Elektron-Users

many years ago when I was still playing out as live techno duo we did an outdoor stage at a small end of year college festival .We were the last act on & the sun was literally about to come up, so I reckon it must have been 4.45am or something crazy. Anyway, the gig was going great, plenty of people dancing ...then one of the stage crew somewhere to my left decided it was time for a sneaky coffee...apparently he plugged a kettle into a spare outlet - the surge took down exactly half of our gear - all of my partners, none of mine. So we lost 909 drums, samples from a Casio FZ1, Alpha Juno 1 parts, RX5 drums...& some more keyboards & modules that escape my memory! It left me trucking along solo with little more than a Roland MC300 sequencer that was still spurting out MIDI to what was left on ( not much ..a DX21 I think ) & some hi-hats coming from an Alesis SR16! I had my trusty Juno 60 & Super JX to hand, plus FX etc & I just managed to wing the whole thing like it was some massive break-down by ambient-ing the whole thing out as the sun came up, assisted by an MC who came on the mic to get a bit of crowd response on the go! Once the the power was back on my mate frantically re-booted everything, reloaded samples etc (from floppy disc ) whilst I just jammed it live with both hands! ...then we manged to kick the whole tune back in as if we'd meant the whole thing.
Luckily I'd say 85% of the audience were completely wasted by this point, so I reckon we totally got away with it
Aah, live techno, early 90s style. If only we'd had stuff like the Elektrons back then - could've done the whole show with an MD, A4 & MnM I reckon

xmit wrote:
many years ago when I was still playing out as live techno duo we did an outdoor stage at a small end of year college festival .We were the last act on & the sun was literally about to come up, so I reckon it must have been 4.45am or something crazy. Anyway, the gig was going great, plenty of people dancing ...then one of the stage crew somewhere to my left decided it was time for a sneaky coffee...apparently he plugged a kettle into a spare outlet - the surge took down exactly half of our gear - all of my partners, none of mine. So we lost 909 drums, samples from a Casio FZ1, Alpha Juno 1 parts, RX5 drums...& some more keyboards & modules that escape my memory! It left me trucking along solo with little more than a Roland MC300 sequencer that was still spurting out MIDI to what was left on ( not much ..a DX21 I think ) & some hi-hats coming from an Alesis SR16! I had my trusty Juno 60 & Super JX to hand, plus FX etc & I just managed to wing the whole thing like it was some massive break-down by ambient-ing the whole thing out as the sun came up, assisted by an MC who came on the mic to get a bit of crowd response on the go! Once the the power was back on my mate frantically re-booted everything, reloaded samples etc (from floppy disc ) whilst I just jammed it live with both hands! ...then we manged to kick the whole tune back in as if we'd meant the whole thing.
Luckily I'd say 85% of the audience were completely wasted by this point, so I reckon we totally got away with it
Aah, live techno, early 90s style. If only we'd had stuff like the Elektrons back then - could've done the whole show with an MD, A4 & MnM I reckon

Brilliant. Did make me chuckle.

Stepped on the powerstrip that supplies juice to my whole rig in the middle of a big buildup -- dead silence. 10 seconds later I was back up and running where I left off.

delays, delays, delays, delays...

big dance music festival, I was ready to start...the previous guy ends with a massive pad, long enough to let me play when I want

So I started with an arpeggio that has some delay on it...then added some rising pad that was detuned enough to create a very tense athmosphere...people get grabbed by the evolving FM texture of the pad and the somewhat creepy chord...as long a s the tension (and loudness) increase they started to scream, clap, whistle and shout all kind of things, waiting for me to finally drop the beat...
so I added a filtered noise to make it even harder and when the filter was totally open I fired the kick!...

well...the initial excitement quickly fade out to confusion when the beat became ridicously syncopated and out of any metric division you could considere to put in a dancefloor...it sounded like there is a delay in the kick...

I became mad trying to fix it...people slowly stoped dance and start to leave the place going to other stages...

after about 5 LONG minutes of this I was about to abort the gig and when I just disconnected the MnM a man came in running, went to the main rack and bypassed a compensation delay that somebody engaged by accident...
the kick returned to its 4 on the floor simplicity and after 1 more minute of zen meditation I was able to play my set and re-build the devastated dancefloor


another (shorter) one with delays...another big festival, my stage was in front of a long road, surrounded by 2 rows of trees...I started to play and noticed like sounds like a multitap delay or something, verty annoying...I checked everything and found nothing but the delay still was there...after some minutes of this unconfortable monitoring the stage guy came in and told me that the trees was the cause of the delays! arrrghhhh...

this was the most uncomfortable gig ever!

Played live at a club once with dodgy electrical wiring, every time the strobe started my XL-7 would reboot. Took forever to sort out the issue.

Last summer I was playing a festival the promoters had let us performers lock our gear in a trailer for safe keeping until our sets started. Ten minutes before I was supposed to start, no one knows who has the key, or how I can get my gear. Finally get it sorted, and then I find out that due to the rain happening all day, the floor of the tent I was playing on was soaked. It was a chill out tent, so everyone including the live acts played sitting on pillows and deep carpet.

By the time I started, there was a 6 inch puddle were I was supposed to sit, so I basically played a whole set of electronic music sitting in a puddle hoping nothing dripped on my gear. Fun stuff.

should I bring back THOSE PICS of the dancing girl to this thread?

Accidentally erased patterns on my monomachine live before, that sucked.

Feedback issues with FX, sometimes I get out of hand with the biscuit and time factor combo and accedentally send something to the wrong aux send

anselmi wrote:
should I bring back THOSE PICS of the dancing girl to this thread?
Wouldn't that belong in the "List of cool shit that happened live on stage" thread!

poonti wrote:
anselmi wrote:
should I bring back THOSE PICS of the dancing girl to this thread?
Wouldn't that belong in the "List of cool shit that happened live on stage" thread!

hahaha! well, I remember the club owner´s wife walking in erratic circles, looking at the floor and repeating "it was a mistake, a big mistake!"

I played a house party one night, doing an improv set with a microkorg, kp3, and electribe, looping melodies and bass lines on the fly with the KP3. Things were going great, I had the whole house moving, when I decided to put a bit of paper on my tongue.

Everything was going fine until the stuff started really kicking in, at which point hitting the same key on my microkorg produced a different note every time (there was no pitch modulation on the patch). I had to stop and let a couple of my friends mess with my gear while I went off and got my face painted and meditated and helped people do keg stands and stuff.

It was a fun night, but I learned to not take psychedelics while performing electronic music (never had any issues when playing drums though).