My philosophy has been the same for decades: I start off and then go wherever my mood takes me. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it sucks.
Just to illustrate, our latest gig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw0ALkNlNkA
Gear used:
- Digitakt
- TR8-S
- Eventide space
- 2x104hp modular
- Mackie mixer
Digitakt works as a safety net here, as it’s the only piece of gear with pre-programmed patterns.
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Nice compact setup 
- I’m curious, how exactly does the Launch Control work with the Octatrack? Im using a similar setup myself (no Launch Control, but with a DN and a cue out sending guitar via a reamp box to my guitar rack & amp (it’s like a hybrid electronica/radioheady type vibe)… but I love the idea of a hands-on mixer controlling the Octa!
I could probably write a very long story about this but I try to point out two important things.
- THINK ABOUT WHEN AND FOR WHOM YOU PLAY
Think about your target group and the situation you´re going to play. Imagine that you are a guest of that particular event: what are their expectations? It is huge difference if you play an ambient set during the opening hours or a set at 3 or 4 in the morning when everyone wants to be hit hard with the kickdrum. Nobody wants to listen to your very thought through and experimental re-interpretation of your early Octatrack works in a techno night at four in the morning. On the other hand a more experimental and unique set can be a huge factor of attraction when it is played in the early hours of such an event. People are much more open minded than you think but you have to catch them in the right moment.
To illustrate point one I post two sets that I played, one was an ambient set from 21:00-22:00 and the other one a techno set from 03:00-04:00.
- KEEP IT SIMPLE
This should be point 1. You will be VERY surprised who different your material sounds in a club and how all the details you cared about in the studio become unnoticable. Use ONE kick, ONE bass and ONE synth-line / leadsound at a time, everything that you try to layer will result in a muddy and undefined sound in the club. From my experience those pattern work best in a club situation that you felt rather unfinished and “empty” in the studio. But if the sounds are good and work well together less is more.
The rule “keep it simple” also reflects on your choice of gear. Unless you are a genius expert with the hell of a lot experience you are better off with an Analog Rytm & Digitakt for the start. Each instrument that you bring is a possible source of error in your set and you will find it difficult to keep everything under control. You don´t need three different Eventide reverbs in your liveset, instead try to max out in e.g. the Analog Rytm and learn to use the build in reverb.
That was a long text, sorry for not giving you an advise on what to buy or a secret super-tip but these two ideas are what I find most important when I play live (what I will do three times this week by the way. 
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Love to get an answer from you, I have been enjoying your videos for a while and it’s super cool to get your insight!
How do you like the ERM (I suppose it’s midiclock+)?
I have a similar set-up, and I’m using my Machinedrum as the master clock. Sometimes Ableton struggles to keep things in sync, so I was considering buying ERM midiclock+ to sync everything. Would you reccomend it?
for syncing with ableton you will need the more expensive erm multiclock i suppose.
this is more accurate than (computer)midi, because ableton will be the master and it will send an audio click track to the erm clock. (via you normal audio interface > sample accurate timing)
the erm box will then generate a midi clock for your hardware devices from that audio stream…
well, the idea is to use the ERM as the master clock, and syncing both hardware and software via midi through a motu micro express, which I already own…I’ve read very good reviews on the ERM, so I’d like to ear from djsm his thougths on this.
Plus, for now I can justify 150/200 € for the midiclock+, but not 400/500 € for the multiclock.
It seems that I am one of the rare kind of people that never had problems with midi sync with Ableton on master. In my last liveset I had a nasty midi thru chain from ableton to Digitakt -> virusti -> sub37 -> rev2 ->strymon FX without any issues. A lot of problems are actually coming from wrong latency compensation settings in Ableton or weird stuff that your audio interface does without telling you. From my point of view and experience you don´t need an expensive midi-clock generator to have a solid timing.
ok, but the main problem is the midi handling of the computer. i dont know the technical details, but i know, that the midi messages on mac and pc are handeled in a less precise way than audio signals… which is why the sync will never be supertight via (usb)midi.
i had the erm multiclock, and can say, that sync (via audio) is super tight.
my guess is, that sync via (usb)midi should be the same, weather you sync ableton via elektron box or via erm midiclock+
you should be able to find more info on this forum…
You are welcome! Feel free to ask anything that you´d like to know about my setups.
Yes and no. It is correct that MIDI is not the top priority of any MAC or PC. And I love to plug in midi cables into my Atari ST computer. BUT if you take a look into how the midi protocol (invented in 1983) works you will notice that the bottleneck is not the computer which sends the midi clock. In other words the unreliability and error margin that is part of the protocol´s design is much larger than the error your modern days computer cause.
yes thats true. happy that it works for you. i just wanted to let @ram know that in my case i only got tight sync via multiclock… but it was too expensive and i did not keep it 
Don´t get me wrong, the ERM is a nice piece of gear and I´d like to try it in my setup to see if the midi timing improves. If you don´t mind my asking: how did you solve the problem that the midi in ports are blocked? If I have a Digitakt as midi sequencer I need to connect it to my synths.
The ERM has relieved so much sync angst… I like to overdub, but syncing with the Ableton clock introduced way too much variation in the clock and I could never overdub confidently and expect everything to line up… Now, everything ALWAYS lines up… its actually amazing and so simple… though its expensive and really does nothing once it’s set up… but it has changed the way I am able to write and record music because everything is always in perfect sync…
Alalso, I use a lot of long delays on external effects and using the ERM makes it so much cleaner… no phasing at all!
There wil alwayys be MIDi variation using software, I expect that you don’t record and overdub much, because that’s exactly where you’ll come across issues with sync.
I had played live without the ERM for ever, but once I started to seriously release music, and compare it to other releases, I could hear the clock wavering when I tried to mix the tracks I’d written with other tracks that had a tight sync…
Now, I have zero variation in my recorded music it really does feel like it’s a way more professional way to produce solid timed tunes 
In response to the OP, assuming s/he’s still interested:
I play exclusively “live” in the sense that I improvise completely and from scratch. I just try to tap into my emotions with the first few sounds and then let the mood take me. Sometimes that’s starting with a kick and sometimes that’s starting off with a chord progression or even just a single note.
For this to work for me, each unit needs to have a clear purpose ascribed to it. For example in my case: Digitakt for drums & one-shot duties, Octatrack for melodic, harmonic & vocal loops (+ mangling the **** out of them — and sometimes I will capture the out of one of the other instruments as a recording onto the Octatrack to process it further &/or free up the instrument for another layer), Dreadbox Erebus for Bass duties, Dreadbox Nyx for SFX and Atmospheric (Blade Runner :)) soundscapes, Analog Four for pads and sometimes a second mono synth voice (eg Lead). This is my main setup.
The Dreadboxes go into the Analog Four so that I can use its effects on the Dreadboxes sounds (and blend them better in the mix with the A4’s sounds), the A4 goes into the Octatrack Inputs C&D and the Digitakt goes into Octatrack’s Inputs A&B.
On the Cue Out of the Octatrack I sometimes have my Eventide TimeFactor and Meris Mercury7 in that order, so I can send sounds out into those effects by cueing tracks on the Octa.
I have some more gear (MPC1000, Kawai MP11, Waldorf Streichfett etc), and I use them sometimes as well, but the setup I describe above is my go to.
What slows my creative process down most is when I wonder what to feed the Digitakt and/or Octatrack. In particular with the Octatrack, the wish to do something awesome with it can sometimes really keep me from doing anything with it as I struggle to choose/commit to (a) sample(s) that I like and take it from there. So I usually lay the foundations with something less complex and then let that guide me in my sample choices and processing on the Octa. Should add that having too many samples ready can really slow the process…less is more in the sense that it cultivates familiarity (with the sample) and at the same time forces creativity…a great combination to learn and develop
Hope this helps!
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alles gut the multiclock has 4 midi outs, but if that is not enough, you would have to use the midi thru on your devices or a midi merge/split box
i only have a4, rytm and circuit so for me there were enough outputs…
if you send clock from multiclock to digitakt, then clock should be sent to the devices you are sequencing with digitakt, or am i missing something?
The thing is, that Ableton does not latency-compensate its outgoing midi clock. If you set the midi clock offset and get your set in perfect sync, then go and add some latency inducing plugin to a track - boom, you are out of sync again. This is not fun when you want to work fast and flexible. The ERM solves this problem and is actually the main reason that I use one. Indispensable bit of kit, imo.
I think you can actually chain Multiclocks for more outs, if you were so inclined to spend that much money.