Pure synthesis <====> Pure mixing WAV

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 9:49 pm

I personally love the totally spontaneous construction of tracks that synthesis allows me, but I am also enough of a realist to know that if I want to tweak 30 filters, levels, pans and pitches then I simply don't have enough arms.

I play in a band, which has a rather complex sound, and for that we use a combination of live playing over a bed of more complex synth sounds, atmospheres and whatnot.

For my solo stuff I am more into glitchy minimal, and that is usually *all* live, if you count real-time cutups of breakbeats and so on as real-time too.

julienb · Post by **julienb** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 9:55 am

I like this discussion
it is interesting

I think, finally, I'll do that:
production with a lot of different tools and extracting and making an audio based live set with filter/effects and clips in audio

just hope that if I made one WAV per track only (I'll have very long play WAV ..7 or 8 minutes) it won't be desync prob on my 2Go/T7200

See u

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 1:01 pm

It won't be losing sync, that's what Live is MADE for.

julienb · Post by **julienb** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 10:34 am

okay

I think this way will be mine..
more free, more opened etc
in this way, I can make sounds with a long of soft, and export all tracks in audio at the end... and reimport in live if I want to play with all parts, with effects, with loop...

thanks a lot for all advice

tomperson · Post by **tomperson** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 12:39 pm

ethios4 wrote:I like working with wavs. Its easier on the CPU, you can still have serious fun, and you can get a better sound by sculpting each part beforehand to get a more "studio" sound that fits better with everything else. I've just heard too many Live PA acts with crappy sound compared to a DJ.

I totally totally agree with you on this one. Too many times i've heard the audible difference in punchiness, clarity and overall sound quality between improvised on-the-fly live sets and dj sets. I think it's important to achieve a balance, because let's face it: more times than we would like to think, the audience doesn't have a clue as to why what we do is different from DJs, and even if they knew, they probably wouldn't care. The other day, for example, a man came to me and after talking about my live set, how i did it, how i was sequencing in real time, shaping the song with effects, new sounds, etc, he asked me if i could do that for five hours for a party...I mean, i'd have to work probably a year or such non-stop to have enough stuff to play a 5 hour *quality* gig. Conclusion: he didn't understand the difference between me and a dj, and worse, didn't get the complexity involved in crafting a live performance.

So my point is: prepare as much as possible in advance, tighten the sound, rehearse a lot, and then, when on-stage, have an overall good sounding gig, but take your time to test new stuff here and there, to take *controlled* risks, to let adrenaline take over in some spots. Even Jazz, which seems to be so free and stuff, is based on a solid understanding of a set of rules, concepts and templates (the standards) which in the end allow for a bigger freedom...Doing a hyper-prepared, robotized set is awful, but experimenting one and a half hour without having a clue where you are going in front of an audience will probably be worse. As Eno said, there's experimental music, and it's ok, but experiments are that, experiments, and are bound to fail...and Why do you think your audience wants to be part of that???

As always it all depends on your posture as a musician, on the kind of audience involved, what is expected of you, etc...

I think my next step is to add a few instruments in addition to my all-wav set. Probably some impulses or such.

julienb · Post by **julienb** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 1:12 pm

okay
I feel this way as my future (and already "present") way !!

compositeone · Post by **compositeone** » Tue Jan 30, 2007 2:16 pm

I have been bouncing everything down to wavs and although I'm feeling limited in some respects I'm going to keep on doing it while stilling learning different ways to do a live set.

I think that in the future I will want to add more instruments as I get in to the flow of things but I want to start of with a way that I think will be easier so that I can help with flattening out the learning curve a little.