I saw Sasha play Friday..here's my 2 cents

ChiDJ · Post by **ChiDJ** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 3:38 pm

I had my first opportunity to see Sasha in action with his Maven. (I took a couple of pics of the MAVEN. Can I upload these?)

Let me first say that I am not a Sasha basher, or supporter for that matter. I am, however, very interested in using LIVE in performance and was hoping to pick up some tricks at his show.

I spent two hours right next to the booth peering at him and his MAVEN. I couldn't see the screen of his emac G5 because it was facing the other way. I was able to see the screen briefly when I went up to the other side of the booth and I noticed he was using a different version of LIVE. It was "split" in the middle and it appeared that he was only pulling in 2-3 tracks at a time from his browser.

Performance: I have to tell you that I was deeply disappointed by his low energy and lack of crowd interaction. He was basically a "square pusher". Technically he was not that engaged. It seemed to me that he was more or less mixing one track at a time, with a couple of drum / hi-hat tracks in and out, filter and some delay work, but nothing I can't do with my Korg MicroKontrol. He only had his hands on the MAVEN about 30% of the time.

Let me also clarify that I'm not really a fan of the music he played. I'm more into Tech house, Hard House and Techno, (I love Big beats, rude bass and slammin' drums akin to Adam Jay, DAVE the drummer, Antoine Clamaran and Robbie Rivera). So, his set did not move me.

I left his show thinking, "What's the big deal?" I could do everything he did sonically with a CDJ mixer and sampler and almost the same with 3 turntables. Have I mislead myself into thinking that LIVE would open up new sonic opportunities / mixing opportunities? No, I don't think so. I've already played out once with LIVE and received tremendous positive feedback on the originality of my set. I hear and feel so many possibilities with this program.

Maybe it was an "off night" for Sasha. It must be hard to be under the micro-scope constantly. I hope that was the case because, after my first experience, I was definitely not impressed.

Tod

rocdollar · Post by **rocdollar** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 3:56 pm

Maybe its because the music he was playing wasnt your bag. If he was using elements of tunes you recognised maybe you would have appreciated it more? I must admit I tried the same - listened to Involva, his CD mixed using Live. Couldnt really appreciate what Live was doing because I didnt recognise the tracks (I'm dnb/hip-hop).

Does he play tracks in the traditional vinyl way (A=>B=>C) or break them up into 4 bar clips and jumble them all together into one big track/set?

I'm a Traktor user right now because of the lack of mp3 support in Live 4, but I am excited about the possibility of having more than 2 'decks' with Live 5 and being able to store clips. I am concerned for the artists though - afterall it is their work which will potentially be unrecognisable after Live mashes it all up.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 4:00 pm

I wonder if he was using Live 5?
He would have to be slightly mad to use pre-beta software in a 'mission critical' situation.

Sadly, you can't upload pics ontop this forum but if you have any hosting or an image hosting account you can link to them using the [img] tags.

robin · Post by **robin** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 4:01 pm

rocdollar wrote:(I'm dnb/hip-hop).

. I am concerned for the artists though - afterall it is their work which will potentially be unrecognisable after Live mashes it all up.

you're "hip-hop" and you're worried about that? where have you been for the last 20 years?

mikemc · Post by **mikemc** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 4:26 pm

there is an old musician joke, usually involving rock lead guitarists:

"how many ____ does it take to ..."

how many electronic musicians does it take to do a laptop based show?

one to actually do the show, and 10 others to post 'meh, I could do that' on a web forum.

Rx · Post by Rx » Mon Jun 13, 2005 5:53 pm

rocdollar wrote:Maybe its because the music he was playing wasnt your bag.

i think you an still pick up on what someone's doing even if you're not that into what music they're playing. if you're used to listening to someone dj a style of four on the floor dance music, you'll know when someone is simply mixing one track after another or doing something more intensive. i'll take Tod's assessment as being reasonable and accurate.

smutek · Post by **smutek** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 5:59 pm

The set was probably split in the middle because he is only using three tracks - then there is a large blank space in the center and the send tracks and master will be on the right. Set up a live set like this and see if it looks the same as what you saw. I doubt he has some type of special version.

Did he have the help window open?

(just kidding)

I listened to the essential mix last week that everyone has been raving about, and tried to keep an open mind, but ended up feeling like "what's the big deal here" and didn't really find his use of Ableton to be that impressive.

But, like you, I am a techno head and wasn't down with most of the tunes on the tracklist. There was a Smith n Hack remix and a track by Egg which is more along the lines of my bag - but even so I just did not see what the big deal was.

Really, no offense meant - just stating my opinion after having listened to the mix.

djadonis206 · Post by **djadonis206** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 6:11 pm

Not a Trance fan either (at all)

but Christopher Lawrence blows the roof off (!) no doubt - he's up there as one of my favorite DJ's - then again, I'm an enigma and a socialite who clubs for the women and and DJ's for the fun of it, so I'm not as anal as some about who plays what and why (wink wink)

A jams a jam and a good dj is a good dj - that's how I see it

later

A

rocdollar · Post by **rocdollar** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 7:44 pm

you're "hip-hop" and you're worried about that? where have you been for the last 20 years?

True... That's my opinion also. As long as it sounds good who cares? Problem is though there can be a conflict of interest. Some producers think that if their song is messed with too much it becomes unrecognisable so they lose potential credit for it. It almost becomes the remixers intellectual property. Isn't that what happened in the early days of hip-hop?

Rahlo · Post by **Rahlo** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 8:59 pm

Rx wrote:
rocdollar wrote:Maybe its because the music he was playing wasnt your bag.
i think you an still pick up on what someone's doing even if you're not that into what music they're playing. if you're used to listening to someone dj a style of four on the floor dance music, you'll know when someone is simply mixing one track after another or doing something more intensive. i'll take Tod's assessment as being reasonable and accurate.

I agree 100%. I'm a hip hop head through and through, but a friend of mine I hadn't seen for a minute came to Indianapolis from Ohio to see Bruce Hornsby. I haven't been into anything that dude has done (except for Tupac's rendition of "that's just the way it is!), but I went because my dood had an extra ticket, and I wanted to hang wit him for a few.

I was blown away by Mr. Hornsby. It wasn't so much his music (which I now like, but am still not into enough to go buy his cd's) as it was his musicianship. dood knows what he's doing with a piano. I was even more impressed by him when I learned from my boy (who's a huge fan and has seen hornsby live at least 20 times) that even after he'd won grammy awards, even after he'd sold millions of records and is easily set for life, upon making the decision to do another album he committed himself to practicing the piano for 6 hours a day. We're talkin' 'bout practice (he says in his best allen iverson voice), not the writing of the album, not the show rehearsals, but practice--just him and his instrument, at his over 100 acre country estate in the mountains of VA.

I came away from that dood's show more inspired to get better at what I do than I have the last 2 years of rap shows I've been to. And his style/genre/generation ain't what I'm really into.

Inspiration can be found just about anywhere if we're open to it!

Rx · Post by Rx » Mon Jun 13, 2005 9:13 pm

i had a similar experience as a teenager, when i was big into Van Halen and thought he was the absolute shit. my dad scored tickets to see Ravi Shankar and i thought it would be pretty cool. i was totally blown away and realized the difference between a pretty good musician (Van Halen, other 'guitar gods') and someone whose talent is truly a once-in-a-lifetime gift. what was kinda sad was that Shankar's son played first, and i was thinking 'wow he's pretty good,' then Ravi came on and it was like night and day. i felt bad for the son, having a legacy that he would never be able to live up to (the guy was in his mid-to-late 20s then). i've never heard Ravi's younger daughter (Anoushka) who's supposed to be pretty good. and that Norah Jones chick seems to have a little talent too.

MrYellow · Post by **MrYellow** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 12:58 am

I wonder if he was using Live 5?

My guess..... and it is a guess......

Would be that he had 2 copies of Live open.

-Ben

MrYellow · Post by **MrYellow** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 1:08 am

Ravi Shankar

There are some good Raga albums around of his.....

On a related tangent u should really checkout "Making Music" on ECM Records.

Zakir Hussian (Tabla)
Hariprasad Chaurasia (Flute)
John McLaughlin (Guitar)
Jan Garbarek (Sax)

Also I'm unsure of the name but Zakir Hussian has an album which is just
him with a bunch of effects units experimenting....... It's interesting hearing
someone of Ravi's class playing around with delay units and even getting
into some 4-on-the-floor (almost) stuff.

My god..... these names in a Sasha thread....... that's just wrong.

-Ben

MrYellow · Post by **MrYellow** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 1:14 am

Ravi Shankar

There are some good Raga albums around of his.....

On a related tangent u should really checkout "Making Music" on ECM Records.

Zakir Hussian (Tabla)
Hariprasad Chaurasia (Flute)
John McLaughlin (Guitar)
Jan Garbarek (Sax)

Also I'm unsure of the name but Zakir Hussian has an album which is just
him with a bunch of effects units experimenting....... It's interesting hearing
someone of Ravi's class playing around with delay units and even getting
into some 4-on-the-floor (almost) stuff.

My god..... these names in a Sasha thread....... that's just wrong.

edit: oh btw.... I think Norah (Geetali Norah Jones Shankar) and Ravi might
be estranged....... She grew up with her mum and changed her name..... I
don't know bout the cultural implication, but I'd have to think changing your
name from Shankar would be an insult of sorts..... Tho it could all be just
that she comes from a different mother then the others and didn't spend
much time with him.

Norah Jones was born in New York but raised by her mother near Dallas,
Texas... She rarely speaks about Shankar in public; according to a 2002
article in The Guardian, "She saw her father a few times a year until she
was nine, and then not until she was 18"...

Ravi lives in the US, but spends a bunch of time back in India where they
are setting up a music insitute teaching the old methods (where you
vocalise your instrument for 8 years before being allowed to play it).

-Ben

Rx · Post by Rx » Tue Jun 14, 2005 1:22 am

Zakir Hussain is unbelievable - he should've been the one to make the Abracatabla sample cd. Hariprasad Chaurasia is the shit as well - inspired my to take up the flute. (i own tablas too)

i'll looking into the Making Music thing - the east/west fusion thing tends to bug me out. i do have one cd by Michael Brook & U Srinivas which i liked for a period, but otherwise i like my Indian music old school.

edit: yeah, i've heard they're estranged - i would be too if i never saw my dad. she's still his progeny and maybe can attribute some of her musical abilities to her genes. i think i walked by her in the city once - or at least my friend claims we did as he kept going 'hey - that was norah jones. i've seen her before. did you see her? i can't believe it - that was norah jones. you saw her right? you didn't? do you want to go back and see? it was norah jones.' (i insisted on getting to the bar instead.)