wow, 30 years of touring. I would be dead 
who are you?
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I used to do live sets with a Kawai Q80 sequencer ( it had a floppy disk drive 
), small mixer and some hardware. It always shocked me how different it sounded from when mixing at home and often I didn’t know what was going on as the monitoring was always shit, but it worked out alright most of the time. I did a short live appearance just with a laptop once, triggering scenes in Live, and it wasn’t very satisfying but it sounded better 
Good Turntabilism Performance… now if you called that Electronic (probably ironic and i like hiphop a lot so…) i’m intrigue what you call techno then … ( anyway that’s another thread but David Guetta, Tiesto, Deadmau5, Calvin Harris are not inside… Resident Advisor Top 100 maybe a bit better)
Well yeah it is not strictly electronic but it is not relying on a pre-sequenced track. It could just as easily have been two MPCs. Techno is the 4/4 electronic stuff that sounds like a factory with a few minimal melodies thrown in 
[joke- I like some techno]
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I’ve been working on a “live” thing with two Digitakts. In reality it’s just a take on a DJ set mixing between the two and doing pattern changes and mutes. Not for gigs just thought it would be fun to do at house parties with friends instead of mixing records.
I’ve seen many, many electronic live shows over the last 20 years and a majority have been reliant on heavily prepared material. I’d rather this than people making a hash of things in the club.
I will say though that I’m always blown away by Magic Mountain High. I’ve seen them a bunch and at least once a year at Freerotation. Never the same show twice.
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What’s holding me back is that I haven’t produced enough music material to play a full set in a long time. Apart from that? Nothing. Can’t wait to start doing that again.
I did a bunch of live techno sets (MD, MM, Ableton) a year or 10 ago. Then I did some triphop downtempo shows with electronics and live band. In the past years I’ve done a lot of experimental audiovisual performances like this project:
http://dietervandoren.net/index.php?/project/integration04/
Now I have a health issue that keeps me from doing extended computer work so I’m working on hardware techno stuff again. Hoping to take that live in not too long. Some sketches here:
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I have been averaging one season or tour a year doing live music for performance or dance works but so far, with Ableton or Max & a Launchpad. It’s been nice to see how far I can go with just the one grid - sequencing, mixing & even doing cued lighting control under a user mode once or twice…
The last show was in near total darkness & I learned to play the set & cue from the stage action with the laptop screen off & layers of scrim over the launchpad. Heh, that’s art.
I tried out an OT but eventually let it go - it required too much attention to be effective for this kind of gig unfortunately. Fair enough
What I’m getting to is that unlike infrequent ‘club’ situation gigs (onstage with just an MPC or Roland SP) this kind of thing takes the focus off of you & can be a bit more relaxing than being the centre of attention - although there can be bigger consequences if you screw up
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I play live once every month or so. For a few shows, I had a setup consisting of a few pieces of gear, eventually racked up into a nice case… but I’ve recently given that up, opting instead to take out just a gameboy and/or octatrack; it started getting a bit silly to take $4000 worth of gear to a venue, play a 30min set, and then get paid ~$20 (if at all), which only barely covers the uber/taxi ride home.
I really love playing just from a gameboy micro running nanoloop 2, seeing people surprised that such a tiny device is putting out so much bass always makes me happy
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Well I actually do live stuff but as a vocalist. I make industrial rock-ish stuff with this one other guy who plays the guitar. I do most of the composition and vocals live. The other guy gives feedback on the compositions, does the guitar parts and does his best to push me to be a better vocalist. But we’ve just had one gig, next one is coming up next week. Both small gigs but it’s a start.
Before that I used to have another band like 7 years ago. I did compositions, vocals and played the keyboards a bit. We released 2 EPs and 1 album and then just kind of self-destructed as the members wound up in different cities because of studies.
I felt really discouraged after that experience and spent the 7 years either doing pretty low-quality half-assed solo electronics or no music at all. Doing lives was not even a consideration for me at that point. I did stuff mostly by just stacking stuff on each other on DAW. I didn’t even have controllers or anything.
Ever since I got Digitakt I’ve been having kind of an itch to try to do something more electronic but live-oriented. I feel like for the first time I have an electronic performance instrument and just not a keyboard to be played on top of something or a box that can make noises to be recorded with a computer.
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‘cos no-one will book me and my partner!?
90% of our gigs are ones I organise myself. …but that’s OK. Doing stuff on my/our own terms is usually more enjoyable. No promoters changing the running order at the last minute etc.
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My guess? Either Guetta or Tiesto (shiver…)
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As long as he’s not Trent Reznor I think I could handle the shock
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Played live using MC-500 as master controlling TR-707 and various synths including a DSS-1 and JP-6 pic here
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Because I tend to ignore my own brilliance and think rather little of what I’m able to come up with. I would love to get to the point where I’m able to share performances on youtube. Truth be told I’m even reluctant to play to my family because I fear the question of whether this is really what I spent a few thousand Euros on. I know it’s sad, but what can you do…
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I was asked to do a live show in a pretty decent techno club once. Kind of early session on the small stage. I was too afraid of accepting the offer and ever since then I have the feeling that my musical progress is more of a decline composition wise. When I see the real pros doing live sets I am amazed of how much they get out of so few equipment. I can definitely not “compete” with this kind of dense sound.i would love to hear my stuff on a good soundsystem, though. But not in front of people who actually paid for a quality gig.
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Goooooodammit how i love you! I watched one of their boiler room sets a couple of years ago, and I couldn’t remember what they were called, or find the video again through loooots of searching. Thanks! It’s really inspirational the way they approach a live set.
Move D really has the Midas touch. It’s very rarely that I’m not blown away by what he comes up with. As a DJ I find him a little too formulaic at times, but as a musician I hold him in the highest regard. Plus he’s one of those people that despite their relative success in the dance music circus have managed to stay true to his roots.
I probably shouldn’t respond since I do play live shows but to expand on your point 2 (“no big demand for electronics shows”):
- live shows are a bit more complicated to host: may need more space than djs, needs sound checks, etc
- a large part of the crowd may not see the difference between a live show and a dj (yes, depends on your performance), hence no incentive to organise such an event
I for myself won’t go back to djing since playing live has been much more enjoyable (and even better as a duo). In fact, now even in the studio I no more create and arrange tracks in the daw first: I record a hardware-only live session first, then edit in the daw as needed. Tons of fun, no hassle, more satisfaction and “better done than perfect”.
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Amen to that. Since going all-hardware every bit I record is an actual live performance. So composing is also practicing for live.
3 elements are key to live performance: effort, risk and flow. Playing instruments is hard work. Ask a drummer or violinist. And it’s risky. There 's a chance of screwing up, not realizing what you had planned or what the inspiration of the moment brings. That’s part of it and it 's what creates the tension and intensity of a live show. And flow is that state where a trained musician isn’t consciously planning and executing every action anymore. Planning, action and musical output fuse in one integrated, spontaneous flow. One is then not playing the instrument, one is playing the sound.
Here are some good reads on it. Michel Waisvisz is my hero instrument-maker & performer:
http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~mwanderley/Trends/Trends_in_Gestural_Control_of_Music/DOS/P.RoundTab.pdf (features Bob Moog and Don Buchla as well)
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I used to play live a good bit in the late 90s n 00’s. I’ve been planning to get back into it but i sorta gone off clubs in general in the interim. drugs used to take care of any social anxiety but I’ve gone off them too so I’m screwed 
I’ll play live again when it happens but I’m preferring focusing on live modular / hardware jams for utube with arty vids.
defo getting more solid work done this way rather than trying to fit in with something I wanted to do 15 years ago, which is a revelation of sorts. feels good.
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