possibly OffTopic: live tips or tricks?

i realized that doesn't give much info. most recently we are working up realtively upbeat versions of japanese and chinese lullabies (i am a recent babydaddy)

 

Congrats!

I thought my girlfriend was pregnant once, but it turned out to just be a basketball. That dirty trickster!

Oi I'm weird when I'm sick.

 

OckhamsRazor, please stay on topic. I deleted the non-relevant posts.

 

I play live frequently with two other guys. We do ambient music. Some of our tunes are rehearsed but a lot of our music is improv. A lot of gear is hardware, but at least 50% of our sound is soft synths via PC laptops. Other than occasional percussive parts, our music is not pre-sequenced or recorded. I use Reaktor and Absynth quite a bit. What I use to operate several instances of each simultaneously is an inexpensive software called Chainer. You can "chain" multiple VST instruments with Chainer. For instance I can have two or three Absynth 2's all with diffeent soundsets as well as several different Reaktor ensembles. Each vst can have the same or different midi channel. Chainer is very kind to your CPU. I used to use Sonar with different instances of Reaktor and Absynth, but crashes were too frequent. I rarely crash with Chainer. And even though we don't pre-record, we still look pretty boring.

 

Just watching people play is rarely extremely interesting - and what you're probably lacking is really the extra 10% that comes from hearing the artists sweat, laugh and cry through their instruments... y'see, IMHO the problem with synthesised sound is that the user interface rarely allows for a great deal of expression - that is, there's very little reflection of HOW you play your instrument as compared to if you was playing an acoustic or electrically amplified one. No two instruments sound alike, espescially if you're talking about wind instruments. I realise there's velocity mapping and aftertouch and CCs, but there is a reason electronic pianos don't feel right: On a piano, how you hit the key will vary the tone immensely, and depending on who you are, how strongs your fingers are, how you're feeling, you'll 'attack' the piano in a different way, and this is something that can't be realistically reproduced by sampling. Maybe synthesis will be able to do it at one point (can't see why not), but I've yet to experience it.

I'm not knocking electronic music per se - there's a reason I'm on these forums! - but the claims that it is 'inhuman' and 'devoid of emotion' are correct, in a way. This doesn't make it uninteresting, it just makes it very different from acoustic music.

(end rant!)

-Paws

 

now, obviously, dancing about like a hopped-up magical elf is pretty much out of the question. so you've got to answer the need for visual stimuli in a different way. i think a simple lighting scheme provides a very enhancing visual element. if you've got the resources, a video display would be frickin' killer.

 

We just acquired a video projector, and being a videographer/editor by trade this will add to our performance. We just got the projector and haven't had a chance to use it. And we do play with some physical expression, especially while playing guitar. But the nature of ambient music doesn't emote a whole lot of movement. A lot of our audience sit with their eyes closed, but perhaps they have fallen asleep.
I understand that there is some video software that reacts to music with some wild wipes and warps. Does anybody have experience with any of this on a PC format?

 

Well I've had experience with Jitter which is an add-on for Max, and Max is now out for Windows. Jitter is in public beta for Windows, which means you get to use it without even buying it.. for now away. ;-)

I will tell you that for someone very used to working strictly with audio, doing video work with Jitter is not at all that big of a jump. I'd definitely look into it if you want to spruce up your performances. There's also other video tools for Max like NATO, but I have no experience with them. I'd recommended giving Jitter a whirl and seeing if you like it. It's quite intuitive, and like all cycling '74 software, the documentation is unbelievably solid.