How to perform an original?

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How to perform an original?

Postby Coloriot » 29 Oct 2013 15:46

Just a quick question that came to my head.

How does one perform an original before an audience? I have Ableton Live, and the closest thing I can see to impressively performing is clicking on loops to play. Is there any kind of equipment required? Basically, how would I perform a Live set for something stupid like a talent show and make it look good?

Not that I'm actually doing that, just asking this for future reference.
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Re: How to perform an original?

Postby the4thImpulse » 29 Oct 2013 16:07

Well, with something like Ableton and electronically controlled music you can control exactly how ever much you want to control, there's no right or wrong amount.

You could just press play and watch your prepared arrangement scroll across for the entirety of the song.
You can have parts of the song in per-arranged and play along the other parts on a midi keyboard and other intruments/controllers.
You could prepare all the loops in session view and do a live mashup style bring the various loops in and out to your liking.

Ableton will let you preform which ever way you want to, the hard part is figuring out how exactly you want to preform. The audiance generally does care any which way, if you look like you are doing something cool on stage then you are probably doing something cool (even if you aren't!).

I do my shows in ableton now (DJing type of shows) but I have preformed singles before, if you can maybe narrow it down I can point you in the right direction. If you can't then just try em all, I would start with launching loops in session view and practicing getting a whole track arrangement down.

Gear required would depend on how you want to preform so we will worry about that when we get there.
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Re: How to perform an original?

Postby Coloriot » 29 Oct 2013 16:15

So, if I were to perform by using the loops in session view, would I need some sort of controller like Ableton Push or Maschine so that I'm not just clicking on a computer?
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Re: How to perform an original?

Postby the4thImpulse » 29 Oct 2013 22:27

Pretty much, yeah. Now any type of midi controller can be used, obviously Push was made for this exact purpose but anything sending midi note on/off messages (basically button pushes) can be mapped to the session view clip launching functions.

A quick list off the top of my head:
- Ableton's Push
- Akai APC40/20
- Novation Launchpad
- Quneo 3D
- Livid OHM series
- Monome
- Jazzmutant/Liine Lemur

These will provide a more nature clip launching feeling compared to the 'drum machine' controllers like maschine. These all have larger grids so you can be in control of more clips without worrying about seperate banks of clips to switch around in.

This list is for other common midi controllers to map to volume faders, EQ knobs, and any other plugin of Ableton effect you may want live control over. Stuff like knobs and faders.
- APC40
- Quneo 3D
- Lemur
- Behringer BCF2000 and BCR2000
- More Livid Instrument's controllers
- Akai MPD series


Basically there are a lot of options depending on your price range and desired feature set. I have used a fair amount of these too so if any peak your interest maybe I can help.
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Re: How to perform an original?

Postby Jokeblue » 30 Oct 2013 06:35

Not sure if this is useful or not, but one of my friends performed an electronic style song for his music assessments really well this way. He had somekind of loop software on his ipad hooked up to a keyboard, and he'd key the different loops he needed as he played the main part on piano and sang.

He was either recording and initiating loops live, so he'd play the section, record it, loop it, and then play something over the top of it, or he was playing the main part and had a library of loops keyed to buttons on his ipad which he would select as he played.

I know it's not very detailed and definitely not as helpful as anything 4th's put forward, but hey, he scored pretty high marks for that performance and was nominated to perform it for a special concert in the Sydney Opera House, so I figure he must have been doing something right/well. And after reading through the rest of the thread this kinda seems like a dummy version of what you two were talking about. But if any of this sounds interesting I could contact him and ask about it for you :3
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Re: How to perform an original?

Postby S.P.P » 30 Oct 2013 19:10

If you have an iDevice, I'd seriously recommend getting TouchOSC. It was £4.99 on the App Store last time I checked and it's well worth the money. You can completely customise the layout on your device or just use of the stock layouts (which are all very good).

I run it on an iPod touch 4th gen and it's a solid app. It might even be available on Android or Windows phone, but I haven't checked.

But using this or a piece of hardware, you could trigger loops, samples, or automate stuff on the fly. I'd recommend starting there.
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