live laptop music - Is it true ?

Ditty · Post by **Ditty** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:43 am

Sounds similar to those groovebox competitions. Set up your loops, trigger, then play something over the top whilst tweaking. I'm kind of surprised not to be seeing more of this. Then again i once thought the flexibility of the CD format would bury turntables once and for all. It's interesting the way one perceives live music is somewhat dependent on the way it's being played. Perhaps jumping a lot helps

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 8:38 am

That's obviously very weak use of technology. IMHO you can do really cool stuff with a laptop, if you use the correct software and do interesting enough things.

How about if you have some means of building a track live, using intuitive controls and perhaps using a headphone monitor to build things before unleashing to the crowd (DJ-style)? If you add audio input sampling to this, you could maybe even move it up another level.

I guess the closest thing at the moment is Ableton Live, although it mostly revolves around a loop paradigm. I'd prefer to use something like fxpansion Guru, with some means of headphone cueing, audio input sampling and MIDI-out sequencing.

borg · Post by **borg** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 1:05 pm

18 months ago, i did one of my rare live shows, with a laptop and ableton live. it were all prerecorded loops and beats. however each one could be triggered at will, fx tweaks, so i could do anything i wanted to build the songs. still, for me it seemed quite boring. this was with ableton Live v3.

so a few weeks later, i tried something different. i invited about ten muso friends to a big rehearsal room, and put some mics and a korg ms 10 in front of them. each was supposed to add something, whenever they wanted, whatever they wanted.
i started off with a complete empty ableton live file, i mean, completely empty. one at a time, the guys started to add rhythmic vocals, flute, ms10, klarinet,...
sometimes it didn't work out that great, other times it took a while to get it going, but it was all 'live'.

now ableton live is about to reach v5, and it has improved A LOT since that boring gig. just give me a mic, a knob box and the laptop, and i can entertain you for a few hours (or maybe not, but it 'll be all live).

take a look at jamie lidell. http://www.jamielidell.com/video/rfh.html
it's with hardware, but it could easily be transferred to a laptop. lots of people are doing the same already, with guitars, drum sets, keyboards, voice, whatever.

so yes, it is possible to play live music with a laptop.

Billy goat gruff · Post by **Billy goat gruff** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 5:30 pm

Gimme a guitar and pay me in beer. At least if I spill some, it won't mess with my keyboard.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Billy goat gruff on 2005-07-03 18:30 ]</font>

marcuspocus · Post by **marcuspocus** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 10:07 pm

I love what this guy jamie lidell can do live. Well, i don't particularly like his music, but what he can do live

I bet it can be done with ableton live too.

I would like to know what hardware he's using

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 2:25 am

Keyboard shortcuts to most used functions is a must, as is MIDI control, so at least at each moment you have options on how to do things, wherever your hands are. Still not very musical, but it's faster than mouse work. Also you can make your own setups so various programs work intuitively from the keyboard, sometimes using the same shortcuts for commands. Some programs understand DDE or command line input while running and do it even in the background, just like MIDI would. As with MIDI, these control assignments have to be exclusive, Win-E for Explorer for example. Apart from VST automation, you can assign MIDI remote to program functions in audio software.
Compare its musical interactivity to a simple thing like guitar and microphone, and the laptop clearly takes the back seat. This doesn't mean one cannot bring excellent music with it, after some preparation. But the approach and limitations of each are quite different.
I would still classify laptops under Tools, not under Instruments.

Billy goat gruff · Post by **Billy goat gruff** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:19 pm

Unless you're belting it in syncopation.

Cochise · Post by **Cochise** » Wed Jul 06, 2005 2:14 pm

On 2005-07-02 14:05, borg wrote:
i invited about ten muso friends to a big rehearsal room, and put some mics and a korg ms 10 in front of them. each was supposed to add something, whenever they wanted, whatever they wanted.
i started off with a complete empty ableton live file, i mean, completely empty. one at a time, the guys started to add rhythmic vocals, flute, ms10, klarinet,...
sometimes it didn't work out that great, other times it took a while to get it going, but it was all 'live'.

Does anyone else dream about the age when things like this will be able to happen thru the net?