i come from the rock world, where you don't fake it live -- as you seem to define the terms -- but then again, you pretty much do. that is, you play the same songs in pretty much the same order with pretty much the same patter in between songs (because of time constraints, because after 200 times, you're kind of on autopilot), etc. you're not really reinventing the wheel on stage for most bands (not so true for certain jam bands, 60s bands, that really stretched, that's not so common anymore).
there's a great quote by some jazz player about how disappointed the audience would if they knew the mundane thoughts passing through the musician's head at various times during a show. and that's the reality -- performing well live takes enough practice that it becomes rote, the whole point is to be so good you can do it on autopilot (and then add the energy, respond as appropriate to crowd, etc.). so the ideal of musician as creative force and the rote/practice aspect of it are in tension.
and if you want a definitive answer, yes, playing a DAT and bouncing around is pathetic. IMHO, the whole point of playing live is to force yourself to take the recording and boil it down to something you can pull off truly live. but then we're back into whether DJs mixing songs are really doing anything musical/creative, whether folk just mixing prerecorded clips/loops are really doing any musical/creative. there's some line at which they're not, but a bassplayer in a rock band often is doing something that takes no creativity, and often very little skill (e.g., just playing same basic progression with picked quarters, etc.).
related: the audience doesn't mind using loops if they see you record the loops (even though it could be canned), but often really don't like it when someone has pre-recorded backing, even though there may be little difference really (not very hard to rerecord those base loops live). one seems supper club, playing the casio with rhythm backing, the other is imogen/kidbeyond. what's difference really? not sure, but they feel way different to me (both playing and watching).
thinks : is a good faker equivalent to a good performer?
TONIGHT AT MELKWEG: CHRIS CLARK (LIVE Pattern launching and/or pattern creation via live step sequencing - live input - overdubbing, mute/un-mute, volume - eq - aux - pan - control per channel, Fx control, playing an instrument or tweaking one that's being controlled by a sequencer)b0unce wrote:bingo!Poster wrote: How many knobs per minute he does is not relevant,
as long as there's no discrepancy between 'the announced' and 'actual performance'..
I know..Angstrom wrote:These days it's not all black and white - [/i]
but somewhere in that grey fog there are still some pretty clear lines to me..
me too.
Heres my definition of a live electronic act:
Pattern launching and/or pattern creation via live step sequencing - live input - overdubbing, mute/un-mute, volume - eq - aux - pan - control per channel, Fx control, playing an instrument or tweaking one that's being controlled by a sequencer
as far as I'm concerned, you should be stringing a set together using those techniques and at any given moment be in the middle of carrying out one of those tasks, give our take to call yourself a 'live' act.
playin a fuckin DAT isn't any kind of act at all, if you ask me.
DON'T MISS IT
TICKETS e16.50 AT THE DOOR
and oohwee..
if he even loses touch with his controller to pick his nose or scratch his arse for a second I want my money back..
it all depends what you're there for...
if you came to see a live act perform...
which means its either a pre-made production...
or an act that also improvises and drops stuff on-the-fly...
there are some acts that even rely on randomness...
or have you come to dance at a nice party... in that case STFU and DANCE !!
if the mix is not offending my ears and sense of rythm...
I could enjoy it without even wanting to know what this guy's up to...
I could get really impressed if a DJ puts on an experimental show...
I've been to a Plastikman gig bakndday where he connected guitar FX to some turntables...
Opened my mind...
all depends what you're there to witness...
if you came to see a live act perform...
which means its either a pre-made production...
or an act that also improvises and drops stuff on-the-fly...
there are some acts that even rely on randomness...
or have you come to dance at a nice party... in that case STFU and DANCE !!
if the mix is not offending my ears and sense of rythm...
I could enjoy it without even wanting to know what this guy's up to...
I could get really impressed if a DJ puts on an experimental show...
I've been to a Plastikman gig bakndday where he connected guitar FX to some turntables...
Opened my mind...
all depends what you're there to witness...
It looks militant in text, but anyways it's impossible to clearly define it - you know live if you see live. And, it's an artform. I think some folks in this thread are focusing too much on the end result. Just providing sound by hook or by crook...... that's grand, but I was brought up to appreciate real performance too. It's another angle of appreciating a gig and live performance. you all sound like a bunch of fucking philistines to me, to be honest
spreader of butter
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doc holiday
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b0unce wrote:
It looks militant in text, but anyways it's impossible to clearly define it - you know live if you see live. And, it's an artform. I think some folks in this thread are focusing too much on the end result. Just providing sound by hook or by crook...... that's grand, but I was brought up to appreciate real performance too. It's another angle of appreciating a gig and live performance. you all sound like a bunch of fucking philistines to me, to be honest
it's all about pleasing the crowd...
I know a good act from a bad one.
that's my aesthetic... not 'everyone's'...
most of the folks out there just want to get pissed to some tunes...
...maybe get layed at the end of the night..
I do believe that in order to become a good performer you need to have many skills...
basically what I'm saying...everyone's got a different notion of what is 'good enough'...
different strokes...
eventually...it's all about making people have a good night out...
make them come back...or buy a CD...
build your reputation...get credited...
=more bookings?!...
be professional.
I know a good act from a bad one.
that's my aesthetic... not 'everyone's'...
most of the folks out there just want to get pissed to some tunes...
...maybe get layed at the end of the night..
I do believe that in order to become a good performer you need to have many skills...
basically what I'm saying...everyone's got a different notion of what is 'good enough'...
different strokes...
eventually...it's all about making people have a good night out...
make them come back...or buy a CD...
build your reputation...get credited...
=more bookings?!...
be professional.
Angstrom wrote:
Every single day, at every single moment every single person is making a choice about the data they recieve. If as a performer you understand that the primary point of your artistic endeavour is to manipulate the audience's perception (so that they feel that they had a great time) then don't beat your self up for using certain 'nonlive' methods to meet your objective. Take your paycheck and get on with it. However, if you choose that the primary point of your artistic endeavour is to find the 'purest' expression of whatever it is you do, then you accept that it is all about you first and the audience second. You accept the possible risks of such a starting point. (there are various positions along this spectrum too)
The truth is that every person that recieves an income from their art HAS to actively choose various forms of compromise. They do this for various functional and very legitamite reasons. Some good reasons are indivdual ability, lack of or poor equipment, customer expectation. Mostly though its financial survival. Specifically as musicians, the ultimate compliment is that you moved somebodies perception, including your own. This is real power. If you start at the point of the audience and their 'reality', and then work backwards to yourself as an artist, then you more than likely will find that the means justifies then end. You still have the responibility to work on your own game for added skill and personal disvovery (and satisfaction), but don't mix the two up.
The fact is that PERCEPTION is REALITY. That's why people change their minds.
My tambourine is calling
This actually sums up the whole discussion. The ultimate human coping mechanism is the ability to switch your own perception. All of the external data input is the same/static, but you can choose what meanings you assign to the data. This then affects the following thought patterns and your 'personal' response. The classic is wether 'your glass is half full or half empty'. Same data input, but you can choose your response.I come from a conjuring / mentalism background and in that world manipulating perception is everything. The entertainment isn't in the reality - it's in creating the perceptions of reality. Which is equivalent in a subjectivised system.
The idea that we can use our senses to ascertain the total objective reality and grasp 'the truth' is hopeful at best.
Every single day, at every single moment every single person is making a choice about the data they recieve. If as a performer you understand that the primary point of your artistic endeavour is to manipulate the audience's perception (so that they feel that they had a great time) then don't beat your self up for using certain 'nonlive' methods to meet your objective. Take your paycheck and get on with it. However, if you choose that the primary point of your artistic endeavour is to find the 'purest' expression of whatever it is you do, then you accept that it is all about you first and the audience second. You accept the possible risks of such a starting point. (there are various positions along this spectrum too)
The truth is that every person that recieves an income from their art HAS to actively choose various forms of compromise. They do this for various functional and very legitamite reasons. Some good reasons are indivdual ability, lack of or poor equipment, customer expectation. Mostly though its financial survival. Specifically as musicians, the ultimate compliment is that you moved somebodies perception, including your own. This is real power. If you start at the point of the audience and their 'reality', and then work backwards to yourself as an artist, then you more than likely will find that the means justifies then end. You still have the responibility to work on your own game for added skill and personal disvovery (and satisfaction), but don't mix the two up.
The fact is that PERCEPTION is REALITY. That's why people change their minds.
My tambourine is calling
iMac - 10.10.3 - Live 9 Suite - APC40 - Axiom 61 - TX81z - Firestudio Mobile - Focal Alpha 80's - Godin Session - Home made foot controller
as an artist it's more satisfying to play as much live as you can. for the audience it's not a big deal. when my computer crashed (with live 6 etc...) i just could play the ipod and add some live synths. everybody had a good time - but it wasn't fun for me.
i saw daft punk live and all you see is 2 guys behind a desk (and lots of visuals of course). does it make a difference for the concert experience if they are beatmatching and EQ'ing and skipping bars? i don't think so.
i saw daft punk live and all you see is 2 guys behind a desk (and lots of visuals of course). does it make a difference for the concert experience if they are beatmatching and EQ'ing and skipping bars? i don't think so.
For me, the best musical experiences are joint creations between audience and performer, with the performer feeding off the audience and vice versa. There is no way to pre-plan this, as it is a product of the moment in which it is created, and no way to fake. Performer and audience are fully engaged at every point in time.
I think this is true even for music that involves people playing basically the same thing every night. The Flaming Lips are a perfect example of this...I just saw them on New Years. They admit that early on they reailzed their strength was in putting on a crazy show, not being excellent musicians. To this end, their current show is half live (drummer, bass, some vocals, some guitar, some keyboards), and half backing tracks, with tons of lasers, dancing freaks, visuals, giant bubbles, and Wayne acting like a crazy man. It was a big crazy show, but ultimately it was boring and not live. It didn't have that feeling you get at a big rock show where everything is larger than life, and the music just grabs you and won't let go.
I think "faking it" is fine, but I definitely prefer the real deal, mistakes and all.
I think this is true even for music that involves people playing basically the same thing every night. The Flaming Lips are a perfect example of this...I just saw them on New Years. They admit that early on they reailzed their strength was in putting on a crazy show, not being excellent musicians. To this end, their current show is half live (drummer, bass, some vocals, some guitar, some keyboards), and half backing tracks, with tons of lasers, dancing freaks, visuals, giant bubbles, and Wayne acting like a crazy man. It was a big crazy show, but ultimately it was boring and not live. It didn't have that feeling you get at a big rock show where everything is larger than life, and the music just grabs you and won't let go.
I think "faking it" is fine, but I definitely prefer the real deal, mistakes and all.
it's true just playing a DAT and doing nothing to it is a bit scandalous - the fucking bar manager could do that and charge you nothing
but if they were tweaking it somehow, running it through FX or whatever it could be different
I guess the big grey line with electronic music is that there exists an accepted platform (i.e. the club) where it's not important for there to be an artist at all and it could just be played by the bar man
but there is also still a side to electronic music where there are real performers as well
so the whole crux of this debate is over the expectations of the punter
for example, if I decided one saturday I wanted to go clubbing to hear some tech house and minimal techno then the name of the DJ is almost irrelevant so long as they play those styles
but on the other hand if I heard Sven Vath was in town and charging $50 a ticket and I had to plan for 3 months to get babysitting and make sure I had enough cash and all he did was play a DAT of a set I could download off the internet then yeah that would be pretty shitty
but if the bar man downloaded that set and played it in the club it might be still worth going just to hear the music on a club PA with lighting, atmosphere etc etc
so there are no simple answers to this
ultimately though Angstroms point is about the actual physical performance - and probably a really good example might be the Prodigy
I dont know how much Liam Howlett actually does live, I worked on their shows in Sydney in the mid 90s and there were a fuck load of synths and I know they loaded up a lot of presets, but whether they were just sequenced with little done to them I dont actually know - and I was on the local crew
but what I do know is the other 3 just yelled a bunch of shit in the Mic and jumped around like lunatics so in that sense ALL they were doing was performing but not actually making any music - although I guess it's called emceeing
but it was one of the most banging electronic music nights out probably on the scene for people at the time and definitely much closer to a rock band than a DJ
and I can guarantee you not a single person there would have given the slightest fuck whether Liam was at the back loading presets and pressing play, he at least looked like he was doing something
but if they were tweaking it somehow, running it through FX or whatever it could be different
I guess the big grey line with electronic music is that there exists an accepted platform (i.e. the club) where it's not important for there to be an artist at all and it could just be played by the bar man
but there is also still a side to electronic music where there are real performers as well
so the whole crux of this debate is over the expectations of the punter
for example, if I decided one saturday I wanted to go clubbing to hear some tech house and minimal techno then the name of the DJ is almost irrelevant so long as they play those styles
but on the other hand if I heard Sven Vath was in town and charging $50 a ticket and I had to plan for 3 months to get babysitting and make sure I had enough cash and all he did was play a DAT of a set I could download off the internet then yeah that would be pretty shitty
but if the bar man downloaded that set and played it in the club it might be still worth going just to hear the music on a club PA with lighting, atmosphere etc etc
so there are no simple answers to this
ultimately though Angstroms point is about the actual physical performance - and probably a really good example might be the Prodigy
I dont know how much Liam Howlett actually does live, I worked on their shows in Sydney in the mid 90s and there were a fuck load of synths and I know they loaded up a lot of presets, but whether they were just sequenced with little done to them I dont actually know - and I was on the local crew
but what I do know is the other 3 just yelled a bunch of shit in the Mic and jumped around like lunatics so in that sense ALL they were doing was performing but not actually making any music - although I guess it's called emceeing
but it was one of the most banging electronic music nights out probably on the scene for people at the time and definitely much closer to a rock band than a DJ
and I can guarantee you not a single person there would have given the slightest fuck whether Liam was at the back loading presets and pressing play, he at least looked like he was doing something
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dj superflat
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Euklid.fox
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I come from the hardtek underground freeparties where I saw and enjoyed lot's of varying quality TRUE Live, where the guy tweak is OWN sounds with at least 8 tracks, at least one time per minute, don't know how it s quantisized but you know it's live. Then I discovered Psy Trance parties where I was astonished
by sound quality complexity, but when they say it's a Live, it's just that the guy comes with his DAT or fucking ipod and just press play, then it's fake.
I hate that, I really HATE that,
then you hear people say oh damned it's good. so ok they re happy, but
what will happen then: more and more fake mixes and less and less true live,
cause we, live performers will be frustred to not get that pre-made omnipresent "quality". But If you played live you know there is a very big difference when you can catch your public and i(e make them wait, twist their mind..) here they feel it's live and communication is complete compared to just crossfade betwen two tracks or simply adding a delay..
fuck the growing fakers community, play live!
by sound quality complexity, but when they say it's a Live, it's just that the guy comes with his DAT or fucking ipod and just press play, then it's fake.
I hate that, I really HATE that,
then you hear people say oh damned it's good. so ok they re happy, but
what will happen then: more and more fake mixes and less and less true live,
cause we, live performers will be frustred to not get that pre-made omnipresent "quality". But If you played live you know there is a very big difference when you can catch your public and i(e make them wait, twist their mind..) here they feel it's live and communication is complete compared to just crossfade betwen two tracks or simply adding a delay..
fuck the growing fakers community, play live!
in my experiences,throughout the various shows and recordings i have witnesses, a few have struck me as genuine, and others, a waste of money. i would expect this to hold true for any person. while sure, person 1 and person 2 could view the same thing at the same time, but we all should know by now, that it will be viewed 2 different ways.
so what constitutes a faker? imo a faker is someone who is on the stage for any other reason than to play music, and touch at least one person there. isn't that the true purpose of art? someone felt the urge to create something, and spent a lot time, and energy, and soul to reach that one moment when it touched them... because if it doesn't touch YOU first, then who can it? there has to be passion there, or a really convincing depiction thereof. anything else makes it mechanical, and is no longer art. this holds true in all aspects of life. cooking is an art, to some, and i wouldn't refer to mcdonalds as art... unless refering to b0unce's thread.
so, for me, mcdonalds is fake food. and some fella that i paid money to watch perform, only to receive a fist pump and a knob twiddle, would be also, unless my purpose was to go out, get fucked up, and dance away to the pretty lights. if the music "played" suited me, all the better.
i really don't dig any electric music live, maybe i haven't been exposed to a good performance yet... but for that matter,all shows have lost a certain gleam for me. seen a few, and if not pissy drunk, always end up wishing i was on that stage.
what i have seen , as far as genuine performance is concerned, has blown my mind, i could feel the intensity of the artist(s), what they put into their creation. i have seen artist that just do their thing, and you feel like you just gave them money. works the same way with cd's, movies, video games, software, you name it. so naturally people get opinionated on the subject. it seems rather pointless to even argue, about anything, really, sometimes, other than just for fun, which also losses it's luster from time to time.
so it doesn't matter if he "fakes", it won't affect me. but i suppose it's good for a laugh, amongst your peers. or envy... is this guy making some money? wish it was you? i'd rather be broke, than have my "art" sullied. whatever. let him have his moment, hell, look at the money they throw at these rappers and popstars. most of them i would not consider genuine, but they are "winning" aren't they? what quantifies sucess?
so what constitutes a faker? imo a faker is someone who is on the stage for any other reason than to play music, and touch at least one person there. isn't that the true purpose of art? someone felt the urge to create something, and spent a lot time, and energy, and soul to reach that one moment when it touched them... because if it doesn't touch YOU first, then who can it? there has to be passion there, or a really convincing depiction thereof. anything else makes it mechanical, and is no longer art. this holds true in all aspects of life. cooking is an art, to some, and i wouldn't refer to mcdonalds as art... unless refering to b0unce's thread.
so, for me, mcdonalds is fake food. and some fella that i paid money to watch perform, only to receive a fist pump and a knob twiddle, would be also, unless my purpose was to go out, get fucked up, and dance away to the pretty lights. if the music "played" suited me, all the better.
i really don't dig any electric music live, maybe i haven't been exposed to a good performance yet... but for that matter,all shows have lost a certain gleam for me. seen a few, and if not pissy drunk, always end up wishing i was on that stage.
what i have seen , as far as genuine performance is concerned, has blown my mind, i could feel the intensity of the artist(s), what they put into their creation. i have seen artist that just do their thing, and you feel like you just gave them money. works the same way with cd's, movies, video games, software, you name it. so naturally people get opinionated on the subject. it seems rather pointless to even argue, about anything, really, sometimes, other than just for fun, which also losses it's luster from time to time.
so it doesn't matter if he "fakes", it won't affect me. but i suppose it's good for a laugh, amongst your peers. or envy... is this guy making some money? wish it was you? i'd rather be broke, than have my "art" sullied. whatever. let him have his moment, hell, look at the money they throw at these rappers and popstars. most of them i would not consider genuine, but they are "winning" aren't they? what quantifies sucess?