This is an interesting video interview with Air’s live guitarist Steve Jone’s. He talks about how he uses guitar rig to craft his guitar sound.

Music, Software, Video Air, Guitar, guitar rig, laptop, live performance, Music, setup, Software, stage, Steve Jones, synths

American experimental rock band Battles play Atlas on Later with Jools Holland. Love them or hate them Battles are kind of interesting to watch from a live performance point of view. Check out what they do with the samplers and laptops. I was very surprised to see a band so experimental on Jools Holland. Anyway enjoy & merry christmas & happy new year.

Music, Video Battles, Computers, Jools Holland, laptop, later, live performance, Music, samplers, Video

laptop performer pioneer Kieran Hebden aka Four tet talks about his roland Dr sample.

Four tet

Video, hardware Dr sample, Four tet, hardware, Hebden, kieran, sampler

Korg nano controllers

Korg have released a series of nano controllers the nanoPAD, nanoKEY and nanoKONTROL.  The controllers are designed to be small and compact for use in live performance.

Korg nanoPAD

The nanopad is a drum pad controller similar to an Akai MPD or korg padkontrol. it has 12 drum pads and an X Y touch pad. I must admit it looks like this could be very useful, especially the X Y pad for Ableton live.

Korg nanoKEY

The nanoKEY is a 25 note, velocity sensitive, 2 octave midi keyboard with mini, button like, keys. Not sure about this one although it could be useful in some situations but i would even attempt to play it.

Korg nanoKONTROL

 The nanoKONTROL is a control surface with nine faders, nine knobs, 18 switches and a full transport section. this could be very useful for a lightweight control surface whether it’s for live work or in the studio.

Bundled software

All the nano series come with bundled software, with the nanoKEY you get korgs M1 LE synth, with the nanoPAD you get  Toontrack’s EZDrummer Lite and with the nanoKONTROL you get a discount coupon for Ableton live LE software. All the nano series come with a parameter and midi CC editor/libary which would be useful for custom control setups.

Price

Perhaps the most attractive thing about these products is the price, the nanoPAD retails at about £40 ($60), the nanoKEY about £35 ($55) and the nanoKONTROL £40 ($60). In comparison with other midi controllers on the market these are very cheap, which makes me worry about the quality but i’ll find out very soon as at £40 for a lightweight drum pad controller, i couldn’t resist and ordered one.

Conclusion

The nano series looks to be a promising product due to the size and weight of it making it ideal for live performance. The price is also very attractive but i’ll wait and see whether Korg have skipped out on the quality of the product. I’ll be reviewing the nanoPAD very soon and probably the nanoKONTROL too. In the meantime heres a video review of the nanoPAD.

Merry Christmas

Computers, Midi controllers, Video, hardware Ableton live, Computers, hardware, Korg, laptop, live performance, Midi controllers, Nano controllers, nanoKEY, nanoKONTROL, nanoPAD, review

It’s nice to see a big music software company showing a little bit of Christmas generousty and in this case it’s Native instruments. They have relesed the Kore sound pack compliation Vol 1 which you can download for free. To use it you’ll need the free Kore 2 player which also has some sounds bundled with it. The sounds range from synthesizers, acoustic instruments, percussion, groove construction kits and multi-effects patches and are taken from 12 different Kore packs.

Kore free player

Although you might not like the sounds this will be a good way to test out Kore 2 which is aimed to be used live.

Download Kore sound pack Vol 1

Download free Kore player 

Free software, Plugins, Software christmas, download, Free, free download, Kore, laptop, live performance, Native instruments, player, plugin, Software

Laptop battle in Miami Just came across this video of a laptop battle in Miami. The dancing human robot in the background is funny.

Laptop battle, Video funny, human, Laptop battle, live performance, Maimi, robot

Mr Ray 73 screenshot

Emulating the Fender Rhodes piano is never an easy job but GSI have surpassed themselves and challenged the leaders in the market with this tasty offering. Article includes free download of plugin.

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Free software, Plugins emulation, Fender, Free, free download, keyboards, live performance, Midi controllers, Mr ray 73, Rhodes, Software, vst, vst instruments

So you want to play VST instruments live with your band. Well you can use cubase to do this quite easily. This tutorial will walk you through how to get low latency, set up the project, set up the outputs and how to setup the instruments.

Read the full tutorial

Sequencers, Software, Tutorials Cubase, live performance, Midi controllers, Mr ray 73, Software, tips, tricks, tutorial, vst instruments

Midi mapping is a great feature of Ableton live. It allows you to assign a midi controller to control different parameters. This vastly improves a perfromance especially when just perfroming a laptop set. We show you how to do it, including walkthough and screenshots.

Read the full tutorial

Sequencers, Software, Tutorials Ableton live, control, control ableton, how to, live performance, Midi controllers, midi mapping, tutorial

File management is a very important factor when preparing your computer and projects to play live. File management is often over looked or ignored, which is a shame as it is very easy to do and will make your project much more secure and stable. In this tutorial we will discuss what file managements all about, why its important, what you can do to stop it happening and the advantages.

Read the full tutorial

Sequencers, Software, Tutorials Ableton live, collect and save all, file management, live performance, lost files, move ableton project, tutorial