going LIVE!

[jamiewoody]

hypothetical situation...i circuit bent a few instruments, i made 5 or so home brewed synths, i want to play out....how do i now tie it in together?

what is a good mixer for the job? what brands should i stay away from? behringer seems like a lot of bang for the buck...

what else is good to have? sampler? looper? what kinds?

what about amplification? should i have my own stereo amp setup? or rely on a mixer and an out to a house PA?

what are your setups?

[moordenaar]

STAY AWAY Behringer.. It sucks. It sucks even more than realizing you just stepped in dog poop and just when you realize that, you slip in the poop, and fall face down in some more poop.


My mixer / amp / speaker combo:

Yamaha MG16/6FX Power mixer

JBL EON15 G2 Active speakers

[Circuitbenders]

Behringer are perfectly fine for live use, nobodies going to notice that it sounds a bit cheap at that volume. I certainly wouldn't use one out of choice, but back in the day  i had a fair few tracks out on vinyl that were mixed on a behringer. Just don't expect it to last very long if you're lugging it from place to place.

[jamiewoody]

i guess you g et what you pay for sometimes. i have owned a couple of behringer pedals...one sucked, one i love.

i could always attempt to make a mixer. might be a good experience for me.

what about other gear than mixers? CB instruments make fun toys, but in practical use, would sampling them live be an advantage? or looping? what are good samplers and loopers to use for this application?  what else to you take out with you?

[untune]

Behringer are very hit and miss... some of their pedals are supposed to be great, others not... I've got one of those cheap MIC100 valve preamps... stuck an old mullard valve in it, and it sounds really good for boosting a mic or an instrument level.  Hardly any noise at all  if you set it right and you have a decent mic.  Makes a fantastic DI box too on bass or synths.  But use the jack output as opposed to the XLR and it hisses like you wouldn't believe!!!

I had a Behringer desk and it works OK but doesnt sound great.  Would be fine if you're going to be mixing levels live though - maybe a Tapco or something would fit the bill.

Yamaha seem to be fairly decent mid range choice, I was going to buy on myself a few years back.  Ended up doing that 'oh another 20 quid wont hurt' thing and before I knew it, the £100 replacement mixer I set out to get turned into a £360 MOTU firewire interface.

Maybe one of those Alesis Multimix ones with the effects would be useful?  USB one, whack it into a laptop, do some recording.

[moordenaar]

Well I got a Kaoss Pad 2 and a SP-202 for my lofi sample and effect needs.

[jamiewoody]

there are times when an sk1 "riff" would sound cool looped. the mt205 has a nice looping feature, i cannot remember if this was discovered through bending or it was already there...but i can control it through it's patchbay. but, i can only loop sounds within that mt205.

maybe an unbent sk1 would help. but, a decent sampler with lots 'o memory sounds like the way to go.

[Gordonjcp]

When you look at how cheap *really good* samplers are... You can pick up a fully-loaded S3000XL for less than some of the "famous" circuit-bendable keyboards.  Why the hell would you even bother?  Get a sample and write some software to squiff up the samples before you transfer them.

[untune]

I've got an Akai S900 I've not played with for ages.  Plus my uni are selling old bits from their studio - Akai S100 and EMU E64 both going for £30 a pop.  The problem is the sheer amount of room they take up - I can't imagine anyone who would want to lug one of those tanks round for a live gig

[Circuitbenders]

a bent Akai S20 is brilliant for live use, but its annoying to have load stuff from floppy every time

[druzz]

the cool thing with samplers is that you can record random glitches that are somewhat incontrollable and then take out the part you want and recall it as as sample exactly when you want and you actually know what is going to happen when you trigger it .

i think cool effect units are a big advantage . just drive your toy trough a fun to work with delay and youre toy telephone solo will reach new heigths. sonic mayem is but a delay pedal away and not much people could tell that the source of the sound is not an expensive synthesiser witouth seeing you at work. note that i'm talking about freeky sounds here , this last statements do not aplly to solid basslines and that kind of stuff...   

the important thing is the attitude . when you step on-stage with your toys you have to take yourself seriously

[jamiewoody]

on the sampler front, i agree, that recording the "best glitch" then looping that would be an ideal.

most of the time control is essential in music...but with CB instruments, happy accidents can be golden!

[jamiewoody]

on the effects front, i have a digitech rp70 on my guitar pedalboard. i use it for long delays, since i do not have a looper...(i wish it was a looper! lol).

but, when i do finally get a looper, i may take this off my pedalboard and use it for my CB instruments if i take them out live.

[jamiewoody]

so, could someone with at least one sampler, a mixer, etc give me a pseudo illistration (pictures or words or both) of your chain?  how many channels is nessesary? i have an old cheap radioshack 4 ch mic mixer...it sucks, and 4 channels just aren't enough anymore.

of course, an unbent sk1 would be good to use as a sampler, as you can play the samples as notes with the keys!

[Gordonjcp]

Just about any mixer will be fine.  Behringer is a bit cheap and crappy but as long as you don't bash it about it will be fine.  I suspect an el-cheapo Behringer would be more resilient than my Yamaha O1v...

If you're bashing your gear about enough that you break your cheap crappy Behringer mixer, you're too rough with it.  Stop it before you ruin something valuable.