In my experience of going to raves/clubs here in Chicago, I find that most often performers are using Pioneer decks and mixers rather than hardware. There have been a few exceptions, the most notable being the BEST rave I ever attended here (naturally taking place in a warehouse in the diciest part of town) where every performer was using elektron devices. So much so that the entire table the performers were standing behind was lined 10 feet across with different elektron boxes.
I’ve been using the digitakt for years now (and more recently the digitone in addition), but have been wondering how to break into the rave and/or club scene as I’ve seen more often than not there is an expectation to use the Pioneer decks rather than bringing your own hardware to perform. Do you use your digitakt to perform in these settings? What is the rest of your setup like? How do you tell what kind of event is more suited to hardware performers vs DJs? Not saying one is better than the other, but I don’t have like 5000 bucks to drop on my own XDJs and DJ Mixer to learn and practice lol.
I think @DaveMech is one of the forum users who can fill in on your question here.
My experience is that dj’ing is mostly focused on mixing and matching existing tracks from other artists. Perhaps some own material if the dj is producer too and some added samples or loops depending on the setup. Hardware performers noodle their bits and pieces of their material in front of the audience. That is perfectly possible with some preparation. It depends on the venue and connections you have to get booked i guess. Some demo material of you performing with elektron machines might help to get some exposure.
Not to sidebar, but I’m in Chicago and would love to know where this Elektron rave was? Seriously, I would love to hit more live electronic music venues…
I’ve played some live shows here in LA using a Digitakt, a Volca FM, and a Model D. Was a pretty simple setup; both were sequenced / routed through the Digitakt.
As far as how to break in and what shows are best suited to hardware vs DJ- both are more just a matter of either knowing the promoters or having some sort of name / brand recognition. Have you put out much music or released any live sets?
I’ve thrown/help throw parties here and there in the LA area, booking both live sets and DJ sets. It’s no secret that DJ sets are generally preferred from a promoter’s point of view; less gear/tables to rent, less logistics on changeovers, and the assumption that you won’t need to soundcheck before the show since its all mastered music playing off USB drives. In a club/afters/rave environment, dead air will spell disaster for the dancefloor, so having to do a changeover from a 4 deck dj setup to a hardware act can spell trouble in a dark, smoke-filled environment.
If you want to skip out on the DJing part and go head first into being a live dance music act, you are already in the right direction by thinking of a small setup. The less things to plug in the better. Having more than 2 outs will often be undoable in these situations, whether this means bringing only a handful of daisy-chainable gear or investing in a mixer to run everything through yourself is up to you.
I wouldn’t necessarily just look at the price of a CDJ3000*2 + DJM900 rig and abandon DJing off that. Anything within the rekordbox platform will get you pretty close towards understanding how the club standard stuff works + being in the ecosystem already with a controller/one of those standalone XDJ all in one systems will let you just move your library to a flash drive/SD card and be good to go at 99% of the parties you might play.
In terms of knowing what promoters/venues cater to what, I’d suggest to just pay attention to who is booking the parties you are going to, and which ones tend to have live electronic acts play alongside more conventional CDJ/vinyl sets. Or you can start throwing your own stuff and make live electronics the focal point of your party series, then book yourself as the opener!
It was in a warehouse on the west side. Austin, I believe. Shit was magical and I would kill to do it over again. I’ve been going to some raves lately but they’ve all been DJ sets. Not necessarily a bad thing and they’re always fun, I just rly like seeing hardware performers more. Call it a personal preference.
word of mouth/friends for the most part, the raves that are most worth going to are generally kept under wraps/offline so they don’t get rolled. Mainly because of chicago’s rave laws