liveset with just a drummachine

[wesen]

Hi people,

I am in the process of making a minimal liveset using just the elektron machinedrum. I think though that I will add a few more sources, in fact I am very sure I will add a micromodular to do synth sounds and bleeps (and most importantly, do polyrhythms against the machinedrum), as well as maybe a minidisc player with found sounds routed into the machinedrum. What I wanted to ask, do you people do some sets with just hardware, and how do you go about structuring your set. Is it laid out in quite a lot of detail, and you have to remember? Do you go more for the "improvisational" route?

I must say that I'm noting pretty much everything down, while allowing for impro while tweaking effects. But hitting the bad loop at the bad moment can have such a bad effect on the groove that I don't want to have that risk looming over my head. Also, I've never dj-d, and in general don't have that much experience with minimal techno, so I'd be glad for comments on this first early early test of the set. It's just the loops straight from the machinedrum, sequenced in ableton without any effects.

One thing I already noticed is that I don't spend long enough on a single loop, as I vary the groundloop too quickly. At the moment I do maybe

groundloop (kick + bass + hat) -> groundloop + something -> break -> newgroundloop (in approx 1 minute)

while I should focus more on things like
groundloop -> groundloop + something -> break -> groundloop + something2 + fx tweaking -> groundloop + something3 + fx tweaking -> breka -> new groundloop (in approx 3 minutes)

Also there are almost no one shot sounds, but I will do those mostly with the fx tweaking as well as the minidisc.

Also the general feel is too be pretty deep, not too bang in your face, I used almost no compressor either.

Here is the first test:

http://bl0rg.net/~manuel/mnml-test-mix.mp3

EDIT: ah yeah, the noisefloor is very high due to running 12 loops recorded from the MD at the same time. Also there is some slight flaming because of uneven MIDI clock and me being too lazy to fix it. The ableton sequencing is just to get a feel for the flow, the rest will then be done in Song Mode on the machinedrum.

[theory]

i never played live, but i usually play on 3 deck so the fast changing is nice for me, but u will need a mixer or something because this sounds like just lairing the track one on another, try to cut the bass on the kick and than put another loop also whit out base and hi hat and than ad another loop whit just the kick and than slowly put down the first one and at the same time put a delay or some fx to the second loop and so on...i think u understand what I'm saying

and also....very nice loops u got there

[hydrogen]

djing will school you on set progression. Dj and listen to live mixes.

edit: so these are loops you recorded into live from the machine drum?

cool loops. this is all machine drum? sickness. i want one.

[wesen]

Thanks for the tips. I'm completely dissecting Richie Hawtins Closer to the Edit, and I'm learning a lot.

I completed my tool to convert the sequence in ableton to a song on the machiendrum, and will focus on doing the transitions on the machinedrum now.

Yes the loops are all machinedrum (UW, so with some samples for some bass stabs and chord pads). I tried a few things, and adding effects on the MD is pure sickness, definitely helps the flow. Also I can record the output of the machinedrum into the machinedrum itself, and do like reversing a part of a loop or things like that. Also a nice thing is that the song mode shows me how many times a pattern has been played, in case I loose my count.

I'll keep you updated.

[ao]

I completed my tool to convert the sequence in ableton to a song on the machiendrum, and will focus on doing the transitions on the machinedrum now.

Is this a s/w tool you wrote? Sounds really useful!

Nice sounds/loops, too!

[Rosscoah]

Some quality loops there mate, you've got me very interested now, keep us posted

Love the bit at 18m25s, get that track laid down!!

[s.k.]

gotta love seeing a thread like this... OP, you are an OG :mrgreen:

[wesen]

Thanks for all the nice comments.

Yeah the tool is a software I wrote, but it's in a hellish state, so I don't think I can release it as it won't be of any use for everybody else. I will try to spend a few weeks on it to make it useful. I spent a few hours today to make the set work on the machinedrum alone, and it's no piece of cake really.

I also added a bunch of pads and acid lines on the micronord, and that works really really well. So I think I will keep on doing a few more loops (it's about 20 loops in the set right now, I plan to do like 60 - 80), scrap the stuff that doesn't sound too good to end up with about 40-50 loops, and then practice the hell out of those.

What's an OP and an OG btw?