Industrial Live Shows

[spsnoise]

So via a suggestion on another thread I have decided that I am going to start playing my stuff out. At first I thought I would do my downtempo project, but after some consideration I've actually decided to exploit my industrial side instead.

I've read back through some post's on playing electronics live, but I'm still at a stale mate on set-up. There will be a few backing tracks, but I wan't to incorporate a 'live' element into my songs. This will be accomplished through a small modular set-up, guitar, bass, keys, triggers, vox, etc (two people total on stage, unless I can get a drummer But I am not sure whether to go with an mpc for backing tracks/drum samples or have a hard disk recorder playing backing tracks and use an Akai Z4 or the like for samples?

Laptop is 95% out of the question, I watched Imparative Reaction's set go down after they forgot to plug in their laptop and that shut the door on that and I refuse to be the bobbing head guy behind the apple like many other industrial acts do.

What else makes for a good industrial show?

I'm going to stay away from the cliche blood and such because there are too many bands doing that. I'd like to come up with some sort of visual projection either in or out of sync with the tracks, but that is a whole other project in itself. For now, I'd like your input on a solid live gear set-up and just suggestions on stage visuals.

Thanks

[spsnoise]

DC, I figured you would have a good reply. I actually was just thinking about the dvd option before I checked for replies. Theoretically I could also have 3 stereo stems outputting from a dvd player if I coded with 5.1 and ran through a receiver that outputs on rca. Would solve both the backup tracks and sync video. That is if I decide to do a sync based video.

Puppy does blood well, one of the best shows I've seen. It has just become so cliche now, but of course a lot of the people in the scene are listening to very cliche music as well. Do you give them want they want or do you save some dignity for yourself and try to be as original as possible?

[The Architecture]

I just had my first gig this friday at a mini industrial festival in Denver. For the most part, people were not doing much for their live performances, very bare minimum.

Heres videos from that performance



My first Track



My EBM track



and my Closer Track, which was the best recieved track that night

[spsnoise]

To any MPC1000 users, just for curiosity's sake how long would it take to load a 5 minute long stereo wav?

Give or take, just want to know in case I'd like to play a stereo back track off an MPC.

Thanks

[pr0gr4m]

I've had great success with using an HD based recorder for backing tracks. The Fostex VF160 is what I've worked with the most. To get the tracks into it, I would record from Cubase into the Fostex keeping the two in sync. This way when we play back the Fostex we can have it output midi clock data which would be in sync with the audio. This allowed us to send the midi clock from the VF160 to synths on stage to keep their arppegiators and LFOs in sync with the backing tracks.

It was very reliable and never crashed on us in over 5 years. If I had to wish for something I would have wished for multiple outputs on it. Then I could have sent separate feeds to the FoH instead of just a stereo mix.

[Acid Hazard]

One thing Sascha from KMFDM did while touring for the Symbols CD was use two MPC-2000s side by side. They contained all the important samples and MIDI sequences. They also sent Gunther's effects rig program change info at all the key spots. The rest was handled by the band.

[Bhang]

The laptop thing always has me worried too. Not sure if I will ever use one for my audio. I have seen quite a few industrial/noise bands play here in berlin and almost every one used an Apple laptop. I never noticed any problems except once. The only time I heard a glitch was with Architect VS Monolith and Daniel Myer was using a sony VAIO laptop which had an audio drop out near the beginning of the performance. ( did not happen a second time).
I used to use an ADAT way back in the day synced by my pile of crud 486 laptop which spit out my midi clock and lighting information. Plenty of tracks for backing stuff, vocoder crap or click tracks. It worked perfectly. Later I used a VS-880 but this was a real pain in the ass and was very limiting in the output department. It also worked every time with no problems. I think any half ways decent HD recorder should work fine. The DVD idea sounds cool too, but for me won't work because I use midi to automate my set up. Also, i would be scared of it skips & glitches. Everyone has had CD's and DVD's alike start their wonderful digital pop/clicking. Could be very embarrassing if it happens during a show although I have 0 experience here.

[spsnoise]

The ingenuity thread, we have spent all of our money on our studios and now can't afford some of the luxuries that would make these shows easier. I am good friends with the live engineer for Celldweller and they would use two dats synced with eight outs each sent to foh. Both dats would be playing the same tracks and in case one went down they would just un-mute a group and still be kicking along with barely a hitch. Both dats were also synced to a mini dv deck playing their background projection in time with the music. A nice set-up, something I'd like to copy, but simply don't have the funds for.

[spsnoise]

SMPTE, I forget which model deck they had, but it was a sony. I wonder if there are any boxes that convert MTC to SMPTE, you could slave a mini dv deck from an mpc or the like. Something else to look into.

Too many options.

[4NDRW]

my band did i ts first few gigs running backing tracks off a laptop...
we had a multioutput audio interface
we bought a copy of ableton and loaded our setlist into it
we had a few pads on a Roland SPDS drum sampler set up to control ableton... doing start/pause/next song
we set up one of the midi outputs to send a midi clock to one of my synths, coz i use an arp in one song......

it took ages to set it all up on stage
and had so many things that could go wrong
just all round pain in the ass

at the moment we're just using an mp3 player
click track panned left and monomix of backings panned right

because we're using a click track, for the song using an arp
i just save the tempo to my patch and set the arp to retrigger when i take my finger off for a sec then play new notes (i forget what thats called)
that all works fine

we have a miniUSB power adapter so it cant accidently go flat or anything.
mp3 audio quality isn't the best, but who's going to notice through a shitty club pa...

its a very tidy/easy solution.
i think laptops can be great, but it was overkill for our needs and more hassle than its worth

tho we have a new guitarist (yet to gig with him) but he's been running ampsim software on his macbook instead of using a guitar amp or hardware multifxunit... and i'm thinking about getting one for some synth parts...
so we may go down the laptop route again in future.

[4NDRW]

an example of what NOT to do..

a band i toured with briefly, experimented with backing tracks for one song at one gig i did with them...
they got it in their heads that ADAT was the way to go, they bought one..
they split the backing track over the 8 channels of the ADAT and ran them all into DI's connected to the stage box... then sent them down the multicore for the FOH mixer guy to get confused over

...all these unlabelled audio streams coming down at him, for a song he doesn't know, totally unmixed, with many of them only outputting sound during a few small segments of the song at random volumes...
(so a channel would be quiet then something would come in at the wrong level... too loud or not at all)

twas a flop
(rest of set was pretty ace tho)



basically there is no point giving the sound guy that much information... a stereo or mono mix is all thats required.. otherwise they wont know what to do with it.
unless its clearly labelled and clearly defined and the soundguy is familiar with your music
like i could understand cases where maybe you'd want to split off bass or backup vocals or something obvious.

unfortunately (for me) they didn't just leave backing tracks alone
they found someone to mix and put all the synth/bass/other backing parts on a minidisc
then i was out of a job and they kicked me out before right before their european tour! (rr...!)
but i digress