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Sorry to necro: if anybody's still hung up on this subject, have a look at points 3-5 in this:
http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2012/07/t … live-show/
tl;dr version-
3. Rearrange your tunes to go with the gig
4. A live gig is about meeting you in person, not about showing off your music
5. Visuals matter, what people see you doing should change from song to song.
5. Visuals matter, what people see you doing should change from song to song.
The reason I bought a portable keyboard. I'm no casiopea but at least I don't look like I'm playing a game or checking my emails onstage. Plus I like to feel the notes I'm playing 
This question is not dumb at all. In fact I questioned this myself because I don't have this kind of problems with lgpt/lsdj because those have a live mode, also I do play guitar and sometimes sing along, so this can work with old style tracker songs.
But also the other idea I had to complement this (in tracks where there's only chiptune) and I made for my last hexawe release, is to break up the patterns in different samples, trigger them in the piggy and make some new patterns using piggy tricks like loop chopping and new instruments.
I've decided to play my SuperByte set on the violin now. Nothing like 'really' playing, plus improvising will be a heck of a lot easier....
Connect two gameboys and mix them.
Or make an arduinoboy and mix it with some Ableton stuff.
You know? You don't need to only press play, make it harder in purpose so you can have a little bit of difficulty while performing.
How exactly do you make an arduino boy? That sounds awesome!!
I like that analogy a lot chunter, hyping up the crowd can make an entire night. One of my personal favorite clips of Knife City right here, Luke is a MASTER at getting the crowd pumped http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AsqqGho … re=related
Also that was brilliant.
When I performed my stuff I had my friend drumming and I was in charge of pretty much djing my melodies. I also had people dancing up on stage with me for some songs and that worked out pretty well!!! Only other thing I could've use were some background visuals, but there's always next time for that.
How exactly do you make an arduino boy? That sounds awesome!!
necrothreadddddddddddddd
I said it once, and I'll say it again:
(lsdj)
Step 1: Create rough bare bones of the song, with various melodies/basslines/drum beats/etc. at the ready, to be triggered nonlinear...ly. This ensures unique (albeit occasionally batshit nonsensical) performances of the song.
Step 2: Spread out some empty chains and surround them with breakdowns/bridges, so that you can actively place notes into them and smoothly build up a melody/beat/whatever you subtracted, as the pattern plays out (Timing this requires some practice)
Step 3: Alternate endings or something
Step 4: Cry and give up and use lsdj keyboard (or famitracker's keyboard mode on a laptop)
1. get gig
2. write music
3. go on stage
4. 20
I haven't tried this myself but I wonder if the FDS waveform interface would be cool/fun to manipulate live, with the waveform as well as the modulation etc. Also, if you time it just right you can press f6 to loop the frame and ctrl+right to switch to the next one. If there was a way to get perfect timing with this method, there would be so much potential since you could also click on the frames in the little frame window. I'd probably make a lot of half-intentional 'mistakes' if I played live because I like broken sounds. Again, with timing you could play samples live and you could probably use the instrument editor live for tonnes of crazy stuff like more random, organic tremolo.
The best tip I could give is this:
Even if you can't dance, be the most energetic person there. Have fun, people can tell if you're having fun and they'll feed off it. It's awesome if you can do something of substance on stage, but you've already written a bunch of awesome music and it's really about getting people to enjoy themselves, after all. Talking to the audience and being friendly is great, razzing them and being 'mean' can also be great. It's all about the vibe of the room and about your persona or personality, learn to identify the dynamic and play to it. Knowing how to befriend the floor in the span of 4 or 5 minutes is the key to a good live show!
So that being said, anything you want to bring to the table should be adding to how much fun you are having, first and foremost. If you know that you'll go wild with a keyboard solo, go for it! If you think you'd enjoy twiddling knobs, make that your thing! If you would rather crowd surf or pass a mic around the room or fight a guy in a lion costume, those are all perfectly viable. When you're in the studio, it's all about musicianship and composition. Those things are probably as much fun to you as they are to me, or else you wouldn't be here, but when it comes to a live show everyone has fun in a totally different way.
I don't think Jimmy Hendrix would have had much funny getting on stage and pressing play on an 8-track but that's because when he played you could see the love and passion pour out and audience eat that up. That's the whole reason to see a live performance, it's about getting a little bit more than just the music. They already have the music on tape or vinyl or mp3, they want you!
TL;DR: Be the worst dancer there, then nobody will be afraid to dance.
Last edited by jefftheworld (May 13, 2013 9:50 am)
It's no secret that majority of us see no reason to play a song in live mode, and it gives it away when you just stand there holding a gameboy looking at it and acting like your doing something hitting the dpad.
get high head bang while playing.First time i played i did that and had pauses between the songs.This second time in a month or so i plan on stage diving,taking pictures dancing around adding some effects and having fun.Not getting too stoned this time hahah
For the party I played in Lexington in February or whenever, I took a sort of DJ set approach. Two gameboys, added silly mixer fx (filter sweeps, delaaaaaaay, etc) and transitioned my songs into a seamless 30 minute mix.
It worked really well and gave me a fair amount to do, since half of my songs were 2xLSDJ, there was a lot of juggling parts, switching files, and beat matching to get the songs to flow.
To add variety, I played the 1xLSDJ tracks in live mode and stretched out breakdowns (and spiced them up with FX).
If you are going to try and do something cohesive like that, you need to plan out your set list and practice all your transitions. The beginnings and endings of tracks may need to be altered as well.
I said it once, and I'll say it again:
(lsdj)
Step 1: Create rough bare bones of the song, with various melodies/basslines/drum beats/etc. at the ready, to be triggered nonlinear...ly. This ensures unique (albeit occasionally batshit nonsensical) performances of the song.
Step 2: Spread out some empty chains and surround them with breakdowns/bridges, so that you can actively place notes into them and smoothly build up a melody/beat/whatever you subtracted, as the pattern plays out (Timing this requires some practice)
Step 3: Alternate endings or something
Step 4: Cry and give up and use lsdj keyboard (or famitracker's keyboard mode on a laptop)
That's exatly what I do. As I'm first of all a techno artist, that use to play live with machines and synths, I instinctively (not sure about this word ... sorry) make music by creating patterns and arranging them live.