In 1985, Thomas Dolby, Herbie Hancock, Howard Jones, and Stevie Wonder met onstage in Los Angeles to perform a Synthesizer Medley. (See video, bottom.) Can vocalist/electronic music legend Jamie Lidell (and keyboadist Mr. Jimmy), experimental sound guru and producer Tim Exile, champion turntablist DJ Shiftee, and “finger drummer” virtuoso Jeremy Ellis pull off something that epic, backed by visuals from Berlin’s Pfadfinderei?

That’s what music tech vendor Native Instruments is hoping, as it debuts the “superband” Mostly Robot at SÓNAR in Barcelona in June. Now, when you hear something like this backing NI’s products, you might assume the whole thing is a publicity stunt – slash – product demo, but this is an actual performance and official SÓNAR event, not something relegated to a booth or showcase or something. So, while, yes, Maschine, Reaktor, Traktor, and FM8 all figure prominently, the quality of the music will have to fall or fly on the musical performance. And the roster of artists, for their part, are closely involved with these tools, sometimes even directly in development.

The big hook, apart from the artist lineup: the performance will be fully improvisatory. There’s no clock between instruments, no grid in advance. And the artists will be using unreleased material from their own work. The visuals are part of the presentation, too, as Pfadfinderei visualize note and controller data and audio content in projected accompaniment to the show.

We still don’t know exactly what this will sound like – well, apart from knowing something about each of these artists – but I was curious to get more background. I asked the team from Native Instruments that put together the performance to explain themselves. Beyond that, of course, the proof will be in the final performance; we’ll be watching.

CDM: What is the instrumentation for each of these artists?

NI: Jamie Lidell’s main instrument is his voice, which he will use to sing the lyrics but also use to create interesting sounds. On top of this, he will use Maschine to fire off samples and synth sounds.

DJ Shiftee is a turntablist using Traktor Scratch Pro with the new F1 controller, 2 turntables and a DJ mixer.

Jeremy Ellis is using Maschine to play all drum and percussion sounds live.

Mr. Jimmy is a keyboard wizard and the harmonic lynchpin who loves FM8 but will also use a lot of the other instruments and sounds from Komplete.

Tim Exile will have his hands on the controllers which entirely control his self-made Reaktor ensemble.

The visual artists Pfadfinderei will receive note and controller events created by each individual musician on stage to generate motion graphics in real time which then will be projected on the big screens on stage.

Here’s a look at Pfadfinderei’s visual work:

Okay, so Native Instruments is now putting together a superband — how, exactly, did that come about?

We had long been wanting to do something live on stage with the artists that we work closely together with. The video Jamie Lidell did with us for iMaschine last year triggered the idea to come up with more performances in alternative environments. In parallel, Tim Exile, DJ Shiftee and Jeremy Ellis performed an improvised jam session at our 10-year anniversary of the US office in January. So it was a logical progression to bring all those talents
together plus adding the keyboard master and harmonic lynchpin Mr. Jimmy and the visual artists Pfadfinderei.

For us, Sónar is the ideal environment to host this debut show. We actually had the “Native Lab“ at Sonar festival way back in 2001 so the idea of collaborating had long been in the air. At this point it all just made sense, and getting this opportunity to work with such great, creative individuals and being able to put them on a stage at one of the world’s finest electronic music festivals was a no-brainer.

Have these artists done anything like this before?

As mentioned, three of some played together once, but apart from that, no. Of course Mr Jimmy and Jamie Lidell know each other from going on tour together.

Can we see some of the work of Pfadfinderei elsewhere?

The visual show Pfadfinderei create for the Mostly Robot show will be unique. They will be based on a completely new approach using the note and controller events of the musicians to generate motion graphics in real time using Quartz Composer. But Pfadfinderei have of course already done other great shows: on their website you can see other some examples of their work for Moderat, Modeselektor or Paul Kalkbrenner.

Some of these artists have been involved in the development of this technology, too, yes, as well as playing it?

Yes, Tim Exile actually already developed some Reaktor ensembles and even released products with Native Instruments: The Mouth and The Finger are instruments that originated from his mind. On stage he will be using his
unique Reaktor setup. Also, Shiftee is always in close contact with Traktor developers. We always work as close as we can with all of the involved artists.

More information:
www.native-instruments.com/mostlyrobot

I just hope it winds up being like this:

Electronic musician, vocalist, and inventor Tim Exile is back; while the Google Doodle today of an interactive Les Paul inspired lots of people to invest some time fiddling and hacking, in Tim’s case, it inspired a whole song. And, to my knowledge, it’s the first time the homepage of Google got its own ode.

Bet the Googlers didn’t expect this response.

All of this serves as a serious reminder: sometimes simple and ubiquitous is good. It also shows the serious value of silliness. Here, here.

Previously: Les Paul Google Doodle, Animated – and Scripted with SuperCollider

Tim Exile, laptop virtuoso, vocalist, and Reaktor software creator, has apparently taken a liking to the recording features SoundCloud is touting. He’s got a novel idea: you record samples into SoundCloud, he takes your samples and incorporates them into his set. It takes someone like Tim to pull that off; it should be a good set. If you have a day job, this one will be a bit tricky – the interactive online show is at 7pm today, Thursday, GMT (aka CUT) time; that’s evening for all of Europe but 2pm New York and 11am in Los Angeles, etc.

Do let us know how it goes (thanks for the tip, “wantless”!):

I’ll be taking sounds that you record and share with me in realtime using Soundcloud’s new capture & share feature. Just capture your sound, whatever it is, and share it with exile@timexile.com and I’ll weave it into the track live. Watch the preview vid above to get a peak…

http://www.timexile.com/interactive/

I’m curious to hear thoughts about how this recording feature could work. Keep in mind, what SoundCloud is doing is just taking a recording from a browser (in Flash) or mobile app (currently iOS) and uploading the file; it’s not really a cloud-specific recording. That means the idea could be ported to other service, or other clients for use with SoundCloud. Could this be useful for your music? What else would you want to see such features do?

Previously: Social Recording: SoundCloud Adds iOS, Web Record Buttons, More Social Integration

Tim Exile is a mad, Reaktor-patching genius. What I love about his instruments is the emphasis on performance. THE FINGER put you at the helm of wild, keyboard-based effects. THE MOUTH continues the MIDI keyboard triggering, but focuses, as the name implies, on using your voice and microphone as the main input. See some of the effects in the goofy video below, but know this: a wide range of sonic mayhem is possible with this instrument.

I got to spend some time with Tim in Berlin early in the summer as he was still building The Mouth, and it was great to watch his process. The patching interface in tools like Reaktor encourages experimentation, mashing together sonic bits Frankenstein-style, and he was still discovering new sounds. In its final form, the tool does tonal and rhythmic processing of audio materials, with harmonization, separate “synth,” bass,” and “vocoder” sections, effects, matrices, editing, and performance controls. You can think of it as a way of playing a synth with a mic, as a vocoder, as a mouth-manipulated timbral generator – whatever you like.

I also admire that Tim is merging interactive musical objects and performance tools, that he can build a tool to use himself onstage that also works as a way of delivering his musical ideas to others or could be a serious tool for someone else.

Cost: US$79, and thanks to the new Reaktor platform, you don’t even need a copy of Reaktor to use it. You can run it in the full Reaktor 5.5, or you can run with the free player.

I’m playing more with The Mouth today, and hope to talk to Tim this week. Got some questions you’d like answered? Fire away.

The Mouth product page

Tim is also getting ready for a TED talk:
http://www.tedxaldeburgh.com/

Tim Exile, talented musician, Reaktor guru, and mad genius of interactive live performance, has started a video blog. It’s tough to describe what’s covered in the video, other than to say Tim is starting more or less an open house in his brain, which can only lead to good things. He talks live, music making, and his current plans, including a tasty-sounding open studio series in London. And through the whole thing, he has a Lite-Brite-style visualization he programmed in Reaktor, well beyond what I’ve ever been able to make Reaktor do.

It’s clearly more Tim talking directly to fans than a properly-formatted video blog, but it is starting a conversation, meaning if there’s something you’d like to see Tim do with the medium of video, now’s the time to tell him.

“Interactive music … well, well, well…”

It’s a strange and wonderful sampling instrument and live rig, capable of mangling and remixing live, synced to tempo. It’s proof that live computer performance doesn’t have to be in only one tool, or use one technique. It’s a ready-to-play, affordable instrument you can pick up and use. It’s a Reaktor patch gurus can pick apart and learn from, along with other resources from one of Reaktor’s masters. It’s a new blog and an opportunity to talk about live performance. It’s an EP release.

It’s actually all of these things – a tool, but more than a tool. The Finger, a US$79 / EUR 69 instrument, is a product, first and foremost, created by master live electronic performer and hacker Tim Exile. Tim is such a dedicated Reaktor user that he once managed to give himself a repetitive stress injury from connecting patch cords. (Not recommended.) You can run this thing out of the box using the free Kore Player, or get in deeper with a full version of Kore, or get into the patch itself with a copy of Reaktor 5 (also included in Komplete 5 and 6). It’s quite a product, too. I could try to explain it, but I couldn’t possibly do as good a job as Tim does in the video.

I’m not sure I agree with the marketing material’s claim that this is “a new type of live performance and remix effect.” In fact, Reaktor, Max/MSP, and other tools have led to all sorts of similar, original performance tools. Unlike going into a gig with just an Ableton Live set (something I’m doing in, literally, fifteen minutes), having a custom tool means focusing on performance techniques. And “new” hardly matters – Tim is a ninja at working with Reaktor’s deep sound DSP layer, Core (not to be confused with Kore). Whether it’s new or not, this is the ultimate patch from one of Reaktor’s masters. Along with Reaktor creator Stephan Schmitt’s Spark, it’s proof that sound packs from NI – or anyone else for that matter – don’t have to be limited to stock presets.

More than that, though, The Finger is connected to a music release by Tim, and is already triggering discussion of live performance and sound design – issues that go beyond any one tool. Tim has started a new blog to talk about his own take on live performance, starting with more info on his EP and some tracks you can hear:

http://thenowwave.blogspot.com/

Other folks I know have picked up The Finger and started to play with it, including the underlying Reaktor patch. Most notably, see Richard Devine transform The Finger from a Sound-Like-Tim-Exile machine into a Richard-Devine-Sonic-Insanity-Generator. (See, just because you use someone else’s tool doesn’t have to mean you need to sound like them.) With Max for Live coming, hackers getting smarter and slicker with open source tools like Processing, ChucK, SoundCollider, and Pd, and techno-literacy again on the rise – more connected than ever by these Interwebs – I think we could be in store for a really wonderful age of creativity, in which people make part of the craft of music making the craft of tool making, as well. Designing a tool, after all, is designing a system, in the same way that composition (in any medium) is about designing a system. Finally, instead of keeping that to ourselves, we can actually share the whole process.

In the meantime, let’s watch those videos, on Reaktor, The Finger, and more.

Richard Devine takes on The Finger:

Native Instruments The Finger vs Richard Devine from Richard Devine on Vimeo.

Tim Exile performing in Reaktor:

Tim shows his Reaktor-based setup – not just The Finger, but beyond:

Related tools:

Updated based on feedback in comments See also…

Sugar Bytes Artillery2, which focuses more on effects – and offers a whopping amount of effects variety, from step-sequenced buffer scratchers to vocoding. As with The Finger, the idea is to map effects to keys.

Rekkerd notes that Sugar Bytes has just discounted Artillery2 to 50% through October. Devoted loop manglers will buy both. I’m going to wait for a Richard Devine video in which he routes Artillery2, Lucifer, and The Finger together in one chain, then randomizes all the settings – your move, Richard.

The Lucifer plug-in is now discontinued, but Devine Machine offer a range of related looper/performance tools – from the practical tools to the manglers.

The basic ideas here I think are worth copying: making use of the keyboard to control things live rather than having modulation all running automatically, routing different effects together for mangled results, and loop recording and effects that are synced it time are all useful concepts to combine. I’d love to see people push those concepts in various directions, and the exact combination of ingredients you want is likely to be personal, so it’s well-suited to DIY concoctions, too.

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