Una entrevista en Webmonkey hoy con un músico que trabaja con laptops, Bryan Zilar, tiene esta interesante idea:
Un colega mixer –y artista de hecho—Josh Gabriel de Gabriel & Dresden, tiene una idea muy interesante…El siene que el siglo 20 fue una burbuja – que fue la primera y ultima vez que se pudo grabar música. Siente que la gente realmente disfruta el elemento en vivo. Y mientras que el efecto Napster se amplificque –destruyendo la industria músical tradicional—la unica cosa que queda es la performance.
Ver también: Laptop Virtuosos
Imagen: Troubador, Eric Drooker
23.3.06
Tovador Electrónico, Trovador Digital
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Q&A: Laptopping with Francis Preve
by Bryan Zilar
Webmonkey's Bryan Zilar recently sat down with remixer and laptop performer Francis Preve for this Q&A session. They talk about the tools one needs to get started as a laptop performer. They also discuss the nuances of performing and composing in the digital age and the status of interactive music in general.
This Webmonkey Q&A is also available as a (8.5MB MP3).
Webmonkey: What is laptop performance and how is it more than just pushing buttons?
Francis Preve: Laptop performance is the first step away from giant rigs of the past. In the case of DJs you'd have a couple of Technics 1200 turntables, crates and crates of vinyl, and a mixer.
Around 2000 or 2001, laptop speeds started to reach escape velocity. The Pentium 3 and the Mac Powerbook G4 enabled users to actually do everything in software in real time, which lowered the bar of entry.
WM: Is there any difference between composing on a laptop and lugging around turntables and records?
Preve: It's essentially the same principal. For DJs, there are tools like Tracktor DJ by Native Instruments, and Abelton Live is extremely popular. There's also Propellerheads Reason, which works for keyboardists. Reason allows you to have an entire virtual rack of equipment for $400 plus the price of a laptop.
WM: What would be a good basic budget set-up for laptopping?
Preve: Pretty much anything faster than a Pentium 3 or a PowerPC G4 or now Mac Intel core duo. At least 512MB or 1GB of RAM and a decent controller for manipulating during live performance. It depends on how you like to work. If you're a DJ, you might want a controller with knobs and a cross fader. A company called M-Audio makes the X Session for that. If you're more into live mixing, M-Audio also makes the UC-33e controller. If you're a keyboardist, any number of companies make portable controllers that range from four or five octave, more traditional looking keyboards to miniature two octave keyboards.
WM: How do you create a composition normally?
Preve: Other artists and I will work in a hybrid format where you're working with existing recorded material and then you're layering loops on top of that. You're adding additional drum loops or maybe playing a keyboard part as well. So, you're creating an original composition on the fly.
WM: What do you say about people who claim that laptop performance isn't music?
Preve: You start getting into the definition of music. If you want to look at historically, there was a massive backlash against the Hammond B3 organ in the early twentieth century. There was a backlash against the piano when that first came out. If a lot more of these Luddite-oriented people had their way, we'd just make music with log drums and bean shakers.
WM: How much of your music would you say that you compose with a real instrument like a keyboard or guitar versus just using loops?
Preve: It depends. I generally start with a drum loop just to save some time. That drum loop might ultimately be replaced with percussion and rhythms I've composed and created myself. I'll start with a groove that inspires me, but then I'll lay keyboard parts on top of it. Once I develop the keyboard parts, I'll add a bass line and sift through my loop library to see if I can find a guitar part that will fit with that. It's a fairly organic process. It generally starts with a drum loop and a groove and then proceeds from there.
WM: So, your process is to come up with the core beats and go from there?
Preve: Yes. That's essentially what I do. Other artists may work entirely with loops until they get a composition that reflects their objective. When you start applying a lot of effects — even if you're just using a canned saxophone riff or a canned guitar riff — by the time you apply several filters and effects, your composition is pretty unrecognizable from the original. There are definite opportunities to add your own creativity throughout the process.
WM: What would you say your favorite tools to use are?
Preve: By far my favorite tool to use for laptop performance would be Abelton Live, which truly blurs the line between a software-based production and a studio-based environment and a musical instrument. You can interact with pretty much any part of your composition in real time and change it dynamically. Other artists like Reason because it has a more traditional synthesizer.
WM: You do a lot of work for Abelton Live, don't you?
Preve: For about two years now. I was approached by them at the Audio Engineering Society show in San Francisco in 2004. When they approached me they said, "You really seem to like our product. Would you be interested in developing some material for the next release?" They were developing a new synthesizer module called Operator. What ended up happening is that over half of the effects that shipped with Operator were designed by me. So the relationship got off to a good start.
WM: Where do you see the future of music going?
Preve: A fellow remixer and artist in his own right, Josh Gabriel from Gabriel & Dresden, has a very interesting take on this. He feels that the 20th Century was a bubble — it was the first and only time music was able to be captured as a recording. He feels that people really like the live element. As the Napster effect cascades outwards, laying waste to the traditional music industry, the one thing that does remain is live performance. A lot of musicians have turned to making their money through live performance.
Interactive music will one day be rather commonplace. We are seeing lots of people doing it already. Look at the number of people already using GarageBand, which comes with the new Macs. The number of people who are using Abelton Live in an interactive fashion to do live performance for people outside their living room or bedroom is on the rise. In the coffeehouse, you'll see the guy in the corner making ambient beats, ambient sounds, and so forth.
WM: You're also a remixer. How has the laptop changed how you approach that?
Preve: It's enabled me not to be shackled to my studio anymore. I've done a bunch of remixes over the past couple of years where my laptop has been fast enough that I've been able to take some remixes I'd been working on in my studio and just sort of change my environment. There, I can get inspiration from my favorite coffee shop in town and get a double mocha latte. I've taken the laptop directly to the club to test out mixes. There are things that you can do outside the studio that are incredibly liberating, but it's strange because, until you do it, you don't know what's possible.
WM: Would you have any advice to a beginning laptopper?
Preve: As Yoda says, "There is no try, only do or do not." If you bought a Mac, Garageband came with it. Start playing with it. If you want to see what's going on with more professional products, both Abelton Live and Reason have downloadable trial versions that are completely full-featured. The only thing that doesn't work in the [trial version] of Abelton Live is that you can't save what you've done. With [the trial version of] Reason, it stops after twenty minutes. Otherwise, you can do everything in both products as if you owned them. It's a matter of getting out there and experimenting with the tools. Once you find a tool you enjoy, learn it. It's better to know one tool inside and out than to know five in a half-arsed manner.
WM: Any online resources you might recommend?
Preve: Peter Kern has a great blog called createdigitalmusic.com. I strongly urge people to check that out. Keyboard Magazine and all of the music magazines have an online presence as well. There's another blog called Music Thing.
Listen to a track from Francis Preve's downtempo project, Pismo. The song "Winsome" appears on the album Scenes From the Texture Set. Download it (4MB MP3, 128kbps).
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Bryan Zilar is a world traveller and technology writer living in Austin, TX. He is currently working on a killer Hollywood screenplay. His primary interest is how digital will kill the video star.
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