blessed are the geeks

Yonks ago, when I'd been dabbling in music production for just a few years, I saw 2 musical heroes of mine - Orbital and Underworld. Their live shows are (were) amazing and demostrated that electronic music, specifically dance music, can be performed live with as much energy and life as more traditional, band-based setups. I was fascinated by how they acheived their shows and being the uber-geek that I am, I did what I always do at gigs and watched the on-stage goings on with obsessive compulsion. I quickly decided that I wanted to do something similar, and that what I'd need was some kind of gizmo that you could load samples into and trigger them and loop them on the fly. At this point my geekdom concerning musical kit didn't extend beyond my computer and its fairly basic suite of music software, and I wasn't aware of such delights as samplers and MIDI controllers.

The desire to perform my musical tinkerings to an audience stuck with me over the years, always at the back of my mind. Recently my music has been based entirely on recordings I've made and suddenly the idea of looping/triggering/sequencing them in real time rather than step-by-step within the computer took on new fervour for me and began making sense artistically. I've been becoming more and more fascinated by the idea of blurring the boundaries between the live and the pre-recorded, and about a year ago I decided to damn well work out how I could play my stuff live once and for all.

Well, I'm finally there. I did 1 gig earlier in the year (see here) which was great, but it was very basic and very early days. It helped me realise what kit I needed to buy and the sort of interface I needed to set up. And now I have my kit, and last night I put the finishing touches to an interface (ie, how the kit synchs up with the computer) that is working very well indeed. At last I have my sample loading and triggering gizmo!

I'm now equipped with a decent mic (look), a set of drum pads (look), a box of knobs (look), 2 keyboards (1 just keys, one adorned with sliders and knobs, look), and a set of foot pedals (look), as well as my computer and its software (Ableton Live for live stuff - look) and lots of funny things to make noises with (a spring drum- look, 2 thumb pianos - look... there are others).

With all that stuff I can do what I've spent 10 years learning to do hidden in my bedroom using sequencers and drum machines, but live and on the fly, using real time fully synched recordings of, well, anything I want to record. And I can glitch it all up with the tweak of a knob, bash out a beat at the touch of some pads... you name it, I've got a knob/button/pad/pedal/slider that can do it.

GET THE FUCK IN!

All I need to do now is write some tunes...