I have been busy getting a new live set together, both getting new material ready for the live set and actually changing how I actually interact with my songs. With me, there has been a trade off in how much manipulation I can do to each song live, versus how preprogrammed my sets are. If you are unfamiliar with what I actually do when playing live (Mom and Dad, listen up) here I a good nutshell to pack it into. When you head a track on the radio, the DJ is usually playing a cd. The cd has already been mixed and mastered, and what you hear when you press play is what you get. Now, you might turn up the bass a bit if you are driving, but if you wanted to take out the horn section, you are unable too. Since I write all of the music I play live (as opposed to my DJ sets) I have access to all the “parts”, the drums, the vocals. I can even get more cowbell.
In the past I have taken each individual part (track) and had them laid out so I could raise and lower the volume, add effects, eq or whatever. I had these insanely complicated grids of of songs and every time something changed, it was because my fingers pressed a button or twisted a knob. The upside is that I have access to every sound and the downside was that because of the amount of information available, It was really tricky to transition smoothly between songs, so I would program a set list inside my computer.
The past two weeks have been spent organizing all of my songs and mixing them into a limited number of tracks-4-5 so that it would be easier to manage going between songs. I actually see a benefit in how detailed I can get in editing because I have more fingers between less tracks and can spend a little less time trying to find that stupid cowbell and more time just crunching the crap out of the main percussion track (or just grabbing the eq and boosting it a touch)
Hopefully my sets will be more flexible since I cut back on some of the overkill is have in my track counts. 14 tracks of stereo audio is a bit too much when you consider I needed to play 9-12 songs and remember what “clphnds-hi-synth2-rvrb.mp3″ was. The biggest benefit to all of this is that I have taken some time and remastered a ton of the material I have, so that everything will should sound better.
I have been thinking about making a teaser for my upcoming show at the Capitol Hill arts Center next week, but since my home life is so crazy right now I do not think I will have time. I may put up a mix or something, or I might give you a teaser for some of the newest stuff I have. think Basic Channel and Burial.
Sound Good?
