01934sonicperformance

[01934sonicperformance]

Development blog

Sonic performance documentation

So this performance took a long process of pre thought to come into fruition, numerous experiments and many strands of inspiration from many performing artists. Namely - fourtet, floating points, binkbeats and Christian Loffier. Thankfully there is many online resources available and even direct explanations of there live sets by the artists themselves, so this really helped get a clear understanding of what they are doing.

What I hope to achieve with my own performance is a unique and one off creative play through of a set recontextualisations and and freshly realised versions of previous musical works of mine.

Kit list

Ableton live + Ableton push

Numerous plugins (notable plugins I’ve used - Crystalliser, Ableton FX rack for multiple macros at once)

Midi keyboard

What I learned from studying other artists work

So there’s a couple videos that really pushed me to figure out a way to perform effectively, one being Fourtets rundown

Fourtet red bull presentation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KIvnLBF7vU&t=108s

Key information

One computer running Ableton that has the main bodies of the tracks

The way he organises it is each channel is a different song, so the whole track is broken up and then looped.

He has pads to use that launch midi clips separate to these channels

He uses some ambient found sounds eg. Film reel, as a bed of sound. I could do this with foley

These free loops generally fit the track at anytime

Uses a dj mixer or fx and general mixing the 3 channels that he has generating sounds

Uses cool edit to create really fast loops

He holds off his most recognisable parts of the song and does unique versions of the song before bringing in main hooks etc.

Christian Loffier in the lab

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsTdB4s_zK8

Key information

Ableton launching clips, being routed and effected by a live mixer (this is a great basis for me to start)

Elektron rytm for drums

Strymon and soft synths playing off Nord keyboard

Really great foley percussion

Particularly like how fluid he keeps it, can see that a lot of what he does it live mixing

Sounds like crystalliser for some of the textures

REALLY well mixed

-  I particularly like the aesthetic presentation, clean wooden minimal, will adopt this for mine perhaps

Developing and building the core / stems

So at the very start of this project, I decided to work from stems to create the clear direction and foundation. I’ve worked on some new materials and decontextualised different parts of my musical history in this project, So to do this I’ve discerned what parts are most suited to be transformed live and how I can best stem them and implement them. After choosing these building blocks, I kept them all pretty flat, there is no dynamic change added artificially, all the flourishes/drum processing I wanted to keep to being live which I talk about later, as one thing I felt from the beginning is that I really want to avoid just simply activating scenes with Ableton, as part of the problem I had to solve on how to keep this engaging for a third party. So this explains the core of my live set, stems bounced in to looped scenes, triggered throughout to create the arrangements, photographed below.

The method I’m exploring in this area of my performance is assigning the knobs of my Ableton push to pre made FX rack macros. The audio effect rack in Ableton is really great for this, as you can stack up numerous plugins and assign them to one knob, and repeat across all 8 knobs available, essentially every track would have some iteration of this. There was a lot to solve in terms of the most effective ways to assign and perform the effects as instruments.

So for example selected stems eg. The “fort blue” track, I got the main chords and drum/foley as stems and then added new elements that differ to the original. So on this level there is a readapting to create something new or eventful which differs from the usual track to support “liveness”. I created an FX rack to Marco that is essentially a with a low cut and a reverb wet dry signal mapped to one knob, so this is a clean way to bring certain melodic sounds in and blend and into textures on the fly, you hear this in the intro for example, as I leave the live looping stuff and enter into the first song.

So with building an alternate arrangement from the core stems bounced from the original project, I and created parameters of performance, aka planned areas to be improvised with, eg playing with pre made macro assignments to create variation and excitement and also aid in a fluid arrangement. The macros generally consisted from 2-5 assignments, with delays, reverbs, filtered and more twisted fx. A good example of this being implemented of this is from 9.15 -10.45 with all 8 fx rack knob s loaded, specifically made to twist these drums in a certain way (screenshot below), although unique variations of this are being used through out, like from 4.10 - 4.30 (and onwards) to introduce the drums.

Adding free floating audio/live recorded loop techniques

By “free floating” I mean unattached to the clock/brain of Ableton. So I’ve began doing this by adding synth flourishes played on my midi keyboard throughout, this adds a good performative element.

In the intro, I thought it fun to create loops based on the Ableton plug in Echo, to create infinity loops of a synthesiser. So the first minute is completely improvised and entirely generated on the spot. I manipulate it live with crystalliser (this effect is rife in the first half).

Aesthetics

I wanted to set “the stage” carefully following the kind of thing I found visually appealing, taking inspiration from lots of people, like christian Loffier and the way Ableton displays its performers.

I used a Panasonic Lumix g2 shooting in 4k. My cat sleeps on my desk, so she was invited to the concert. I wanted it to catch the general vibe of the room, and show what I was doing. Unfortunately on my favourite take it cut my hands, but this will be something i fix in the future. I decided to hide with a self portrait as I haven’t shown my own face on my work before, and I don’t intend to.

I had an audience of one, sparky. She helped convey the feeling of the room in her natural habitat which by my side as I work.

Reflection

I wish I ended up integrating more live audio objects, but in the end I just couldn’t fit it in with the time constraints. I would have liked to have had more time doing things like the intro with the Echo delay looping/effecting, but I’m glad I at-least go to add parts of it to the stem bases performance.

Overall I am happy with the result, although it had lots of challenges, I felt I got a good production standard with good musical content, I really focussed on getting a solid mix before starting, and felt I achieved that, which Paul mentioned is massively important. This has created a really beneficial springboard for me to launch deeper into live performance.

[01934sonicperformance]