In today’s episode of Electron Talk, I share my perspective on using hardware exclusively for live performances. We discuss experiences, tips and ideas, do-and-don’ts of live shows, what to expect, and how to get booked.
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00:00:00 Stream starts
00:01:03 The Live Hardware Scene
00:03:28 Many Of Us Came From Rock and Roll
00:06:01 What I am working with.. Essentials
00:08:38 How I got here.. My Story
00:11:52 Live looping isn’t a necessity
00:13:01 This is not easy
00:13:45 Getting booked for shows
00:14:35 The DAW-less situation
00:41:31 PLEASE STOP DOING THIS
00:42:53 How to get booked for gigs
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Your story is similar to mine. Played out in bands for years but also worked on electronic music on a DAW but never practically applied those skills to playing live. When COVID came around I went all in on hardware. Also, my tip is to not leave your midi cables at home.
100% One of those too
Same transition from rock into hardware, same timeframe, same reasons. And adding tinnitus almost killing my passion for music making and performing…
Glad to be part of the community, thankful for Elektron gear and a mentor I didn't know I needed 😀
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With regard to changing projects with the octatrack, one thing i noticed recently was that the Digi boxes only have 8 banks of patterns, but the OT has 16. So, if you change pattern 1 in Bank I on the OT it will move the pattern A01 on your Digi boxes. I haven’t tried this, but i think that means you could play through 2 projects on the digi boxes within 1 project on the octatrack. You’d still want to use a looper while the Digi boxes load their new projects, but that would at least give you 256 patterns to work with for a set.
great stream matthew. a lot here i can relate to. 🍚 🥕’s ☮️
Good stuff, man. I've watched a few of your tutorials, but this was my first live stream. You have a great perspective, and it's great to see people making music for the right reasons. As somebody that's fairly new to making music with hardware, I hadn't really considered the fact that this is essentially a new and emerging genre – pretty exciting!
P.S. Do you have an affiliate link for those Shure headphones? I'm interested in checking them out.
yesss
I really loved this video, alot of stuff I needed to hear for my performance situation. I'm curious what other device out there could would do as good a job as the kaoss replay for looper duties in this setup?
Spent my money on Oxi One and Keystep Pro and went really cheap with a $125 PC for the synth. Though I recently added an Xtouch Mini, so much more fun having dedicated hardware buttons and knobs. Someday I might get Elektron gear, but I also have other expensive hobbies. Just learning, but I've been getting ideas from your Octatrack templates to use in VCV Rack, mostly the 4 bar looper and some transition effects, takes some practice to plan ahead in your jams and get the timing right, but the looper really helps.
Curious about one looper detail, I set mine up so that it starts recording 4 bars after I hit play (one of the quirks of that module, first time through sets the sample length) then it records continuously until I hit freeze which allows an immediate fade to the loop. From your videos it seems like you have to start the recording (rather than stopping it) ahead of doing the looping, please correct me if I'm wrong.
Cool to see the new Korg device being implemented into a setup, everyone online kinda shat on it when it came out. Seems to be specifically for dawless live performers rather than home studio use.
also had the same problem with bass response from my Beyerdynamic DT 990s (open back version). Before I went to play my show I looked at all my kicks and basses through a spectrum analyzer using Overbridge and followed Ricky Tinez’s rule of making sure only the bass OR kick (but not both) was hitting below 60 hz. Getting mastering headphones is probably better in the long run, but i found this rule of thumb got me to a decent sounding mix on a PA system.
Well, really seems that I wasn’t in a demographic of 1. Though I came in from using ORAC on an Organelle to mix in my guitar and guitar synth with a non-conspiracy-theorist rhythm section, but wanting a centrepiece that was ‘easier’ to handle than ORAC… so I got an Octatrack. Covid must really have messed with my mind 🙄…. But the real centrepiece is actually a piece of paper and a 4 colour BIC pen…
This video beautifully summarizes your entire Octatrack liveset video library, in kinda philosophical manner. You've hit the nail with my foray into hardware world.
I've just recorded my first 1,5h Acid Techno liveset using your Performance template. I'll upload the video soon, hope you find time to listen. Yeah, the transitions are the hardest part, as I'm coming from a DJ background, I try hardest for these transitions to be as smooth as possible. Not always possible, but practice makes perfect… You only have 2 hands 🙂
I liked your commentary about headphones. My ears often feel fatigued after playing hardware synths for an hour or so. I wonder if my headphones are not the right ones for music making. Do you ever feel your ears get fatigued with headphones?
For reference I am using some senhieser Bluetooth headphones with noise cancelling…
Hey Matthew a.k.a. EZBOT – as always, dropping valuable insights, answering the very questions plebs like me want answered, so one day, we may end up not being plebs anymore because we learned to make quality sound. Appreciated.
Btw, I (with my rather little experience) agree with performing live electronic hardware music being comparatively hard. Some consider it the supreme discipline because you have to master so many instruments and compose / create as you go, without the option to restart the recording to fix a mistake. I have no idea if I will ever play live in front of an audience because I feel that I still need to learn so awfully much until I feel really ready for that… partly also because I only joined music a couple years ago, without any attachment to music theory or instruments at all when I was a kid. The good thing, however, is that my main goal is to have fun and learn and experiment. Whatever else happens, happens. Or it doesn't, and it's cool as long as I keep having fun.
Thanks for this great video.
Super bummed that the one time you're down in Portland, I'm not. Make sure to say hi to the nice people at Control Voltage!
Harder than it looks? Thats what she said.
Just FYI, at 5:40 he totally says Doo Doo.
Sample it and make a track and post it here!
ah kork its like Akai MPClive2&
Necessity is the mother of invention. Sometimes you have to have a really awful deadline to create your best work!
As cool as the Octatrack or Kaoss reply are. Is there a way less expensive tool to handle transitions?
Hehe “ doo doo “ at 5:40
Dt 770 original 3.5 mm to 1/4 adapter sums mono on both sides LR I fixed it by buying a aftermarket adapter 3.5mm to 1/4
I just started using the micromonsta 2 as a polysynth in my live setup: Good handson controls, preset selection via the Takt, feature packed with a reallly good sound and it offers two diffrent Poly tracks. All in a really small form factor.
Good vid man. Boss RC-505 did the trick in my case, I record tracks there, 5 channels to go for with light mix and you can perform top of em, so it's save tweaking time really much. I liked this vid man
About the "intimate" feeling with hardware.. If i play keys my experience is just the same if i send the note to a VST or a hardware synth… (i mostly have modules so i use the same keyboard for hardware or software) The encoder on my midi-controller is just as good as the encoder on my AR mk2… And do you really enjoy putting in notes holding a step and turning a knob?…. But that's just my opinion ofcourse.. i use hardware and software and a DAW is certainly very nice to have for sequencing/manipulating/recording all kinds of things… With large screens… oh well, old man yells at cloud and all that 🙂