Im talking all live improvisation, starting from a blank session view and recording on the fly using VSTs and racks. Im talkin doing the drums right there, recording them, looping them, then switchin over to a bass synth, record a loop, and so forth, allowing for loop jams that can be manipulated in real time, and then mix then with another set of vsts and racks that would be the next track that follows. am I making sense here? i know my lingo isnt quite educated, I hope i can get my point across.

the reason i bring this up is simple: from reading all of the threads on here, im beginning to learn what it really means to perform live. I normally just produce, but lately ive been djing parties and such for friends. Its a blast and all, but theres nothing to it. I play killer choons and bring the house down, but in my part, I feel incomplete. I want to find a way to perform live, rather as a "one man electronic band" than a dj. Using ableton, how do any of you setup ways to perform completely and totally live, without dropping any prerecorded material (even its your own material!) and recording everything right on the spot?

ahh, and this is where it gets tricky I haven't seen very many people do this live. Eskmo, for one, does some awesome live percussion looping (sad you missed that part of the show!). I would love to start doing some of this as well, but I have to finish more songs first...

that is precisely why I want to pursue a live angle like this. I want my performances to be more than cueing loops and controlling my set effects, I want it to be all original music, right there on the spot, once its played, that version of the song will never be heard again, by even yourself, because of the uniqueness of the jam.

Good for you.
Glad to see people looking to progress and provide a more interesting, artistic performance.
Agreed, you don't see many doing much live, and completely live (no pre-made loops or patterns) electronic performance seems to be almost non existent.
I come from the Dj world (tt's), and have recently started composing live sets with very simple loops and a few simple instruments, no pre-composed/arranged/follow sequenced material. My idea is that as my production and playing skills develop, I will constantly increase the amount of live played/sequenced material. For now it's live composition but not much live playing.
There are a few midi controller setups and custom maps out there that look to be very useful for various methods of playing live. All depends on what gear you have or what you might intend to use?

I am also long term interested in this, although it's more of a long term goal than a short term need. I would think for the type of music we make you would want to:

1) have live keyboard playing skills and a keyboard on hand
2) have a way to record live percussion... and the relevant percussion on hand. Or any sort of drum machine if you don't consider that "cheating".

Definitely look in to the Looper device in Ableton (may only be in Suite)... it's built for this sort of live setup.

Just my 2c... definitely not an expert at this. When I play live I usually do live edits of recordings currently.

might be time to jump into the monome world. There are a number of multisampler applications that have been written for use with grid interfaces. MLR is a very popular one, i myself have made a max4live app i call Shfflr for live loop recording and rearrangement.

My setup is a monome 128 handling clip launching, step sequencing and live sampling, with an mpd18 for melody and drums, and my custom arcade fx mixer to glitch out the recorded loops. Lots of fun. Only thing is that doing it all can play havoc with your cpu usage. Even just sticking to samplers, ive hit 80% regularly. Synths can bring everything crashing down ;]

Best of luck though, this is the way forward imo. Anyone caught any of amon tobins new Isam live set? Supposedly all played live on a haakon continuum...

what im getting at is not live sequencing, which is cool and fascinates me but Im looking for TRULY live experience, where the only thing the software is doing is recording loops from a keyboard and playing them back, using only quantization to help keep everything together. something between loop jams and accompanying a track made on the spot, playing the lead synth and whatnot.

@rancor, Looper sounds like something that would work for me, I hope to be upgrading to suite over the summer so maybe ill get a whack at that then...

@iammusic, that sounds alot like what im trying to do. as far as midi maps, ive never quite understood all that mapping bit, but I use an apc40 and a synthstation25, but im moving up to something like an Axiom25 over the next few months, or if you know any great 25/49key keyboards youd recommend, or if you have any other live setup suggestions I could research further into..

as long as you have live8 (doesn't have to be suite) you have the looper. its in the audio effects folder.

if you haven't already, you should check out EOTO. i think they do exactly what you want to do. it's a duo with a drummer and a dude that plays everything else. not really sure how they do it though with recording everything and looping. you could probably find interviews that tell a little bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG0kzjpp8dA&feature=related

i love eoto, seen em quite a few times, and yes they are a prime example of awesome live electronic music, good idea im sure theyve got some tips out there

and nope, ive got Live 7 apc version...limted to 8 audio 8 midi channels and 8 effects per Live set. kinda lame. but I make the most of what I have!

Hrmm I'm not really into EOTO, though I certainly respect their abilities. Not quite crunk enough for me

Have you checked out Beardyman?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qciVXUHTN10

Haha damn that dude is sick as fuck! Why is this the first I'm hearing about this guy? Awesome!

@nosah, that was exactly my response when i stumbled across him. International treasure. Wish i had caught him at shambhala last...

I play live ...don't use a computer ...kaos is the shit for live loop ...check this lil vid of me messing around.
Playing like this is the most fun you can ever have.
http://youtu.be/tHHR_AzmVCo

$

Quite a bit more chilled, but it's a cool tune made on-the-fly. And he's not using loads of equipment either...A midi keyboard and a controller like the launchpad is a fun way to get into live music creation, and relatively cheap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqN5w_WGbo0

I sometimes spend a bit too much time messing with the software, fiddling with hardware etc. that I forget to just play the instruments and get better at them. What musical instruments can you play?

I know what you mean. can play a wee bit o' guitar, and I played the trumpet for an extensive period (though I havent touched it in a while) but lately ive been refining my keyboard skills on my m-audio venom. and Im currently working on hooking it up through ableton then I have my apc40 to control that. with perfection, it could be a lethal combo..

^^^iONik I am confused by this post. be this le bump?

Was talking to Sugarpill a while back and he was saying that some artists will render a copy of there track minus the lead or minus the drum, and then render that section they left out as a seperate sound file which they will set up to play alongside the actual track in arrangement view, though they will set loop points and cue points so they can "play" the instrument or drum section out on their controller and then when they stop "playing" or live remixing it, it continues to play along in arrangement view. Not sure exactly the technique, maybe if Sugarpill see's this he will chime in?

would love to hear what he has to say on the matter.

arrgh i just wrote you quite a detailed set of instructions/advice on how you can do this but somehow it got deleted and i can't be bothered to rewrite the whole thing but the main points where use edit > record quantization to set the resolution that recorded MIDI notes snap to. get a MIDI drum pad cos they are easier than using a MIDI keyboard for drum parts. experiment with the clip launch options at the bottom left of the screen (you have to click the little L to open the tab) Max for live offers endless possibilities if you know how to use it and check out this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r38r3BIgew. if you need anymore help let me know

I suppose I'm combining live pa, mpc and dj techniques as well as keyboards. ESKMO is sweet. These days I've gotten hip to stems. As a jazz pianist, watching people go crazy for years to (admittedly) very little being performed live, I have no qualms hitting play and dancing if people like it and it's original.

Experiment with a live pa/step sequencing rig- you should be able to throw some things in on the fly. The quickness is the fun part.

There are features like 'select next scene after playing' in conjunction with 'trigger recording on launch' that can automate live's sequencing capability even further. I haven't really used that, I guess because I'm going for a for a certain sound, or whatever, so again with the stems. I heard somebody above mention... muting a channel and playing over it instead.

If it has to be all improvised, I say, use a minimal aesthetic and take your time.

to all of those following this thread, ive a new update on my progress. using my m-audio venom through ableton, ive created a loop jam using all sounds from my synth and then controlling everything with my apc40. this is about 99 percent completely live, with the 1% prep work of making sure everything is in its right setting before pressing record:



myeh? baby steps in the right direction?

That's more than baby steps. IMO you should switch up to another, more sustained sub bass to switch up and you're golden. Another thought- are you using cue outs and a crossfader?

yep, using the apc buttons to begin recording a loop and then cueing in and out as needed. usin the crossfader on the apc for the drum and perc loops to cut them out but bring back in to make room for some nice breaks, also for slowly bringing in pad sounds and some other things like that. im kinda of just messing around, recording random jams and trying to figure what is the easiest yet most efficient way to do things with the setup I have.