Live Electronic Music Performance
I love making live electronic music! When I ran events for the Tonic Note label, live electronic music is what we focussed on. Rather than DJing, it helped us build a unique style of event, where it was almost exclusively original music you were listening to.
Below is my first full live set as my new act, Last of the Free, and also my first live set since April 2019 when I was on tour in Scotland!
I’m excited to share it with you, and if you have any questions how it all came together, or need tips yourself, just email me and I’ll get back to you!
I’ve also included a second bonus video that shows a run down of my set up. And further down I’ve written a mini blog on a whole bunch of tips about Live Performance you might find helpful. Enjoy!
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In the below video, I give you a quick run down of how my set up is put together! Click the thumbnail to watch.
Top Tips for Live Electronic Music Performance
Here are some of my tips in a stream of consciousness style orderless fashion ha ha!
Take time to build up your library of material to work with.
If you have just finished painstakingly crafting a collection of tracks, give it some time before you build your live set. It feels weird to immediately deconstruct something you’ve worked on for so long, and then try and rebuild it live.
Choose what you’d like to do in your live set. Do you mainly want to play an instrument and play the songs true to their original arrangement? Do you want to use loads of small loops and launch them live, with FX, remixing the arrangements and improvising as you go? Or a hybrid of this with some songs like plan A and some songs like plan B?
Watch lots of live sets on youtube for inspiration. Artists I recommend to check out are:
Giorgia Angiuli
KiNK
Rachel K Collier
Legowelt
Bad Snacks
Look Mum No Computer
Ela Minus
Marie Davidson
Saytek
If you are just starting out, I would recommend using Ableton live, building your live set in there. A Midi controller will be very useful for controlling FX (I like one with lots of faders and knobs). And then slowly you can add external gear like a drum machine, or synth. But be sure to learn the equipment you have inside out so you can get the most out of it!
Try and avoid “Shiny object syndrome” of always looking for new gear or plug ins and really learn well the ones you have. It can be good to have a one in, one out policy when you buy gear. EG if you already have a mono synth… if you are going to get another similar one, you have to sell the first one unless you can really justify it!
Try not to overcomplicate your live set, it is good for it to be easy to understand and get into a flow in a noisy, low light, and distracting environment (eg club or festival)
Pack the cables relating to a bit of equipment with that piece of equipment when transporting it. Rather than a huge bundle of all the cables this allows a quicker set up and less tangles to untangle.
REHEARSE A LOT. I mean every day if you have a gig coming up. You want your set up to become muscle memory, so you can play it like an instrument and really feel the flow of the music.
This rehearsal doesn’t need to feel like a chore - I mean you got into this to play music right? So enjoy that time and dont pressure yourself for results straight away.
Once you get a bit better, if you can, record your rehearsals! Having a good example of your live mix online can help convince people to give you gigs, and you can even make it into a live ep or album.
That’s it for now, although there is plenty more advice I could probably give on this I need my pasta for lunch and to go a skate.
Follow on instagram , youtube etc for frequent content and I’ll definitely be posting more about this subject as it’s one of my favourites
Thanks!
David