of sets where everything in the track is being built up from scratch. Personally, I have always preferred continuous mixes for my sets - so my sets are a hybrid between continuous dj mixes and live because i have many deconstructed elements of various tracks that i remix live (for instance the bassline of one tracks vs. the beat of another)... or I will strip out the vocal of one of my tracks and put it in another, etc... So in addition to structurally messing things about, I'll do some live "fx-ing" as well as added hits (subbasses, sound fx, manually drummed in beats, etc). Then on top of all that - I usually start at around 80-90 bpm... and finish around 180-200 bpm within an hour.

But that's what works for me. Also - to keep it interesting for me - I recently "retired" over half of my "go-to" live tracks. I don't want to become dependent on the same few hits, and it will force me to write better and better material.

AxeD wrote:Just play the music, Ableton 'live' acts are poop Unless you're actually doing stuff live, but 90% of them are not.

(I just made this exact comment in the production forum)

I'm talking about something altogether different from Dj sets. I do that easily enough, just mixing songs and chopping them up a bit.
What I do live as a performance is a different animal altogether.
I'm talking about actually performing my music; playing it live on stage before an audience/dancefloor.
I use the loops I've created for my recordings as well as guitar and vocals (myself as well as a host of MCs) and recreate my songs in real time.
What is currently the strongest, most dynamic and intuitive tool for interfacing with Abelton Live on the fly?

Dub_Cult wrote:

AxeD wrote:Just play the music, Ableton 'live' acts are poop Unless you're actually doing stuff live, but 90% of them are not.

(I just made this exact comment in the production forum)

I'm talking about something altogether different from Dj sets. I do that easily enough, just mixing songs and chopping them up a bit.
What I do live as a performance is a different animal altogether.
I'm talking about actually performing my music; playing it live on stage before an audience/dancefloor.
I use the loops I've created for my recordings as well as guitar and vocals (myself as well as a host of MCs) and recreate my songs in real time.
What is currently the strongest, most dynamic and intuitive tool for interfacing with Abelton Live on the fly?

People have been doing live looping since forever- er at least since looping equipment has been around. So it's pretty well established that you have to be at least an OK musician before you can do a whole set of live looping. I'd reckon the APC equipment would be the best, or a lauchpad and something with knobs, or one of the novation controllers. You're also gonna need your insturments, so a midi keyboard and drum pad at minimum. if you want guitar/vox/etc you're gonna want a soundcard, mics, etc. I think this might be a bigger deal than you think. I've never seen anyone in the electronic genre do 100% live performance, so it would be pretty huge if you did it! I guess shpongle, bonobo, chase and status did live band stuff but that's different.

drake89 wrote:

Dub_Cult wrote:

AxeD wrote:Just play the music, Ableton 'live' acts are poop Unless you're actually doing stuff live, but 90% of them are not.

(I just made this exact comment in the production forum)

I'm talking about something altogether different from Dj sets. I do that easily enough, just mixing songs and chopping them up a bit.
What I do live as a performance is a different animal altogether.
I'm talking about actually performing my music; playing it live on stage before an audience/dancefloor.
I use the loops I've created for my recordings as well as guitar and vocals (myself as well as a host of MCs) and recreate my songs in real time.
What is currently the strongest, most dynamic and intuitive tool for interfacing with Abelton Live on the fly?

People have been doing live looping since forever- er at least since looping equipment has been around. So it's pretty well established that you have to be at least an OK musician before you can do a whole set of live looping. I'd reckon the APC equipment would be the best, or a lauchpad and something with knobs, or one of the novation controllers. You're also gonna need your insturments, so a midi keyboard and drum pad at minimum. if you want guitar/vox/etc you're gonna want a soundcard, mics, etc. I think this might be a bigger deal than you think. I've never seen anyone in the electronic genre do 100% live performance, so it would be pretty huge if you did it! I guess shpongle, bonobo, chase and status did live band stuff but that's different.

i saw eoto live and i'm pretty sure that was the closest thing you're gonna get to a 100% live edm set. i've never really tried to found out exactly what it is they're doing up there, but there's a live drummer and the other guy is on a synth and a whole bunch of other shit, i couldn't see too well and at the time i didn't really care because it was just so good i was having a good time. but whatever they do is awesome

edit - they are completely live. look into their setup

"EOTO is an amazing live electronics duo whose all-impromptu performances of dubstep, house, electro and then some are inspiring audiences to new heights with their spontaneous artistry and heady organic sound. With nothing pre-recorded and a wild set-up of electronic instruments, guitars, keyboards and a wicked drum kit, EOTO delivers an inspiring experience of live musical wizardry." http://dancefever5000.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/eoto/