Ideas for live playing - video

[Umut Erhan]

Thank you everyone for your supportive comments! It gives me a lot enthusiasm to explore more with Kronos =)

Pretty sure the fourth chord in Domino supposed to be a D7sus4 btw (or Bb7sus4 in your key) :p

Yes you are right indeed!

Cool stuff. When you play with a drummer and have step LFO that needs to be tempo matched, are you using a click? Tap-tempo?

I have one song where I have some arppegiator parts and use tap tempo. But that requires having a hand free to hit the button. Just curious any tips for handling that. There are some parts that I'd love to have some percussion loops, but I've left them out since we aren't set up for a click track and I wouldn't have a hand free to hit tap tempo if it started to drift.

This is a problem that keeps my head busy too. That part on the video is a drop section so there are no drums until the end of step LFO, so no problems with it. Other than that I use tap tempo on parts which are audible enough by drummer. I tap whenever I have a free hand and our drummer has a pretty rigid tempo feeling so no problems when it is audible. But if there are lots of stuff going on, arpeggiators become problems. In fact I haven't used them because of that until yet, but it is my next goal. I'm thinking of sending the drummer click using drum track via output 4, etc. Or another idea was, if the drummer uses a SPD or something, using midi to sync clock.

I haven't find the perfect solution yet, but I'm on it =) If anyone has ideas for syncing arpeggiators to drummer, let's hear them!

[Umut Erhan]

great video, very inspiring to see how you do these tricks live !

Thank you so much! Your videos have been great guides for me to explore Kronos more. And it's because of your videos that I wanted to share my ideas with other musicians =)

[SanderXpander]

I haven't find the perfect solution yet, but I'm on it =) If anyone has ideas for syncing arpeggiators to drummer, let's hear them!

The drummer for my main cover band plays with click usually, and I've tried syncing parts just by setting an identical tempo and starting it at the right time, but honestly I think it's pretty finicky. Even someone playing with click has minute drifts. The drifting is not so problematic when it's running but if you hit it on the nose starting in, and he happened to be a little late at that beat, then corrects over the next four, it's going to sound very disjointed. I've personally had much better results by restarting the arp every beat or so. Not entirely the same I know, but for many purposes this works. Restarting once per bar might also work if the part really requires it. You won't notice a 1BPM drift over the course of one bar, let alone 1 beat.

[Bertotti]

Ok knowing that you guys only just described side chaining to me I can't help but wonder if you couldn't is it to set tempo? Side chain the drummers kick to the arp tempo? I don't know if you can control tempo that way, but if you can and as described do not have to here the sided chained piece of kit it would be cool to control arp tempo that way. Naturally you have to be working with a fairly reliable drummer. And perhaps knowing not all songs have kick all the time constant through the song but its a though for hose of you who know a whole lot more about it then I do.

[SanderXpander]

I don't think Karma allows triggering from an audio threshold. That'd be cool though.

[amosdef]

I just found this device on a quick search after reading the idea of syncing midi via audio. It's a loop/recorder, but seems to do what we would need if we fed it the kick/snare channel. Going to check more into the topic to see if there are others. I saw some plugins for those that also have a computer in their setup. http://www.redsound.com/products/soundbitemicro/

And here's a software solution that seems to act as a midi clock master for hardware devices. http://www.circular-logic.com/index.html

[jeremykeys]

I haven't find the perfect solution yet, but I'm on it =) If anyone has ideas for syncing arpeggiators to drummer, let's hear them!

The drummer for my main cover band plays with click usually, and I've tried syncing parts just by setting an identical tempo and starting it at the right time, but honestly I think it's pretty finicky. Even someone playing with click has minute drifts. The drifting is not so problematic when it's running but if you hit it on the nose starting in, and he happened to be a little late at that beat, then corrects over the next four, it's going to sound very disjointed. I've personally had much better results by restarting the arp every beat or so. Not entirely the same I know, but for many purposes this works. Restarting once per bar might also work if the part really requires it. You won't notice a 1BPM drift over the course of one bar, let alone 1 beat.

.

The most important thing is for the drummer to properly hear the click.

[Bertotti]

Foggy memory is kicking in but I seem to recall someone using a small flashing led that pulsed with the click. I remember it being mounted somewhere on the kit so the drummer could see it at a glance but no one out front could.

[Bertotti]

Could you use lighting during your shows? Anything that you can program so there is a subtle but consists visual tempo cue the whole band and drummer could see? Seems like a way to go with out it being interruptive to the audience.

[SanderXpander]

I don't get your point, Jeremy? He has his own click with the volume on his mixer. I don't think that's the issue. If he is just even a fraction ahead and I'm a fraction late, it doesn't work. Maybe I'm more sensitive than most.

[jeremykeys]

I don't get your point, Jeremy? He has his own click with the volume on his mixer. I don't think that's the issue. If he is just even a fraction ahead and I'm a fraction late, it doesn't work. Maybe I'm more sensitive than most.

Just curious as to where your drummer's click is coming from then.

Also, I've seen that some drummers have a real hard time playing to a click. I tried doing some recording with one guy who just couldn't hold it together enough. Weird!

[SanderXpander]

He has his own click. A little Tama thing, I think it's called a RhythmStar. Way more versatile than anything I could send him. It just doesn't have midi.

He's really quite decent at playing with click, we never lose it or anything. You're just always going to have tiny variations. And if he's on one end and I'm on the other...etc.
Arps are just incredibly unforgiving cause they're completely locked. The slightest human drifting underneath makes it sound weird.

[amosdef]

Foggy memory is kicking in but I seem to recall someone using a small flashing led that pulsed with the click. I remember it being mounted somewhere on the kit so the drummer could see it at a glance but no one out front could.

Sounds like this http://www.midisolutions.com/prodbtc.htm. We tried it, but didn't work for us. Maybe in addition to a click track to give him another reference it would help.

[mikemusic]

Great video:-)!!!

i am an experienced keyboard player/live musician, but new to the wonderful kronos.

could u please tell me how u triggered the sidechain compressor on the midi keyboard in that video? i have a big tv show coming up soon (the danish x factor) so im just trying to learn everything about this great keyboard..and its live functions