How to perform an original?

[Coloriot]

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.

[the4thImpulse]

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.

[Coloriot]

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?

[the4thImpulse]

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.

[S.P.P]

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.