My two cents on bullshit live acts / In depth video footage

YILA · Post by **YILA** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 6:46 pm

i wouldnt say that you are playing live, its more like gloryfied dj'ing.

I myself have been a gloryfied Dj and i've been trying hard to play as much live as i can, i went from playing lead lines over the top and jamming loops from my songs, to having improvised sections taking parts of my songs messing them up and creating new beats, bass and lead all on the fly with some live looping too no prepared material at all and completly improvising sets from scratch at more experimental nights....

each one serves its audience, i think we should all push the audience a little more with what they expect to hear...you can get away with allot at 4a when everyone is space caked! and plus you cant get away with playing lots at a place where people are sitting watching you on candle lit tables...

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 6:51 pm

I think any form of DJing is performing Live, and what Tom does in the video is most definitely playing Live. Just another form of art.

I think what Blank & Jones does (push the spacebar to play and then throw hands in the air during the pads/breakdowns and even pretend to cue up CDJs) is totally NOT performing anything live. And mind you, I think Blank and Jones is lower on the scale than Milli Vanilli (those bruthas were robbed...it takes a lot to dance and lipsync and look that pretty). Girls, you know it's true...

rbmonosylabik · Post by **rbmonosylabik** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 7:03 pm

nebulae wrote:I think any form of DJing is performing Live, and what Tom does in the video is most definitely playing Live. Just another form of art.

I think what Blank & Jones does (push the spacebar to play and then throw hands in the air during the pads/breakdowns and even pretend to cue up CDJs) is totally NOT performing anything live. And mind you, I think Blank and Jones is lower on the scale than Milli Vanilli (those bruthas were robbed...it takes a lot to dance and lipsync and look that pretty). Girls, you know it's true...

UH UH NEBULAE, I LOVE YOU!!!!

I'm not gay

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 7:05 pm

OMG, dude, you've got to be the gayest dude in all of Mexico City.

mikemc · Post by **mikemc** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 7:50 pm

YILA wrote:i wouldnt say that you are playing live, its more like gloryfied dj'ing.

I myself have been a gloryfied Dj and i've been trying hard to play as much live as i can, i went from playing lead lines over the top and jamming loops from my songs, to having improvised sections taking parts of my songs messing them up and creating new beats, bass and lead all on the fly with some live looping too no prepared material at all and completly improvising sets from scratch at more experimental nights....

each one serves its audience, i think we should all push the audience a little more with what they expect to hear...

i'd have to say that at the end of the day when one is playing original music, whether it is 'inarguably live' with a group of musicians who have programmed themselves by practicing it over and over, or whether it is 'computer assisted live' with a system that has been programmed to do it, the capability of the audience to completely ignore either while pursuing activities for which you are essentially the background music cannot be underestimated

(how is that for a hugely awkward long sentence?)

Trat · Post by **Trat** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 2:39 am

All that stuff about playing (quasi) live bores me to dead. Most important thing is that the music is cool and not taken from a 1994 GOA compilation... Sorry Cocm

M. Bréqs · Post by **M. Bréqs** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 3:47 am

...wow. I'm very impressed COSM.

Your number three trick is 90% of my whole routine. I guess gotta learn two more tricks just to keep up!

Seriously though, the way you use routing, I've started doing similar things, using racks with bypass chains... It saves me from having to enter a menu to select a new routing - I map the wet/dry of the rack to a knob and away I go. I also map in about a dozen paralell audio effects, and then use another knob to select which one is active.

zstowasser · Post by **zstowasser** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 4:16 am

wow.... mad respect! very talented and thanks for sharing!!! also very beautiful out there

mbenigni · Post by **mbenigni** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:01 pm

What's the Glitch plugin you pull up during your demonstration of sends?

Do you ever do any straight live playing of the keyboard - just improvising in real-time to mains vs. cueing up new loops through the cans? The more of that, the "liver" IMO.

fatrabbit · Post by **fatrabbit** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:40 pm

mbenigni wrote:What's the Glitch plugin you pull up during your demonstration of sends?

Do you ever do any straight live playing of the keyboard - just improving in real-time to mains vs. cueing up new loops through the cans? The more of that, the "liver" IMO.

dBlue Glitch VST - free for Windows... no Mac version though. There is a replication in the Tips & Tricks forum, using Ableton's effects in a special Live Rack.

mbenigni · Post by **mbenigni** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:43 pm

Thanks man, will download right now. (BTW, meant "improvising", not "improving".)

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 6:43 pm

I'm suddenly hungry for rabbit stew...

itook4lefts · Post by **itook4lefts** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 7:17 pm

really cool videos. not my personal taste in music, but really good stuff. it's funny how different people like different bpms. give me something at 125bpm and chances are i'll like it, give me something at 140 and chances are i won't. that's just me.

the whole live/not live debate has kind of been done, i think. it's all shades of grey. but this is most definitely "live performance". how hard it is is irrelevant.

tom - thanks for making these.

napalmskatterjazz · Post by **napalmskatterjazz** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 12:47 am

hey Tom, just stumbled on your fractal stash. Hey I am doing the exact same thing at the moment to run a fractal vj set synced to my ableton set. Ive been making all the animations myself using a group of networked computers in my house to do the rendering 24-7 the past week. I will find some webspace to post some to send a link soon. all the fractal factors effecting the everything, right. Props on actually playing live as well, Same stylee here (love that dblue), I tryed with no computer for years using hardwaresynths and echoplexes and lexicon loopmans and drumachines, then found Live 4... Lovin you brother, stay safe, stay sane...

dj superflat · Post by **dj superflat** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 5:46 pm

the fractal thing is very cool. did you code it yourself? or using some off the shelf program? i assume you're not using a lemur, but rather just replicating some of it's possibilities? interesting.