Feature Archive

Today, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is and tell you in no uncertain terms, how to have a great live experience that will leave you and your fans feeling good about it for quite a while after the show is over. For the nitty gritty technical stuff, see my post here, but today, I’m going to cover some important, but yet simple and frequently overlooked concepts.

The main reason I decided to write this post is because yet again, I witnessed another (if not several) new discussion on what constitutes a good or bad electronic show. Most people seem to be of the opinion that if you’re not spending all of your money on indoor fireworks, giant light up robots and live action anime go go dancers, you’re instead hoarding your money and “stiffing” the concert goers.

In a way, I give people that think like that credit. Things have gone from small, locally supported events, to well, huge. And also commercial. The local guys don’t have the bucks to go huge and compete with the attraction of the huge festival circuits; it’s comparing apples and oranges. But local events can be and are frequently successful. They’re still found in community pockets and enclaves such as college campuses, dive bars, open mic nights and music festivals that operate a bit under the radar.

I bet most of those people that sit around and complain in internet forums about the lack of effort or authenticity at shows, don’t really bother going to any. In my opinion, seeing a guy (or gal) who takes their craft so seriously (and passionately) that they’re willing to pack up their gear into their own car and head out to a dive bar or a camp ground to perform for little more than gas money or free publicity, well that’s where it’s at. In fact, that’s where everything started, musically speaking, if you know your history.

And to answer your question, yes that’s me in the photo, about 10 years ago. I packed what little gear I had up into my Toyota Tacoma (which I’m still driving) laid it out on stage and had a good time. I may not have been a commercial success, but I had a good local reputation as well as enough CD sales and handshakes to let me know I had done something right. What worked for me can work for you too and surprisingly, it has nothing to do with go go dancers.

1. Do something live

There’s an adage in schools of mass communication that when you write, you should assume that your audience is as smart as you; you should think the same thing when you perform in front of an audience. What that translates into is, is that no matter how you work up your live sets, make sure you’re actually doing or playing something.

That may seem like a given, but the one complaint I hate more than anything is “I’m not going to pay to see a guy sit behind a laptop on stage.” While I would hate to think that there are a few fakers out there that are giving the rest of us a bad reputation, I would also like to think that the complainer actually took a moment to notice what was going on behind the laptop. Autechre famously, and quite rightly, deflected such criticism by saying “we don’t have time jump around, we’re busy working.” Obviously though the laptop isn’t the issue and the complainers are merely doing just that, complaining.

If we assume that the audience is as smart as we are, they can and will call us on faking it, as demonstrated so neatly in this famous case. If you truly are working, whether it DJ’ing back your loops or playing a keyboard, it’s obvious. There’s plenty of tells when you do that are apparent to any causal observer: you squint your eyes to see the LCD on your synth, tap a foot pedal to change patches and grit your teeth when something goes wrong. That’s 100% authenticity and anyone that’s done it, knows it’s work. And by extension, so does your audience. They may not know what you’re doing, but they know you’re doing something.

2. Be nice to that one guy (or gal) that talks to you after the show

Whatever you do, don’t give them a look that says “yea that’s cool, but I’m rolling up this cord”. Because, believe it or not, that one person is your “elevator pitch” and you only have one shot to make a good impression. If you don’t, you can bet that’s going to be the one guy that gets back onto their local scene forum and complains about you; not the rest of the audience that clapped their hands politely and went home.

I digress, but consider how hard we work putting tracks out there and watching the hits add up and then to only find out that we’ve hardly gotten any downloads, thumbs up or anything and how that feels. It sucks, I’ll admit it. But now this guy walks right up to you and wants to talk to you. That’s a pretty good compliment. Stop what you’re doing, look him in the face and talk to him for a bit. Answer his questions about your rig or whatever he wants to talk about. The show isn’t about you, it’s about him (and the rest of the audience.) If you can learn to master this one bit of PR, you’ll make yourself stand out.

3. Keep promotional material with you at all times

At the minimum, all you need is a business card with your web address on it: your myspace, soundcloud, whatever. They’re cheap as dirt these days to print in massive quantities online, so do it and carry a few with you at all times. And whatever you do, make sure you give it to people like the guy in the above paragraph. He took the first step to making a connection with you, it’s now up to you to maintain the connection by effectively running an email list or webpage.

Free stuff usually helps too: stickers, CDRs etc. There are many, many options today that can get schwag into the hands of fans for cheap or for free that will leave them feeling good and also getting to take home a piece of the show.

4. Be professional, no matter what

Know when to turn on and off your on stage persona. Breaking bottles and wrecking a house PA may be a part of the antics at a punk show, but it’s what ruins professional reputations and relationships. Case in point, I was a punk show way back in ’93 when the crowd got a bit rowdy and one person in particular decided to jump up and punch a hole through the drop ceiling. The club manager immediately rushed over yelling that the show was over.

A cry of “it was just a joke man” was heard somewhere and the singer took the mic and said “destroying someone’s property is never a joke man”. The band then packed up and left and I bet you can guess what happened next: the guy who punched the hole in the ceiling was banned from the club and you’d be right if you guessed that the band was invited back again.

This weekend I went to an impromptu jam session and admittedly, as low key as it was, it was the first time I ventured outside of my comfortable little studio in the last ten years. I ran into a few hiccups (nothing major) and I found it to be an excellent learning experience, considering I had let so much time lapse since my last live gig.

For those of you with some experience under your belt, you’ve no doubt settled into a comfortable routine you could probably do in the dark, with your eyes shut and a monkey tied behind your back. But for those of you that are relatively new to performing live, you may find the experience a bit daunting and even panic inducing at first. But with some practice, you can lean to identify the weak spots in your live setup so that when you are ready for the real thing, everything will go smoothly.

The first thing I’d recommend doing is reading through Sneak Thief’s excellent live gig preparation write up over @ LivePA.org. He’s done an outstanding job of covering the angles, so I’m going to refer you over to him while I reiterate a few points myself.

The best thing to do to get ready for a live gig is to practice. This will help you in performing your sets, but when you practice, you also need to change up your location. What you want to do is pretend like you’re going to a gig and pack up everything, move to a new spot, set it up again, work on your sets and then pack it back up. It may seem silly at first, considering you’re probably only moving from your bedroom to the living room, but it’s a good practice that will expose any obvious problems that you’re going to run into in a live scenario.

When you’re comfortable with your routine and what you want to bring with you live, make a list of everything you’re bringing with you. When you pack up to leave for the gig, make sure you’ve got it all by checking your sheet. And when you pack up to go home, check it again. There’s so many things that can happen at a gig that can cause things to get left behind one way or the other, so it’s nice to have a reminder of what you brought with you. Write down everything including power supplies, keyboard stands, how many tshirts you brought to sell and anything else you can think of that will help.

When you do play live, you should work closely with your promoter or venue so that you have a good understanding of what the house PA setup is like, what they are providing as far as audio connections, power, tables, etc. before the gig happens. In some circumstances, it’s even worth having a contract to back all of that up.

You probably already have some method of carrying your gear to a gig and then having something to set it on when you get there. A tip here is to leave as much wiring as you can in place. This will reduce the amount of time required for setting up and tearing down a live setup. Many people use Dj coffins or specially constructed boxes that keep all their gear wired up just for this purpose. When they get to the gig, the only thing to do is throw the box onto a table or stand and then wire it up to the house PA.

Such boxes can run a bit expensive, but with some ingenuity, you can probably make one yourself that will fit your needs, such as this hacked Ikea bedside table that does a nice job of keeping a DJ setup together.

Image Credits: IkeaHackers.net

The next thing you need to know is to be sure and label the ends of your cables so you know where they go. This is a huge time saver that will keep you from the tracing the free end to the back of your gear. You can color code them by using colored electrical tape, velcro ties or with a piece of masking tape that you can write on. When you’re done, write up a wiring map that shows what goes where. Cables that run to the same place should also be tied together with cable ties into a snake; running a snake between gear is faster than separate cables. But don’t tie power cables to audio cables! Power cables should always be separated from audio!

Now is probably a good time to mention that if you plan on performing from your laptops’s built in sound card, you’ll need to run a ground loop isolator on either your power or your audio cable because laptop power supplies put a lot of noise into the audio stream and it’s not worth it trying to rely on the battery. USB cards don’t suffer from this problem, however if you do get clicks and pops in your audio, disable the wireless card and other unused services (such as the CDROM & SDCard reader) within your OS.

Speaking of cables, try to avoid using adapters as much as possible. It may be expensive, but you’ll get more for your money in the long run by buying the correct connections you need rather than using adapters. The rule of thumb here is that straight runs last longer and with less noise than if you were using several cables with adapters. That is to say, the more psychical connections there are in your audio line, there is a larger chance that noise will be introduced into your audio stream. For instance, out of my NI Audio2DJ interface, I’m running one stereo 1/4 jack to two 1/4 jacks to run into house PA. I just bought one cable with the adapter built in rather than an adapter and two separate cables.

Also, make sure and label all your gear. I mean everything: your girlfriend, your dog, your tent, power strips etc. Put your email, phone number or website in permanent marker right onto the gear. This will help get your gear back to you if you lose it and at two in the morning when you’re trying to pack up, all those power strips tend to look the same.

One last big tip here and it’s for the PC users in the crowd. Before the gig, make a map of your computer and the USB ports and what’s connected to them. Windows has this weird thing where if you plug in something into a different port, it has to re-install it for that port. So that means when you get to the gig and you accidentally plug your controller into the wrong port, Windows will have to re-install it and you’ll also have to re-map it in your DAW! So make sure you’ve got it all mapped out before you leave.

And then here’s a smaller tip, but useful tip. Get a small tool box, the size of something you can leave in the trunk of your car. In it put:

• Headache and personal (legal) medications
• Alan or hex wrenches (they’re for tightening screws on keyboard stands)
• A multi tool
• Duct tape
• An LED flashlight
• A small first aid kit
• Cable ties
• Various audio adapters. Be sure to include both 1/4 and 1/8th stereo adapters and a way to adapt them down to mono 1/4. More than once I’ve had to rely on a headphone out jack when a main 1/4 has failed.

And the number one thing to put into your tool kit: One or more back up options for your live performance. Whether it be a couple mixdown CDs of your old performances, or an MP3 of the same on an iPod, have an audio back up of your performance on hand at all times! Also make sure you have the power supply and cables needed to run it into the PA, if you’re using a personal media player.

This one little thing will make the biggest difference between a successful performance and a disgrace. If for some reason, the worst happens and you’re not able to play, letting the audience hear something is better than nothing. And it’s also quite a bit more professional rather than the alternative of packing your gear up with a couple dropped Fbombs and walking out of your slot.

So get out there and rock the block! If you do, get pics, send ‘em in and we’ll put em up!

You name:

Tarekith

Tell us what type or style of music you mainly produce:

All styles of electronic, but mainly downtempo stuff. Examples here: http://tarekith.com/tracks/

List your gear both hardware and software:

i7 MacBook Pro, RME Fireface 400, Event Opals, Elektron Anniversary Machinedrum, Allen & Heath Xone62, Akai APC40, Kenton Killamix Mini, Akai MPK25, Parker Dragonfly, Line6 HD500.

Ableton Live, Apple Logic, Audiofile Wave Editor, Omnisphere, Stylus RMX, Synplant, + various plug ins.

Briefly describe your workflow:

Typically I write songs either entirely in Live or in Logic, just depends on which one I feel like looking at on a given day. A lot of times I’ll start out with drums on the Machinedrum or in Stylus, and once those get recorded into the DAW, it’s just a long process of jamming and recording the results to edit down and arrange later on. I work almost entirely with audio, even my softsynths get routed directly to an audio track and recorded that way right away.

Take your favorite 1 or 2 pieces of gear and tell us why it’s your favorite:

Hands down my favorite is the Machinedrum, it not only sounds great and is extremely flexible, but it’s made with live performance in mind. I’ve been playing live electronic music for almost 20 years now, so that’s extremely important to me. Nothing comes close for long free form jams to me, and it’s great for things that aren’t drums too.

Briefly tell us any neat things about you or your studio that you want to:

While the studio primarily started out for my own music writing, for the last ten years I’ve been mastering and mixing all forms of electronic music for other artists. 2 years ago things got so busy, that I could turn it into my day job even. More info on that at http://innerportalstudio.com

As such, I don’t like have a lot of gear in front of me that I’m not using for mastering, so most of that is on a table off to my side. All the USB and powercords for those items are all preconnected and hanging on hooks behind my main table, so it only takes me a few seconds to grab any piece and start using it.

Editor’s Note: Be sure to check out Tarekith’s site here, as he was also featured in Electronic Musician magazine.

We’ve got our first submission in from forum member Purity Control for the first post of our new Studio Spotlight feature!

Want to be featured in Studio Spotlight? Just join our forum and read the first post in this thread. Then simply post a reply, answering the questions. It’s that easy!

Forum name:
Purity Control, I don’t gig or commercially release material but there is a lot of my stuff on Soundclick and Youtube under that name.

Style of music:
Mostly dark electronic and early industrial, sometimes ‘Switched On’ arrangements of classical music, though I don’t mind reinterpreting works from other genres.

Synths/Keys:
Korg SP200, Roland Jupiter 6, Manikin Memotron, Doepfer modular
Effects: Lexicon MX300, Boss CE-20, MAM VF-11 vocoder, Effectrode tube phaser, Vox tube overdrive
Other: Spendor BC-1 monitors, Quad 33/303 amp, Mackie 1202 mixer, MIDI Solutions T8 & MIDI Merge, M-Audio Audiophile interface
Software: Oscillastation, Acoustica Mixcraft, Imposcar, Yamaha Vocaloid Prima

Workflow:
Usually compose on piano, practice until it’s something like then record the MIDI into Oscillastation, then break down the individual parts and use Imposcar while I work out the arrangement, though I rarely record with Imposcar unless it really does a particular sound better than anything else. Then record each track individually and mix and tweak in Mixcraft

Favourite gear:
Memotron, because it’s a good escape from knobbage when you’re feeling that way, sounds amazing and it’s a great keybed too, really just nice to play, also the modular, which is the opposite of an escape from knobbage but when you want or need a sound that’s totally bonkers, it’s just what you want. 4 audio oscs patched as duophonic into 3 parallel bandpass filters modded by two sequencers – no problem. :thu:

The Spendor monitors are an ex-BBC pair and still have the BBC badges on the back, which is very cool, I got them as a bit of a cosmetic fixer upper and am still working on them, originally they would probably have been used with AM8/12 amps, which were a custom mod to BBC specifications of the domestic Quad setup of that era that I actually use with them. The 3 pedals on the floor under the main keyboard rig are the piano sustain, filter cutoff for the Jupiter and hold/sustain for the same, held in place by my patent anti-pedal creep device (a bit of wood with string through it :lol: ). Mostly the Jupiter gets played from the SP200 unless I’m using that to control the modular at the same time. I keep debating moving the SP200 to another room and getting a pedalboard for modular control, which would let me condense everything down to being all in front of me at the same time.

Suffering from a post vacation / 4th of July slump, I’ve decided that today’s post will be a top 10 styled post in which we will dispense with historical and / or famous gears and instead feature my top 10 gear picks that tend to be overlooked, but have plenty of mileage left in them and won’t break the bank either.

I’ll hope you join me I as try to avoid working and celebrate these unsung heroes and workhorses. And without further ado and in no particular order, I give you, The Other Top 10:

#1 – Yamaha CS01

The Yamaha CS01 comes in at just under $300 on the used market and is a 100% analog monosynth. Built on CEM goodness, you know there’s a fantastic sound inside that’s hard to get on other synths. It’s also compact and easy to tweak with no menus to speak of, dedicated sliders and pots right on the front deck and easily upgraded to MIDI. To me, there’s no faster way to get an analog sound into a live pa or techno rig.

#2 – Korg MicroKorg

You’ve probably either heard or said the following phrase at some point in the near past: “Hi, I’m mainly a guitarist and I’m wondering if a MicroKorg would be good for me to play a few synth parts in my band?” Yes, we’ve all either known that guy, or was him at one point or another and you know what? The MicroKorg still manages to pull it’s weight.

Having the entire MS2000 engine stuffed into it’s little body is like having a Ferrari engine in a Geo Metro. It’s like an answer to a question no one asked and it can’t be explained. But it won over the hearts of an entire generation of proto musicians and enjoyed an unparallelled success that hasn’t been matched by the R3 or the MicroKorg Xl, which IMO, is due in part to the more sonically pleasing MS2000 engine.

Also coming in under $300 used, there’s a million ways to use one. Play it as is, MIDI it to an Electribe, throw it on a two tier stand and play it with a MIDI controller, chop the keys off and use it as a desktop sound module, make new side panels and have the top flip up Moog style! the possibilities are endless for this little piece of versatile gear.

#3 – Boss / Roland DR 202

This spunky little beat box fetches less than $200 used and has all of Roland’s drum kits all the way up to the JV generation ROMplers and workstations. It includes many favorites such as the 808, 909, industrial, power and jazz kits. Offering quite a lot of bang for the buck, you also get a sequencer, some neat effects that can be recorded in real time, a bass instrument for each drum kit and best of all, the ability to sequence one external MIDI channel from the sequencer. It’s sort of an early, but loaded groovebox!

#4 – Korg MiniKP

Retailing for $100 and brimming with effects, BPM synch and the XY touch surface (how many pedals can claim to have all that at this price?!?!) the MiniKP makes an excellent multi effects processor that would be right at home in any synth or dj rig.

#5 – Sequential Circuits MultiTrak

Another CEM based offering, the MultiTrak features 6 individual, polyphonic synths that can also be stacked for huge sounds! Coming in around $300 used, it also features on board MIDI that allows each voice to be sequenced individually as well as programmed via CC commands. It’s the most bang for the buck in an analog, yet modern synth with MIDI!

#6 E-MU Command Stations

I don’t have enough room here to really get into how many features these things have. But seriously, they’re loaded. If you’ve ever considered using a phrase based master sequencer as part of your rig, you owe it to yourself to look into these things. Boasting two MIDI out channels (for a total of 32 outbound MIDI channels and not mentioning the glorious MIDI bounce feature), step buttons, drum pads, a control ribbon and knobs for direct access to every feature of the Command Station’s synth engine, 32 simultaneous arpeggiators, and 3 ROM expansion slots! The list of drool worthy features goes on and on. Falling into the $300 – 500 range, they shouldn’t be passed up as an alternative to keyboard workstations or MPC styled devices.

#7 – Korg DW8000

Again, notice the theme here, coming in around $300 used is Korg’s DW8000 hybrid synthesizer. Boasting a digital oscillator section comprised of 16 selectable waveforms (covering basic analog waves to Rhodes and Hammond sounds) which is then mated to Korg’s proprietary and most excellent CEM styled filter which results in a sumptuous analog sound on a budget. The DW8000 also features MIDI, which allows for MIDI control through SySex and PC or Mac based patch storage.

#8 – Roland XP30

Released around 1998 as a stop gap between the aging JV series and the yet to be released XV series, the XP30 still boasts bang for the buck in bread and butter sounds. With over 3,000 presets covering the internal ROM and 3 included expansion ROMs (Techno, Session and Orchestral expansions) and room for two more you’ll literally have all you need in one box for around $300-400.

Sadly, due to Roland’s compression on the JV series wave forms, the sound of the JV series hasn’t aged well. Regardless though, the XP30 is a great value and it’s usefulness can be extended with a good multi-effects pedal to smooth out the sound.

#9 – Alesis Ion

Going used for $400, the Alesis Ion wins this slot over the Roland JP8000 (which goes for the same price, look into it too!) for sheer versatility. Packed with literally dozens of modeled oscillators and filters, limitless routing options and an ample control surface, you’ll have no problem dialing up any classic sound you can think of or creating new ones with ease on this virtual analog.

#10 Korg TR Rack

Another near tie, the Korg TR Rack slides into the last slot over the MicroX keyboard. Both going for about $300-350 used, the TR Rack wins for the breadth of it’s sound pallet. While the MicroX is techno and ambient focused, the TR Rack represents an evolutionary end (well a reprisal really) to the Trinity synthesizer line. The Trinity line featured a very lush and mature sounding set of bread and butter sounds which was ditched, more or less, for pop and live performance friendly sounds in Korg’s successors.

The Trinity is highly regarded in composer’s circles for how well it lends itself to sound tracks and orchestral music. If you’re in need of those sounds and don’t need a whole keyboard, the TR Rack is a much better buy than the XP30.