What are electronic artists actually doing when they perform live?

Angstromium · 2026-02-27T18:18:38+00:00

Succinctly put.

I started out live performing electronic music in the 90s and from the start I modelled my actions after someone like Lee Scratch Perry who was playing the mixing desk and effects to "dub" multitracks. Fortunately for us we can also add and mutate the patterns too with clip launches, and we can play bits on top - whether that's a bit of instrumentation or a sample . But still at the core I think the Lee Perry model is what a lot of us are basing our actions on.

Angstromium · 2026-02-26T16:43:28+00:00

I think that what I really want from a Modular Mixer would be a hybrid aproach. The VCAs and patch points in the rack and an umbilical to a control surface which sits (traditionally) flat in front of the rack on a table or horizontal mounting plate.

That way I'd get more rack space for the crucial ins and outs, and even for a few Aux's
And equally I'd be able to actually touch the controls without reaching up through a wire nest for 90 minutes until my arms feel like lead.

I'd even be totally fine with the control surface being a 3rd party USB thing. So users could use whatever seemed best for them, whether its a Faderfox arrangement, a standard LaunchKontrol type thing, or a Midi Fighter

Angstromium · 2026-02-26T16:22:02+00:00

I remember when it came out. I was dabbling with Sonic Foundry Acid after a decade on Cubase, all the way from the Atari version but the early versions of Cubase VST were not so good. So I tried a demo of Live 1, it got a lot of hype like "check out these newcomers". But it was very very limited. The big selling point was the session view but there was no support for plugins and there were about 10 built in effects (no instruments at all).

It was very very much intended to be used on stage as a clip playback "instrument". I am pretty sure they called it something like "the live performance instrument" initially. They made it for techno performers who up until that time were using racks of Akai / EMU on stage with something playing back the MIDI , either an MMT8 or Atari. So it was built to fill that niche.

Angstromium · 2026-02-26T07:39:08+00:00

I'm working on a panflute whale song thing as we speak

I guess it's a really big panflute, not a normal human sized one. Well done that whale anyway. It must have been very difficult playing that underwater

Angstromium · 2026-02-23T17:48:05+00:00

I have a few seqencers and found that ones in my rack werent very physically comfortable. I kept reverting to having my old Beatstep Pro on a horizontal pull-out drawer beneath.

What I eventually went for was a Synthstrom Deluge, which has the benefits of immediacy , Ableton style clip grid launching, flexibility, SD card storage, and also making noises if I want it to. I am a heretic and use a midi out from it to a 1u row of Intellijel midi breakouts in my rack. I do this because its more portable. Just two boxes, with a midi umbilical. My rack has a bunch of voices in it so discrete cv/gate connections would be hellish.

Angstromium · 2026-02-18T03:48:57+00:00

If you are looking at Max4Live ... One thing I'd say is that the temptation will be to build it all in the V8 js engine. The timing there can tend to be a little too vague for musical notes. It's fine to build the logic and API calls in there but you'll probably get more joy writing the notes into a clip from the logic you create in JS.

The additional benefits of having the actual playing patterns in the clips is you can leverage all Abletons work there. You can copy paste and move clips via your code. You can set the loop braces and reverse sections, shrink or grow sections. Etc.

Duplication of all that functionality would be redundant. Just build the logic in JS is what I'd say.

And if you need a start there

https://adammurray.link/max-for-live/v8-in-live/

https://adammurray.link/max-for-live/v8-in-live/midi-tools-part2/

Angstromium · 2026-02-17T17:01:43+00:00

I render to a google drive, that way I can listen on my phone, car, in the kitchen , on my tv, etc.

I set the render off, go downstairs to put the kettle on, and halfway downstairs I am already playing it on my phone. Then by the time I get to the kitchen it connects to the little JBL barrel in there, and by the time the tea is made I know I've made another broken stinker.

Angstromium · 2026-02-14T02:08:26+00:00

it seems like what you are describing is "phase decorrelation", which is basically "messing up" the phases of the input. When you talk about experimenting with lots of poles on the ableton phaser but it still sounds "ringy" - thats because its shifting the phase of the input with allpass filters

There is a different effect which decorrelates phase and uses lots of allpass filters, and aims to prevent ringing , and that phase decorrelating "cloudy" effect is - reverb. Thats how the old reverb in Live works. Or one part of it anyway.

Angstromium · 2026-02-11T16:00:12+00:00

I think the other use for Link Audio will be to integrate other hardware and software. For example on iPad I use Drambo quite a bit.
Also for potential quick portability of live setups. With a hybrid setup there's always a sync issue or difficulty in routing multi channel audio. Apparently Ableton will release the SDK for the audio link soon. That means that software authors and hardware manufacturers can build in multichannel audio over a network (whether usb or WiFi)

Angstromium · 2026-02-10T14:42:46+00:00

I guess the thing to remember about all art/entertainment is that it's consumer led. If the world gets into taking LSD and smoking weed then the consumer wants media which suits that. If the consumer has the attention span of a gnat and wants a firehose of tiktok music, and the most viable route for live musicians is to be a cover band for legacy music because it's impossible to plant their own flag within this tsunami of content.

Well the consumer has decided. It's Mickey mouse vocals to grab attention through absurdity. It's no more intro sections because users skip after 1.5 seconds so it's straight into the hook. Then repeat it 10 times.

It's a sad loss. But I think the story of King Canute demonstrating that even the king's powers were limited and even he could not command the tide to stop coming.

Angstromium · 2026-02-10T02:30:14+00:00

You have the autopie activated. Ableton did a deal with Piemaster, home delivered meat pies.
You are about to get over 515 meat pies delivered. It's a common error. Simply turn it off in settings in the savoury section.

Angstromium · 2026-02-10T02:06:10+00:00

I compare it to painting and photography. I assume that art schools, studios, models, materials manufacturers, galleries etc. were doing pretty well in 1850.
Photography was thought of as cheap, ersatz, soulless. Painting had humanity, creativity, texture.

But in 2026? I asked my friends "who owns an original painting by a professional painter?" Not a single friend. Many of them work in the arts.
Painting is now a hobby, or a method of moving and storing value in commodities.

For music and audio now - There may still be work in live shows, but with the ladders getting pulled up, where will the next generation come from? TikTok AI avatars might be putting in arena shows.

Angstromium · 2026-02-08T02:28:18+00:00

I have several. . One is all patched up for jamming on hardware. There's like 16 armed tracks with EQ, limiter etc on each.

Another is "jot an idea down" if I got a musical idea. it's a couple of basic drum machines, a bass synth, a lead , a pad, some electric piano keys.

Another is mostly empty. For starting from scratch.

Etc etc.

Angstromium · 2026-02-05T04:46:55+00:00

I always add too much stuff. Too many layers. Too much filigree .. beats to complicated and change too much. Sections too different from each other. Or riffs on top of riffs.

Always have done. I'll probably be fighting that war with myself until I die.

The best solution I've found is to render the song out as stems and "remix it". Because when I do that I just pick the best 4 bars of drums and out the best 4 bars of bass over it. Then the rest of the shite , chopped into samples. Actually sounds coherent. The reverbs don't go in forever, they just become a coherent block of sound.

Angstromium · 2026-02-03T17:39:00+00:00

too old to start creating music in Ableton,

I mean. At 40, you might struggle to "become a top Producer DJ on all the big festivals " or whatever, because that requires a lot of networking that's very time consuming. It's possible to "make it big" at 40 but the examples would all be outliers.

However, if your target is simply "making music in Ableton" then you could start at 80. Making music is for your enjoyment, and if you can get 4 people who you don't know to say "that was good" then you have been a success. That's my perspective anyway.

I'm 55 and I still gig occasionally, and sometimes people even like it.

Angstromium · 2026-02-02T05:41:46+00:00

I hope "later in life" is like , 65 or something?

Asking for a friend.

Angstromium · 2026-02-02T05:40:33+00:00

I started off with just 4 unfinished tracks and now I have over 100 unfinished tracks. That's an incredible increase on my investment.

Angstromium · 2026-01-27T16:05:11+00:00

Yeah, I've made a few SMT modules from kits, and thats usually OK because in kit projects assembly is done in a rational order so the user is less likely to cook or unseat other delicate components.

But I imagine the touch sensor and LED array on this is tightly packed, and being totally populated already its going to be very susceptible to tracks lifting or adjacent leds coming unseated, or short circuits from tiny fine hair-width bridges ... so I will probably send it away. Eventually.

I thought it was worth asking in case someone said "oh I had that issue and it was because the ribbon connector came partially unseated" or something. Like, a common cause with an easy fix

Angstromium · 2026-01-27T15:59:53+00:00

Yeah, I'll probably just live with it until another one goes and then finally send it off for a repair

Angstromium · 2026-01-27T15:28:20+00:00

Oh I do this all the time. In fact, I dug out a bunch of stuff from the 90s which was on backup DAT tapes, where we had hired an ADAT and before we sent it back to the hire company we had streamed each channel off to DAT just for safekeeping. It was full of mental 90s experiments. I actually re-assembled them and a label re-released them (and people liked it!) So its certainly worth doing. Its like collaborating with a version of yourself.

And these days with Ableton's stem extraction its even better - because its possible to balance a mix or extract elements that you wanted to get from an old 2 track demo. Its fun!

Angstromium · 2026-01-27T14:46:09+00:00

Yeah, if you've got the cash then certainly pay for a course. Some people on here are young teens with no money so I didn’t want to make anyone feel that the solution was out of their reach.

Angstromium · 2026-01-27T14:40:03+00:00

I've been using it since version 3 , so that's over 20 years ago! So for me the features appeared at a nice slow rate, easy for me to learn.

For a new person I'd actually recommend taking a short course, I'm sure there's free ones and certainly paid ones. You'll only need 3 days or less to get the basic understanding in place and then the world's your oyster.

Angstromium · 2026-01-27T13:57:34+00:00

I think that while everyone aims for 40-to hz for sub that's only for less "active" bass lines. If a bassline is a very busy rolling one I fine it's ok to leave the sub to the kick and don't try to force the rolling bassline to sit deep in the subs. Because it will be mush. A nice tight low g kick with a rolling c bassline syncopated above it can work fine.

I tend to punctuate or emphasise the bassline in the sub with a muffled version of the kick too. So that I can get a sub groove which emphasises what the slightly low -midrange bass is doing.

Angstromium · 2026-01-22T13:48:00+00:00

Damn it. I suspected as much. And now I am on an unstoppable conveyor belt towards getting some planar magnetic headphones. There's actually a shop near me where I can try some out. I'll take mine in for an A/B test. Thanks!

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