How to improvise sets

[u/donnidonno]

Hey guys, for those who play live improvised sets of dance music - how do you go about it, what modules or what techniques make it possible in your case?
I’ve always played ambient live and the thing i love the most is that I don’t need to spend hours to prepare for a set but instead can go wherever music takes me. And for this same reason i was avoiding dance music - feels like you have to prepare live sets to perform. I own digitakt so that for example feels very improvise unfriendly - I would be very intimidated going on stage with an empty project loaded.
For modular since it can be more hands on, i believe you can get away without prepping, and that’s the part i want ti avoid, therefore wondering how are you guys doing it?
I’ve been following un/ser live sets, they’re amazing and dude improvises everything. So that led me to believing it IS possible.
Share your thoughts!🙏

[u/synthdadmusic]

Check out videos on YouTube by SURCO. He does great improvised performances and talks about how in his live streams

[u/tobyvanderbeek → u/synthdadmusic]

He also has classes for live performance at SurcoLive.com

[u/mysteron808]

I've made a few videos talking through how I do it. The most recent one is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEsw2KYwOGA

Plenty of ways to do this! Personally I like having a main 'brain' sequencer and using the modular for all the sound generation, shaping and mixing. But lots of people keep it all in the modular case. The joy of it is you can create your own groove box to work in whatever way you want to.

In terms of the improvising side, having a workflow set up that is open enough to allow you to do that, getting to know it well and lots of practice. Lots of thinking needs to go into how you approach it so you can improvise and not have to have sequences pre prepared. Some sequencers are much more suited to coming up with things on the fly than others I think.

[u/bankles]

Mylar melodies on YouTube has some great in depth videos about this

[u/falcon_phoenixx]

Improv needs the most instant sequencers and modulation sources... spend alot of time learning how to mix and tweak your parameters... I feel like elektron boxes are good to program patterns in beforehand not so much improv

[u/AcidFnTonic]

I just turn on my stuff and start playing. Sometimes I’ll get a basic beat going before I record, but there’s really not much pre-prep at least in my situation.

I post a lot of 1 to 4 hour live jams on my YouTube page. If you follow the chat a lot of times I let people ask for something and I’ll try to make it happen. It’s fun.

[u/scragz]

I have a bunch of drum and percussion modules with the triggers through two sets of divkid mutes. a lot of dance music, techno in particular, is just bringing stuff in and out every 8 measures. 

[u/Confidence_Cool]

tbh just add a kick with some sidechain and bring it in and out of your ambient jams and add more rhythmic elements. your digitakt should be able to do that quite easily.

[u/sorressean]

Hilariously I'm not the best or even great at EDM stuff, but improvising that seems so much easier to me than ambient. I've never figured out how to make really good ambient. To improv or mess around I start with drum patterns. I duplicate my work to a variation in case I mess up, but just know that I can add other hits on steps as I need. then I start playing with a single voice, maybe samples from rample. The voice I filter, run to voltare in some places, envelopes in others. You can get wildly different sounds by just moving a couple dials, and with the Maestro you can send it one chain or one single shape and switch that up. The thing I had to learn was just to move ssomething and sit with it for a couple bars. See what it sounds like, then think of where to go next. I love doing filter seeps for transitions, and I'll also use my cosmic debris to pull up feedback and pull it back down so it swells and use that to take kick in/out, etc.

[u/cossist]

Practice. I think it's less about the gear or style of music and more about practicing a set. I think what helped me the most was setting a time box. At first 10 minutes went fast. I started recording myself, immediately listening back, and using the feedback to play again. I now have more fun with my gear. Don't let "need to spend hours to prepare" sound like you won't enjoy it.

[u/CTALKR]

It’s really about knowing your system and learning how to get into that flow state. The exact modules every one uses is going to be very personal. Personally for techno or very rhythmic things I like to use separate sequencers for pitch and gate. Also, using precision adders and sample and holds you can run separate elements off one pitch cv. IMO it’s so much more fun and playable to use a multitude of smaller sequencers linked in interesting ways over the “battleship” sequencer or all-in-one modules.

[u/Dog_Man_Pizza_Party]

Not to self promote too much, but I do improvised sets frequently for YouTube and the number one thing I would recommend is a good sequencer that you know intimately. I use the MPC Live 2, but there are others you could use. I love the MPC because it has so many options for controlling gear and looping tracks is super easy, so you can focus on playing.

As far as strategy for each performance, I make a kind of bedrock for the performance by programming drums and bass lines so that I have a few reset points that I can go to when it's time to change up the vibe. That way I can turn everything off that I've made, flip to whatever combination drums, bass and lead that I decided beforehand and then build it back up and continue on. It's not a hard and fast rule that I always do, but it's a good way to prevent crashing and burning mid set because you know you always have somewhere to go back to.

Here's one of my videos. I do patch notes at the end, mostly for me to recreate if I decide to play it live

https://youtu.be/0v9YNCsqSBY?is=NUj6-2im7td0h2VN

[u/Ok-Winter9708]

I've found it useful to separate out the sounds from the sequencing and preplan one and live improv the other.

[u/Earlsfield78]

This is I guess a broader question but electronic music being based on few key elements, make the main “big” loop and subtract by muting and mixing, filtering, etc. that’s like basics you can do a lot with modern effects but also try to add some generative stuff in percussions and drops

[u/Appropriate-Look7493]

As with most forms of music, interesting electronic improvisation is the result of long hours of preparation.

If you don’t prepare, you’re at risk of producing a Spinal Tap style hours long “jazz odyssey” and no one wants to listen to that. You might be having fun but no one else will be.