42 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
42 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Spectral Forge
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tags: music
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---
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_postmortem_
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Second solo ambient live I ever did.
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May 2023 at <a class="external-link" href="https://festiwalswiatla.hs3.pl/ ">Festiwal Światła</a>
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I took some lessons from [[Stellar Chant]] and had some more time. Biggest change was that I decided to make my own visuals (and it kinda worked, more on that later).
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This time I went with 4 tracks and setup with PC (mainly due to visuals). I still had one point of failure, but had everything backed to iCloud/Dropbox so I could recover if I had at least some time.
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Setup for this year:
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1. Laptop with Ableton Live 11 Suite. I had samples and instruments there. I `bounced` (aka "make this an audio") almost everything I decided not to play and had MIDI clips just in case if anything goes wrong with MIDI keyboard
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2. Arturia Keystep connected to laptop and Ableton to control MIDI. First concept was to change MIDI tracks for different instruments, but was scrapped.
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3. SOMA Lyra-8 connected to Ableton with huge convolution reverb for basically whole 2nd track. I did a photo of Lyra setup so I could replicate it if any knob would be changed.
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4. Focusright Scarlett Solo as an audio interface and output.
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5. MIDI over (50m 🤯) ethernet cable to send MIDI data to change visuals.
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### What went right
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- I managed to learn Blender enough to do 1/4 of the visuals and they were cool
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- My friend helped me with amazing AI-gen visuals for the rest of the show
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- Everything worked perfectly, including MIDI over ethernet
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- I had killer outfit to "transform" into MonoChromancer. This seems silly, but helped me a lot to "play character".
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- Had a proper soundcheck
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- Have better photo/video than last year
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- <a class="external-link" href="https://album.link/s/2YVFDSW2w99MUYaijNaytQ">Actually released Spectral Forge as debut album! (even if it's not mixed as well as I would like, it's still a huge lock out of my head)</a>
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- A lot of my stickers found new home
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- Discovered I can manipulate volume "kinda as an extra instrument" - small changes in volume for some parts really did enhance the show
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### What went wrong
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- Still, even with soundcheck with folks I was too quiet. Not as bad as last time, but turns out that a lot of people do dampen the sound a lot.
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- I tried rehearsing playing on Arturia before show and it turns out that by far my best take was at home composing. So I decided to ditch whole live playing for 3 tracks out of 4 - so for most part I stayed there trying to look like I'm doing something
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- Out of stress I did turn wrong know on Lyra for a while and had to recover quickly during stress. It made the track bit worse
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Lastly, I think I focused too much on "let's make something that will be playable live" and lost track somewhere along the lines. I kinda got lost in a quest to "make live for a festival" that I made a bit compromised version of music. At least it was eye-opening afterwards to change direction and go back to the "proper path" (aka path that actually is fun for me).
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Also, it made me rethink my "all live" approach. I may come from local rock bands background, which may not necessarily translate 1:1 to ambient music.
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Overall a huge net positive, especially with release out and a "wake-up call". |