🎛️🎚️ After I got super inspired by some of the performances at Superbooth 2024 in Berlin I finally made the decision to split my musical development in 2 “devisions” from now on. I was simply unhappy with my live performances - my tracks made it necessary to pre-produce most likely every aspect while just playing them back on stage by launching scenes and some knob tweaking. But I wanted to play much more improvised and without that safety grid! I had a lot of discussions about this balance between being spontanuous and keeping the live stress level low enough to enjoy the performance.
I tried to make my dubtechno productions kind of improvised and spontanous, but honestly - with melodic and complex structured arrangements it's nearly impossible with my workflow. I purchased a Push 3 only some months ago to give this concept another try, but I simply couldn’t get this challenge managed.
This left me very often with a mixed feeling on stage: was I bored with my Ableton set (from performer perspective)? Yes. Did it give me the right balance of improvisation and live feeling? No.
I finally came to the conclusion that I wanted to produce my loved dubtechno tracks for releasing and keep them as "Studio Productions" only and do something entirely different on stage, possibly without any preparation or entire pattern creation live on stage.
While I have a really decent setup at home with powerful synths, I think the Elektron sequencers are simply not the right choice for this job so I decided to go for some new gear.
New dawless hardware from Erica Synths
After checking out some choices at the Superbooth I was pretty impressed by Erica Synths lineup - the sequencers were convincing me with its easy setup and different pattern generators and the Bassline with its big knobs was pretty handy. And the sound was phaaaaat for techno and ambient tracks.
Long story short - Tadaaaa here’s my new dawless trinity from Erica Synths: the LXR-02 Drum synthesizer, DB-01 Bassline synthesizer and the Zen Delay (which is pure magic!). I will also add my Strymon Big Sky pedal to complete this setup. It’s portable and I can also sequence other synths with the LXR-02 !
I watched some vids and the workflow of the drum machine is quite comfortable. I have 4 weeks now to get a new set for the June event done 😂❤️😘 wish me luck.
A first dawless jam with the new setup
What you think of these machines? Anyone with experiences? Lemme know :)
Ha . . . Salvator Dali said "don't look for perfection, it does not exist" . . .and yet ...we are still looking ;-) Good luck with this setup Matt and I look forward to hear some wicked jams. I know you are a hardware musician so the Push 3 is a static performer. and I understand its sterility for performance. Looks like you will end up with modular sooner rather then later. ;-) I just repurchased Analog Rytm MK II after years when I sold MK I and I have to tell you, that I absolutelly love it for sound and groove / loop[ design but only if you aproach it from different angle then as a drum mach…