Welcome to the webpage for chapter 2 of my book “Performing Electronic Music Live”, where I talk about DAWs and hardware controllers. You can watch the two accompanying tutorial videos for this chapter here. In these videos, I show you how you can take a complex Logic Pro X production and turn it into a flexible, intuitive live performance in Ableton Live. The first part introduces looping clips, one shots and follow actions. The second part talks about live effects, synths, vocals and visuals.
About the chapter:
DAW and controller setups are popular among electronic music performers due to their rich offering of creative opportunities. Projects can easily be shared online and new plugins can be flexibly added, which makes for highly portable and customizable live show setups. The crossover between production and performance is easily achieved, especially when both take place in the same DAW. Clip-based DAWs offer the performer much flexibility and room for improvisation: in Ableton Live, Bitwig, Maschine, Logic Pro X or FL Studio we can store and trigger musical ideas in a non-linear way. The chapter also discusses the options for integrating hardware controllers to create live arrangements, perform mashups, play on software instruments, control effects, or as additional sound sources. It also discusses how we can either structure prepared material for easy access in the live show or record new material on the fly. The chapter touches on collaboration, randomness and generative approaches and GUI customization to fit the requirements of the show. The chapter ends on a tutorial that shows a specific Ableton Live performance set.