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Big fan of many types of dance acts (including Underworld) - but just wondering what it is that they’re actually doing when pushing buttons and twisting knobs on stage?
For example:
I know the energy and light shows are great but to be honest I dont often bother going to watch them live because I would rather see a “proper” band.
No doubt this has been asked before. I couldn’t find anything definitive though relating to bands like Underworld, Chemical Brothers, etc.
All sorts of shiz. Dials change everything from tempo, pitch, wave shape.... loadsa stuff.
But it is a bit dull to watch 😉
I saw David Guetta one time at a festival, it was amazing. He pressed play, then he jumped up and down behind the decks and waved his arms about. During Titanium, he got a bit carried away and started using the volume slider too, so the crowd could sing "Fire away, fire away"- but he kept getting the timing wrong.
I've no idea what Aphex Twin were doing when I saw them live, because I was too busy falling into a sort of lucid nightmare or sound and vision.
I’ve no idea what Aphex Twin were doing when I saw them live, because I was too busy falling into a sort of lucid nightmare or sound and vision.
I reckon you may have halucinated an extra 'band' member or two...
Also what's Rev. Richard Cole doing on stage with Underworld?
I reckon some live electronic acts are more live than others. Squarepusher seemed very live but someone like FSoL was more about the visuals and the music seemed very pre recorded. Saying that I've just realised I'm talking about 20 years ago so I'd probably best get my slippers on and let the kids discuss...
I watched the Chemical Brothers at Glasto (on TV) a few years ago and wondered the same thing: Apparently, in their case, they improvise quite a lot of the sounds, using the record as a blueprint and take it from there. I am not an electronic music fan - quite the opposite, actually - but I quite enjoyed CB and, if it's true they do improvise much of their live stuff, they are rather good at it.
Apart from the occasional glance towards the stage, if you're 'watching' a live dance act, you're not really doing it right.
Bosh whatever chemical or natural additive, whichever your preferred recreational and move like it's your last time on earth 😂
@Northwind. Aphex twin is one person grandad, the acid must have been good.
Here are Disclosure, unplugged if you will
Much like Northwind, when I saw Spritualized, I believe they spent their time training the werewolf they had in the audience. I tried to talk to him but I got a bit scared so I hugged my mate's arm instead.
Once saw Eat Static without the usual strobe fest, it wasn’t quite the same.
Mapping of knobs and switched almost anything inside a computer means they COULD be controlling anything.
From my experience in sound and light its unlikely that the laptop is even turned on (unless it has an apple logo to light up).
Having said that the amount of backstage tech running for REAL bands they might as well be miming anyway.
I have played guitar/keys/vocals live for years, I have also mimed those on many occasions. The fact is nobody but you will know.
Many people in my own bands have thought I was miming when I was playing live and vice versa
people have been duped for years...…………………………………...
Junior does this sort of stuff in industrial waste lands in Paris and Berlin. The DJs have two options, either they turn up with a USB key/computer and the set runs. Or he does it "live" choosing the tracks as he goes and messing with them using a twin disc thing that is also linked to the PC. Making excited noises into the microphone to jolly the pill-fueled masses isn't really his thing so in answer to the original question - try to look cool.
His latest Youtube flop, but one day there will be millions of hits, the day he does something a little less niche:
They play with a few frequencies and drop the drum N bass in and out.
But then there's SOulwax , M83 & hot chip for example, who use loops and live musicians perfectly.
Bitd, I knew of some that used to give the sound man an ADAT tape!
A little birdy tells me the new Chems stuff is very splendid. 🙂
My mates a Dance DJ (deephouse) and
He presses play, then he jumps up and down behind the decks and waves his arms about whilst holding some earphones to his head (doesn’t wear them, just holds one earphone to his left ear and the other flaps about like a discarded limb) Then he looks serious and frowns a lot, occasionally he will take a sip of water, also he nods his head quite a lot.
FIFM
Thats sums up Warren.
He does sometimes turn up with a set pre-mixed and plugs that in, sometimes he does the mix live (but not often) most of the time he has a base mix pre-recorded and adds layers to over the top.
But really, why would you be watching the DJ. You should be throwing your own shapes dudes...
/\ hotchip are awesome live..
a standout for me was moby, brings out his wall papering table and then does crucifix to 1,000 (fastest non gabba bpm track off all time)
Non of the above could annoy me as much as the non singing bloke in Sleaford Mods, though the "singer " is pretty close.
Non of the above could annoy me as much as the non singing bloke in Sleaford Mods
He's Bez for the modern generation, I love his total air of apathy.
Most electro/EBM acts I've seen bring drummer swith them to give you something to watch, bounce around a bit whilst trying to adjust the tiny knobs on the little box, and walk around the stage whilst singing (and shouting 'come on!' to the crowd)
The Orb played chess on Top of the Pops while 'performing' the Blue Room. Couldn't find it on YT, so have Toxygen instead:
I think that there is a lot of "just pressing play and putting on an act ". Especially from the likes of superstar DJs such as David Guetta, but that is just their thing . Playing popular, dancey music to get the crowd going, nothing wrong with that. I would call that DJ-ing, basically playing pre prepared music.
At the other end of the spectrum is something like this; a set by John Hopkins where he is creating the music live.
Most of the superstar DJs are also creators though , even if they are not creating live in the stage.
He’s Bez for the modern generation, I love his total air of apathy.
Except he queues up the backing tracks on his laptop. while smiling broadly. Bez was just a talisman/dancer.
I saw this techno type support act once where he had a square box with a load of buttons each triggering a sound or sample -he had it tilted towards the crowd so you could see him “play” it. Fast fingers!
But yeah, most electronic/dance acts are about sound rather than watching the band. Although pretty much all gigs for me are about sound rather than watching the band -most of the time all you can see is a bunch of ****s’ phonescreens these days anyway. Who wants to actually see a band when you can stare at your pissing phone like you do for the rest of your damn day anyway!? Ahem, where was I...
There’s a big variety of what they do, laptops, synths, appliances, special fings...
One of the most boring live bands I’ve seen had guitars (The Cure, back in the 80s) and one of the most thrilling had no intruments at all (Young Fathers).
Seeing Actress tomorrow and got no idea what to expect..
Roni size used to have a band for live se.
Not dance but DJ Yodas fun to watch as he takes a lot of requests and does some cool video mixing to
Have been at both Underworld and Orbital gigs when the tech has gone awry. Its certainly not all pre-programmed and in both instances the guys had standby samplers which, after a bit of head scratching, they were able to bring into play. They'll have a library of samples which they can just drop into sequence. From the very little playing around I've done with sequencers, the knob twiddling seems to be a mixture of phase adjustment and channel volume. No two underworld or orbital gigs I've been two have been the same. There's a setlist, they know what samples to drop when, there may be some loops stashed away but plumbing them all together is done realtime. Just watch any live recording of Rez - they're all different.
For amazeballs live tech experiences, Groove Armada and LCD Soundsystem all sample and loop in realtime. Very impressive to watch. LCD do most of their percussion live with a real drummer, who may be a robot.
The true god of this however, is Moby, who will play absolutely everything live on a real instrument then sample & loop it. Often it's him who plays and samples at the same time, though he does have a "band" as well. There is no "Run Sequence" button. It's as live as watching the Birmingham Phil.
Found this really interesting on the Chemical Brothers' live setup: https://www.soundonsound.com/people/matt-cox-midi-tech-chemical-brothers
Jamie XX used to appear to play pretty complex rhythms and effects for The XX using something like an Akai control pad
The Chemical Brothers (as above) put on an impressive visual show - it's a great live experience. Likewise Underworld - live vocals, guitar, keyboards (of course could all be mimed as any band) and Karl Hyde is a pretty engaging presence on stage. Faithless did a good job (again, live vocals and musicians on stage).
Vocal free electronic is harder work. Kelly Lee Owens at EoTR last year - someone jumping around behind a pile of computers and kit with a basic stage light show isn't engaging whether they're doing it live or not. Someone else I saw recently had an incredibly complex track playing and was picking out a simple keyboard line over the top live (and that looked mimed as the timing seemed out).
Last time I saw Grandmaster Flash we had to wait through 30 seconds of silence midway through his set while he rebooted his macbook. He appeared to be controlling the tracks using SL1200s and dummy records (I can't remember the system but looked it up at the time - coded vinyl controls the WAV files on the computer).
LCD Soundsystem are fantastic live. T-10 hours to see them in Victoria Park at All Points East.
Few things to do before heading off - must get on....
So much good music!
And Jon Hopkins, such talent.
Leftfield were an amazing live act on their/his Leftism 22 tour. Was the best night I've been to.
Much rather see dance music live/DJ play in a club than a band. Was at Glastonbury for Chemical Brothers, awesome experience
I ended up taking the middle boatette to some capital radio show with a variety of acts on, about a week after seeing Mary Barry do a cooking demo at the County show. Visually the dance acts were no more than excitable Mary Berry's stood behind tables with an MC bouncing around in front of them shouting.
My other half saw Kraftwerk at Bestival years ago. Stage starts dark, lights came up, there they were stood at their keyboards playing Tour De France (or something) in their usual stock-still stance.
Track ended, crowd cheered, on walked Kraftwerk, lifted the what were actually mannequins away from the keyboards and continued the set...
My understanding is that most of the work is done before the live performance, and during the performance they will adjust sound.
no ones mentioned altern8 / oceanic / klf / 808 state
Bad dancers seemed to be the order of the day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBg5_OYGyBA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSwGF8pRPMU
LCD Soundsystem are fantastic live. T-10 hours to see them in Victoria Park at All Points East.
I’m going to be there as well. Can’t wait as I’ve never managed to see them live before and thought I’d missed my chance are year or two back!
I read an interview with Calvin Harris some time ago where he said that the music is so linked to the light show that he can’t really do anything once the set starts. As above, I think at that level all the work is done beforehand.
If you watch this boiler room of Mount Kimbie you can see a bit better what they're actually doing.
A lot of it is triggering samples, using effects creatively, using loopers to construct rhythm sections live or manually playing percussion
For ease -
Anything with pads on it (that usually light up) are usually samplers, they're either used to trigger one shots or loops. If the light stays lit throughout whole bars its a loop. If it turns off it's a one shot sample. At 4:40 onwards you can see him triggering vocal shots.
Anything with lots of knobs and sliders are usually mixers, and they're used to bring in and out new elements and mix in effects
Anything with lots of flashing lights and shit is probably an FX box of some description
Anything with keys is a synthesizer .
Another approach is by the legend that is Mr. G:
(Warning this is loud, and pretty much the opposite of the video above. Equally as great)
Mr.G uses an MPC 2000XL which only has 32mb of data available. He creates an hour of really top tier house music from 32mb of data by chopping up loops, triggering samples and creative use of FX and mixer. Incredible.
Dude is like 50 as well and still goes in mega hard. Guy is an absolute G
And then you have everything in else between.
Awesome vid Plyphon of Mr G...
At the other end of the spectrum is something like this; a set by John Hopkins where he is creating the music live.
He still not creating that from scratch though, it's pre defined tracks/samples he's playing with interactive bits he's written, he knows how to play with the interactive bits/jam with them.
Nothing wrong with that in the slightest though, it's basically what bands do anyhow. It's the exact same thing.
In all music there needs to be an understanding of what's coming, how to communicate with parts or other band members.
With electronic music, some just press play, some treat it like an instrument and actually "play" it.
Me personally I don't differentiate the latter from the likes of playing the guitar, it's a similar skill set imo. A computer is a musical instrument, imo. Some people don't recognise it as such though.
I reckon some live electronic acts are more live than others
This ... my understanding is that the boundary between 'live' and 'electronic sequenced' is blurring more and more as customer expectations of the arena type 'live' experience increases:
Loads of bands/artists strive to recreate their studio sound in a live setting and the need to synchronise with lighting/video effects etc means using sequences.
Taking a full orchestra, brass section, additional musicians etc on tour and sound checking is impractical or not commercially viable therefore the likes of 'Ableton Live' and 'in ear monitors' etc are used to help re-create the full recording studio sound with live instruments and vocals.
The likes of Leftfield, Orbital & Underworld were pioneering in the '90s using technology (building on the work or Kraftwork etc in the '70s) to recreate their studio sound. Previously many synth/drum machines/sequences sounded awfully thin and tinny even with 'compressors', so many synth bands still had to rely on guitars etc to create a fuller live sound - I seem to remember that Heaven 17 stated that were only able to recreate 'Penthouse & Pavements' 'live' in 2010 because of the advancements of technology ...
Reel to Reel tape (as used for drums by Cocteau Twins etc in early '80s) was unreliable and DAT (used as a backing tape by many artists in the '90s) was very sensitive to environmental changes like humidity ... not great in a sweaty venue.
Numerous current bands like Public Service Broadcasting make no attempt to hide their use of samples and sequences whilst adding live drums and guitars. Other bands like Honeyblood and Royal Blood use drummer triggered samples using an SPDSX or similar to 'fill out' their live sound - not many bands can afford to pay for 5 musicians on a retainer etc these days.
To get back to the OP ... some 'electronic' acts sometimes are not much more than simply a 'playback' with a fancy light show ... I always used to think Orbital were answering emails on stage with mag-lights strapped to their heads, however they and others are actually adding a live textured overlay to a sequencer and tweaking the output - something that still requires a great deal of skill.
Underworld use Ableton live for sequencing which has lead to more album/studio like live performances - their earlier live stuff is a lot more off tangent.
The bootleg babies version of Rez from 1996 is the best version out there IMHO
1:00
40 secs of Mr G. And I’m dancing around
***** trying to post from a mobile device on the ****ing dog shit of a forum
Hey, how about someone who uses loops and shit off a boxdeviceunitappliance but then plays a real instrument... and sings...
watch!
<span class="webkit-html-attribute-value">The Orb playing Chess on TOTP, found it on Vimeo</span>
A bit different from DJ's, butI love vocal looping and effects. The best use of technology I have seen to adjust a vocal loops on the spot is Beardyman. Check out his 'Gypsy Fish' improv from the Edinburgh Festival a number of years back. Other artists using their vocals to lay down great electronic music are Dub FX, Morf, Saro, MB14, Thorsen, Mr Woodnote, MC Xander, Nastya Maslova and Sam Perry who is taking the Australian version of The Voice by storm at the minute despite being around for a few years. All these people blow Ed Sheeran out of the water.
Yesterday, I introduced a guy at work to the wonder that is Aphex Twin. Befuddled was the look on his face for most of it. Today, Autechre, I think he might explode