Tips, Technical and Musically, on Performing LIve

[Infenro]

Hey guys, please forgive me if this thread has already been made I searched multiple times to make sure and I really wanted to see specifically what this community thinks about live performance.

Now I have fruity loops Producer Edition and they're planning on making a live performance mode and I would like to get a Novation Launchpad in the future.

That's it that's about the extent of my knowledge so far, but I would love to learn the nuances of performing live, both in a technical manner (setting up equipment, getting gigs) and a musical manner (improv remixing, set ups, etc.).

Any info you have on anything related to performing electronic music live would be very helpful.

Thanks

[Kanthos]

I'm familiar with Ableton Live, but I just took a look at the alpha testing videos for FL Studio's performance mode, and they're pretty similar, so most of my comments will be relevant.

Why don't I explain my live setup and point out the most interesting parts, and you can ask questions if anything's unclear?

I'm a keyboard player, and I play mostly at church, both in a standard Sunday morning service (~5-7 songs, often not a lot of preparation put into it) and a monthly service that's maybe 15-18 songs with several rehearsals. I won't go into much detail on the keyboards since it sounds like you just want to play pre-recorded material, but here's the summary.

I'm using a Roland V-Combo VR-700 for organ sounds and as a main keyboard, and an M-Audio Oxygen 49 (it's sucky, but I already had it at home) for a second keyboard, to play two parts at once. Both send MIDI into my laptop. I run a program called Bome's MIDI Translator to filter or transform all incoming MIDI, and send most of it through to Ableton Live on various channels. I'm using software called loopMIDI to provide the virtual MIDI ports that let two programs talk to each other.

For keyboard sounds, I've got a number of VSTs loaded in Live. They can all respond to program changes sent in from a controller or triggered via MIDI clips in Live. I've got a Korg nanoKontrol that sits on my main keyboard, and I use it to adjust volumes for each part and to turn each VST on and off (rather, in Bome's, turn rules that allow MIDI to pass through Bome's to Live on and off for each channel). That lets me do things like have separate strings, winds, and brass orchestral sections and combine them together. I've also got a Line6 FBV Shortboard foot controller, for tap tempo, to turn piano and synth FX on and off, and to send program changes to Guitar Rig, which I'm using as an effects unit for my electric piano sounds. Lastly, I've got a Launchpad for playing clips.

I use clips in two ways. First, a brief overview of how Ableton handles clips. In Session View, each track is a column; the rows are called Scenes. I can put a clip in every slot if I like, but only one clip can play per track - starting a new clip stops the old one. I can use a button on my Launchpad (the rightmost column does this) to trigger all the clips in a scene; I can also put tempo changes and time signature changes into the scene name, and Live will use those (eg. "Some_Song 136 BPM 3/4")

For every song I do, I have a setup scene that will set the time signature and tempo and has a MIDI clip for every VST I run, just to send a program change to the VST. I don't have the time on stage to manually change several plugins between songs.

I also have a few songs so far that I run loops for, and this would be more like what you're talking about. I can use a Scene Launch button on my Launchpad to bring in all the clips for a scene, or I can trigger them individually based on what the song needs. For my purposes, I'll run a loop that's as long as a single chorus or verse; in situations where we do two choruses, I'll let it loop again (in case the lead singer decides not to do a second chorus on the fly).

[Kanthos]

Now, some actual tips that I've learned from developing my rig:

1) Be flexible. If all you're going to do is play a track, just put on a CD. You have to be able to change things up, or it isn't musical. Live Mode will help a lot with this, of course, but how you arrange things, in a way that works logically for you, is important too.

2) Use one FL Studio project for your live set. No one wants to wait while you open a new project after each song.

3) For each song, bounce all the tracks to audio and assemble them in your live set in a way that's consistent. Don't try and load the VSTs you used for each song part all at once; that'll just eat up too much memory. (I get away with it in my keys setup because I'm loading a fixed number of VSTs, not one plugin for every sound used on every song)

I have three Key Loops tracks (not just keys, really, but anything melodic) and three Beat Loops tracks; in each Live scene, I can have up to six different parts playing. They could all be combined into one big Loops track, or one Keys Loops track and one Beats Loops track, but I like it this way so I can bring individual parts of a beat in and out. Regardless, the point is that you should figure out how to arrange your clips in a way that's not tied to a specific song, and make that consistent for everything.

4) In general, keep things consistent. You've got enough changing with each song, or part of a song, using different musical material with different sounds. You don't ever want to guess ANYTHING else about your set. Set it up the way you want, be consistent, and you'll have a lot less to worry about onstage.

You'll notice that I've got *a ton* of buttons going (plus, almost every key on my laptop keyboard is mapped to something in Live too). I get my head around it by being consistent: in Live, all the VSTs (or audio tracks from VSTs) are in a specific order. I repeat the order exactly everywhere else: in the MIDI tracks that get incoming MIDI from my keyboard, in the other MIDI tracks I have if I want to trigger sound from a VST by a MIDI clip or to send a program change, in the order of my On/Off buttons on my nanoKontrol. The order is the same, and that makes it much easier to memorize.

5) Have a panic button set up, whether that's a quick way of muting what's coming out of your audio interface or a surefire way to stop all sounds.

6) Effects are another great way to change up a set, especially if you trigger them on and off live. Consider getting Stutter Edit and a MIDI controller keyboard or other MIDI controller like the nanoKontrol (25 keys will be fine on a keyboard, if you don't intend to play anything) so you can easily trigger effects live. And don't just consider glitchy effects: things like filters or multi-band compression are great too. One of my favourites right now is an EQ and Compressor on my piano track to add heavy compression while EQing the midrange up and the lows and highs way down; that makes the piano sound really "boxy", and also means that the clean piano sounds that much better when I turn the effects off, as a way of playing some piano and then opening up the full sound at a key moment in the song.

7) Consider getting Ableton Live if you can. I don't know what FL Studio's performance mode will be like, but odds are, Ableton will be better, and will continue to stay ahead of FL Studio, since live performance is Live's main draw. This includes things like being able to map a computer keyboard key or MIDI message to virtually everything. Ableton also has effects racks: you can group several effects (eg. the EQ and Compressor for my "boxy" piano sound) into one effects rack, and you can turn the whole rack on or off easily.

8 ) Practice a lot before you try to get gigs. Make sure you're comfortable with your setup, that you've got all the buttons and knobs memorized, that you've got stuff set up to give you the flexibility and musicality that make a great live set.

[Infenro]

WOW KANTHOS! This was extremely helpful I can't thank you enough, this definitely has helped me understand exactly what goes into someone performing live.

If I were to ask any questions, I would like to ask how you learned to play keyboards cause I'm not against them I just haven't really learned and I'd love to have that skill while making music electronically.

I'd also ask a bit more about how you manage to keep all the songs sorted out into one project. That's a fantastic idea but I would love to see how that would look, cause it sounds daunting if you have a whole bunch (but personally it sounds exciting if you wanna get creative and try and mesh two songs together or something or do a nice transition.)

Being a senior in High School I'm gonna say I probably won't immediately end up buying Novation Launchpad. I only have one pretty okay keyboard that does work, but probably doesn't have alot of the things that your keyboard has (and it is MIDI I use it infrequently to make playing around with composition easier). Also Ableton Live would be another bit of money and personally I would love to support FL Studios in their tries, plus I'm personally really comfortable with their style so I'm sure that their performance mode will do what I need it to (but if not I will definitely consider Ableton). Is there any methods of practice you could recommend, especially ones that don't involve all the hardware for now.

Your words have been very helpful and thank you so much for helping me.

[Kanthos]

I took Classical piano lessons from when I was 5 to when I was 14, so the technical skill I have, I gained from that. I've only developed my actual keyboard chops over the last 4-5 years; playing keys for a band is about choosing the right sounds to fit the moment and playing them authentically. A B3 organ, Rhodes or Wurlitzer electric piano, pads, leads, strings or a full orchestral section, they all have different playing techniques, so you can't just sit down at a keyboard and play it like a pianist regardless of which sound you're using.

For your purposes, you're going to want to stick mainly to synths, so that makes it a bit easier. I'd probably do a combination of trying to play easy parts back at a slow speed and looking at youtube videos. A few years of piano lessons would go a long way too, enough so that you learn the basics and have the ability to continue on your own, but if you don't have the money for that, it's not the end of the world. Expect it to take several years of regular practice, though, before you get a decent level of skill, and if you're trying to do things like play fast lead lines a few years down the road, I would strongly recommend getting at least one or two lessons, just so a teacher can notice any bad habits you might have and fix them before you damage your arms or fingers.

How I keep songs sorted out is fairly simple. I can't post a screenshot from work, but since I don't actually use loops all that much, I usually have only a single scene per song. Ableton lets you set the background color of each scene and clip, so what I do is make dummy scenes with a bright color to set up barriers between groups of songs. My scene list is currently something like this:

Default Scene 1 (orange)

Default Scene 2 (orange)

Default Scene 3 (orange)

Setlist Start (green)

Song 1 Setup 120 BPM 4/4

Song 2 Setup 72 BPM 4/4

Song 3 Setup 115 BPM 4/4

Song 3 Intro Loops

Song 3 Verse Loops

Song 3 Prechorus Loops

Song 3 Chorus Loops

Song 4 Setup 141 BPM 4/4

Setlist End (green)

All Songs Start (blue)

...Song sceneslike the ones above, in alphabetical order by song; songs with multiple scenes are ordered by when I'll use the scene in the song, just like Song 3 above.

All Songs End (blue)

Work In Progress Start (red)

...Scenes that aren't ready to be moved to the All Songs area

Work In Progress End (red)

The blank rows are untitled scenes with nothing in them, just for spacing. The default scenes contain a default set of MIDI clips for sending program changes to my VSTs or doing a few other things; I always duplicate the one I need when building a song; they're not worth explaining unless I get into specific detail about how I've organized my MIDI tracks and VSTs.

So when I'm preparing for a gig, I drag the songs from the All Songs area to the Setlist area and arrange them in the order we'll play them. You probably won't need this, but one of the typical things about playing at a church is there's a large number of songs that get played infrequently; for you, you'd have a smaller number of songs and likely use most of them every time you gig.

You could also take a look at this user's videos on youtube. Again, he's a bit keyboard-centric, but he uses loops a lot more than I would, and he demonstrates some techniques for playing, using loops, and even building loops. I got a lot of my ideas from him, though I've been refining my keyboard rig for the past 3 years.

My keyboards are actually really basic. My Roland is only really good for B3 organ sounds, so beyond the drawbars and other controls that you'd find on an actual B3, I don't use the other buttons. My Oxygen 49 is a cheaply-made keyboard, and I don't even use it every time I play. None of the buttons or knobs are mapped to anything; all the button mappings are on my nanoKontrol and laptop keyboard, both things I'll always use no matter what other gear I play with.

As for practicing, you can't really do that without the hardware you're going to play on. Either figure out how you want to launch things without having any extra gear, or wait until you get the gear you need. You can't get used to launching things with a launchpad without the launchpad, and really, most of the practice here is in how you use your controls. You could practice turning effects on and off and playing around with which effects to use when; you'll still need a way to actually turn effects on and off, but you can at least get a feel for which effects work well in which circumstances regardless of what controllers you'll actually use in your final set.

[Legion303]

I can't give you tips on electronic setup or anything since I've only played guitar in a bar band, but I can give you some general advice: never stop playing unless something goes catastrophically wrong (power loss, speaker failure, fire). If you make a mistake, chances are no one's going to notice it if you plow through and keep playing.

True story: my drummer stepfather was playing on some cheap temporary canvas stage that was slowly collapsing under his kit. He ended the song almost lying down, but he didn't stop playing.

[Infenro]

Thanks! That helps too!

That's an awesome story too lol, I know it just seems really weird to an audience when their groove is killed.