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Stuff you've always wondered about live music

Started by Nice Relaxing Poo, April 16, 2019, 04:23:40 PM

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I know fuck all about Electronica/DJs and stuff like that and I've always wondered, do most of them actually do anything with their laptops/decks at a huge gig or do they mix it all beforehand and just cue it and pretend? Does Liam from the Prodigy actually do anything other than start and stop the tracks and then pretend to look busy while the rest of them run about on stage?

Norton Canes

When the band starts up a song and it sounds great and everyone's getting into it then after a few bars the guitarist shakes his head and they all judder to a halt and the guitarist goes to the sound guy "Up..." and then plays a note then goes to the sound guy "Up..." and then plays another note then goes to the sound guy "Up..." and then plays another note then goes to the sound guy "Yeah" then they all start up the song from the beginning and it sounds absolutely the fucking same

boki

Quote from: Nice Relaxing Poo on April 16, 2019, 04:23:40 PM
I know fuck all about Electronica/DJs and stuff like that and I've always wondered, do most of them actually do anything with their laptops/decks at a huge gig or do they mix it all beforehand and just cue it and pretend? Does Liam from the Prodigy actually do anything other than start and stop the tracks and then pretend to look busy while the rest of them run about on stage?

Liam Howlett has been very publicly critical of DJ's playing pre-mixed sets, so I'd say he puts quite a bit of effort in.  I dare say that a lot of the big name EDM guys do next to nothing - Deadmau5 once admitted to just pressing play, and there's a funny old video of Skrillex pretending to do things with a controller that don't appear to be affecting the sound (bit like that infamous Peter Hook DJ vid).

boki

Quote from: Norton Canes on April 16, 2019, 05:09:37 PM
When the band starts up a song and it sounds great and everyone's getting into it then after a few bars the guitarist shakes his head and they all judder to a halt and the guitarist goes to the sound guy "Up..." and then plays a note then goes to the sound guy "Up..." and then plays another note then goes to the sound guy "Up..." and then plays another note then goes to the sound guy "Yeah" then they all start up the song from the beginning and it sounds absolutely the fucking same

I think it's usually the case that when a band member thinks they need turning up, it's either them being an egomaniac, or it's more a case of one or more other musicians actually needing to be turned down.  In the former case, a sound engineer's obviously going to do the bare minimum s/he can get away with to placate the panto dame on the stage.

Pauline Walnuts

Quote from: Norton Canes on April 16, 2019, 05:09:37 PM
When the band starts up a song and it sounds great and everyone's getting into it then after a few bars the guitarist shakes his head and they all judder to a halt and the guitarist goes to the sound guy "Up..." and then plays a note then goes to the sound guy "Up..." and then plays another note then goes to the sound guy "Up..." and then plays another note then goes to the sound guy "Yeah" then they all start up the song from the beginning and it sounds absolutely the fucking same

That's the sound the guitarist is hearing from his, or her, feedback monitors, not what's going out to the audience. So you wouldn't.

Dr Sanchez

Yeah, if they point to their ears then it's a problem with the mix they're hearing.

Bands with elaborate stage setups will also have click tracks and vocal cues for each member.

Here's a U2 in ear recording. I think they rely too heavily on in ear monitors but they were never the best live band in the world.

https://youtu.be/pl-VzRZVVJI

Quote from: OnlyRegisteredSoICanRead on April 16, 2019, 05:17:55 PM
That's the sound the guitarist is hearing from his, or her, feedback monitors, not what's going out to the audience. So you wouldn't.

Indeed. Playing live and not hearing a clear note of what you're playing is quite unnerving.

DrGreggles

Quote from: Nice Relaxing Poo on April 16, 2019, 06:06:44 PM
Indeed. Playing live and not hearing a clear note of what you're playing is quite unnerving.

Is it fair to presume that Ian Brown has never had a monitor?

alan nagsworth

Quote from: Nice Relaxing Poo on April 16, 2019, 04:23:40 PM
I know fuck all about Electronica/DJs and stuff like that and I've always wondered, do most of them actually do anything with their laptops/decks at a huge gig or do they mix it all beforehand and just cue it and pretend?

Some do, some don't. You can either spend your time honing your craft with beat matching, equalising, setting trigger points on your hardware with Ableton and whatnot, or you could just not bother.

Personally I wouldn't be arsed about listening to a pre-recorded DJ set at an event, as long as the DJ in question was willing to prat about and make the act of being elevated on a stage in front of me engaging or entertaining in some way. You know, like getting their genitalia out or punching themselves in the face or something like that. Might as well.

Why don't all musicians go deaf after a couple of years of playing at loud volume?


The Lion King

Quote from: Nice Relaxing Poo on April 16, 2019, 04:23:40 PM
I know fuck all about Electronica/DJs and stuff like that and I've always wondered, do most of them actually do anything with their laptops/decks at a huge gig or do they mix it all beforehand and just cue it and pretend? Does Liam from the Prodigy actually do anything other than start and stop the tracks and then pretend to look busy while the rest of them run about on stage?

Those guys packing out big american festivals and spending 5 minutes at a time away from the decks to gyrate on stage are likely playing prerecorded mixes.

Most DJ's these days are using club standard pioneer systems with their music and possibly full setlist arranged on rekkordbox software beforehand which can tell you the key and bpm of a track. So even if a DJ is mixing live they can still see the tempo on the digital display and can adjust them to speed accordingly.

Some artists do live sets using ableton but rather than just use it to mix tracks together they have a selection of clips from tracks they have produced and can add effects and variations on the fly. Or they have a full hardware set up with something like an Octatrack to do a fully live hardware set. There's a techno producer called Headless Horseman sho does this and it's much more interesting to watch than someone fannying about behind the decks. Live sets seem to be growing in popularity which I think is great

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on April 16, 2019, 07:31:39 PM
Why don't all musicians go deaf after a couple of years of playing at loud volume?

It's the hours of practice in a small room that does the damage and the cymbals of the drum kit does most of it. I had tinnitus for ages after I stopped playing in bands but it seems to have faded now but the damage has been done from what I can tell from work medical hearing tests.

phantom_power

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on April 16, 2019, 07:31:39 PM
Why don't all musicians go deaf after a couple of years of playing at loud volume?

Because often the speakers are at the front of the stage pointing outwards so they don't hear the full power. This is linked to the monitor talk above and how it can be hard to hear what you are playing even if the audience can hear it OK

alan nagsworth

To the person performing it on stage, the music actually sounds minuscule and barely audible, as if it were being played by a borrower. When you see a musician doing the upwards pointing thing, what they're actually doing is fruitlessly trying to ask the borrower to climb up higher to their head so they can hear it better.

Of course there is no borrower, because there's no such thing as borrowers, but musicians don't know that. When off stage they are more acutely aware of this fact but as soon as they're up there performing it's like they've had all previous knowledge of the fact there's no such thing as borrowers completely erased from their memories. Art is pretty weird like that but we're lucky to have it at all, and no one gets hurt, so it pretty much evens out.

Phil_A

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on April 16, 2019, 07:31:39 PM
Why don't all musicians go deaf after a couple of years of playing at loud volume?

The more sensible ones have custom earplugs to filter out the damaging stuff.

the

Ah, the CaB eye of suspicion falls on the live performance of electronic music AGAIN.

Quote from: Nice Relaxing Poo on April 16, 2019, 04:23:40 PMI know fuck all about Electronica/DJs and stuff like that and I've always wondered, do most of them actually do anything with their laptops/decks at a huge gig or do they mix it all beforehand and just cue it and pretend?

Has been discussed at points in this thread.

It's not helpful to conflate DJs with electronic acts, even though the equipment they use may be similar. Although the boundaries between the two have become more blurred as technoolgy has changed, they're mostly performing different roles and are there to do differing things practically speaking.

Quote from: Nice Relaxing Poo on April 16, 2019, 04:23:40 PMDoes Liam from the Prodigy actually do anything other than start and stop the tracks and then pretend to look busy while the rest of them run about on stage?

Was discussed at points in this thread. Note that you're talking about a long time span, over which the technology and available methods to do this sort of thing live have changed dramatically.

SteveDave

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on April 16, 2019, 07:31:39 PM
Why don't all musicians go deaf after a couple of years of playing at loud volume?

WHAT?

NoSleep

Quote from: Norton Canes on April 16, 2019, 05:09:37 PM
When the band starts up a song and it sounds great and everyone's getting into it then after a few bars the guitarist shakes his head and they all judder to a halt and the guitarist goes to the sound guy "Up..." and then plays a note then goes to the sound guy "Up..." and then plays another note then goes to the sound guy "Up..." and then plays another note then goes to the sound guy "Yeah" then they all start up the song from the beginning and it sounds absolutely the fucking same

That's because they're turning up the onstage monitoring (so each member can hear what they're doing) not what's going out the audience. They may even have in-ear monitoring.

Quote from: OnlyRegisteredSoICanRead on April 16, 2019, 05:17:55 PM
That's the sound the guitarist is hearing from his, or her, feedback monitors, not what's going out to the audience. So you wouldn't.

foldback

famethrowa

A band stops a song completely to turn up foldback?? What kind of shithouse bands are you people going to see?

Icehaven

Quote from: Nice Relaxing Poo on April 16, 2019, 06:06:44 PM
Indeed. Playing live and not hearing a clear note of what you're playing is quite unnerving.

Welcome to the wonderful world of the toilet circuit keyboard player. A band I'm in at the moment has two partly deaf guitarists, two singers and a very enthusiastic drummer so I basically just hit the keys and hope for the best, absolutely no idea what it sounds like or if it even matters as no one else can hear it either.

PaulTMA

Quote from: icehaven on April 17, 2019, 03:44:18 PM
Welcome to the wonderful world of the toilet circuit keyboard player. A band I'm in at the moment has two partly deaf guitarists, two singers and a very enthusiastic drummer so I basically just hit the keys and hope for the best, absolutely no idea what it sounds like or if it even matters as no one else can hear it either.

Have been through the sheer misery of this countless times, especially playing through some dismal PA system with no monitors at all as a 'punk' bill where the idea of hearing yourself is much less authentic than being a true 'punk' band called something like Mongohorn.

kngen

Quote from: PaulTMA on April 17, 2019, 05:50:46 PM
Have been through the sheer misery of this countless times, especially playing through some dismal PA system with no monitors at all as a 'punk' bill where the idea of hearing yourself is much less authentic than being a true 'punk' band called something like Mongohorn.

I remember a particularly excruciating experience where we had to rely on eye contact for the cues in a tricky slow bit as there was no stage sound to speak of, when suddenly - whoosh! - we're all engulfed in cloud of unexpected (and certainly not requested) dry ice, rendering all of us invisible to each other. That was a feeling of panic I'd quite like to never have to revisit.

How common is it for big acts to just read the lyrics from monitors hidden at the front of the stage? Liam Gallagher admitted recently that he does exactly that and I suddenly realised they all must.

alan nagsworth

Quote from: kngen on April 17, 2019, 06:00:09 PM
I remember a particularly excruciating experience where we had to rely on eye contact for the cues in a Tricky slow bit as there was no stage sound to speak of, when suddenly - whoosh! - we're all engulfed in cloud of unexpected (and certainly not requested) dry ice, rendering all of us invisible to each other. That was a feeling of panic I'd quite like to never have to revisit.

You were playing with Tricky? No wonder it was a bad performance aahhhh

buzby

Quote from: thecuriousorange on April 17, 2019, 07:10:38 PM
How common is it for big acts to just read the lyrics from monitors hidden at the front of the stage? Liam Gallagher admitted recently that he does exactly that and I suddenly realised they all must.
It's usually a combination of old age and/or the effects of their lifestyle when they were younger - Bernard Sumner uses one (in the 80s-early 90s it was rare to get the right lyrics on any of their songs as he was usually shitfaced and couldn't remember), Paul Heaton, Mick Jagger, Bono, James Hetfield, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen etc. all use them. It's probably rarer to find a successful artist over 40 who doesn't use one, to be honest.

Phil_A

Quote from: buzby on April 17, 2019, 10:04:49 PM
It's usually a combination of old age and/or the effects of their lifestyle when they were younger - Bernard Sumner uses one (in the 80s-early 90s it was rare to get the right lyrics on any of their songs as he was usually shitfaced and couldn't remember), Paul Heaton, Mick Jagger, Bono, James Hetfield, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen etc. all use them. It's probably rarer to find a successful artist over 40 who doesn't use one, to be honest.

Tom Waits as well. To be fair I do wonder how performers with a massive back catalogue keep all the songs straight in their heads when they're on stage, I guess it's a security blanket as much as anything.

famethrowa

Quote from: icehaven on April 17, 2019, 03:44:18 PM
Welcome to the wonderful world of the toilet circuit keyboard player. A band I'm in at the moment has two partly deaf guitarists, two singers and a very enthusiastic drummer so I basically just hit the keys and hope for the best, absolutely no idea what it sounds like or if it even matters as no one else can hear it either.

Can you bring your own speaker? I use a little cheapo Behringer 10" PA speaker for my own foldback and it's great. If the guitarists can have their own amp, then so should we

Dr Sanchez

Quote from: buzby on April 17, 2019, 10:04:49 PM
It's usually a combination of old age and/or the effects of their lifestyle when they were younger - Bernard Sumner uses one (in the 80s-early 90s it was rare to get the right lyrics on any of their songs as he was usually shitfaced and couldn't remember), Paul Heaton, Mick Jagger, Bono, James Hetfield, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen etc. all use them. It's probably rarer to find a successful artist over 40 who doesn't use one, to be honest.

Springsteen has become completely reliant on them it seems. In his Netflix Broadway show he has at least 4 different monitors setup at different angles that he's reading off at any given moment and this was filmed after he'd performed the same setlist and stories hundreds of times before on the run.

He does it in a very subtle way but once you notice it there's no unseeing it.

Icehaven

Quote from: famethrowa on April 17, 2019, 11:24:47 PM
Can you bring your own speaker? I use a little cheapo Behringer 10" PA speaker for my own foldback and it's great. If the guitarists can have their own amp, then so should we

I could, but tbh at the moment we do about 2 gigs a year so it's hardly worth it, but If we end up doing more I might.