Who has experiences with jamming with electronic instruments (especially by Elektron) with another person? Planning to try this with a friend and curious about other people‘s approaches.
Both of our main setup is DN and DT. However, I also have Microcosm and Specular Tempus as well as OT and a Rev2. I would also like to sing. I think I will bring Rev2 and OT because I prefer analog for playing live and it broadens our sonic territory.
I thought about two approaches:
a) Split duties more like a traditional band. Meaning one person comes up with a beat/bass/melody and the other person can come up with something to accompany it or prepare a new idea that we can then slowly transition into. Advanced version would be that we are something like two LPs that a DJ can transition between, only that we are making the record on the fly and have to find cues to transition.
b) Let him do the heavy lifting and running his stuff into OT so I can record and mangle it, send it to effects chains etc.
I definitely prefer approach a) as I am not that trained in OT recording and mangling.
I think we will just see what works and what not. I am a bit hesitant about doing sequenced music together, as I have tried that with two other people - only to find out that it’s way more interesting if we play our stuff live on synths and drums. However, I feel like a synced/sequenced setup could also be cool and is worth a shot.
I often find splitting the roles cleanly to be more cumbersome than it would be for a guitar-bass-drum band. As long as everything is synced up, who cares if one person has the kick going and another person is doing the hi hats. Feeding off each other works the best for me in these situations. Once one person lays down a groove/main melody/whatever to kick it off, just build from there. As long as everyone is actively paying attention to what the others are doing you are not going to run any real conflicts of musicality, unless you all go in there wanting to write radically different music.
MIDI sync and master clock setup are super important things to get right based on my experience jamming with others. You could get a master central clock device and midi to keep everything synced up. Also a good mixer is key. I use a 16 channel Mackie mixer that works well.
We would definitely make my OT or his DT the master clock and build a daisy chain, I have no worries about that as I often run OT-DT-DN-Rev2-Microcosm myself.
I was in a 3 piece for a few years, and we relied on an approach similar to option A.
It wasn’t that we split duties necessarily, but we would each work on material (sequences/patches/samples etc) independently at a specific tempo and then bring stuff together during rehearsal to experiment with while recording the session.
Afterwards we would listen through the recording and chat about what worked, what didn’t and then go off to tweak/re-work stuff based on those conversations.
This allowed for great collaboration towards a shared goal… To look like we knew what we were doing on stage!
I really enjoy working like this and even though I am solo these days I still like to approach everything I do with a rehearse, rethink, remix mentality.
Ultimately what will matter is how it all feels/sounds when you are jamming together, and the workflow/gear setup will sort of follow that.
If the goal is to perform live, then everything should work towards that goal.
If the goal is to produce songs that is a different set of challenges lol.
What if you have two indepedent synced booths with your own material (scales will be determined in advance) and one mix into the other one and vice versa just like a DJ would do? So, sync and scales would be the most important parts.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t accompany the other one with, let’s say, a synth line or extra percs on top.
I think having fun creating music is the main goal, eventually performing it somewhere would be great. Your approach sounds like the vibe we are going for.
I wouldn’t worry about who plays what, it’s will work itself out. Also don’t worry about syncing. Setting the tempo and pushing play on the 1 is not hard to do. I host a live jam 2 times a month for the last 2 years.
The most important part is your mixer and making sure it’s easy to record your music
I played with 4 people, that was In my opinion too much, its easy to overpower the mix. I try it now as a duo. Syntakt + Octatrack + Abelton + Mpc One.
I plan to map abelton racks with a rack to emulate a dj mixer, or bring xone 96 to dj mix between both players, mpc runs as plugin in live, octatrack as external midi device.
We plan to collect loops, 8/16 bar arrange them live in our samples + midi sequence and play digitone, 303. No singing involved.
I tried it with a local dj aswell, manually syncing OT to the BPM worked quiete good also.
my girlfriend is djing with traktor, and I have a Digitakt/ Eurorack setup. I love to play a hybrid set with her. I just press play on the Digitakt at some point, and sync it by changing the tempo, same as riding a pitch fader on a turntable.
It will drift at some point and I will take care of that using my ears.
It’s incredible how much fun it is to play that way. You HAVE TO LISTEN or you will fuck up the sound. It forces you do be aware of the sound at any time. Anyone who learned to play with vinyl will understand what I mean. A really good exercise. I can only recommend to sync by ear!
Nice! I keep a iPad running Traktor full of acapellas to liven up the jams. Also live audiences seem to love a remix. A simple physical exercise is to hit the stop button on 1 2 3 the play on 4. Hardly ever miss the beat
We plays as a duo with @MoeFerris! We split duties as he is working the modular system and makes the melodic content and I make the drums, mixing and transitions. Sometimes he follows what I introduce and sometimes I follow him. We don’t talk at all while performing it’s just about the feeling. ATM the Behringer Flow 8 is our Sub Mixer and Monitor Matrix for Moe b.c. he‘s working with IEMs
This sounds like a great thing eventually, but I feel like we both don’t have enough material right now. And I feel it might also not be that compatible. Also think that this require’s a level of experience that we are not at. It seems more promising to create stuff from the ground up together than mash our own stuff together. But the idea of bringing our own existing stuff into the mix is still great, as long as it is not the main approach from the beginning.
So we had the first test run this weekend and it went really well. We both had a DN/DT setup and I had my SH01a plus two effects pedal as well. On the second day we found our flow and traded roles from time to time, so that we were both on drum or melody/bass duties from time to time. It definitely helps to base everything on the Elektron sequencer and have a common understanding of what it can and can’t do. And I played the SH01a live with the keyboard, without any sequencing. Such a great instrument for jamming!
As this was only the first session, I am hopeful that at some point we will become something like one unit of several machines that are forming a whole. Thanks for your input!
We ditched the mixer available to us in the room we rented altogether and just went straight from my interface into the monitors. While this may not be the professional way, it means that we can record and from now on we basically only need a room with monitors where we can be loud. Only downisde is that I didn’t have a dedicated input to record all of the synths/vocals on a single track for arranging stuff later on. Does anyone have a suggestion for an interface which has at least ten mono inputs for synths (line level is sufficient, no preamps or volume control necessary) and two mono inputs with preamps for mic and maybe a guitar/bass if we feel like it? Right now I’m using a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 which is totally fine but only lacks a few more inputs. Two XLR/Line outputs would also be enough, two headphone outputs welcome.
Is it possible that this is the reason for the weird layout on this one and the Digitone Keys? I assume it’s not the case, but it actually makes sense when you think about it.
I heard that the MnM Keys was designed in this way to be played by two people, yes. The DN Keys probably just harked back to yesteryear with a nod to the MnM.
