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Whats the Best way to have electronic music live?

djmihow	Date: August 28, 2005 @ 12:23 AM Alright I'm in a band that is a 3 piece. I'm on guitar, my friend on bass, and my other friend sings. We have technoish music and electronic drums (can't find a drummer) How would you guys set it up live? Use a Computer, or make a Mp3 tracks on a iPod or any mp3 player? Thanks!
Snoogans775	Date: August 28, 2005 @ 12:35 AM that's difficult, hopefully Gene sweeps by, because he uses a drum machine. but what do you mean technoish music? if you're using synths, a laptop would be ideal though... the lamest thing I've ever seen is video of Moby live, he's trapped inside this tower of rackspace and laptops. but with just a drum machine, I think you guys can do it just like any rock thing, it would be great to see people playing pumpin' electronic music while actually performing organically, techno music is for jumpin around, so it only makes sense that the musicians should be moving too, somebody should get down the really smooth cat head bop that some DJ's have, that would be a pretty cool bassist,
djmihow	Date: August 28, 2005 @ 12:59 AM Sorry, I meant to say electronic. Like we have chords and leadish sounds from synth stuff in fruity loops that sound a lot better electronic rather than guitar playing. Plus its just me on guitar and I don't want a 2nd guitarist. Ruins my music crafting.
djmihow	Date: August 28, 2005 @ 1:38 AM I just realized I posted in the wrong section I thought it said, submit new tips......
psypig	Date: August 28, 2005 @ 6:58 AM I usually use minidisc backing tracks. You still look like a rock band that way.
GeneHilbert	Date: August 28, 2005 @ 3:15 PM Correction - I don't use a drum machine.... On stage I use a laptop sequencer and tone generators - all midi triggered. I don't like minidisc, CD's or digital audio files. Midi files are small and load immediately - sometimes they stutter and fart but if do correct editing and reset all controllers at the end of each tune, you should never have a problem. But if and when it does happen - just restart the damn tune, it’s not that big a deal and I normally make jokes about the band drinking. I also use an APC battery backup and power conditioner which will also improve performance. I’ve had clubs go black because of power outages and I’m still jamming until I end the tune and shut down. Pretty impressive. Minidisc and CD's have limited eq'ing options (once mixed they’re mixed - then still you have limited control) - plus you have keep track of a ton of them because of limited storage capacity (I have roughly 300 tunes - that is way to many CDs) then to organize, handle, store, locate and load them. All of that is way to slow and cumbersome for live performance. Especially while playing an instrument, singing, keeping things moving - energized and attempting to be entertaining. You can’t be fucking around with production crap. Audio files take way to long to load, or you’ll need multiple computers - a major pain in the ass. Major acts can organize and keep track of that type set-up because they have the staff and resources do it. But if you are like me doing 150 to 200 solo gigs a year - you have better be fucking organized. I set up in 30 to 45 minutes - and down in an hour. You do that 4, 5 or sometimes a 6 times week - every week. You soon appreciate a simple and idiot proof a set as you can make it. I was not able to start this way - it took time and I suffered growing pains. Just be patient and build it as you can. Have a vision as to what you want to do - but be open enough to adapt when and if necessary.
GeneHilbert	Date: August 28, 2005 @ 5:11 PM If it's only drums you need - which I find unlikely once you open that can of worms and get into it. The Alesis DMPro is a great little 1 rack space unit. It will do anything (rock, jazz, techno, hip hop, house, industrial) but it is a tone generator only and can be triggered by a midi sequencer and by virtual drum triggers like the Roland Vdrums. I use the Roland JV1080 with the Bass and Drum card. If you listen to the live stuff on my page you will hear the Roland in use.
djmihow	Date: August 28, 2005 @ 11:33 PM I'm a bit confused with midi seq. Midi has very cheesy sounds for the most part, I like the tones I get out of fruity loops. I'll check out your stuff
GeneHilbert	Date: August 29, 2005 @ 12:04 AM Read what I wrote........ Yes if you use your sound card you will get cheese. But I'll tell I've heard cheese from every product on the market including Fruit Loops. It's what you can do with these products and your musical ability that makes music. Dude..... there is no magic bullet. If you know what you want to use and are comfortable with - absolutely it use it. No product alone will make you a Jan Hammer, Bill Payne, Lyle Mays, Keith Emerson, Chic Corea, Herbie Hancock or Mozart. So if all you can make is cheese, be sure to serve it with crackers.
Woof	Date: August 29, 2005 @ 4:58 AM One way to go, is to see if you can't recruit a keyboard player with a sampler, instead of a drummer... a lot of trax can be triggered by pushing just a couple of keys on a good sampler, and then you give your audience the experience of seeing someone actually playing your electronics parts live. If that turns out to be a no-go, I'd burn the finished electronic tracks to CD's as .wav files for better fidelity than mp3's, and that saves you the hassle of having to lug a computer around with you to gigs. A word of warning, though... if your backing trax are prerecorded, you folks are REALLY locked into having to play exactly in sync to everything they're doing... which isn't always as easy to pull off as it sounds...
djmihow	Date: August 30, 2005 @ 1:49 AM Hmmm I didn't think about a sampler, that would be even easy for me to press. Anyone who uses samplers have any recomendations?
kingo	Date: August 30, 2005 @ 8:13 AM Wait for the Roland SP404 to come out, sometime at the end of September, hopefully, and get yourself one of those. And, while you're at it, get me one of those, too. I'll trade you a hat for it.
egac	Date: September 1, 2005 @ 2:07 AM buy chemical brothers cd. play real loud.
AdamsGod	Date: September 2, 2005 @ 9:04 AM if you get a laptop, and run fruityloops on it, or whatever kind of software it is that you use, that should be good enough. thats what my band does.. we have a tiny PC on stage controlled by a midid keyboard, we run cubase on it, and its great, couldnt be happier, keep in mind that we do have a drummer, so it makes it even more intresting.
psypig	Date: September 2, 2005 @ 10:13 AM I have in the past stood in front of a keyboard with the volume down hitting keys at random because i realised there was nothing for me to play in the song. The moral of this story - Leave yourself parts to play in every song if you're using backing tracks. The REAL moral of this story - No-one will notice if you don't
GeneHilbert	Date: September 2, 2005 @ 10:49 AM Oh....... Yes they will.....
cosmicunit	Date: September 5, 2005 @ 2:11 AM I rather use Ableton Live and some good samples made with FL or Cubase
Distilled1	Date: September 7, 2005 @ 4:57 PM We do this but haven't played live in a while. Shout Empire Day3 for the actual set up but..I play Guitar Live Marv sings live we do back up vocals live. Eric plays live parts and programs part of the keys, drums, bass, and what ever other stuff all run through the laptop and his keys. Now we are working on our new stuff and if and when we do some live shows we will be playing from tape, yep tape 24 tracks. The biggest trouble with this is playing to the wrong crowd get a show with full bands and you get lots of looks and even boos. But doing synth based music its almost what you have to do. Drummers suck a little black box don't talk back and stays in time witch you need with any programed stuff, we had the full band nothing but head aches. dosen't meen we would never have a drummer that can keep with us again but for the time no drums no bass less head aches
Distilled1	Date: September 7, 2005 @ 5:00 PM And if you are playing with other bands and are not headlining make sure to let the other band set their drums up on stage it looks better (people may think your drummer is lost) and it helps speed the show on for everyone from the sound guy to the last band
Intergalacti...	Date: September 9, 2005 @ 8:35 PM on a dj box with vinyl yeah i miss them days
TameasDust	Date: September 13, 2005 @ 12:20 PM