Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

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TwilightOdyssey

Darkness on the edge of Tone
Not solo material, but is anyone here playing live with either sequencers, backing tracks, loopers, etc?
If so, I would love to know how you are doing it and what your setup is!
 
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Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

I use loopers, but they are for instant composition, not verse/chorus/static arrangement stuff. I need a looper that allows me to manipulate the loop in real time, but being transparent enough so it isn't like 'look, he's looping!'. This includes altering the start and end points of the loop, and manually changing loop direction, speed, & feedback.
 
Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

I have a tc helicon voicelive 3

at the time I was thinking about buying the upgraded version that allows for all that

its just not my thing

I did acoustic singer solo thing a lot in rock shows and cafes growing up

good luck!
 
Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

Thanks for the input.

My ambition is to use backing tracks, but with a twist: I will feed from my DAW into my interface and have separate feeds for each instrument stem; I will then use reamping to play along with the backing guitar track.

For example: Guitar 1 comes out of the interface from Output 1. From there it goes to a reamp box and into an amp on stage. I will be playing a second guitar live into a second amp on the other side of the stage. Ditto for bass, synth, drums.
 
Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

When my live crew was between drummers, I went to backing tracks, fed from iPod direct into my Bose PS-1 mkII, this also handled vocals, and guitars, for which I used various emulation boxes. I decided not to use guitar amp alongside the Bose because of potential issues with mixing - by going direct with guitar, I could make sure everything was balanced.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

I bought voicelive 3 but was considering the upgraded version just for this purpose:

 
Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

I think I have found the solution to my problem. Best part is, it's scaleable to whatever I need, both instrument and vocal wise. Up to 16 discrete audio outputs, unlimited length, and it stores and plays back MIDI files. Amazing! And a lot less clunky than my original plan of used MacBook + large interface.

http://cymaticaudio.com/products/recorders-players/live-player-lp16
 
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Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

UPDATE ::

I have shifted a couple pieces of kit to make financial room for the LP-16; unfortunately, it costs as much as a Mac Mini. :(
In any event, I will be purchasing it as soon as the funds clear and will report back.

I also secured a live singer/guitar player, so this project is just about ready for lift off!
 
Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

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Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

My one man band "live" experience has been limited to performing in front of friends in my living room so far, but I do really enjoy my rig. I use the boomerang III in conjunction with an mpc studio, and I run a kaoss pad through the effect sends of a mixer to feed in different signals for looping or use as an external effect. All three devices are synced to the same midi clock, and for me, that's really been a game changer for consistently pairing loops with beats and samples. I run a bass through the right output jack on the boomerang's output and it records separately and can be fed into its own amp. If I don't have a bass around (mine was stolen and a friend is letting me borrow one) I use a pitch-shift pedal and play bass lines on guitar. I often try to alter my guitar tone to sound like a synth or bass synth, and I use other pedals to change the characteristic of the sound to help things sit in different places in a mono mix. I'm currently GASing for some nice hardware synths to run through the mixer and kaoss pad. This setup is very versatile and a blast to compose extemporaneously on, and I think it will translate well live in the future, though I'd definitely replace the mpc studio with a hardware only unit if I played out regularly, if only to avoid destroying my laptop.
 
Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

So you're going to do the one man live thing with sequencers and more than one person?
Yes and no. But more 'yes'. See my reply in post #15 for more details.
 
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Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

My one man band "live" experience has been limited to performing in front of friends in my living room so far, but I do really enjoy my rig. I use the boomerang III in conjunction with an mpc studio, and I run a kaoss pad through the effect sends of a mixer to feed in different signals for looping or use as an external effect. All three devices are synced to the same midi clock, and for me, that's really been a game changer for consistently pairing loops with beats and samples. I run a bass through the right output jack on the boomerang's output and it records separately and can be fed into its own amp. If I don't have a bass around (mine was stolen and a friend is letting me borrow one) I use a pitch-shift pedal and play bass lines on guitar. I often try to alter my guitar tone to sound like a synth or bass synth, and I use other pedals to change the characteristic of the sound to help things sit in different places in a mono mix. I'm currently GASing for some nice hardware synths to run through the mixer and kaoss pad. This setup is very versatile and a blast to compose extemporaneously on, and I think it will translate well live in the future, though I'd definitely replace the mpc studio with a hardware only unit if I played out regularly, if only to avoid destroying my laptop.
That is why I like the LP-16. No computers or interfaces, it's a single hardware unit, you can have backups of your tracks on a thumb drive so it's very portable, and it stores and plays MIDI files, so you can still use your outboard MIDI gear without having to rely on the limits of a hardware sequencer.

The 16 discrete outputs mean I can submix 6 stereo sends and still have 2 outputs left over for a master stereo mix down or click track.
 
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Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

I thought about doing a one-man show with a backing track CD for my songs through a small PA (like the Fender thing that folds up into its own carrying case), but wasn't sure how well it'd go over, especially since it's all guitar-based instrumentals, and not all of it is the smooth Jazzy kinda stuff like Percy Beamon does. It's more Santana/Satch with muscle cramps and spasms :lol:
I don't think there's a broad enough scene in this area for that. Usually it's either full bands or duets or acoustic singer/songwriter stuff.

Which is actually quite odd, if you think about it: a DJ can get gigs spinning other people's tracks and flipping sliders and all that crap, but a musician with a single instrument and a backup system is frowned upon. Like it's a bigger sin to not have any friends to form a band than to not even be a real musician and spin other people's work :lol:


On the other hand, it really only could work with a guitar, brass/wind, or a synth. Can you see a drummer setting up and then playing along to full guitar and bass tracks (with or without vocal tracks) in a club? I think a great bassist could pull it off though, but you'd definitely have to be in the right area, and it'd have to be Jazz/Funk. A C&W bassist playing along to pre-recorded Hank Sr or Alabama tracks just won't do :P
 
Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

I've done the singer/acoustic thing off and on for 25 years. The one inimitable truth for most of those gigs is people like simple songs sung intelligibly that tell a story and maybe impart a little wisdom. People love a good story so even if they don't know the song, you've performed it so as they can get the message.

For happy hour or the evening crowd keep most of them mid to up tempo. For dinner crowd/back ground type of gig...toss in a lot more slow and mellow.
 
Re: Is anyone here doing the one man band live thing?

I've done the singer/acoustic thing off and on for 25 years. The one inimitable truth for most of those gigs is people like simple songs sung intelligibly that tell a story and maybe impart a little wisdom. People love a good story so even if they don't know the song, you've performed it so as they can get the message.

For happy hour or the evening crowd keep most of them mid to up tempo. For dinner crowd/back ground type of gig...toss in a lot more slow and mellow.
All great advice, thanks -- but it has no bearing on this particular project. This is live progressive rock using backing tracks. It's fairly ambitious and very technical.
 
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