I thought I would write an article for those of you who haven’t yet quite caught on to the exciting and limitless world of live electronic dance music which is starting to sweep across the scene, piggy backing on the exponential evolution of technology within dance culture as the next generation of clued up party goer seek out more mental stimulation for their buck.
So what exactly does a live act do and how does it differ from conventional DJing?
A DJ’s job (feel free to argue with me DJs!) is to find good tunes, usually written by other people, and mix them together in an aurally pleasing way using turntables, CD players or digital audio devices. They get a tune up to the speed of the one before it, and then “mix” it in, creating a seamless progression throughout their set.
The biggest creative holdback here is that each tune has been finished, sealed in the studio, converted to vinyl/CD/mp3 and then distributed. Djs are taking things that have already had their ingredients cooked and set, then presenting them to an audience in their own way.
A live act creates all original material, weaving together the elements of their tune on the spot. They have the ability to compose, improvise and perform their music real time in front of the dance floor. Every element of the music is at the live act’s control. They have layers and layers of sound at their fingertips, each playing its own little part in the overall track. The bass, the kick, the synth lines, the percussion… each part is at their mercy, and at any stage if they wish to change something, no matter how intricate, they can.
Think of it like an orchestra, but replace the musicians with little electronic nodes that produce unique sounds when told to do so by the conductor. Because the artist created these nodes, they know precisely what every little sound the node is capable of emitting, not just by itself, but also when teamed up with other nodes.
Let’s say, for example, I am playing a progressive house tune. I have my little musician nodes each playing their own part, teaming up to form a track. The kick drum node is doof doof doofing along, the percussion node is slowly adding in more drums to make things progress…the bass line node (I call him Barry) is deep and rolling, poking his head up in between the kicks… everything is going nice and smoothly… but I’m getting a feeling from the dance floor that it is time to pick up the pace a little. Well actually it was one particular munter who came up and requested something more cranking in between gnawing his jaw… but I agree with him.
I plan ahead and decide that at the next drop, I’m going to yank out the doof doof doof kick drum and replace it with a breakbeat. I’m also going to change the smooth bass line to something a little more harsh and stabby, and maybe even turn up the speed of the tune slightly.
A few button pushes and a couple of knob turns and I now have myself a driving breaks tune instead of a progressive house tune. People still recognise the tune as being mine and something familiar that they can relate to, but what they are now hearing is a brand new and never to be heard again real time remix.
The people on the dance floor give good response to this, so I will use this new sound as a base to manipulate future tunes. This symbiotic communication between the partiers and the performer can quite quickly feedback on itself, often resulting in something quite special
I’ve attempted to explain this in simple terms, and I do apologize to the more geekerly(?) astute of you who know exactly what I am on about, but it can seem like black magic to a lot of people, and that fact within itself can have some very interesting outcomes. Because only producers/studio geeks know how this stuff all works, it has made it ridiculously easy for some dishonest people to…well…bullshit… and not just a little bit, completely.
As you look up you see a man with a laptop in front of him and a giant mixing desk with hundreds of knobs. He furiously tweaks and turns, throwing his hands back elaborately like they are red hot to the touch while pulling the “this knob quite significantly changes the sound you are hearing” face. Know what I’m talking about? Of course you do. Is it over the top? hmm...perhaps, but who are you to judge, you don’t know anything about playing live music….. right? Well now you do, and I invite you to take this one step further.
I have released a live set of my most recent tune, available for anyone to download for free and create their own unique real time live version with ease. This is the first of many planned releases as I aim to educate what’s involved when a live act such as myself gives a performance.
The more you know about the live electronic scene, the more positive pressure there will be for the people involved to excel, because to be honest, at the moment it’s all very lazy. This will result in healthier competition, better research into future technology, and more money flooding into the scene, rapidly expanding the overall quality to its full capacity.
You don’t need a flash computer, musical knowledge or any fancy gear. Just download, open up and start pushing buttons on your computer keyboard, it's just like playing a video game really
This set is a modified version of the same thing I would use in a live performance. I have replaced all my outside effects with native ones, mapping all the “fun” parameters of the effects I use to keys on the computer keyboard, so there is no need to have any kind of controller either, just open the file and enjoy yourself.
The pack contains an instructional document with a rundown of how everything is laid out, and what buttons correspond to what parameters.
I’ve made an online video tutorial about this set and how to use it, you can watch part one by clicking below, which has a video introduction from myself explaining the details of this project in a more in depth way. It is made for people who are quite new to using Ableton (The software the set uses), so some of you may not need the run down.
The Youtube links are average quality... so I have made high quality versions of the video available for free download in the media section of my website. I also came across some interesting audio issues with Youtube resulting in my voice level to be quite low, however the down loadable versions have nice clear audio.
There are bound to be a few hiccups somewhere, please let me know if you find any because I plan on doing this again soon.
I hope you enjoy it and get something from it, and remember you are free to do as you choose with this information. There is no copyright, money or rules, post it as far and wide around the internet as you possibly can, this is the greatest help you can possibly give me.
Link to the first part of the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7hLhIb-eNM
Here is a direct link to an mp3 of the tune how I have arranged it
http://www.cosm.co.nz/music/Module_-_Al ... Remix).mp3
and here is a link to the media section of my website where you can download the live set and the videos. You will need to complete a simple, bullshit free registration to download (due to bandwidth issues).
http://www.cosm.co.nz/free
Cheers!
-Tom
www.cosm.co.nz
tom@cosm.co.nz
www.myspace.com/tomfromcosm
I really like the way you used the keyboard, this setup with a set of faders and an automapping device (SL25) is great. many thanks for the inspiration!!