Preparing for the show
Posted on January 10, 2011 with 0 comments
Welcome to 2011. I actually plan on using this blog on my web site to promote things I am doing and discuss my thoughts on whatever comes to mind. with that, here we go...
Preparing for a show with Visions is always an interesting affair. What you will see if you attend the Gin Mill show on January 29, 2011 or any other show is only the tip of the iceberg. From the keyboard department, anyway, it is more than just learning the songs and putting a set list together. Travel with me as I take you through the preparation process.
Before every gig, we determine how much time we have to play, then we estimate how many songs we'll need and we start assembling the list. We try to balance between songs we like to play and songs you want to hear. Once the list is assembled, it is not in its final order yet, generally. wE start to learn the arrangements. For me, this is more than learning notes and chords and figuring out who is taking what solos and what backing vocals, if any, are needed. I have to listen to the song, figure out keyboard parts, and sometimes guitar parts. I have to assemble sounds to fit each section of the song. Sometimes, I get olucky and I only need one sound. sometimes, I need two or more. I may have to split sounds across zones of the keyboard. I may have to run guitar sounds through my line6 pod x3 live to make them sound more guitar like. If one keyboard can't fill this role, I may need two.
Beyond this point, I may also have to steal snippets of the song. For instance, Cult of personality, I will sample the spoken word parts. This is done for any spoken word parts or any sections I can't reproduce live, say a sound effect of some sort. I will map this sample to a low key on my keyboard and trigger it during the song, usually at the intro or ending, but sometimes in the middle.
If a sound does not exist for a certain song, I will either have to make it myself or din it in a third party library for my keyboard. This can be time consuming, especially if you have to tweak an existing sound or m,ake it from scratch.
Once the set list is arranged, which undergoes several changes due to flow or if a song is now working out or the time limits change or whatever, I take all the sounds and setups and arrange them in order in my keyboard so that to go from section to section or song to song, all I have to do is press the increment button or if I am really busy, step on a pedal on the floor.
At this moment, I am trying to put together the entire Gin Mill set using one keyboard, a Yamaha Motif xs7. I am also using a Line6 pod x3 live that I route most of my guitar tones through. I may also be carrying my Roland ax1 keytar to the show to play most of those guitar sounds from the remote keyboard, mostly for fun and effect and becuase it annoys most guitar players. Since we hopefully finalized the set list last night, I will go to work assembling sounds and samples and putting it all in order before next practice so we can do a run through. However, if more gear is needed, I may incorporate other things, such as organ modules, analog synths or another keyboard entirely. Time will tell.
That's just a brief run though of what I have to do to prepare for any show, whether it is a Days Before tomorrow show or Visions. With Days before tomorrow, it is a little more intresting as with the exception of tracks for the first CD, I wrote the parts for these songs, so I get the fun of trying to reproduce what we recorded live as best as I can. But, that's a story for another time.
Hope you found this interesting and feel free to leave a comment. See you on January 29 at the Gin Mill, if you're attending.
Preparing for a show with Visions is always an interesting affair. What you will see if you attend the Gin Mill show on January 29, 2011 or any other show is only the tip of the iceberg. From the keyboard department, anyway, it is more than just learning the songs and putting a set list together. Travel with me as I take you through the preparation process.
Before every gig, we determine how much time we have to play, then we estimate how many songs we'll need and we start assembling the list. We try to balance between songs we like to play and songs you want to hear. Once the list is assembled, it is not in its final order yet, generally. wE start to learn the arrangements. For me, this is more than learning notes and chords and figuring out who is taking what solos and what backing vocals, if any, are needed. I have to listen to the song, figure out keyboard parts, and sometimes guitar parts. I have to assemble sounds to fit each section of the song. Sometimes, I get olucky and I only need one sound. sometimes, I need two or more. I may have to split sounds across zones of the keyboard. I may have to run guitar sounds through my line6 pod x3 live to make them sound more guitar like. If one keyboard can't fill this role, I may need two.
Beyond this point, I may also have to steal snippets of the song. For instance, Cult of personality, I will sample the spoken word parts. This is done for any spoken word parts or any sections I can't reproduce live, say a sound effect of some sort. I will map this sample to a low key on my keyboard and trigger it during the song, usually at the intro or ending, but sometimes in the middle.
If a sound does not exist for a certain song, I will either have to make it myself or din it in a third party library for my keyboard. This can be time consuming, especially if you have to tweak an existing sound or m,ake it from scratch.
Once the set list is arranged, which undergoes several changes due to flow or if a song is now working out or the time limits change or whatever, I take all the sounds and setups and arrange them in order in my keyboard so that to go from section to section or song to song, all I have to do is press the increment button or if I am really busy, step on a pedal on the floor.
At this moment, I am trying to put together the entire Gin Mill set using one keyboard, a Yamaha Motif xs7. I am also using a Line6 pod x3 live that I route most of my guitar tones through. I may also be carrying my Roland ax1 keytar to the show to play most of those guitar sounds from the remote keyboard, mostly for fun and effect and becuase it annoys most guitar players. Since we hopefully finalized the set list last night, I will go to work assembling sounds and samples and putting it all in order before next practice so we can do a run through. However, if more gear is needed, I may incorporate other things, such as organ modules, analog synths or another keyboard entirely. Time will tell.
That's just a brief run though of what I have to do to prepare for any show, whether it is a Days Before tomorrow show or Visions. With Days before tomorrow, it is a little more intresting as with the exception of tracks for the first CD, I wrote the parts for these songs, so I get the fun of trying to reproduce what we recorded live as best as I can. But, that's a story for another time.
Hope you found this interesting and feel free to leave a comment. See you on January 29 at the Gin Mill, if you're attending.