Electronic Performers - Live Sets vs. Dj Sets?

[Bud Luster]

..ask "how live" everyone was going to get. .

I will be getting very fucking live, thank you.

[xbnmx]

AFAIK Norman always DJs, someone come up with a link talking about him doing LivePA.

[alxmoore]

having seen Pendulum Live and as a DJ set i can safely say either is Amazing but the Live set is something else..
it'll blow you away.

[Edmontonian]

Ok well heres a confirmation

Pendulum - Live (super cool because every other show on their tour is a dj set and apparently their live set is off the hook, plus their new album drops March 17. www.pendulum.com)

[E-rock]

Did anyone catch Justice in Downtown LA last year? Would that be considered a live set or a DJ set? What's the damn difference?

[Trick Loves The Kids]

I guess there isn't REALLY a huge difference when it comes to Justice. A live set is generally a band playing their own material on equipment other than turntables (CD turntables, in Justice's case) while a DJ set is the band playing music from several artists on two turntables. That's the basic difference but in Justice's case their DJ sets and live sets are pretty similar so it's whatever.

[instinct]

Did anyone catch Justice in Downtown LA last year? Would that be considered a live set or a DJ set? What's the damn difference?

They played records/cds.

Live Sets = Keyboards, Synthesizers, Electronic Drums, Moog, ETC

DJ Set = Turntables, CD Players, ETC

[jackstraw94086]

They played records/cds.

Live Sets = Keyboards, Synthesizers, Electronic Drums, Moog, ETC

DJ Set = Turntables, CD Players, ETC

Don't forget a laptop. Really that's all that needed to call it a live set these days. Basically any set performed without turntables (and CDJ's ARE turntables, I don't care what anyone says), is considered "live"

[SGT Killjoy]

yea, i mean, if youre just spinning the records and not using serato with a loop based sample. total sample control really.

[kingz10fan]

Did anyone catch Justice in Downtown LA last year? Would that be considered a live set or a DJ set? What's the damn difference?

That was a DJ set. Their live set is only their music/remixes so it's much better

[amyzzz]

This thread title makes me think of AIR.

[jonnypark]

I'm 99.99% sure Holy Fuck is a live PA act I am seeing them in a few weeks and will be able to confirm.

[micktravis]

I'm 99.99% sure Holy Fuck is a live PA act I am seeing them in a few weeks and will be able to confirm.

They are fully live- drums, guitars, synths. And they rock!

[DrDank551]

Booka Shade i hear is off the hook, I have bud who saw them not long ago, and said they brinng your personal house down

[Robototron]

I'm 99.99% sure Holy Fuck is a live PA act I am seeing them in a few weeks and will be able to confirm.

I didn't even know Holy Fuck were known for DJing at all.

[digitalface]

Ya i named the thread after that air song, its so good.
too bad they were super gay last year and started an hour late so they conflicted with ratatat so I couldn't see them. what a pair of dicks.

Yeah, it sucked because we all missed something (Manu Chao, myself) waiting on them. HOWEVER, it wasn't their fault. The house crew (not theirs) had problems setting things up. Even so, they humbly (and formally) apologized on this message board anyway and promised to return to LA to make it up to everyone, a promise they kept.

One day your ignorant potty mouth will land you somewhere you probably deserve, my friend.

...and "too bad they were super gay" ?? Too bad you're a super idiot.

[Trick Loves The Kids]

link to air apologizing on this board plz

[digitalface]

This is the quote:

Well guys, all I can say on behalf of team Air is sorry. But there are a couple of things you've got to know:

1. The reason we were so late going on stage was that the American crew fucked up big time backstage - there was a spaghetti junction of leads, and no-one knew what was wrong. Half the lines were down, including some crucial stuff like bass, SH-101, JB's keyboards etc. We couldn't start to play until these things were fixed... and it was heartbreakingly frustrating to be kept waiting and waiting.
2. Because of the above problems, there were stacks of problems with the mix.
3. No-one had diarrhoea.
4. They were enforcing the set times, so the set was cut really really short - we had four more songs on the list.

It was a suicide camp afterwards - we'd really hoped it would be a great show, as the American tour has been going great. Festivals can really mess with your head.

Sorry anyway,

Steve Jones (Air band)

[digitalface]

You were active in that thread, Trick, you don't remember?

[Trick Loves The Kids]

nah I missed that post I guess. that's really cool of them though. I'd like to see them again non festival.

[Sonicifyouwantit]

live or dj doesnt matter, usually live set will just be a pa set anyway

[Robototron]

Ya i named the thread after that air song, its so good.
too bad they were super gay last year and started an hour late so they conflicted with ratatat so I couldn't see them. what a pair of dicks.

Ratatat is terrible anyway.

[hangthedj112]

This will always be debated, I mean is Justice really all that live???

[E-rock]

Ya i named the thread after that air song, its so good.
too bad they were super gay last year and started an hour late so they conflicted with ratatat so I couldn't see them. what a pair of dicks.

What a dick! When did something super LAME become GAY?
Pshaw!

[amyzzz]

Ya i named the thread after that air song, its so good.
too bad they were super gay last year and started an hour late so they conflicted with ratatat so I couldn't see them. what a pair of dicks.

I saw AIR and Ratatat last year. I think I only saw Ratatat's last several songs, but it was really cool.

[jackstraw94086]

This will always be debated, I mean is Justice really all that live???

no it will not be debated. This is not a subtle defintion. Can everybody just let it sink in that no turntables = live. It doesn't matter how good it is or how improvised it is.

[fatbastard]

Coachella DJs get the party moving with MP3s


Sasha & John Digweed at Coachella on April 26.


As the music festival showed, they no longer have to lug around crates of albums. But one glitch could mean the show is over.

By Charlie Amter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 4, 2008

THERE'S a video clip making the rounds on YouTube featuring English actor Steve Coogan from the U.K. television show "Saxondale" talking about the state of DJs in the post-vinyl era. "What on God's green Earth is that?" Coogan asks incredulously of a club track playing on the car stereo. "These days [to be a DJ] you need to know how to operate Windows XP. . . . What do they practice? Moving the mouse around?"

Well, maybe.

Last weekend at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, there were plenty of cursors moving across screens (though to be fair, few of those computers were running Windows XP; more like a variant of Macintosh's OS X). But the new school of DJs playing the festival certainly didn't need practice selecting the right MP3s to play -- DJs have embraced MP3s as the format of choice, heading to websites like beatport.com to download new material and leaving behind bulky albums and CDs in favor of managing their files with software like Serato Scratch Live and Traktor.

Related
STORY: Complete Festival Coverage"When you are a vinyl DJ, you have to wait to get tracks on vinyl before you can play them out," offers L.A. fixture Steve Aoki. "Since Serato, you can play anything you produce the second [it's] ready to go -- and you don't have to carry crates of records anywhere."

Of course, relying heavily on technology isn't without risk. There's always the possibility of a crash that could bring the party to an abrupt halt.

"I've been pretty fortunate in that I've never had a crash," says electronic artist Deadmau5 (whose adopted moniker is pronounced Deadmouse but whose real name is Joel Zimmerman). "I'm using custom-built software, which helps."

Not every dance music purveyor has been so lucky. British DJ Sasha has been very public about his reluctance to switch over to crash-prone computers when playing live and his subsequent late transition to using a Macintosh G5 instead of vinyl or CDs. So, naturally, he was the one to experience every DJ's worst nightmare before a high-profile engagement in Miami three months ago during the annual dance music confab known as the Winter Music Conference.

"Ten minutes before I was supposed to play at [South Beach club] Mansion, . . . I was just about to go on and play and my system crashed," he says. "I made a last-minute call to a friend, and he brought me a spare controller. . . . I went on a half-hour late, and it messed up my entire night, to be honest. If you don't know what caused the glitch, it stresses you out."

Now, though, he's become a convert. Sasha, who played Coachella on April 26, is using Ableton software for his Mac to play live. He says it's a "rare occurrence" that he has a fatal tech error that stops his set and that the "pluses outweigh the minuses" when it comes to using a computer-based platform.

"For the first six months, I was like a kid with a new toy," he says of his relatively new set-up. "But it didn't sound like me . . . it's almost like I had to train myself to sound like myself again." He sighs, adding: "I had to remember that it wasn't necessary to over-layer every track with effects."

Zimmerman, who programs his own sets instead of traditional "DJ'ing," likes to experiment with his own material on the fly, an example being his beloved progressive house track "Faxing Berlin," using code he wrote himself.

"I use different software all the time," he says. "The methodology of writing [in dance music] involves multiple passes, experimentation . . . stuff that you have to go back and edit. I'd be hard-pressed to be able to do that live on stage. But I always try to insert some elements that are new so that I'm at least performing the track. Audio technology keeps coming out with new stuff. If it's new, exploit it. That's the whole idea behind technology."