GroovyNoodle
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Stockholm, Sweden

Hi! I've been writing chiptunes on Game Boy using LSDJ for a while now, and I was thinking about starting to try to get some kind of live gig next year. But how does it work? I have a basic knowledge about dj:ing, I know how LSDJ work in live-mode, I have experience of a live performance in other genres of music. But looking at shows on youtube I have a few questions for you who actually have played a show:

  • 1a. What do you bring, except consoles? For example, do you bring your own mixer?

  • 1b. If there is in-house-equipment, do you still bring your own and patch it into theirs? For example, your mixer main out to a stereo/2 mono channels on their mixer?

  • 2. Do you play everything live (on the fly), or do you have some parts of the music sampled like external drum loops (if you use that sort of thing)?

  • 3a. The visuals often in the background, do you do them yourself or is that a separate part of the show?

  • 3b. If you are in charge of that as well, how does it work?

I hope someone can answer this for me! smile

n00bstar
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Montreal, Canada

At home:
1) press play 
2) eat chips.

Live:
1)press play
2) try not to look like an idiot.

Remember... when in doubt, just look at the mixer and keep tweaking knobs on the muted channel....nobody will know.

GroovyNoodle
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Stockholm, Sweden

Well then there's no point doing it at all for me, seems pointless!

herr_prof
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Do bring your own mixer, the club will provide the pa (if your lucky) a soundguy ( if you are really lucky). They usually wont have the cables you need to hook up, also having a mixer inbetween your gear and the pa is a good failsafe in case something bad happens

2. It depends on your act. Some people dj their gear like a turntablist does, some people play evrything by hand, some people just play over a backing track.

3. Clubs almost never provide visuals in my experience. You can ask the promoter to book one, or make friends with one and have them be part of your act. Sometimes the club has a vj but most likely they just use lights, or nothing at all.

GroovyNoodle
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Stockholm, Sweden

Thank you, that clear it up a lot better smile

herr_prof
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good luck!

TSC
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Milwaukee, WI
n00bstar wrote:

Live:
1)press play
2) try not to look like an idiot.

...and yet a majority of us fuck up #2.

herr_prof
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leaving the house was the first mistake

martin_demsky
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Bratislava, Slovakia

You can create song on live stage from nothing (empty song), you can mute channels, run various chains in every channel, you can change type of filter which is assigned to wave instrument (synth), or its from/to settings.

defiantsystems
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.FILTHadelphia

Bring a mixer. Bring cords. Bring an extra Gameboy.

I broke my songs down into different chains and triggered different parts of the song. I have a decent guide up on LSDJguides on YouTube of stuff I did and how to use Live Mode.

GroovyNoodle
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Stockholm, Sweden

My biggest issue was the mixer question, and it's clear that I need to bring my own! I was thinking of getting a dj mixer and have all the songs on 2 carts/dmgs (duplicates), running those like turntables if you will, and then a third gameboy+cart running extras (older songs/versions of lsdj, one shots, fx and so on...). I think the 4th channel is going to be used running a raspberry with some sort of tracker, like milky tracker. If I somehow can get those to sync it would be amazing! But that's a headache for the future!

Thanks for all the answers! Time to go hunting for a mixer! Yeey, more gear! ;D

martin_demsky
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Bratislava, Slovakia

Yes sync is always problem, i tried several times to sync manually by ear, it is not that bad if you train a lot. BTW if you want great budget analog mixer, try for example Mackie 1202VLZ4, you can also use it as another synthesizer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7KR-_j … 5&t=0s

4mat
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A few years back a lot of people were using the old Behringer 802 mixer.  It's cheap (40 quid last time I looked), reliable enough, has a decent set of jack and mic inputs for the price and gives you either the RCA stereo or jack outputs that any front of house mixer is looking for.  There's no fx though, it's just an input/output box with some basic EQ.  Seeing as a lot of chip gigs have multiple artists, giving the stage crew a single output from your rig is a lot easier for everybody.