It took me longer than I thought to find this thread... but more than 16 years and lots of "successful" live performances later I have some thoughts!
So I'll start with answering some of my own questions:
1. Obstacles you've run into...
Answer: Various and sundry! Shitty PAs, cables connected wrong (by me and others), loss of MIDI Comms. Loss of clock sync. No good monitoring, can't hear myself. Couldn't find where to pack in or no parking nearby... the list goes on!
2. How you have overcome them...
Answer: Planning, scaling and showmanship. I practice setting up and breaking down as much as I practice the actual set. I also have learned to complete a set after a catastrophic failure of some kind. Being able to play off a catastrophic failure is largely about fooling the audience (i.e. showmanship) into thinking that nothing has gone wrong. For the most part no one knows how what I'm doing is "supposed to sound", so it's easy to play off a flub or something. If a piece of gear stops working, I just mute its channel and use other gear to fill in the space. When I'm rehearsing, I tend to record snippets of my performance into my Octatrack and if need be, I can fall back on those recordings, that gives me a little time to troubleshoot or decide if I need to scale things back.
When it comes to house PAs, I try to give them as little to do as possible. I use my own mixer, keep tight control of levels and spectrum before my final outputs. A limiter on my output has been very helpful here, so that no matter how loud I get, I won't clip the house's mixer.
When it comes to packing in and out, I try to scout the venue with google maps or something like that. If I'm going to bring a lot of gear, I bring a dolly (and maybe my brother/volunteer roadie). I try to make sure all of my stuff is in cases and mostly hooked up the way it needs to be in the case.
3. Commonly overlooked variables to consider (club/venue conditions, PA stuff, audience consideration etc)...
Answer: Largely covered above.
4. Ways to make a performance interesting without being cheesy...
Answer: The best answer I have to this is to be a part of it. If you look like a passive participant, it's probably not fun for you or the audience. When I'm making music and a really get into it, I knod my head and kinda rock out a bit, doing silly little dances. When I'm on stage, I try to get into that mindset and my body just follows. I do my best not to "act", I'm just responding to the music as if no one were watching. Addressing the crowd and getting the audience to participate. If I clap, they'll clap along for example. I hang around and hype up other acts before and after my set. When I'm doing a noise set or something more abstract, I might make dramatic movements as I'm interacting with my gear but I try to keep it real, again I'm not putting on an act, I'm reacting to the sounds/music and the way they make me feel.
5. Techniques for practicing a computer music performance...
Answer: I don't really use a laptop as much as I used to but the lessons I learned about practicing probably apply no matter what. The point of practice is getting to the point where playing my set feels like muscle memory. Not only playing the set but setting up and breaking down my gear too (the amount of time for setup and breakdown is usually very shore, there is not a lot of room troubleshoot if I make a mistake). In the process of practicing I often find ways I can make my performance more interesting and at some point, I stop thinking about performing and I just do it. In that state it's much easier for me to have operational awareness, where I can catch problems before they occur and ideally pay some attention to the crowd, so I can play off of their vibe.
6. Ways to protect gear (other than the obvious use of flight cases etc)...
Answer: Flight cases are a good way to protect equipment but they are very bulky and difficult to travel with. And even so, if you have cables connected in the cases, it can be just enough force to cause some damage to the jacks. I tend to use pretty still cables when performing and part of that is aesthetic but it also makes it so that the cables have some give before something starts pushing on the jacks. In fact, I tend to use extra cables as a kind of padding.
Label everything! It's all too easy to damage something by connecting the wrong power supply, or forcing the wrong connection in the heat of troubleshooting a problem.
If you sweat a lot (like I do) wear a head band, at least during setup and keep a cloth around that you can use to wipe your hands/forehead. I've had synths go haywire after a drop of sweat fell in the wrong place.
All of this should be taken with a grain of salt and with the knowledge that I'm a solo artists who's never played in front of more than a few hundred people. Still, even if I knew then what I know now... I'd still probably make a lot of the same mistakes.![:lol:]( "Laughing")
I just try not to beat myself up when things go wrong. As long as my goal is to have fun, it's hard not to have fun performing!
So I'll start with answering some of my own questions:
1. Obstacles you've run into...
Answer: Various and sundry! Shitty PAs, cables connected wrong (by me and others), loss of MIDI Comms. Loss of clock sync. No good monitoring, can't hear myself. Couldn't find where to pack in or no parking nearby... the list goes on!
2. How you have overcome them...
Answer: Planning, scaling and showmanship. I practice setting up and breaking down as much as I practice the actual set. I also have learned to complete a set after a catastrophic failure of some kind. Being able to play off a catastrophic failure is largely about fooling the audience (i.e. showmanship) into thinking that nothing has gone wrong. For the most part no one knows how what I'm doing is "supposed to sound", so it's easy to play off a flub or something. If a piece of gear stops working, I just mute its channel and use other gear to fill in the space. When I'm rehearsing, I tend to record snippets of my performance into my Octatrack and if need be, I can fall back on those recordings, that gives me a little time to troubleshoot or decide if I need to scale things back.
When it comes to house PAs, I try to give them as little to do as possible. I use my own mixer, keep tight control of levels and spectrum before my final outputs. A limiter on my output has been very helpful here, so that no matter how loud I get, I won't clip the house's mixer.
When it comes to packing in and out, I try to scout the venue with google maps or something like that. If I'm going to bring a lot of gear, I bring a dolly (and maybe my brother/volunteer roadie). I try to make sure all of my stuff is in cases and mostly hooked up the way it needs to be in the case.
3. Commonly overlooked variables to consider (club/venue conditions, PA stuff, audience consideration etc)...
Answer: Largely covered above.
4. Ways to make a performance interesting without being cheesy...
Answer: The best answer I have to this is to be a part of it. If you look like a passive participant, it's probably not fun for you or the audience. When I'm making music and a really get into it, I knod my head and kinda rock out a bit, doing silly little dances. When I'm on stage, I try to get into that mindset and my body just follows. I do my best not to "act", I'm just responding to the music as if no one were watching. Addressing the crowd and getting the audience to participate. If I clap, they'll clap along for example. I hang around and hype up other acts before and after my set. When I'm doing a noise set or something more abstract, I might make dramatic movements as I'm interacting with my gear but I try to keep it real, again I'm not putting on an act, I'm reacting to the sounds/music and the way they make me feel.
5. Techniques for practicing a computer music performance...
Answer: I don't really use a laptop as much as I used to but the lessons I learned about practicing probably apply no matter what. The point of practice is getting to the point where playing my set feels like muscle memory. Not only playing the set but setting up and breaking down my gear too (the amount of time for setup and breakdown is usually very shore, there is not a lot of room troubleshoot if I make a mistake). In the process of practicing I often find ways I can make my performance more interesting and at some point, I stop thinking about performing and I just do it. In that state it's much easier for me to have operational awareness, where I can catch problems before they occur and ideally pay some attention to the crowd, so I can play off of their vibe.
6. Ways to protect gear (other than the obvious use of flight cases etc)...
Answer: Flight cases are a good way to protect equipment but they are very bulky and difficult to travel with. And even so, if you have cables connected in the cases, it can be just enough force to cause some damage to the jacks. I tend to use pretty still cables when performing and part of that is aesthetic but it also makes it so that the cables have some give before something starts pushing on the jacks. In fact, I tend to use extra cables as a kind of padding.
Label everything! It's all too easy to damage something by connecting the wrong power supply, or forcing the wrong connection in the heat of troubleshooting a problem.
If you sweat a lot (like I do) wear a head band, at least during setup and keep a cloth around that you can use to wipe your hands/forehead. I've had synths go haywire after a drop of sweat fell in the wrong place.
All of this should be taken with a grain of salt and with the knowledge that I'm a solo artists who's never played in front of more than a few hundred people. Still, even if I knew then what I know now... I'd still probably make a lot of the same mistakes.
I just try not to beat myself up when things go wrong. As long as my goal is to have fun, it's hard not to have fun performing!Statistics: Posted by justin3am — Fri Jul 26, 2024 8:10 pm