Jon Hopkins Live KEXP
Jon Hopkins is an electronic musician and composer, who performs his compositions and other people songs in DJ sets at gigs around the world. His setup will vary depending on whether he's performing a set of his own material which he's manipulating live, or just playing songs for a DJ set where he'd be playing the songs, adding effects and blending but not manipulating the music from it's original form. For this I'll focus more on the setup he uses to perform his own music, as it is more complex and uses technology in more creative ways so is more worth exploring and describing.
The key features of the Jon Hopkins setup are Ableton Live on a macbook, three or more Korg KP3 Kaoss pads, a Pioneer live mixer and Livid MIDI controller. Firstly, Ableton Live is the software he uses to play all his audio from, as he said in an interview with Creative Digital Media in 2010, "I ran off all the separate sounds from my own studio, and kind of loaded everything up into Ableton, so I’ve got total flexibility over all the songs". This means he has stems of his complete multitrack that he can manipulate and play at different intervals to make a creative and different version of the album track, while retaining the recognisable character of the track by using the same audio files from the originals rather than trying to remake them live which would be too difficult. It's a smart choice of software to use in a live context as its interface is laid out with vertical channels, where effects or sound plug ins can be added to change the sound, and an editing window at the bottom for more specific functions. It's a good choice as it shows his loops in boxes like regions stacked vertically in these channels, and then using the controls of the Livid MIDI controller to control functions in Ableton, and to start or "trigger" things in Ableton. The pads of the Livid Mixer can be assigned to control Ableton, the most simple example of this being using a pad to start an audio channel to begin a performance, which Jon does visibly on his performance on KCRW studio session. On the left and right of this mixer are 4 channels with pots and buttons which correspond to eight channels in Ableton. When assigned, these give you flexible control over the volume of the the audio if this is what you choose to assign, as it could be a filter for each channel being controlled by them, so you could drop sounds in and out like volume, but still have the sound to create a build up for example. An alternative to Ableton would be to use Logic, the sequencer which I've seen him working on in the studio, but this would limit what he could do, a specific problem being that he couldn't assign pots as easily as he could with Ableton, but still Logic would be an adequate alternative option. The Pioneer mixer is used to control the levels of each channel before they reach the front of house, so Jon can make a nice mix of the seperate tracks and ensure no component is too loud. For this he uses the faders to slide volume up and down, however he could use pots if enough were free but its more difficult to see you levels on pots where as with faders its very obvious so this is probably the best option.
The key creative live element of his set up is his use of Korg KP3 Kaoss pads which he feeds the clean signals through from Ableton to then manipulate creatively using the touch pad of the device, that lets you control and warp the sounds. The KP3 has a loop bank of buttons labled A, B, C, D which store and trigger loops to be laid down and edited. He may load percussion samples to these triggers, to keep time with the track or to manipulate the percussion itself depending on the song. There is the option store samples on the KP3 and re-load them for performances, which would be another option for Jon rather than running audio from ableton through it. The KP3 also has an auto-sync button or tap tempo function to ensure any new audio being introduced to either the touch pad or from the sampler buttons will be in time, which makes the performance more easy, and focussed on creatively manipulating sounds rather than getting timing correct. Jon says in interview that his performances vary from show to show and that he improvises lots too with tracks, so the KP3 touch pads enables him to do this to a massive degree as the pad is capable of taking a parameter of a sound and changing it massively to completely alter a sounds characteristic, without compromising the timing or musicality of the sound. Another factor is the FX release, which means when you use the pad to warp a sound and remove your finger the effect doesn't instantly die off, and instead tapers out with a BPM synchronised delay effect which just sounds like a flutter after the initial sound. I've seen in performance that Jon uses this when messing with percussion as it can make a drum hit sound large and delayed which is interesting. I think these are the best devise Jon could use for his setup, as the KP3 is the third generation of the Kaoss pad, any problems of the predecessors have been amended (like the FX release has done) and give him creative control over the sounds with little downfall. However, another option for Jon maybe a software emulation of a Kaoss pads functionality in the form of an iPad app, like for example the Live-FX for iPad app, which based upon the kaoss pads functions. An advantage of this would be that it has a built in track player which would allow you to manipulate audio in it playing from iTunes or from and audio stream to the device, which would remove the need for ableton and the macbook, however a downside is that iPads are less robust than Kaoss pads, and that any elements required for the track but not using Kaoss pads would still need the macbook and ableton, but still this is another viable option for his setup.
The key creative live element of his set up is his use of Korg KP3 Kaoss pads which he feeds the clean signals through from Ableton to then manipulate creatively using the touch pad of the device, that lets you control and warp the sounds. The KP3 has a loop bank of buttons labled A, B, C, D which store and trigger loops to be laid down and edited. He may load percussion samples to these triggers, to keep time with the track or to manipulate the percussion itself depending on the song. There is the option store samples on the KP3 and re-load them for performances, which would be another option for Jon rather than running audio from ableton through it. The KP3 also has an auto-sync button or tap tempo function to ensure any new audio being introduced to either the touch pad or from the sampler buttons will be in time, which makes the performance more easy, and focussed on creatively manipulating sounds rather than getting timing correct. Jon says in interview that his performances vary from show to show and that he improvises lots too with tracks, so the KP3 touch pads enables him to do this to a massive degree as the pad is capable of taking a parameter of a sound and changing it massively to completely alter a sounds characteristic, without compromising the timing or musicality of the sound. Another factor is the FX release, which means when you use the pad to warp a sound and remove your finger the effect doesn't instantly die off, and instead tapers out with a BPM synchronised delay effect which just sounds like a flutter after the initial sound. I've seen in performance that Jon uses this when messing with percussion as it can make a drum hit sound large and delayed which is interesting. I think these are the best devise Jon could use for his setup, as the KP3 is the third generation of the Kaoss pad, any problems of the predecessors have been amended (like the FX release has done) and give him creative control over the sounds with little downfall. However, another option for Jon maybe a software emulation of a Kaoss pads functionality in the form of an iPad app, like for example the Live-FX for iPad app, which based upon the kaoss pads functions. An advantage of this would be that it has a built in track player which would allow you to manipulate audio in it playing from iTunes or from and audio stream to the device, which would remove the need for ableton and the macbook, however a downside is that iPads are less robust than Kaoss pads, and that any elements required for the track but not using Kaoss pads would still need the macbook and ableton, but still this is another viable option for his setup.
This entire setup gives him the freedom to ad-lib while performing, and using his musical intuition to take his performances off in different directions, and try things he hasn't tried before in the comfort that his equipment enables him to do so, and his selection of effects and style of composition means he can make changes to the tracks which he knows will sound good and work with his style. He knows the tracks won't go out of time, and that a decision he makes isn't going to clash or sound wrong, because his source audio works together as a complete track, but making these variations means no two performances sound the same, which keeps it interesting for him to perform, and interesting for the crowd to hear.
Luke Abbott
Luke Abbott Blog
Like Jon Hopkins, Luke Abbott is an electronic music composer and performer, who's setup differs from Hopkins as it doesn't include any laptop with Ableton to generate MIDI information or send audio to equipment, instead his is an all analog setup, where he generates all sound live by playing the synths or sound modules in his setup. His reasoning for this is because of frustration with unreliable MIDI controllers, and dissatisfaction with not having hardware in his live setup as he did in his studio setup, which he used to make the music he would be playing live in concerts. So he decided to reinvent his setup on this basis, to get more pleasure from it himself. He admits its far more hassle and more easily prone to damage/failures but suggests it sounds better and is more fun, which is the key to staying inspired as a musician and performer to get the best from your work.
His new setup consists of many pieces of signal processors and small synth units, but firstly the most significant piece of kit is his home made MIDI controller. As it's homemade it's very difficult to accurately describe its key features and functions, however he says in his blog that it's based on the Doepfer USB64 which is the core of the controller and looks like a typical motherboard with various ports for connection, but for all intents and purposes is the beginning of the MIDI controller. The part costs approximately £115 and provides 64 inputs, power supply and cabling. The unit has to be soldered for connections to be made, and a shell built around it with pots to physically control the functions being performed by the internal connections. There really is no better alternative than home made kit as you make it as well as possible, can fix any problem and know exactly how it works so nothing on the commercial market should compare if it's made properly.
All Luke's other it is commercially available stuff, common in many setups. Firstly he has a Dave Smith Instruments (DSI) Tetra desktop synthesiser, which is a small sized, completely analogue poly synth, to play synth lines during live performance. Poly refers to more than one key, where a monophonic synth can only have one note played at a time, a polyphonic synth can have many overlapping at once, which is useful for melody lines as they sound more fluent when notes slightly overlap, be this from performance or MIDI info, and also harmony notes could be played too which is an advantage. In his words this is the smallest best sounding polysynth you can buy, however an alternative piece of kit maybe the Korg Volca Keys, which may not have been released at the time of his equipment listing on his blog, but is another small very affordable polysynth which has octave and oscillator controls to manipulate the tone of the sound, and a 16 step sequencer to play 16 bar melodies in time to these steps in a loop to manipulate. This may not have quite enough flexibility for what Luke wants to play on it have MIDI trigger it to play, but it would be a viable option in many electronic music setups at a very good price.
Luke uses a behringer compressor pedal, which he admits isn't a high quality choice and that he bought it very cheap but attributes it's charm to its shortcomings like the hum it makes. He uses this to process drums and make interesting textures for breaks, which you may ironically not be able to replicate in a high quality compressor unit, which goes to show that quality and suitability cannot always be based upon a products reputation or price, after all if a cheap pedal does the job for Luke then why upgrade to one that may clean up the sound and kill the elements that he likes about its sound.
Finally he has the macbook which sends MIDI to any synths and sound modules, which he controls with his home made MIDI controller and a Faderfox mixer also. Finally he has a Launchpad, which is a MIDI controller that rather than having pots to control the triggers, has drum pads which you hit to trigger samples or sounds from the sequencer in the Laptop. This is another key feature, as it allows for more creative rhythmical performance than pots would, as with drums you want to be able to play hits with your fingers rather than moving pots, as this wouldn't be suitable for playing drum sounds. Below is a picture of a flight case containing some of Luke's equipment, taken from his blog where he wrote what he used and why.
No comments:
Post a Comment