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

The Flying Skulls

Not actually a video that does this crew justice, but you get the idea…

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/07/21/video-gallery-live-acts-live-electronic-performance-done-right/feed/ 69 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/10/01/idm-operating-system-proems-pc-fruity-loops-tablet-controller-setup/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/10/01/idm-operating-system-proems-pc-fruity-loops-tablet-controller-setup/#comments Mon, 01 Oct 2007 17:13:32 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/10/01/idm-operating-system-proems-pc-fruity-loops-tablet-controller-setup/

Hardware is wonderful, but make no mistake about it: many musicians have put the same care and musical love into their software setup as once was limited to tangled guitar pedal rigs. We’ve been watching as intricate computer music studios appear in the CDM Flickr pool.

proem, the gifted electronic musician from Austin, Texas (see Wikipedia, proem’s own site) who regular shares haiku-like reflections in CDM comments, is the latest to post his setup:

• Dual Dell e207 LCD displays
• Windows PC
• FL Studio (aka Fruity Loops), with a custom dashboard for controlling all the hardware and a modded install
• Native Instruments Komplete
• Evolution MK249-c keyboard (Evolution was a UK-based keyboard maker later absorbed by M-Audio)
• M-Audio Trigger Finger
• Wacom Intuos3 6×8 (just picked up the same tablet myself and adore it — mouse, begone!)
• The now-discontinued (sadly) Fingerworks iGesture multi-touch controller. Apple iGuesture any time soon, perhaps? (I’ve heard rumors from a couple of sources that they bought the patents.)
• The not-discontinued Shuttle XPress
• Tablet2MIDI, which translates Wacom graphics tablets to MIDI data for use in performance

proem: midi control over load. this does not include the setups for the p5 glove or my mk-249c keyboard controller. i should probably aslo note that tablet2midi is still in beta and i have to set it up everytime i want to use it :(
check the 3200×1200 version for good detail.

Whereas hardware fetishists brag about heavy, costly gear collections, the software setup has more to do with clever configuration and control. (Hey, I’m not saying I don’t drool over, say, some of the live rigs we’ve diagrammed in Keyboard Magazine, but the fact that you can afford and lift a great PC setup is encouraging.)

proem writes: flstudio dashboard internal controllers which are all mapped directly to the controller hardware [mk249c, maudio trigger finger and tablet2midi]

Custom performance setups are definitely where it’s at. FL Studio has Dashboards, Reason has the Combinator, Logic Studio 8 has the new OnStage, Live has Racks, Reaktor has — well, completely custom interfaces, Max 5 promises new performance interfaces, and Native Instruments has Kore. (Just to name a few; SONAR, Cubase, and DP all have custom dashboards with branding I’m presently forgetting.) The basic idea: build a virtual front-panel so you can get right to music making. I personally think it’s interesting all these applications have moved in this direction, with different implementations / design principles. I hope they all continue to go further.

The Tablet2MIDI part is especially interesting. Tablets have unusually high resolution and sensitivity, making them very expressive controllers once you’ve practiced using them. Also on Windows: WMIDI. If you’re on the Mac instead of Windows, you have an excellent (and slightly more polished/stable) alternative, µ midi controller from Music Unfolding. And naturally, on any OS, you can custom-program or patch a solution with Max, Pd, and so on. But this, combined with all the X/Y control, makes for a beautiful set of tools for controlling sound. I’d love to see it in action, proem!

I’ve finally gotten a better tablet myself, a shiny, new, 6×8 Intuos from Wacom. That’s a good thing, because the cheap 4×5 Wacom I had previously first made me feel like I had somehow disconnected my hand from my brain (a combination of the smaller area, lower resolution, and challenge of using tablets in general), then promptly stopped working altogether. I’ll be trying out the Wacom on Mac, Windows, and Ubuntu Linux, and working on hooking it up to Java and Processing, so stay tuned.

Previously:

Flickr Screen Grabs: Infinite Video Theremin, Odd, Free Musical Interfaces

Soft Flickr Finds: Obscenely Complex Bass Effects on a Single Channel

Use Graphics Tablets for Music: New and Updated Software, Free Tablet Theremin

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/10/01/idm-operating-system-proems-pc-fruity-loops-tablet-controller-setup/feed/ 16 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/05/23/maker-faire-musical-performance-rigs-with-theremins-hacks-and-homemade-gear/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/05/23/maker-faire-musical-performance-rigs-with-theremins-hacks-and-homemade-gear/#comments Wed, 23 May 2007 17:08:13 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/05/23/maker-faire-musical-performance-rigs-with-theremins-hacks-and-homemade-gear/ ]]>

Barney the Theremin Wizard’s home-built Theremin, as an electrical engineer, from a vintage training film, looks on.

DIY music can be as much about attitude as specific gear. We had performances Friday and Saturday night during the Maker Faire, and while the performances covered quite a gamut, a common theme was finding new ways of playing old instruments, or to make new instruments out of existing stuff. That’s something not unique to anyone genre — electronic music included — so perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising at all.

Friday night was a Maker Faire “edition” of the regular Robotspeak Sessions electronic music night. The venue is an incredibly cool little electronic music store on lower Haight. Imagine a dream store filled with both vintage gear and the newest stuff, and you’ve got Robotspeak; it’s unreal. Saturday night was the Maker Faire “Chips + Music + Fish after party”, which I planned with the help of Make Magazine’s Paul Spinrad. It turned out to be just as insane as I thought trying to run an event in the middle of Maker Faire, but we had some terrific artists. (And yes, the fish and chips turned out to be the greasiest thing I’ve ever eaten, but tasty!) The venue was a wonderfully quirky place called Edinburgh Castle, and the best part of the evening for me was that we ran into one of the members of a great band called Echodrone that happened to have a projector. He was playing vintage training films on electricity, which we got to watch run behind Barney’s massive home-built Theremin. (See above.)

I don’t believe music should be about gear (surprising as that may be given the site I run), but I do believe you can tell a lot just by looking at the tools musicians choose. Here’s an overview of the artists we encountered.

Barney’s stuff is truly a celebration of electricity itself.

Barney the Theremin Wizard was a fabulously far-out Theremin player, sculpting ear-splitting soundscapes from home-built Theremins and other gear. (His friend leaned over to me and noted that, even though the sometimes-violent sound worlds sound improvised, each is carefully composed in Barney’s musical mind.) Barney’s rig was probably the closest to the Make ethos, composed almost entirely of home-built gear — a giant Theremin case, plus enough mysterious effects, amps, and speakers to fill my rented Toyota Corolla. Think hard-metal/experimental Theremin rather than classical, but still gorgeous stuff. Check out his MySpace page, with great titles like “When Nerds Collide.”

Pineresin at Edinburgh Castle, armed with as much acoustic soundmaking gear as electronic.

Pineresin is a new trio performing experimental ambient textures, or, as they described it Friday night, music produced by recording analog sounds (drum kit, etc.) and “f***ing it up.” They’ve got a sharp ear for timbre, and though the group just formed, by Saturday they were already really nailing a unique sound. And anything that can bring in bowed percussion always makes me happy. Mmmm … bowed percussion. (I’ve been messing with modeling that in physical-modeling software, having composed for instrumentalists in the past, but that’s another story …)

Drew shares their rig:

drew – i run a 12 channel mackie onyx mixer with efx loops going out to a moog analog delay pedal, a dl-4 delay, and a total sonic annihilation pedal.

i mix jesse’s four live drum mics, carson’s stereo input, my computer input (G4 laptop running ableton live, and NI B4II), and the delay returns. stereo output goes to the house.

carson – takes his own mic feed from the drums, plays prepared dulcimer, russian folk harp, traveler guitar and uses lafayette echoverb, univox tape echo, electro harmonix big muff, G4 laptop running ableton live for resampling and throughput

jesse – marimba, bowed vibraphone, cup gongs, waterphone. kick and tom, snare, cymbal

Yep, their MySpace page says “ambient / experimental / other.” I’m not a big one for labels, but that actually gets you in the ballpark.

And who says “electronic music” can’t involve marimba?

Marimba + electronics, as Pineresin plays Robotspeak. Photo by Donald Bell (aka Chachi Jones), via Flickr.

Chachi Jones, running simultaneous live visuals in Quartz Composer with a sprawling electronic music rig, at Robotspeak.

Chachi Jones is a versatile musician with lots of smart beats at his command, and he’s always capable of delivering a real live, Live set. Ableton Live is a favorite tool for DIYers, with good reason, I think. It can sit in the center of a complex setup of DIY hardware and/or software and synths and keep the performance going. Chachi Jones is a real virtuoso with Live, and true to form did a fully Make-friendly set that brought in all sorts of wild sounds (hello, egg whisk on heat sink!) and simultaneous live visuals. He describes his rig:

TR 606, TB 303, portable turntable — all run directly into my mixer with a little reverb on the sends
Macbook running Ableton Live and Quartz composer (patch was a modified version of a patch called Audioskop, I didn’t make the original, but I forget who did)
Presonus Firebox
Old Mac G4 heatsink with contact mic running into a channel in Ableton Live with Resonator effect which was controlled by a series of dummy clips with follow actions
Circuit-bent Texas Instruments Touch & Tell running into a channel in Live with lots of effects and a series of Beat Repeats used as loopers and auto choppers.

Check out Chachi’s full-blown, serious site for more on his work. I’m really loving the latest CD; been playing it a bit.

Some of Chachi’s toys.

I unfortunately only caught the first few minutes of Dedalus’ set, because I had to run to get my car out of garage before it closed at midnight. (Yeah, I’m not so hot at this whole “car” thing, I’m afraid. Maybe I should start traveling with a bike.) His stuff was absolutely brilliant, though, full of colliding rhythms and fantastic sounds, so I’ll have to go catch more. And he’s got this great, Monome-like wooden button box, as photographed by Chachi, which is inscribed “designed by tehn.” Any enclosure with prominent masking tape is a good thing. I expect we’ll see more stuff like this once the Monome kit comes out; more on that soon.

(tehn, FYI, = Brian Crabtree, = designer of the Monome.)

Box o’ buttons; photo by Chachi Jones at Robotspeak.

Starpause is a terrific tracker/game musician, powered by a Game Park (Linux-OS) mobile game system running LittleGPTracker, also known as “Piggy Tracker.” He really got the crowd going — in contrast to the usually introverted electronic musician or gaming player, he dropped his normally-quiet facade and danced around with his player, finishing his set on the floor. He said he was disappointed no one danced, but after Maker Faire some of us could barely stand — it was still a hit. Check out his official site for details on his net radio label(s) and plenty of downloadable MP3s.

Me. I don’t always hunch like that. But I had a really great time playing. Photo by Chachi Jones.

Okay, I’ll talk my rig, too, since people have been asking. My core, don’t-leave-home-without-it setup has become a MacBook running Ableton Live, a Novation ReMOTE SL keyboard (which is both fun to play as a keyboard and controls Live via Automap), and a Focusrite Saffire audio interface. They’ve just been really solid, so from there I can add other toys. In this case, that involved simultaneously running Resolume for visuals on my Toshiba laptop. But then I can bring in other possibilities, and I’m particularly interested in integrating custom Flash programming with Resolume and Max/MSP stuff with Live. I dialed back on this set, though, just because I felt like having a more quiet evening.

The photo to me is very funny, because I had felt in a couple of recent gigs like I was getting emotionally disconnected from my keyboard, so I put it on my lap, which makes me look like a shy boy hiding in a corner in the photos! I’m still a pianist at heart, so whatever alternative interfaces I may espouse, if I don’t feel that connection as a musician, it doesn’t work for me. But yes, that is me playing the Novation using a MagLite as a drum stick, filming the light using a webcam. Didn’t set out to that, but enjoyed it.

I also got to do some stuff with live camera into Resolume, intentionally abstracting the visuals. Resolume has likewise been truly rock-solid, which means it’s definitely staying in my rig (even if I sometimes swap to Mac and VDMX5). More on that over on Motion soon.

I suppose there wasn’t a “Make” component to my set, per se, but it’s also important to me personally to limit some of the tools at my disposal so I can focus on the performance. It’ll be a completely different set tonight here in New York.

Another photo by Chachi. (Didn’t really have a hand free at this point!)

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. And I’m glad we did the after-hours element, as well; I hope we’ll get to do more Make-themed events in future like this! We won’t be limited to NYC and Bay Area, either; stay tuned.

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/05/23/maker-faire-musical-performance-rigs-with-theremins-hacks-and-homemade-gear/feed/ 7 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/06/29/build-a-gigging-small-form-factor-pc-for-music-how-to-and-why/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/06/29/build-a-gigging-small-form-factor-pc-for-music-how-to-and-why/#comments Thu, 29 Jun 2006 16:54:31 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2006/06/29/build-a-gigging-small-form-factor-pc-for-music-how-to-and-why/

If I can do it, you can do it. Over on the just-launched Create Digital Motion, I describe assembling a custom PC from a barebones Shuttle case, with photos of each step. To keep that from getting boring, I dropped it all into the fantastic plasq app Comic Life to make it into a how-to comic:

Building a Portable SFF PC for Live Visuals, Music Gigs: Part 1, Assembly in Comic Book Form

As you’ll see, there’s not much to it. Shuttle already includes the motherboard and cables; it’s BYO processor, storage, and graphics. But those options alone can give you a lot of flexibility you don’t get from pre-built systems.

We’ve talked a lot about options for gigging with computers on this site. Laptops remain the most portable alternative by far, of course, and they’ve gotten very powerful. As I noted for Macworld, the MacBook Pro can keep pace with even my dual-2.5GHz G5. So why have I suddenly shifted gears and built a desktop form factor PC? One major reason is the ability to have an upgradeable video card for gigs, which is why the story is on CDMotion rather than here. Sure, Apple will ship a competent ATI Radeon Mobility X1600, but you have to splurge on the Pro rather than the MacBook, there’s only one card with one output, and it’s not upgradeable.

Video aside, there are plenty of reasons mainstream audio users might consider a desktop form factor machine for music production:

1. Price and upgradeability: Desktop machines still cost less at time of purchase, and (on the PC) even less over time thanks to upgradeable components.


2. PCI expansion: Just as I wanted PCI slots for my video work, you might want to be able to move PCI-based audio cards and DSP cards out of your studio. There are some options, like the TC Electronic PowerCore’s mobile FireWire DSP hardware, which totes nicely with your laptop. But if you’ve invested in PCI cards, you might like a lightweight desktop that goes where you go.


3. Storage: 7200 rpm drives are a must for multitrack recording, and RAID arrays give you the option to either have redundant storage (RAID 1 or “mirrored”, so that if one drive fails, the other retains your data), or faster performance (RAID 0 aka “striped”). It’s possible to custom-configure laptops with 7200 rpm drives or even fast 5400 rpm drives, and you can now buy external RAID arrays or cheap backup drives. But PCs make these options much cheaper. (Note that my Shuttle PC features a more-common “software” RAID, which uses a combination of a hardware controller and special software drivers to run the RAID; it’s not quite as reliable or fast as a true dedicated hardware RAID, but it also saves a lot of money and doesn’t require an extra PCI-x slot. And it works, with some caveats I’ll talk about later …)

I still expect laptops will be the best option for most users, but small desktops remain an option worth considering, especially if you’re not allergic to Linux and Windows or if you already have a decent laptop and want a second machine.

Now, what about small form factor (SFF) PCs versus rack-rig PCs and Macs, as covered previously? For me, it ultimately came down to a question of just how portable this rig was going to be. I need to be able to get on planes and trains with my setup, and a full rack is just way too much for a shrimpy guy with no car to lug. There’s also not much need for me to put stuff in a rack. Most of what I use runs in software, and keyboards are too long to fit. The Shuttles are really, really small — more on that, and how this setup fits in Shuttle’s custom carry-on luggage, coming soon.

In the meantime, enjoy the assembly comic, and if you’ve never considered building a custom PC before, do let me know your impressions.

Jan Namecek has a setup that looks quite similar to Fran’s. He writes:

Just answering your call and showing my (temporary) crib. I’ve been recently given keys to a flat so I’ve moved some of my basic stuff there so I can prepare my live set for this year’s Exit festival in Novi Sad (see www.exitfest.org).

This is pretty challenging ’cause I use some (big) hardware synthesizers so it’s pretty refreshing to let it all and go software (at least for a while). My regular gear includes Hartmann Neuron, Access Virus TI Polar, Nord Lead 3, Nord Electro, Dual 2.7 G5, etc… Full list at my website :-)

As you can see, it’s only a MacBook Pro and some basic MIDI controlling (not shown is the Evolution two octave MIDI thing and a LaCie hard drive). Also, it’s much messier than the previous setup you posted (you can’t have all, right). Software-wise, there’s Ableton Live 5.2, Logic Pro 7.2 and a few software instruments (sadly, not much of my stuff is Universal).

I’ve been using a similar setup (well, plus the keyboards) to perform live recently. The whole concert should be released (along with 5.1 mix of it and my previous albums) on a multimedia DVD end of this year. Some pics from the concert are here:
http://www.jannemecek.net/photo/01-dob20060414/

Currently, stuff worth noting is my minimal techno remix of Marko Nastic’s track “U are the reason” out digitally and my space/dark ambient/whatever album “Through the planetary Void” also available digitally (also on iTunes).

More info, full kit list and some music available at www.jannemecek.net

Jan isn’t alone. Marco Raaphorst, aka Melodiefabriek, has a well-reasoned rant about focusing on music making rather than assuming two years in a studio will be a smart investment. Note the shot of his own minimal laptop studio setup. Marco is the creator of the awesome Maelstrom graintable instrument in Reason and plenty of Reason patches, so if anyone can give you good reasons to focus on sounds from your laptop, this is the guy. Now, it seems a little unfair to blame studios for the fact that pop music has all the life violently compressed out of it, but I’m all for arguing that music can be made anywhere. (There is something magical about big studios, too, which is why you shouldn’t compress your music so much that it sounds like crap.)

But back to pissing contests . . . here, I’ve been challenged to just such a contest, and I’m doing nothing but procrastinate. Tom from Music thing has posted his office, with a healthy set of gear set up. Actually, it isn’t quite maximalist; it looks like just the right amount of gear to get some work done, just what I’d expect from Tom. Meanwhile, Chris from Analog Industries just wants to show us expensive things on racks we can’t afford.

So, I assure you, I will post my studio soon. I’m cleaning and reconfiguring now, and unfortunately caught what’s starting to feel like bronchitis. (I’m hoping the two were coincidental.) Like everything I do, it’ll be late, but I’ll get it done.

Got any more studios, minimalist or maximalist, to show?

Fran sends the details, for your enjoyment:

1. Studio rig: Live 5 + Logic Pro on an iBook 1.33 / 1GB RAM (Yamaha HS50M monitors not pictured)
2. Desk: Available from Target/Amazon for $149: Manhattan Oak Veneer Desk (on sale at brick & mortar, but beware: assembly is more difficult than programming a DX7 via the LCD alone)
3. Accessories: LaCie FA Porsche drives (250GB each) in corner, Blue Mic Snowball, iPod, and Pink Hello Kitty CD case. Ed: No link to the Hello Kitty case, so for that you’re on your own!
4. Single Made Here: Tracking Treasure Down remix (Francis Preve Mix) hit #1 on Billboard Club charts yesterday (June 22, 2006)
5. Next Single on its Way: Fran: “Just used this exact rig it to remix Gabriel & Dresden’s NEXT single.”

6. Next Book: “Also the laptop used to write my next book The Remixer’s Bible

Fran has also done a lot of development, including developing the sound content and presets for Live 5 and Operator, Polysix presets for KorgUser.net, and other stuff he doesn’t want me to tell you about. (Also confidential: the super-secret location of his condo hideaway. And I practically publish my address.)

Okay, I’ll just join in this shameless promotion of Fran. Here’s his album:

Tracking Treasure Down

(Yeah, I know I was just knocking Apple DRM. So I’ll burn and re-rip. Actually, that’s an interesting question … I can compare my AAC recompressed version to the original, and compare that to Fran’s master. Will be anxious to see what frequency content gets lost / artifacts introduced in the process.)

And his upcoming book:

The Remixer’s Guide

Now, I’m happy to do that for other readers, too, in exchange for taking your crib public. So send in your studios, if you like!

Now, just to further demonstrate the advantage of tuck-away keyboard drawers (hmmm, I may need to get one of these attachments for my desk, which is from, cough, Pottery Barn):

In the photo:

The diagonal headless guitar is an old-school Traveler headless guitar minus
the knee rest.

The purple box is a Korg Pandora with tuner, multiple effects, crummy
sampler/looper and drum tracks. I have a modified jazz guitar dialled-in for
most of my practice and I use the drum tracks for my metronome when I’m not
playing with recordings.

The headphones are Radio Shack folding headphones.

The small black box is a 1 GB Creative Nano which holds all the repertory that
I’m currently practicing plus an audiobook.

Missing from photo:

Shubb capo (which fits on the head of the headless guitar)

iRiver ifp-799T which I keep with my gigging guitar for recording gigs for
future practice. Theoretically, I should be able to hookup a mic to the Nano
but I haven’t bothered with that yet.

~50 double-sided xerox pages of practice tunes.

The nylon carry case which is about the length of a pool cue case but a bit
fatter.

There you have it. Wherever I go, it goes. Life is too short not to play music.

Got a portable guitar/bass rig (or otherwise) you’re proud of? Let me know.

We’ve covered rack rigs for rack-mounting PCs, Power Macs, and even Mac minis for the stage for a while. Now, I’m going to go an extra step, and actually build a machine step-by-step here on CDM. But instead of making a rack-mountable machine, I wanted something even more portable. I want a desktop-class PC I can carry around on a subway. And, no, a laptop ain’t gonna cut it, because I want the whole system to be upgradeable (particularly the video card, for running high-quality 3D visuals simultaneously with sound).

The basis for this machine is already on its way, Shuttle’s SN26P barebone. It’s friendly to my 3D requirements down the road, with two PCI Express x16 slots and SLI. (For those who have no idea what I just said, suffice to say this is an unusually high-end graphics configuration to see in a small form factor PC.) Integrated RAID, FireWire, USB 2.0, and digital audio all keep up with the audio side. But the whole package fits in a backpack (which Shuttle also makes). The one thing you lose with a laptop, of course, is an integrated display. Carrying around cheap LCDs is a no-no, because they aren’t generally built to move, but fortunately Shuttle has that base covered, too. If I do this successfully, the result should be a dual-boot Linux/Windows audio/visual “performance fragbox.” After calling Shuttle, I learned plenty have gone this route already, including a recent Native Instruments tour for Traktor. (They used the SN25, minus the beefed-up graphics capabilities, which makes sense for an audio software developer.)

I’m spec’ing out what goes inside, so if you have any requests of gear you’d like to see in the CDM Mobile Dream Machine, hit comments.

Oh, and don’t worry — my Macs aren’t going anywhere. (Actually, that was the initial problem. Yes, I’m looking at you, Power Mac G5.)

As always, stay tuned . . . and watch for special YouTube videos of me struggling like an idiot with a screwdriver. Okay, maybe not.

You’d have to be a true Luddite to argue that word processors are bad for writing. Blogs, perhaps, sometimes inspire poor writing (ahem), but it’s more difficult to blame technology. The original argument that word processors would end the process of drafting and revision is absurd to anyone who’s spent long hours slaving over text in Microsoft Word. Our attitudes have changed as we’ve grown accustomed to the technology.

When it comes to music notation, though, there’s still an uncomfortable relationship between composers and computer scoring. That’s understandable: producing a score is a lot more involved than typing words, and even with modern software filled with keyboard shortcuts, scoring music is slow in any medium. But, even as some traditionalist composition teachers preach against the “evils” of computer notation (you know who you are), I think computers are becoming part of an elaborate digital creation process, even for composers working on entirely acoustic scores. Leaving out the tried-and-true methods of drinking tea/coffee, stopping for sandwich breaks, and outright procrastination, here are the tools I consider essential to my studio:

1. Native Instruments Akoustik Piano: I miss the days of huddling over my college’s Steinway Ds, especially when I caught them just after tuning. Akoustik Piano has become an addiction: in the confines of a Manhattan apartment, you can transform a lowly weighted keyboard into a piano, then place it in a virtual rehearsal studio or hall, tweaking the sound exactly to your liking. (You can even put the lid up or down.) It’s impossible not to relax and start to let ideas flow with a software instrument that sounds this good. The resonance of the instrument and the convolution reverb make the sounds come alive. And yes, you can even switch to quarter-tone mode if you decide to go microtonal. I’ve wedged my PC laptop with a copy of Akoustik Piano next to my Alesis QS8 specifically for the purpose of writing. Akoustik Piano is also gifted with a built-in recorder so you can save improvised ideas.
2. Sibelius 4: Sibelius is the one notation program that is able to seamlessly hide its capabilities so you can focus on the score. Visually, you can tuck menus and toolbars away, hiding everything on Windows’ full-screen mode and most on-screen elements on the Mac. That leaves just your notation on screen, and the on-screen view in Sibelius easily beats any competing program. Sibelius’ keyboard shortcuts are also well-implemented and easy to learn (Finale adopted much of the same layout in recent version), so you can touch-type your music. Finale is capable, yes, but Sibelius is consistently elegant where Finale is not, and I’ve even found ways of producing unusual notation by pushing the envelope of Sibelius’ engraving rules and staff and notehead types. (I know a lot of you are die-hard Finale users, but I have to admit it’s Sibelius that gets booted off my hard drive more than Finale.)
3. GarageBand: On the Mac, I enjoy GarageBand’s integrated notation features (as of version 3) as a quick sketchpad for ideas played on the piano. I’m looking for something that feels as immediate on PC, but I haven’t found it. Transcribing MIDI is easier than working with a tape recorder, even with the metronome switched off. That said, I talk to many people who keep a . . .
4. Cell Phone Audio Recorder: It’s the modern equivalent of a dictaphone. I go as fancy as using my Windows Mobile-powered smartphone to transfer WAVs of ideas to my computer. Lacking that, though, there’s always voicemail; I just interviewed a band (People in Planes) whose drummer records riffs on the road by leaving himself messages. And tape recorders still work nicely.
5. Paper: If you want to waste time, get in a discussion about whether composing onto paper or into a computer is better. It’s silly, because there’s a simple solution: keep a computer by your paper, and keep paper by your computer. When you start to suck time arranging notes on paper, you can switch to the computer. When the computer starts to make your head hurt (or crashes, or your eyes start blurring), you’ve got the paper. And really, will we ever want to give up entirely on our chicken scratch? Aside from the ability to print out blank manuscript paper from notation software (which finally lets you create staves that are exactly the size you want and spaced out so you can scrawl extra ideas between), there’s always the new Moleskine music notebook.

Much of this holds true whether you’re a Juilliard-trained orchestral composer or just a songwriter. But tell us: what’s in your studio? Hit comments to let us know, and remember we have a new online forum for discussing composing and music making.