Performing live with MIDI controllers: Squarp Pyramid, Vermona Drums, Moog Sirin bass & Game Boy!
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- čas přidán 13. 07. 2024
- Hey all! I'm super excited to announce the launch of my new book "Performing Electronic Music Live", which will come out with Routledge later in 2021.
This tutorial video accompanies chapter 3 of the book, where I talk about MIDI and CV performance controllers. In this video, I demonstrate how you can perform electronic music without a laptop. We are using two very different MIDI controllers - a Squarp Pyramid MIDI sequencer and a MIDI keyboard - to control a Moog Sirin Limited Edition Bass synthesizer, a Vermona DRM-1 MK-III drum synthesizer and a 90s Game Boy colour. The result is a grungy, noisy LoFi warehouse rave sound. You can read a summary of the book chapter below.
** Content
00:00 Introduction
00:32 About MIDI controllers
02:14 The Setup
03:21 Performing Music on a Game Boy
06:29 The Squarp Pyramid MIDI Sequencer Overview
09:38 Bass notes
12:03 Euclidean Rhythms
14:07 Vermona DRM1 MK III
15:14 Live Sound Design: Moog Sirin and Allen&Heath ZED 12FX
16:57 Performance
** About chapter 3 "MIDI and CV Performance Controllers":
This chapter explores the design paradigms and functions governing the world of hardware controllers for electronic music performance. In order to use hardware controllers confidently, it is useful to have a good understanding of how they communicate with each other. Therefore, the first half of the chapter introduces two commonly used types of control signals. First, the old but still popular CV/Gate connection type is explained. Next, the MIDI protocol is introduced, including MIDI 2.0 and MPE (MIDI polyphonic expression). In the second half of the chapter, the vast world of hardware design paradigms is discussed. Among these are simple controls like buttons, knobs, faders and sliders, controllers that resemble traditional musical instruments, modular controllers, motion-controlled performance hardware, sequencers, clock signal generators and more.
** Find out more about the book on the companion website:
performingelectronicmusic.live
** Order the book here:
routledge.pub/PerformingElect...
** More about the book:
Performing Electronic Music Live
This comprehensive book lays out the conceptual approaches, tools and techniques for performing electronic music, from DJing, DAWs, MIDI controllers, traditional instruments, live sound design, hardware setups, custom software and hardware to live visuals, venue acoustics and live show promotion. Via the companion website, performingelectronicmusic.live, readers can expand on their knowledge with hands-on video tutorials for each chapter.
Live music is exhilarating - it creates life-changing experiences and powerful emotions. Technology can make us feel empowered, enable us to overcome limiting beliefs and allow us to achieve a high level of creative expression, no matter our background or skillset. The options are virtually endless, ranging from laptop setups to new instruments built from scratch. Through case studies and contrasting tutorials by successful artists, Kirsten Hermes guides us through many different ways in which you can create memorable experiences on stage. This is backed up with historic and scientific facts ranging from psychology to marketing. The book also features interviews with highly accomplished musicians and practitioners, including superstar trance DJ Alex M.O.R.P.H., BBC Audio R&D and live show designer Laura Escudé, who has worked with Kanye West, Missy Elliot and Herby Hancock.
The book is not a dogmatic to-do list, but rather, it explores many contrasting examples of successful approaches, to help you turn overwhelm into inspiration. Whether you are a student, hobby producer or a more advanced performer, this book gives you a comprehensive overview over your options. Students of music production courses, particularly at postgraduate level, but also researchers in the field of creative-focused performance technology will find this to be a useful, all-encompassing resource, with many starting points and resources for a deeper creative exploration.
Get in touch:
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Always interesting to see how different collections of kit go together, and the end result. Great video!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
Really liked your performance!
Thank you :)
Sirin owner checking in! :D subbed!
That's awesome, thanks so much :)
How am I just now finding your channel? This is awesome!
Thank you so much!! :D
Great song, I love it, nice job.
Thanks so much :)
I have a bunch of friends who use gameboys for making music, but this approach is very different and I like it a lot!
Thank you so much :D
Yeah, same here - many of my friends use LSDJ, different trackers etc
Hi nice video! I wonder if you could link the template you printed for over the pyramid that looks handy..
It actually came with that overlay included in the box when I bought it :)
Hi, I have a request I'm sure you can help me with. I'd like to install the Vermona DRM III on the pyramid but I don't really have a clue on how to manage this. This equipement is new to me. Also, do you deal with these topics in your book ? Such as terms that comes across with the pyramid ( LIVE; STEP; TRACK; SEQ as well as MIDI channels; voices; instruments and the PATTERN option on the alternate menu.
Hi François - Yes, my book does have a chapter about MIDI, where I explain MIDI channels and so on. Live, Step, Track and Seq are the specific modes of the Pyramid. Live mode lets you record in notes live, step lets you enter / edit notes manually using the interface, tracks are completed "clips" of notes and control parameters, and lastly, in seq, you can create whole arrangements of these clips. Have you seen the Pyramid Quick Start guide? It explains it all very well.
squarp.net/pyramid/manual/
In terms of hooking up the Vermona, you need to create a new track on the Pyramid and make sure that the material on this track gets send to the Vermona, via the correct output and MIDI channel. You need to manually map the drum synths to MIDI notes and then you can go ahead and make your arrangement. I explain how from 14:38 in the video.
Hi, great video. I've got a Pyramid and a Vermona Drm1 like you, do you know if there is way to set the Pyramid in which you can see the pads assigned to each Drm1 voice blinking each time the voice is triggered? Like what you see in those videos of people using the Drm1 with a Beatstep pro, in which the Beatstep pads blink togheter with the Drm1 notes. Thanks
Heya in all honesty I don’t know. But as far as I’m aware, in step mode, there is no mode where each Pyramid pad represents a different MIDI note (in note mode, you can keep changing the selected note with the dial; and the pads are more there to represent time divisions and the “beat” played by the selected note). So intuitively I would say no but I could be completely wrong :)
... actually I just looked and it does kind of do that when you play back a recording in record mode. Then the individual MIDI notes flash when they play (in this case trigger a DRM voice). Is that what you meant?
@@Nyokee Hi, thanks! Ok, maybe it makes sense that it does it in record mode, it would record all the mutes etc.
You can clearly see what I mean in this video czcams.com/video/d_fjA_TM7FI/video.html
I like that type of visual feedback that you get from many drum machines that have their own sequencer and I was wondering if that would be possible with the Pyramid
@@LB-pp7pu I see, yeah, that makes sense. Yes, as far as I'm aware it's only possible in record mode.
I was totally considering getting those Mimu gloves at one point. I figured it couldn’t be worse than the crap yM-audio keyboard I had at the time😂
Love to see people working in pure hardware. I have a policy of not having more gear for playing live than I can fit in a backpack. I reckon you need 3 bits of kit, a module synth, a Beat based groovebox/drumachine and a sampler/looper. I quite like them all having their own individual sequences so you can mix and match a little on the fly.
I kind of think DAWs are a little more restrictive in terms of creativity, I know it sounds backwards but the restrictions of using hardware make you think of innovative ways of working through those restrictions. With DAWs nowadays I think Choice Paralaysis can become an issue (although to be fair I reckon large modular systems can lead to the same problem).
Will leave it there as this is turning into an epic,
TLDR interesting video.
Thanks so much! Love long comments like this. Completely agree - I think DAWs can sometimes force you to make creative decisions too early on. I do normally work with Logic, but not until I have a clear idea of what I want to make. I love to compose just using a hardware synth first. I also find that the music turns out better if I only record things I can actually play on a keyboard. Otherwise choice paralysis definitely happens :) So the DAW becomes more of a recorder for me, rather than a composition tool.
Your live setup sounds great, simple but intuitive.
@@Nyokee I think there is a distinction between artists and producers and though the lines are sometimes blurred DAWs are the tools of producers and Hardware are the tools of artists.
What you say about a DAW being a recorder rather than a composition tool makes perfect sense.
@@DocBolus Yes, that's definitely true for me!
Though I also totally love the perspective that any tool can be used for anything. Mikachu and the Shapes made music with hoovers and Ryoji Ikeda has made music with 100 cars. Though those are both still hardware I guess 😅
@@Nyokee Yep definitely hardware, and not really very portable. During my hippy years I went to India where we found a temple you could play the pillars of if you hit them hard enough, they were all tuned slightly differently. Wonderful experience, but a Sampler is more practical for gigging with.
Jdxa is a freaking beast. Sounds better suited for techno than virus wtf
All my songs I record live without a DAW. Lot of chiptune stuff. I typically use some kind of groovebox at the front of my chain rather than a dedicated midi sequencer. Right now that is a model cycles. I like running two of its six voices out through midi to a Roland Sound Canvas module that contains an 808 kit. On down the chain I have a keystep 37 for arpeggiating / chording on other synths downstream. And of course I have a modded out DMG with lsdj or nanoloop.
czcams.com/video/4smF16uppSA/video.html
That's awesome. I find pure hardware setups really inspiring, and how people turn them into their own customized little labs. :)
Smart and comprehensive. We have a bunch of the same equipment! I struggle with doing anything live electronically as it means you need to write specifically for the instruments etc and I'm terrible at planning like that (I prefer experimenting with lots of weird things, and settling on just a few across lots of tracks is a nightmare!). It's why I always liked LSDJ as I could mess about with that in the box and change out the synched elements without things falling apart too much. Jam sounds awesome.
Thanks so much!! Yeah, I can relate. To be fair, normally, my creative visions are too DAW-y to translate into this kind of scenario .. I usually just do what I did in the Ableton tutorials I posted last week. There is also the issue of actually carrying all of this stuff to a live venue!
It's really interesting actually, I think some people thrive in the creative restriction of this kind of setup while others find it really tedious. Was definitely a fun experiment to try and it results in a totally different sound, too. LSDJ sounds pretty cool, quite a few of my friends use it. I still need to try it :)
@@Nyokee Whaaaa? I swear I thought you used LSDJ. Is it primarily MGB? If so, that's awesome. My keyboarding skills are not up to scratch enough to use MGB as much ha.
In terms of Ableton... I've always worked in Logic so Ableton's workflow isn't the most natural to me. That said, it does seem to be the best for live kind of... loopy performance. I just need to get into the loop mindset. I've got an Akai Force which is probably more suited for me in that way, but again... a difficult mindset shift! I need to spend more time with it... or maybe I'll just remain in the studio forever ha.
@@StephenMcLeod I'm the opposite, I've played piano for a while, so I feel freer with a keyboard! Yes, I mainly use the Arduinoboy, but also some chiptune software emulations.
Ahh, amazing, we also just got an Akai Force. I still need to learn it, too! It's great how you can import Ableton sets into the Force though!
Logic now also allows for loopy performance, so it's beginning to be more live friendly.
Too much to explore! aaaH!
@@Nyokee So much to do... such little time!
Have you used the Hapax yet? Every time I see that thing I consider buying it, but I have Push and Ableton Live hybrid setup with a bunch of external gear so I’m not sure the Hapax would make sense.
Yeah, it looks super cool! Unfortunately, I've not been able to try it yet. I'm the same, I love the look of some of these tools, but in reality I'm not sure how to integrate them into my day-to-day workflow.
@@Nyokee the last thing I need right now is facing another steep learning curve for some new piece that takes more of my time than actually making music. That’s one reason I use so many Elektron devices. The knowledge of one translates to the others. That being said, the Octatrack is the most challenging learning curve I’ve ever encountered by far.
Yeah midi is neat. It’s also been around for a very long time along with CV. I had this strange concept bouncing around in my head of what could replace midi in the future (distant future more likely). I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but a sort of combination of midi data and audio data at the same time. Essentially a new type of data format. I probably sound stupid or insane right now, but I bet something like that is eventually developed and takes over as the industry standard.
Ha, with all the recent developments in AI, who knows! It's funny, I really think that some protocols become standard as a result of sociocultural movements / certain people being in the right place at the right time, but not necessarily because they're the absolute best possible solution that could theoretically exist (something like that is probably impossible to find)
@@Nyokee It happens all the time actually. Frequently in math and tech, like our concept of degrees for circles and directions being nothing more than a convention because people were familiar with the Earth’s orbit being roughly 360 days.