This is the unveiling of my live solo act, recorded alone in my studio apartment in San Francisco. It relies heavily on "live looping", which grabs small audio clips and loops their playback, allowing you to layer parts as you go.
Traditionally live loops are captured by pressing a foot pedal, however using my iMac I've automated all the "button presses" on a timeline. In fact, I've programmed all the button presses for loading sounds, effects, and even lights and multimedia. When I hit play I have a click track in my ear and I simply perform. Everything else happens automatically. The one rule is no audio is prerecorded except for the percussion. If you hit play on the track, and I don't play or sing, all you will hear is drums.
I use a vocal processor to do live harmonies, and live video looping to help illustrate what's happening musically. All the video and audio is being recorded to disk live without any edits. If I were playing in a bar or other venue, the video feed you're watching would be output to the house screens.
Music has always been a big part of my life, but when I got into live looping six months ago it really brought it to a new level, and it's opened up a incredible new musical world that I've only ever dreamed of. Capturing 20 second clips and playing them back isn't really that incredible but IMO the outcome is, especially when taken to the intricate level that the computer allows me to. One downside is a wrong note can a disaster, looping over and over. Together with live harmonies and the amazing sound quality of the latest sample-based software instruments, it creates a performance that I honestly never knew I was capable off.
Shout-outs & Thanks: Ableton, Native Instruments, bangnoise, The Midi Thief, Modul8, Gummibando, Foil Tape, ServoCity, Franciscan Hoobies, VideoBlocks, Hit Trax, Mike Tierney, Eric Tesar, Francisco Prado, God (The Universe or whatever you want to call It)
Tech Details & Gear: I used Ableton Live as the control host, which plays the file that runs everything and hosts the plug-ins, which are basically virtual gear. The audio looping is done with Live's new Looper. Since I'm playing all software synths, the only input is the vocal, so I can easily loop any instrument(s) I want. For instance I might be playing 3 sounds and singing but only be grabbing a loop of the piano. By programing software loopers it allows you to get much more complicated than hardware and/or human controlled loopers. You can use loops of different lengths together and do stuff like grab a loop to save for later. I also use "Midi Toolbox" plugins to do some tricks like sending only specific notes to certain instruments. The live harmonies are done with a VoiceLive Touch. Everything is being run by my iMac except for the rear and side screens you see in the video, which had to be split off to a Mac Pro via midi because my iMac couldn't handle more then two USB cams. The fisheye shot is coming from my internal iSight cam with a lens taped on. The overhead shot is a Logitech C615 with a 2X lens. The other two cams are Logitech C910s. I built the midi controlled trackcam using two HS-85MG servos which turn a pulley on each end of the track, and drive a string that loops (yes loops!) around the top/bottom, kinda like a cable car. A small cardboard sled glides on the track holding a SPT50 Sub-Micro Pan & Tilt kit from ServoCity, powered by two HS-55 servos. The servos are controlled through midi via a ServoCenter board from Yost Engineering. Most of the sounds are coming from Native Instruments Kontakt. The organ is the B3 from NI's Vintage Organs, the piano is Upright Pinao, strings are Session Strings and bass is Scarbee Bass, The acoustic guitar is Evolution Steel Strings and the electric is Evolution Strawberry Electric, both from Orange Tree Samples. The "blue droplet" and "star-burst" video clips are stock footage from VideoBlocks. The video looping is done using bangnoise's Sampler plug-in for Quartz Composer, outputted via Syphon to Modul8, which is running the video on both machines. Again, both instances of Modul8 are controlled by Live via midi, and everything is pre-programmed. That's how I can output a fully switched video feed ready to view, or capture a live video recording like this one without having to edit anything. I bounced the projection off a large mirror to double it's size in the short space I have, and used a white sheet as a screen. The spot lighting was done with small LED flashlights. There are two Chauvet Intimidator lights, controlled with Q Light Controller, which itself is being controlled by Live. I'm using a Studiologic 61 weighted key midi controller for a keyboard. To record the video, I outputted Modul8 in full screen on the iMac at 640x480 and used Screenflow to do a screen capture, all while it was running everything else underneath. I shot this video at 1 am, alone with my dog Stubby in my 400 square foot apartment.
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5 videos
wow..ok, so I am your newest fan:)
lunarbuni 1 week ago
nicely done! best of luck on your shows :)
PogodaLiveVisuals 2 months ago
Very nice!
biggiesmiley 4 months ago
Well done, Bear!
daringdurk 5 months ago