Music has always moved forward when people get together to play. Groups of artists in Los Angeles’ Interface LA collective – and other California groups, like LoveTech and controllerism.com – are challenging each other to keep expanding their technique in playing electronics live.

I’m pleased with CDM and some of our friends to support a party Friday night in downtown LA celebrating playing live. Interface LA is a group centered on live electronic music performance and interactions. We’ll be bringing you video coverage after the event here, thanks to talented videographer Charlie Visnic. But we can kick things off now with videos of the artists and work. And if you are in town, be sure to preorder tickets now, as we expect this to sell out really quickly and hope to see you there!

Videos, from top: Mike Slott (Brooklyn), who’s headlining Friday night, in an interview. Second from top, check out the crew in their last event at top, that one centering on the monome grid instrument.

I’m playing, as well (hey, I’ve got to put my money where my very large mouth is). But I’m really thrilled to get to share some time with a bunch of artists I love, many coming from San Francisco’s LoveTech and controllerism.com, and from LA’s own Interface LA regulars. The lineup:

Mike Slott
Moldover
Vass Glenison
Rich DDT
‘House Band’ (Smacktop Ensemble, featuring the awesome force that is the Smacktop laptop-that-you-hit)
Nonagon
Ro and the Interface LA crew
Presented with Novation and Ableton

Friday, January 21
Doors 9pm
18+
$10 cover

We also have an interactive work entitled (con)textile:

A digital installation using the Kinect, stop-motion and digital noise, and interactive audio” by Jeff Aaron Bryant.  Jeff is a composer working in digital media and kinetics. He is pursuing his MFA in music technology at California Institute of the Arts.

Information:
http://interface-la.tumblr.com/events
http://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/82413

Facebook links:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Interface-L-A/316896995011687
https://www.facebook.com/events/351095438239262/

Images

November Interface LA, in photos

San Francisco’s LoveTech crew, including their Burning Man trip

SmackTop, in Video

We’ve seen this before, but it’s still good watching someone hit their laptop.

More Events in LA This Week

I have an early flight Saturday morning back to Berlin, but there are two other great events in Los Angeles this week if you happen to live in the area or are in town for a certain massive trade show down south in Anaheim.

TRASH_AUDIO NAMM BBQ 2012 has closed its RSVP, but if you do make it, let us know how it goes or (with, uh, permission) take photos of any cool stuff you find. Really wish the TRASH_AUDIO folks the best and all our modular and sound-making friends and Matrixsynth and company; I’ll be somewhere like 40,000 feet over Ireland while that’s going on.

Also, Droid Behavior is doing a party Friday night that should go late at an undisclosed location, the fifth anniversary of their Wham Bam series. I thoroughly enjoyed getting involved in that in 2010, and might duck in if I can on my way to LAX; the event here is not related, to clear up any potential confusion.

Traktor 2 is a new “generation,” says Native Instruments, of its flagship DJ software, along with upgraded hardware interfaces. The upgrade is so capable, simply calling it a “DJ” product may be inadequate. Just as Ableton Live’s user base grew to incorporate DJs, Traktor’s capabilities move easily into live performance and remixing, too.

It’s still Traktor. But drawing on Traktor’s background, it’s Traktor as a DJ tool that, aside from just playing auto-beat-matched tracks, can transform into a sampling and remix tool with some far-out sonic effects, for a more dynamic live show.

However you classify yourself, the update promises both expanded usability and, for those who do want to go deeper, more extensive live sonic manipulation.

New features:

• Redesigned UI you can actually see. NI calls it “high-visibility”; I’d call it “squint proof.” While I’ll need to use it first-hand, it may at last resolve one of Traktor’s most glaring deficiencies – that the UI was too darned hard to see.
• Four sample decks and the Loop Recorder. I love Ableton, but too often users fail to limit the number of simultaneous samples. Four samples playing at once really is often more than enough, so the four-deck metaphor makes a lot of sense. Coupled with loop recording, you could forget that Traktor is marketing at DJs and have a pretty nice little looping program; I’d been tempted to test it as such to see how it stands up. For people who do call themselves “DJs,” meanwhile, it’s an opportunity to really set your live numbers apart.
• Big, colorful wave views. High-resolution, color-coded waveforms (and lots of viewing options) let you focus on visual mixing with wave views. That should both please some digital die-hards and offend purists, so we’ll see how people comment online to this one. (Flame war, perhaps?) At the very least, it can make your workspace look nicer.
• SoftSync. I’m looking into this, but NI says it’s a new automatic beat-matching mode that keeps multiple tracks in sync without “manipulating phase.”
• New effects: Tape delay emulation, Bouncer (pitch delay) effects, and Ramp delay.

There’s a whole lot to the UI rebuild; it’s not only bigger, but cleaner, adds more waveform feedback, and tons of customization options, all intended, evidently, to make the UI easier to see and use.

Obligatory promo video (as with any manufacturer, put your hype-filtering glasses on … now!):

And Ean Golden over at DJ TechTools already has an in-depth walkthrough:

There’s also a great feature-by-feature walkthrough in the UI that rivals what you’ll find from Native Instruments site:
Traktor Pro 2 @ DJ Tech Tools

To me, the addition of sampler on all decks, a loop recorder, and extra effects make this the first DJ-dedicated tool you could really see as a live tool. For people coming to DJing from producer backgrounds, I think that’ll be welcome.

On the hardware side, the Audio 6 and Audio 10 represent big improvements, too:

• More I/O: 6 or 10 inputs instead of 4 or 8 on the previous models. NI suggests you use the extra stereo in as a loop or sample in, an effect/send return, for an external mix, or other … stuff. Yeah, it’s handy to have.
• 24-bit/96kHz Cirrus Logic converters, +12 dBu outs
• Better LED indicators
• New Direct Thru function patches an input directly to the output even without a computer connected. (Hmmm… handy if your computer crashes, huh?)

You also get a copy of Traktor LE 2, the new Traktor 2 version of their lightweight DJ tool.

There are loads of great interfaces out there for production and recording; what might appeal about the Audio DJ interface line is its live features – even if you’re more on the live PA / live electronics side than DJing per se.

Mac and Windows support; I’ll be curious if the unofficial / unsupported Linux drivers remain compatible, as there – with far fewer good choices – NI’s stuff tends to be a great choise. (I use an Audio Kontrol 1 right now with my Ubuntu setup, and get some fantastic low-latency performance.)

Even the audio interfaces get their own video:

And a bonus video of Traktor Scratch:

Pricing:
TRAKTOR PRO 2 – $229 / 199 EUR
TRAKTOR SCRATCH PRO 2 – $669 / 599 EUR
TRAKTOR DUO 2 – $119 / 99 EUR
TRAKTOR SCRATCH DUO 2 – $399 / 349 EUR

S4 users get the new Traktor for free; other upgrades available. On the interfaces:

TRAKTOR AUDIO PRO 6 $279/249 EUR (that’s the bargain, in my opinion)
TRAKTOR AUDIO PRO 10 $449/399 EUR

Okay, now with your hype goggles off, let us know what you think.
Traktor Lineup Page

From comments (thanks, Charlie Cowper!), here’s a live performance by Japanese electronic artist Rei Harakami on nothing more than a 1990s-vintage multitrack digital workstation, Roland’s VS-880. (The VS-880 was introduced at NAMM in January 1996.) Harakami is a virtuoso on this machine, not simply playing back tracks but dancing through menus and settings and adding live mixing and effects. It’s a mix performance, yes – but it’s a seriously impressive one. And it shows how much this now-”vintage” machine can do, even with some simple parameters.

I’m almost afraid to mention the VS-880, lest we get an arbitrary direct translation of this device as a Roland iPad app. But perhaps the real point here is that choosing limitations, practicing with a tool over an extended period of time, and finding a working and performance method that matters to you is what really makes a difference. It’s not endless parades of iPad apps, not endless parades of VST plug-ins, not endless parades of hardware buys… the list goes on. (And to anyone who bugs you about whether you’ve seen the Gorillaz produce an album entirely with an iPad, I suggest you snarkily refer them back to the VS-880. Ironically, the VS faced the kinds of complaints about quality that mobile devices now face. Then, as now, one might refer instead to the quality of the musical input being recorded, not just the technical restrictions of the gear. Ahem.)

But I’m rambling. The video really says it all. And it’s a reminder that whatever you’re using, you’d better leave some time to practice. On that note…

(PS – how did we get on this topic in the first place? This workstation got our friend Ben Long started on a career path that would lead him to successful music and sound design work in gaming. There’s always a special place in your heart for that first real piece of gear…)

But wait, there’s more… Okay, I was asking for it, I suppose. We’ve already got a submission for an Akai MPC3000, as suggested by Hernan Gonzalez. Unlike most of the countless MPC jams you can find online, though, this one includes a projected screen. Bonus points to Atom Heart TM.

Ableton Live may have “Live” in the name, but just as with any musical equipment, getting it ready for a show often involves elaborate configuration to make reliable control a reality. Over its decade-long life, Live has been tweaked, adjusted, and cajoled into road-ready digital rigs. With Max for Live a kind of software developer kit for Live users, that has led some users to share their configurations. I’ve been watching Darren Cowley iterate his own Isotonik setup, a combination of hardware control, software template, and custom Max for Live devices, for some time now. That rig has finally matured to the point that he’s ready to share. Get ready for some hard-core Ableton geekery – though it might just be your next live Live setup.

Isotonik couples on-screen virtual devices with the physical controls of the APC40, but going beyond the default configuration from Akai and Ableton. Like a dashboard for your Live set, the software/hardware combo consolidates controls for cueing up and activating tracks, launching and looping scenes, slicing up beats, and adding audio effects. (Glitch, anyone?) Sure, you could do these things without Isotonik, but by bringing together rapid assignment of effects and navigation between tracks, the software becomes a kind of cheat – in a good way.

In fact, it’s compelling enough as a story that I think it’s worth reading even if you don’t use Live, the APC, or Max for Live.

A new release was just updated today with fewer objects and greater performance. And in addition to the template, the package includes some really fantastic effects, themselves worth the price of entry.

The price is a scant GBP £14.99, with an extraordinary amount of software included. Full details, documentation, and download link at Darren’s site:
http://thestudiosessions.co.uk/

For my own part, I’ve found myself getting a bit existential when thinking about this problem. Which makes more sense, musically: adding a layer atop something like Live to gain rapid access to features, or simply building from scratch (in environments like Max, Pd, SuperCollider, and the lot), in order to put together only those building blocks you need? The former is more complex and the latter potentially more reliable, though I always find that finding simpler solutions often involves more work, not less (especially if the words “from scratch” come into play). There’s no right answer to these questions, though; only an answer for you. So I think it’s well worth having a look at how Darren has approached this. You might just find the result is exactly what you need, and even if not, it provides some serious insight into the workflow of making Ableton Live, Max for Live, and the APC40 come together for real use.

Isontonik Template – Demonstration from Darren E Cowley on Vimeo.

I asked Darren to share his thoughts about the background of the project, how he put it together, and how he uses the result.

I managed to persuade [retailer] DV247 to let me buy their shop demo APC40 and by the end of the second I was frustrated with what I couldn’t do…. Having a DJ background I missed being able to tweak the bass’s across all the tracks at the same time but hardmapping these controls lost me the ability to use what the APC was designed for with it’s blue hand control of racks….

Pretty quickly I found myself using the excellent [MIDI software utility] bome’s midi translator to remap controls to solve this problem, one problem solved I found I enjoyed the challenge more than playing the music and so I set about creating a second mode of control based more on my playing style with CDJ’s. At the same time the nativeKONTROL series came out so I decided to share my template with anyone who already had a copy of Bomes….

With the announcement of Max4Live I started to get interested and when the invite to the beta landed on email I was made up, sadly after a month of testing I still didn’t have a stable version and so in release day I shelled out like many others for what appeared an unproven piece of software that had the promise of greatness…

I quickly set about creating a device that would give me control over the macros in the first rack giving back that DJ mixer style control, one of the first devices to be uploaded onto max4live.com I got some excellent feedback and made some new contacts who prompted me to keep developing. Many brick walls were hit and thanks to people like Mike Chenetz of max4live.info and Andrew Pask of Cycling I managed to get my head around some of the undocumented control_surfaces functions….

A two week break on a beach in Thailand with a pad and an ipod gave me the opportunity to sketch out how I saw the controls would work, deciding on the scene launch buttons as my scene choosers….

Pretty soon I had worked out how to make five different scenes of controls for the clip stop buttons, 8 others for the Activate/Cue Solo/Rec Arm Buttons…. Reset functionality for my macros and a slave version of the master device to reduce the overall size of the device.

I wanted a simple scene that enabled the standard functionality with a slight twist, the clip stop buttons should light up if a clip was playing in a track and I should be able to launch the highlighted clip, play it again or play the clip below whilst still having the red-box control….

Next came a scene that could give me some semblance of Traktor like looping control, and then I wanted to be able to activate a 2 bar loop on a clip even if it wasn’t in focus….

Inspired by the monome performance videos I spent ages trying to work out how to mimic the effect with the 8 clip stop buttons spending ages working with the playing_position function to not find a satisfactory result, then a fantastic how to video from Mike Chenetz led me to look into the chucker object and quickly I had a running metronome that could play back a slice of the last two bars of audio much like Clist’s beatlookup, that I could change the size of the slice with a twist of the Cue Volume knob…

The original Keymasher Tim Exile had just released the Finger and a guy called GBSR on the Controllerism forum had just posted a similar effect using an impressive routing system using Abletons sends, given Max4live control over the Live API I created the ability to punch audio to a return track and then send that return track to another chaining effects….

When playing I find I normally use the vanilla/standard scene but then jump into a different scene mid track to add some variation to what I’m playing, with the addition of the ability to control all 8 sends on each track with the track control, a smart knob per track that can handle 8 different effects and finally a Looper controlled from the APC40′s transport buttons

I’m probably at the point of Ableton not being able to cope much more, with each update from Ableton and Cycling 74 the whole setup has become more and more stable and I predict even bigger things when they’ve completed their “Quality” drive….

Thanks, Darren.

Trying this tool out? Got your own rig for Max for Live – or other software – that you’d like to share? I’d love to hear your feedback. You know where to find us.

edison – tonka truck from edison on Vimeo.

edison has become an underground sensation, a monome-playing virtuoso with soul. And now he’s just showing off. Sure, the monome lacks velocity sensitivity, but here, it remains an instrument, a 64-button sampler. It’s not so much the tool itself as the choice: edison has chosen to focus on this interface and build musical dexterity on its grid, to be a monome player. I caught the artist live at the monomeet, a get-together for the fans of the instrument, and can say he’s not just some online video wonder – if you can see him live, do it.

all one shot sounds…
no loops running….
64 buttons
64 noises….
shot on 2 HD cameras, 720p, 1 live take…..
with audio captured right to camera…..

this track is from my new album “all the information at hand”
available in january on kid without radio records…
myspace.com/kidwithoutradio

big thanks to e-level, adam patch, mr. mike landry, dalia burde, brandon loper, eric herron, kyle westbrook, mattie bills, nava and brian and kelli

It’s the perfect way to round out this set of monome news, because it’s really more about the music than the monome.

SevenUpLive 2.0 Preview from bar|none on Vimeo.

Planet monome is getting to be an exciting place. The biggest news: SevenUpLive, an extraordinary original application that melds the monome as controller with a set of Live functions, is getting a major rebuild and Max for Live support. Mapping the buttons of the monome to a set of Live sonic magic, SevenUp transforms the monome – and Live – into an interactive compositional instrument, with looping, sequencing, and melodic and rhythmic manipulation. With Max for Live integration, that will also allow people writing Max patches for Ableton to use their work as modules, and the simple grid controls of the monome as the interface.

For more on the existing 7up project:
SevenUpLive on the monome wiki
Google Code Project
SevenUp at makingthenoise

MakingTheNoise, the artist behind the project, is himself a terrific performer. I got to play with him last week at Boston’s Enormous Room, and he’s a wonderful guy and inventive artist. We’re both presenting in New York, so expect more on this soon (see the end of the story).

New monome kits, models: Okay, so you want the real thing, and you’re ready for a monome of your own. You have two ongoing opportunities from the source, in addition to the various emulators and DIY projects. Dogs not included (sadly).

First, monome production by Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain is getting rolling again. The grayscale sixty four has to be one of the prettiest of these I’ve seen yet. It’s US$500, but it’s also a domestically-produced, largely handmade beauty you may want to hang onto forever. There’s no preorder, but keep on the monome site in January if you want to buy one; I’m sure this will again sell out.

The DIY spirit is at the heart of the monome project, so to me an even better way to go is to make your own. There’s the Arduinome kit, which has readily-available parts and is brilliantly documented on the FlipMU site at Noisepages:
http://flipmu.com/work/arduinome/

But you can also get an even easier-to-build kit from the monome folks themselves. The students at NYU’s ITP program (a multi-disciplinary technology program in Manhattan) got a whole bunch of folks together, did a group buy on kits, and had more fun by putting them together with friends. Check out the growing Flickr pool for a sense of all the mayhem. Now, true, there are more would-be monome users in Manhattan than perhaps anywhere else on Earth, but the basic idea – make with friends – could absolutely be replicated.

If you’re interested, I can see if there is a way we can help coordinate such endeavors here on CDM and with Noisepages – shout out in comments.

Festival in NYC:

If you’d like to meet the creator of SevenUp, hear more about grids and OSC, and hear music and discussion from the creator of the monome, you’ll absolutely want to mark your calendars for December 12 in New York.

http://www.inoutfest.org/
Lineup Workshops

More details are coming; watch this space.

Got more monome news – or anything else? Do let us know.

ParamDrum TR Edition from Peter Dines on Vimeo.

Imagine a machine that lets you walk a thin line between control and chaos. You’ll be tweaking it, for sure – you’ll want to invest a sufficient amount of time shaping its sounds and adjusting its instruments to alter its flightpath. But once set in motion, it will give you variety and delicious insanity.

That’s the idea behind Peter Dines’ ParamDrum, a Reaktor drum machine with granular goodies inside providing sample manipulation and a set of clear sequenced controls for adjusting parameters. The “Param” bit refers to the parameters you’ll control – pitch + sample select + speed + size (of the sample) + smooth (granular) + swing. These parameters are unleashed against a sequence that you’ll likely never fully control – but that will never feel like it’s simply on autopilot, either. You can then load your samples into three players, which can be conceived as bass + clap/tom/snare + hat or something else entirely.

It may sound out of control, but “control” in the MIDI sense is essential. You can control step probability with MIDI velocity, tap in sequences with MIDI notes, and record playable automation with MIDI CCs from your hardware encoders. Pete has worked out a lovely template for Native Instruments’ Maschine controller, for instance.

ParamDrum, then, becomes a factory for variations. It allows you to iterate through plenty of results you don’t like to the one that’s perfect, for production or performance.

ParamDrum is a cheap US$12.50, though you do need a copy of Reaktor 5 (also included in Komplete) to use it. The upside is, it’s editable, and you get Pete’s immaculately well-organized patch macros, so it’s something you can modify easily or use as a model for your own patches.

Full details on Pete’s noisepages page, Modulations, which is also a new repository for his thoughts on sound design, Reaktor patching, SuperCollider learning, and other music technological geekery.

ParamDrum
modulations@noisepages

Planet ParamDrum

The other cool thing about ParamDrum in our throwaway technological world is that it’s already started to attract a little community of users.

Loopy C, master of strange sounds, has turned ParamDrum into his personal “hyperdrummer” for a track called Jah Frazzin Zooks, which he describes in a kind of experimental abstract poetry:

‘Frippish’, vari-tempo spectralisms meet Ornette Coleman-influenced electronica, hyperperformance machines jamming in the cafe at the end of the Universe (which for some reason look like fractal vaginas? (above)). Duo form.

The full track can be heard at his blog:
Jah Frazzin Zooks

Brettwiththedobro has a screencast (above) showing his own rig, with custom samples and the combination of Kore and Reaktor for control. (If you’re interested in the Kore and Reaktor combination, Pete’s previeous video tutorial is a great place to start.

This is a screen capture of Peter Dines Reaktor ensemble ParamDrum. I replaced the samples with my own kitchen/dobro sample map and hooked it into Kore to control various parameters. Fun, weird loops are a cinch.

Pete is also working with me on OpenSoundControl implementation in ParamDrum, which could enable cross-country ParamDrum collaboration, and via a project I’m building, visualization of parameters in Processing. Stay tuned.

edison…. new set up….! from edison on Vimeo.

The open source monome, ingeniously minimal as it is, is just an object. It’s the community that has formed around this hardware controller, a simple array of light-up buttons, that has made monome a cultural phenomenon, by pushing performance practice. Using grids of simple music events, they represent an ongoing transformation of DJing from the act of manipulating two records to composing with chunks of material.

On the Web, this has become something of a virtual slam between artists – more generous than competitive. One of my favorites to watch this year has been a gentleman by the name of Edison. He composes a strange poetry about his work in the Vimeo comments, so from here on out, I’ll let him speak for himself:

yo hoss!
so this is my new set up….
the monome is controlling ableton….
each button is a sound…..
the bottom right button is stop all noises….
introducing: the love…
a box of 16 arcade buttons…
made from an USB joystick….
it controls a looper and all effects…
on the far end is a native instruments audio kontrol 1…
(finally gotta audio interface!!!)
the big ass knob just sends the whole mix to an echo…
basically…
i have the melodic content run through a looper…
its is always recording…. so anything i play will repeat on a 2 bar loop
this is bypassable and erasable…..
all the drums are run through 4 effects….
all the melodic stuff is run though 8 effects… post looper…
and if all that aint nerdy enough for you….
then i aint trying hard enough….!
so to you and yours…… STING

From earlier this year, bottom.

64 buttons…..
63 sounds….
1 stop button……
no quantize……
no loops…….

More:
myspace.com/bearless
edisoninvention.tumblr.com

damn hoss from edison on Vimeo.

Defining and re-imagining performance with computers and technology is an ongoing theme of this site. In a special guest column, artist Primus Luta goes deeper into that question with some of our favorite artists to look at practical and philosophical dimensions of playing electronics.

Today, the fruits of electronic musical labor can be heard in every corner of culture, from academic to niche to popular. Still, there remains a perceptual disconnect between traditional and electronic music, especially in the context of performance. With traditional instruments, performance proficiency can be measured as a physical accomplishment. Electronic performance, on the other hand, is generally understood as music made by computers. That poses a question: if the music is being made by the machines, what exactly does the musician do? To find out, I talked with some of the best electronic performers on the road, and got a glimpse of what exactly is going on behind the screen.

Live Rig: Mark de Clive-Lowe

From the Studio to the Stage

Historically, performance long preceded recorded music. Early recordings weren’t what we think of today as studio productions, but rather recordings of performances. Electronic music is a bit of an anomaly. While some early electronic compositions were created for live performance, most electronic music today begins with a recording.

Translating the high production values heard on a record into a live performance isn’t an easy task. It isn’t always possible to recreate the same aesthetic on stage, but it is important to make the connection.

“We can multi-track sounds in the studio,” explains 8 Bit Weapon, “but live, you are stuck with all the limitations the vintage computers, consoles and sound chips have to offer. So we have to trim down parts or add parts that are recorded by recreating them live.”

For Richard Devine, assembling the live performance begins in the studio with “trying to translate all the programmed MIDI data and song transitions into Ableton [Live]. Ableton is running the pieces of my tracks. I have hundreds of audio clips running in session view.” Onstage, this allows Devine to “mix and match breaks, intros, or builds for different tracks, and even manipulate how those are played if I select them. I can really do anything with the arrangement of the original track. It is now total remixing and producing on the fly.”

What this means for electronic performance is the ability to condense what could be days of production work into a performance piece of a few minutes. “It’s really similar to my studio process, on fast-forward!” says Mark de Clive-Lowe.

“We create tracks in the studio in the normal fashion,” says J Tonal of The Flying Skulls. “They get broken up in to drum and bass parts, which get played live on the MPC, melody and lead parts which get played on the MS2000, and samples and other melody parts which get broken down into [Ableton] Live clips and played from [an M-Audio] Trigger Finger.” These pieces are then used live to create what they call deconstruxions.

As Mark de Clive-Lowe explains, “the idea of reinterpreting and translating the same pieces to different audiences with different bands and setups is nothing new.” In other words, rearranging electronic music for performance contexts does have its roots in a larger musical tradition.

For some, this has resulted in working to restore the historical role of performance as the heart of a recording. “The experience of participating in a musical happening is ephemeral and never translates to a record,” says Tim Exile. “I have developed a number of paths of improvisation which you could consider scores… these are adaptive positive feedback responses to features of the musical environments I’ve been in. These features can be very local, such as the slight manufacturing error in one of the buttons on the control surfaces causing it to be slightly harder to hit to be sure of pressing it, to the very wide, such as the proliferation of a new genre changing the way audiences categorize and respond to certain musical structures.”

This interplay of the studio and performance feeds the creative loop to take a new shape each time the artist goes on stage. “Most of my studio output is mellow,” says Daedelus. “Most performances are riotous or at least dance-able. So finding relationships and movement in my own output is quite fun, and leads to disaster in the best nights.”

Is It Live Or Memorex?

When it comes to electronic music performance, is the music is being performed or played? As technology like Ableton Live evolves, the line between the two may blur to the point of irrelevance. As Tim Exile explains, “the discussion lies more in the boundaries between performance of compositions and improvisation. Most of what I see being played live these days seems of the live arrangement variation, focusing mostly on compression or expansion of set arrangements in response to the environment. This is live and adaptive and of the same genus as the style of performance exercised in DJing.”

Whatever the prepared sources, this adaptive style is undeniably a performance. “I can’t always reproduce the same exact show twice now,” says Richard Devine. “There are now so many different variables that can change or be manipulated.”

“I employ a lot of pre-made loops,” says Daedlus. “In some regards the legos are in a large box and I try to make spaceships or castles accordingly.”

“There are a lot of our songs that have a prerecorded studio version,” says J Tonal. “That gets played for about two minutes, and then we switch it up into a deconstruction and play a live remixed version of the same song.” Over top of backing tracks from their songs, Seth and Michelle of 8 Bit Weapon “play the Commodore 64 and 128 live like pianos, and use the Apple IIc as a mono synth in the same fashion. The Game Boy can do very basic live sounds and sequences.”

The Nucleus

At the center of any musical performance is the instrument. For electronic music, that instrument is the live rig. That rig can be a single laptop or an intricate hybrid of hardware and software; the possible configurations are limitless. Combining controllers, sound sources, mixing, and effects determines the breadth of available sound. The shape the rig takes becomes the defining point for the artist.

No matter how large, most rigs contain a center – a nucleus from which the soundscape is derived. For Daedelus that nucleus is the monome. “My preoccupation is with the Monome,” he explains, “especially MLR and added goodies tailored for use. I find it the most freeing from linear shackles, figuartive handcuffs, and my own preconceptions. It is improvisatory in the same way jamming in a jazz ensamble is, but with samples.”

Even if your rig is multi-faceted, the improvisational aspect is essential. As Richard Devine explains, his hybrid rig provides “maximum flexibility to change anything at any point in my show.” At the center is a MacBook Pro running Ableton Live 8 which syncs his three primary controllers. “The Monome is dedicated to doing random FM synth triggering with Max, and the MonoMachine is doing lots of synth and baselines, while the Machine Drum handles the huge analogue kick drums, and skeletal backbone percussion.”

Equally complex is the hybrid rig of 8 Bit Weapon. There’s still a laptop, but along with it they have “a Commodore 64 computer, a Commodore 128 computer, a Game Boy, a Apple IIc computer, Elektron Sid Station [containing a C64 sound chip], Nintendo Entertainment System, KORG microKORG vocoder, and a 12-channel mixer.”

While a laptop does all of the number crunching for Tim Exile, the true center of his rig is his two Behringer BCR2000′s and one BCF2000. “The 2-way control is perfectly implemented, and there are hacks around that allow you to use every single button on the surface. I’ve made my own context-sensitive control for layer switching in Reaktor. Pretty much all the state info I need is right there on the controllers.”

Mark de Clive-Lowe’s rig may look like that of a keyboardist with a Rhodes, Clavinet, and other synths. But what he calls “the heart of the show” is the MPC3000 he uses to program beats live. “The tactile interface means i can really get into playing the drum machine like an instrument.”

For The Flying Skulls, each performer takes different instrumental roles. Bringing those instruments together is the Rane Empath. “It operates like a master mixing console for several elements of the show: Snareface on the MPC, Jerome on the MS2000, and a channel from Live running on J Tonal’s laptop.” Using the Empath’s Flex-FX, they “get real-time access to over 100 effects that can be applied to any or all of the channels with touch-sensitive parameter control.”

Audience: Engaged

There is always the need to engage the audience. “This is crucial,” says Richard Devine. “You have to somehow connect with them. I usually try to play some songs that people know, and of course try to play out lots of new material that hasn’t been heard. I like to program large builds and breaks to take the audience on a roller coaster ride, if you will.”

Leading the audience through the performance is no easy task with all the variables in a complex rig, but getting the audience to link the performance to what they are hearing aurally is its own reward.

“Movement is as important as sound in this respect,” says Tim Exile. “I’ve noticed that audiences respond well when they make connections between movements and sounds which they’ve never made before. So if they can see you directly controlling a sound structure which they’d only heard devoid from its kinetic correlate before (a lot of electronic sounds) then they will have a transformative experience.”

“They are seeing a full studio production created at break-neck speed live on stage in front of them,” says Mark de Cliv-Lowe. “They go on a journey via the music – the rhythm, the harmony and the melody.”

Artists can adapt the journey by feeding off the audience. “They are the ocean currents,” says Daedelus muses. “Fighting directly against [them] is useless. I mean, you can tack the ship against the prevailing winds, but you don’t get very far. I like having a direction, but watching and listening and being willing to go elsewhere.”

This doesn’t eliminate the value of more traditional ways of audience engagement. “Definitely always have a mic to talk to yer crowd,” advises J Tonal. “We like to make sure the audience is on the same page as us,” 8 Bit Weapon shares. “We check in from time to time between songs using fun banter.” There is always room in any musical performance for fun banter, but Daedelus warns, “never let audience members try to speak to you in drug-addled states during performance. It is a careless whisper, no Wham reference.”

There Will Be FAIL

With all of the amazing things we’ve been able to do with technology, we’ve yet to perfect the anti-fail science. If only repairing a crashed hard drive were as simple as changing a guitar string.

“I’ve had MPC’s blow up and melt down right before and during gigs,” recalls Mark de Clive-Lowe. “I have played many shows,” says Richard Devine, “where my computer had crashed right before I was to play or I had some hardware sync problems.”

“We have sent the Sidstation back to Sweden for repairs 2 or 3 times,” 8 Bit Weapon recalls. “A drunk club patron tore it right off the stage and it slammed on the floor.”

Managing these inevitable situations is as much a part of the performance as anything else. “The biggest skill for a live performer,” Mark de Clive-Lowe says, “is to be able to take a mistake and flip it so it was never a mistake.” “When you have only a short amount of time to play — when something goes wrong, you have to have a back up plan, which may be having another computer ready to go on standby or another piece of hardware that you can use to play,” says Richard Devine. “There is nothing worse then flying around the world to play a show and running into technical problems.”

But perhaps the absolute worst scenario is, as Tim Exile says, “not being in the right mood. There’s very little you can do about that. There are no other mistakes.”

Primus Luta is a musician, technologist and a writer. When not working to finish his Heads Project, he’s trying to convince himself he’s got it in him to write that book he always wanted to write.

Primus Luta’s blog on noisepages, featuring computer music performance techniques, Plogue Bidule tips, and a lot more:

http://plpheads.noisepages.com/

See the companion video gallery for this story, featuring live performances from the artists interviewed. [about to be posted]

Daedelus

Richard Devine

Tim Exile

8 Bit Weapon

With the fabulous ComputeHer on visuals, using her Apple II.

Mark de Clive-Lowe