Playing a live gig ...how?

[wayfinder]

I've been wanting to prepare a live gig for quite a while now and so far, I haven't been very successful in finding a good way to do it. Can anyone help? How do you play live gigs? What techniques do you use? Which programs?

(keep in mind I have no hardware but a computer and an old beat up Casio keyboard, and that isn't likely to change in the short term)

Please enlighten me!
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wayfinder

[usr]

get mad drunk and entertain the audience with incredible lack of physical coordination instead of music?
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[Disasteradio]

[elekt]

DANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (naked). wear lipstick. and a blue wig. and be very drunk. enjoy! I so would.

[mute]

if you mean technically.. theres tons of ways. live/pattern duplication/creation/mixing via hand; then theres BTDSys LiveJump - which is a god send; Cheapo Amp is actually designed for live mixing use (midi note on/off); multi-asio out to mixer/using h/w mixer to mix in and out, etc. Anyways.. point being you mainly just mix live, control a few effects here and there. I've mostly used cheapo amps, my hands, korg kaoss pad, a midi keyboard, and a few bits of hardware - but the last two shows I played I used BTDSys LiveJump.
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[Hamst3r]

Out put all your songs into loops and use Ableton Live.

make yourself a soundboard with Macromedia Flash.

Sing.

Buy a cheap midi controller. bind every knob to something in your song.

Advertise early that you're going to urinate on everyone. people will rush in to get pissed on. works for Gwar and Mindless Self Indulgence.
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[wayfinder]

Ableton Live, hmmm I will have to try that...
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wayfinder

[KoDream]

I saw this guy in a bar with a acoustic guitar, he totally had the bar up and dancing, I am like "can you do that with a guitar ", it turns out he had recorded another track of himself and was playing and singing along, go figure.

[mute]

[wayfinder]

thank you mute, that gave me a lot of insight.


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wayfinder

[tonfang]

yes... livejump really is a state of the art live-tool!!! until it was finnished i used to set the loops manualy in buzz. but live jump is so cool!!!. i think you definitely gotta get a midikeyboard wizh knobs n sliders n stuff. the are quite a few at low cost. playing live i use buzz+guitar+keyboard. depending on the song i combine mixing/guitar + keyboard playing. there's a funny live-shot here: http://wghoch4.dyndns.org/sinebag/mp3/live/videos/sammet_tonfang.avi and here: http://sinebag.de/live/sommerfest/fotos%20evi/tonfang/index.html
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tonfang.de

[EFILS]

doesent exist any buzz machine or software that allow me to mix together 2 songs?
i'm learning to use jumpjack and it's ok,but when a song ends how can i play an other song just after the last one?
It's a problem!

PRCA PUTTANA

[vaud]

Chimp RePlay, theoretically.

[tonfang]

would be so damn cool if one could control the parameters of the machines inside the replay bmx via midi. oh man. but this replay thing seems to be quite complicated to program....
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tonfang.de

[EFILS]

I meant,there isn't any software like winamp that could receive
output signal from buzz and,with a mix desk or something similar,
could mix the two songs?
...somebody should create a winamp plug-in for that...

[mute]

replay only works for .bmw's and it doesnt support alot of the 'complex' machines.

as for mixing.. i personally in the past have created seque mp3s that are usually about 1-2 minutes long and give me time to prepare the next track. not only does this give me the time i need but it lets me be pretty sonically creative on the seque's.

some ppl run 2 instances of buzz, but i highly recommend against that because buzz only creates on set of registry entries so if you are running 2 instances from seperate paths they 2 instances will "fight" over who sets the keys and this can create all sorts of problems afterwards from the annoying themes folder bug popping up to whatever else.
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[intoxicat]

two laptops would do it... (says they guy who hasnt even got one..)

[usr]

and a third laptop to check email during the gig!

(how would you stack those on your lap then? )
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[steveg]

...and a fourth laptop to run visualizations for the projector

BTW, what would be the best way to run visualizations live (from "line in", not from a pre-recorded file)? I'm thinking about something that looks like the psychodelic-looking things that run in Windows Media Player. If I ever did a live Buzz-only gig, I think I would use an old video projector and scan converter to project some trippy graphics, since it's pretty boring to watch someone sit and tweak a laptop. And I could probably get two PCs--one for Buzz, the other for video. Any ideas?

[usr]

if you just want psychedelic crap, you can simply use winamp with one of the gazillions of viz plugins, and one of the tens of line-in plugins
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[steveg]

ahh, yes--Winamp. That was my guess, but I hate to install yet another player on my pc to find out. I haven't used winamp for a while...

Yes, "crap" to be sure, but probably easier to deal with live than trying to sync linear video--especially to an improv'd set.

[pritz-k]

just thought of posting the setup i use currently for live gigs...

since the release of the ableton live software, it seems like a lot of people turned to it as their exclusive live performance tool and it`s indeed an amazing one. i actually did that for a while but started to miss the huge amount of resources buzz has to offer, so i figured why not use both...

having the main sequences running in buzz, i layer several live 4 channels over it through rewire and build chains of effects for each track. that way you don`t lose buzz`s tweaking potential (since buzz becomes the final mixing environment) and you add live`s improvisational power (being able to create new on-the-fly loops, midi instruments and whatnot; which i believe is the final purpose of live performing anyway....).

i performed a couple of very inspiring (at least for me!) live sets running the 2 apps on a p4 laptop luckily without any computer crashes til now...probably a lot more people are using this setup but it took some time for me to figure it out in the beggining.

[hyena]

im actually preparin for my second buzz-only liveset, so i thought it might be useful to explain how i work:
first time i was on a laptop(old weak one) and didnt knew bout Livejump,
so i created my patterns (i used one infector, one climox breaker, one LooperII and one Ohm Liveslice for outputin fast changeable, randomizable breaks, and one midi out to control my novation bass station, i also used a distortion pedal as send fx)
then i just placed my pattrns on the sequencer in a way i could start from the beginnin loop, then manually adjust loop points on the seq till i reached the end.
it was not so smart hehehe and not so easy to play with.

Then i discovered the Live Jump,
Now my set is:
my desktop pc with 8outs audio card
one Utrkr with 5 outputs (one is stereo, i use it for more environmental soundscapes, others are mono, i have one with drumhits, one with chopped rearranged breaks, one with basslines, one with varied loops on it) that go directly out via polac asio outs

then i have a fuzzpliz Lepidopterist with the drumhits, loops , breaks and basslines routed in, i programmed 4 different presets, i use it to get some strange glitchy randomization stuff every now and then, its really useful to add some weirdness

then comes one Xtal vsti( a traktor-like mp3 mixer plugin which i use to insert some of my tracks in the set) and a destroy fx bufferoverride on the chopped breax to add weirdness, controlled with my midi keyb-controller radium 49

then i have one midi out to control my novation bass station,
one distortion pedal, one sm-58 microphone (with stand, i also play live sideflute sometimes) and an electribe es-1 which i usually use as send fx

everything mixed down on my Soundcraft spirit folio sx 20 channels

i play at 222 bpm with a tpb of 16 ticks

i use livejump with pc keyboard assignements, i place loop points at the end of the patterns with a snap of 64 ticks

everything works superfine!!!

hope this 'll help
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[izmarkie]

I was thinking the same thing about dumping all my midi loops into Ableton, saving my VST effect presets and loading them into Ableton also. Then I realized it wouldn't really help me to play a bunch of songs. If only you could assign VST effects to load with the midi loops...

Here's the other idea I came up with. I have a Numark DJ mixer with two USB audio inputs. If I had two instances of Buzz open, with the midi synced to maintain tempo, one playing through one USB audio device and through channel one on the mixer, and the other one playing through the second USB audio device into channel two, I could mix as if I were mixing two records. It would almost be like a two laptop setup.

Has anyone tried this?

I plan on fiddling with this soon, and I want to see what the implications of using livejump in two Buzz windows would be, and whether I could still use my MIDI keyboard for other stuff in each instance. The most important thing to me would be to be able to load any song I've done, and not have a preset order.

[freezedream]

can anyone give me advice on what's a good, cheap midi controller and keyboard and whether i need both or just one of these if i'm planning to do live stuff.

thanks
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