Live Set Development - Buffet Beats

The Performance -

After having done the performance, I think it was successful and it felt like I could have continued and stretched my material a little further.

Piece by piece I have incorporated all of the equipment with the DDJ-200 being the last addition. 

The mixer section in the middle became a very effective way to mediate between my virtual deck A and B.

And as you can see in the screenshot above, I built a drum rack out of different rap acapella samples and loaded them to be launched by certain keys on my APC.

As I initiate the start of the vocal with this left hand I can transpose, detune or both with the right hand using the turntable on the deck.

Problem Solving -

Despite each song being grouped and having the same master chain as the mastered album version, certain elements became muddied and unclear played as part of the live set. 

For example, the sub lead in the first track ‘Honey’ became distorted when joined with the mid and high end sections. So it was just a matter of doing some processing here and there to clean those things up and make sure that there is approximately a level average of dB as I progress from one song to the next.

Which leads me onto transitions -

I found that the crossfade was most suitable at ‘Transition Mode’ of the 7 different modes the Ableton one can be set to. 

Initially I had it set to ‘Constant Power’ which meant that as soon as you moved the fader from either far right or left, the other track would start to sound. However, with it set to ‘Transition’ I could use half of the fader space for a fade in or out without bringing in the other track - much more smooth especially when blending A and B track elements simultaneously.

Having previously been working with just the APC key25 (left launchpad) and Novation LaunchPad (right), I’m beginning to integrate more pieces of hardware one by one - starting with the Maschine.

It sits on its own track at the end and has its separate grouping from the rest of the song based structure - sounding on both sides A and B. 

It has its own assigned beat repeat buttons as does the mini keyboard section of the APC so I can use the two together to build loops from scratch also.

Building the Ableton Project -

This was the lengthy process of exporting as many different variations of each individual element of each of the 8 songs I would be performing in a way that gave me enough material to work with on the launchpads.

With everything being audio (already processed and exported) there was minimal CPU usage despite large track numbers.

Each element had its own assigned colour - Red for kick drum and Pink for Lead high end for example.

One shot variations of sounds would develop from the loops and they would be white.

Every next track would be separated side A and side B.

Research Stage - 

My live setup starts with the brain of the operation - Ableton as my choice of DAW on my laptop. Then running all into Ableton through USB connection, my AKAI APC Key25 (far left), Novation LaunchPad (right), Novation LaunchControl XL (top right), Native Instruments Maschine Mk3 (lower right) and finally the Pioneer DDJ-200 (far right).

The equipment that I own had already dictated a large part of how the setup would work - 2 launchpads as mobile ‘decks’, a mixer, drum machine and digital turntables suggests a Hip Hop styled performance and that is indeed what this will be. 

However, the finer details such as how each piece of equipment would be placed, assigned (as part of a logical system that can be remembered, developed and effectively used) and integrated with the rest of the equipment.

Furthermore, knowing that the musical material that I would be playing would be some of the reworked songs of the ‘Buffet Beats’ album - I started the creative process already with a pretty clear idea of how I wanted the performance to look.