#22

what a great intro to fell!

i’d heard of him but never listened or bought yet
until now

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#23

Here’s a quote from a recent Helm interview that’s interesting and relevant in many different ways:

It’s ridiculous, you play a gig and people come up to your table and want to take a photo of your equipment and these people are completely missing the point. What I use to play live is not what I actually use to make the music itself. They’re tools that are used to re-create what’s made in the studio, which is impossible to recreate in a live context. I use a couple of samplers and I use a modular synthesizer – mainly for processing, it’s not like an extensive modular. For me it’s no different from using a laptop. It’s funny the perception [of] having a laptop on stage rather than having a couple of samplers. If there’s a laptop on stage people couldn’t give a fuck, but if you have a couple of samplers on stage and a mixer, all of a sudden people are like “ooh, what’s going on?” It’s almost like it’s transformed into this magic show or something. When really it’s just as unremarkable – even more unremarkable, even – as a computer, because on a sampler you’re just pressing buttons and triggering things. My main piece of equipment when I play live is really the mixer, that’s responsible for the changes, and if I didn’t have the mixer then I wouldn’t be able to do what I want to do live.

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#24

I agree with much stated above

The first song I ever made was on a mac in the early 90s in 1st/2nd grade. I couldnt save or record it but that really is remarkable (to me) since that predated any other musical activities and training for violin/trumpet or my personal research in drumming at home.

The bottom line for me is that without computers I would not be a musician and i have no misgivings about using them anymore. But for quite some time I didnt like using a computer for music because I didnt have a reliable one. I didnt trust them

More importantly, the musicians i learned from (ironically enough thru the internet) did not use computers or anything deemed “cold/digital”. Eventually I saw thru that rubbish and now have a healthier understanding of how my tools work and my viewpoint echoes some of what karl typed earlier…everything electronic is basically a computer. (digital sampler, phone, drum machine whatever)

Using a grid with MLR was the first time I was able to make something truly spontaneous, unpredictable and intuitive with my pc. So i have to admit that monomes made me trust the computer in a way that is probably illogical and irrational to other people.

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#25

I hear this sentiment frequently, and it always makes me wonder if people just have really unreliable computers/software in their studio, or if their studios are unnecessarily sprawlingly huge with hardware that could have been effectively emulated in software. I’m of the opinion there is little in the available spectrum of sound design that is not available to me through the software on my Mac.

(The exception would be the mics and rooms available to high end studios, but given my fondness for old-timey recordings where a dozen players might be sharing a single mic, I’m a bit skeptical of the necessity of such luxuries.)

I’m not clear on what it is that makes people feel the need to have drastically different studio/live setups, and I’m entirely willing to concede this may simply be my own ignorance. My stage experience is pretty limited and has thus far not involved any of my electronic music at all, so I imagine there are a lot of unknown unknowns for me in that regard.

What I find a little disappointing about this is that it means the performer doesn’t see the mastery of the instruments they used in the studio as necessary for the performance. Perhaps I have overly romanticized the notion that conceptually binds instrumentalist + performer so closely in my mind, but I don’t go to shows to see the composer or the guy at the sound board. I go to see the musicians.

That’s why I’m trying to pursue a setup that might reasonably work just as well at home as on stage, and vice versa, with a focus on making things happen in the here and now (“live” in the sense of “real time”). I feel this constraint can potentially eliminate this studio/live dichotomy. Basically, treat the studio as a live experience. Maybe I’ll find I’ve been misguided by the time I have a set put together. It’s early days for me in some ways.

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#26

that’s where i’m at now too

modular + octatrack + 128 + mixer = stereo audio out to either PA or recording device

no distinction in setups or mindset between studio and stage

no more buying and selling expensive boxes and swapping of modules (other than a few bits here and there as amazing new complementary modules come out), while trying to maintain a deliberate focus on learning properly what i have … aiming loftily for virtuosity in an instrumental sense (with a long way to go!).

i debated long and hard with my computer self about integrating a computer into the above, but ultimately decided not to, at least for my electronic music … for now … until proven otherwise …

if in a year i’m nowhere to where i want to be musically (and in terms of recorded output) then i’ll reconsider

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#27

been mulling since last nights post and also stumbled on a quote which resonated with me (in a somewhat parallel discussion of push 2 and computers over @ MW)

For me it isn’t so much about getting away from the screen, but getting away from the mouse.

I work extensively with computers during my jobs and, though software is frustrating at times, and staring at a screen for so long is not likely healthy…i have no problem switching gears into a creative mode despite pc’s being closely linked with non-creative part of my day.

The main roadblock for my creativity is usually the mouse. The trackpad has been a slight improvement but is still not an ideal solution.

Trying to circumvent that part of the computer-user experience was the impetus behind exploring external devices for music.

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#28

i also appreciate great performers. but there are “performances” that consist of a very good sound system, a great room, and a genius composer who is simply slightly tuning the room (with a mixer) and these experiences to me are on par with seeing a virtuosic physical feat. it took me a long time to arrive at this appreciation, as many of you know the grid is partially a response to my own awkwardness of playing keyboard-mouse music on stage.

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#29

Also interesting to note: there’s a solid history of music being prepared for presentation on loudspeaker, which mostly dates to people starting to work with tape. In a lot of ways music computers are just an extension of tape.

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#30

I strive to avoid using the mouse while I’m playing. Kind of hard to avoid during parts of the process, so I understand the frustration. It’s a situation that could be improved upon with better software and hardware interaction design, but now we are leaving the realm of music making…

#31

I’d like to see a performance like that.

I also quite fond of performances that put dancers or lights/projections in focus, especially those rare performances in which the choreography, music, and visuals are interactive with one another…

#32

I recently played my first couple shows outside of my home studio. I’ve always hated the thought of gazing at a computer screen while playing in front of an audience. In my set I was using a monome grid with re:mix, and polygnome running in ableton, a couple microphones for vocal sampling in re:mix, and a launch control.

I installed an app called “no sleep” on my mac which enables you to close your macbook without it going to sleep. As soon as I got my set opened up and working correctly I closed my macbook and just played my monome, mics, and launch control. It was interesting to do it that way. I don’t think it made a difference to the audience neccasarily but it was a fun challenge for me. I think I will play with the lid closed again in the future to.

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#33

that is a cool idea
I hadn’t heard of the no sleep app I’ll check it out

there is also an awesome podcast called nosleep always worth a listen

#34

+1 for the ‘no sleep’ app !

#35

Nice one.

(Just in case: There is an open source version. Drop some bucks there, not 10 on the appstore.)

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#36

there are many new folks on lines

i bump this because i was re-reading it and am curious to hear more perspectives on this topic

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#37

I personally love my laptop (though i’m also with @tehn on the steady devolution of mac osx - i’ve downgraded to 10.6.8 for stability / compatibility). I feel it’s become the instrument i’m most proficient with, and don’t see a huge reason to abandon it on principle alone. So much of this discussion (the greater discussion, that is, not just this thread) has always felt like theory or semantics to me - we can talk all we want about what would be a more engaging piece of music / performance in theory, but at the end of the day good music is just good music no matter how it was created or performed. I’ve seen both totally wonderful AND terribly uninspired modular performances. I’ve seen both totally wonderful AND terribly uninspired laptop performances.

and +1 for no sleep (i also use the more questionably-named InsomniaX, works great)

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#38

great topic idd, thanks for reviving it, glia!

I think that wether or not a computer fits your performance practice depends on idiom, ecosystem, modus operandi, etc. there’s no right or wrong, no ‘not so bad’.

for me personally, at this moment the computer has a central place in my performance setup. I actually see it more as a part of my instrument than as a tool; f.i. comparable to the hammer mechanism on a piano, ‘translating’ input to output (and so much more of course). In the line of this comparison, OS stability issues, software problems etc are inherent to the instrument (a piano has to be tuned, strings can snap, …) and should be something you are willing to deal with if you want to incorporate a computer in your setup. in this regard a dedicated performance machine can take away a lot of frustrations.

I agree with @jasper_ryder etc on abandoning the screen on stage but also this depends on the context. for me the ‘screen gaze’ is one of the biggest communication killers, not only between performers on stage but also between the performer(s) and the audience (with the latter even being crippled ever since ‘computer music’ hit the stage).

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#39

I love the title of this thread.

As someone who has spent the last 17 years or so enthusiastically focused on the computer as an instrument I have to say it’s nice to see this sentiment becoming “okay” again.

It was a funny thing to watch the bubbling excitement over the potential for computers in live performance in the late 90s / early '00s turn on its head somewhere around '07 or so. It started to become common to boast that you didn’t use a computer to produce your music, and I saw more and more records obsessed with a “pure” analog chain: analog synthesis recorded to tape, mastered with tubes and pressed directly to vinyl. I remember the same thing in the early days of CDs which would boast a pure digital chain: digitally recorded, digitally mastered to CD. Look for the little boxes with Ds somewhere near the Compact Disc logo…

I see more an more crossover with less and less concern for “purity” on both sides in the last few years even and it’s a nice thing to see. Seems like we’re not so drunk on the tools anymore in general.

For the folks wondering if this or that computer is powerful enough for music I’d also just like to add that I spent about a year and a half circa 2009/10 performing with a hackintosh Asus 1005HA netbook running Max/MSP before I switched to linux completely. It was also my studio computer and I mixed a full length album on it. Your smartphone is probably much more powerful. You really don’t need to drop thousands of dollars on a computer to join in on the fun! Heck, you can pick up the latest raspberry pi which is basically as powerful as my old netbook and do amazing things on it. Sonic Pi is a great case in point.

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#40

i thought it was really weird that electronic music became obsessed with, as you say, trying to sound more analogue, unquantised and have a more live feel yet at the same time instrument based bands and artists were micro-editing live drums so they fit to the grid and auto-tuning everything so it sounded perfect.

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#41

That’s true! At the same time computers were falling out of fashion with the post-rock/improv/EDM/etc crowd some pop music was quietly becoming computer music.

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