Getting started playing out with live beats..

M

mike0292

New member
I currently host an open mic night and I have a mixer and a PA system and have up to this point dealt with rock, singer/songwriter, reggae, pop kind of stuff. I would love to be able to put out beats, like hip-hop beats, through my PA and then be able to jam over them with guitar and voice. It'd be nice to be able to control the beats myself but having something that has a few presets (programmable?) would work also. Am I looking at some sort of synth, a drum machine, one of those midi DJ controllers, ...? Like I imagine with a laptop I could output an instrumental to the mixer but that's bulky and tedious. Is it feasible to play instrumental tracks off a phone through a PA system and then add on a few more layers? I suppose things could be done with beat-boxing and a loop pedal but I want to really feel that beat....

Thanks!
 
Do you produce your own music, or are you looking for preset type things? Are you going to want to produce/create these rhythm tracks live as part of your performance, or just sing/rap over them? Do you play any instruments? Do you DJ? Or were you just hoping to learn as you go?

We need a little more info to help you out, as you could go with the laptop, as you said, or an iPad, iPod, iPhone, MP3 player, CD player, DJ CD player that can also take a thumb drive, or you could incorporate a drum machine, synths, or something like a Korg Kaossilator or Kaossilator Pro+. If you have instruments and you want to create tracks you could go with various sizes and types of loop pedals. So many options, it really depends on what you want to do (and your current level of musical skill to take advantage of whichever way you go).

Can you give us more details?
 
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Producing my own beats is something I'd like to learn but in the meantime something with some decent-sounding presets would work. Recreating the rhythm tracks live would be nice. I'm checking out this Kaossilator it looks like it might be able to do what I need. I also play guitar I was thinking some acoustic or electric embellishments with singing/rapping could be really nice. I haven't found a bass guitar that really give the consistent oomph that a deep synthy beat can. Any more suggestions based on that?

Thanks
 
There are several Kaossilators; two smaller versions, and the larger "Pro." That paired with a Kaoss Pad would be cool. If you actually play keys as well, and would like to add that to the mix, there are smaller but pretty full-featured synths like the microKorg, or, a bit larger the Roland Juno-G workstation series (I have the G and love it, but that was replaced by the Gi and now the DS series, I believe). Roland and Korg both have percussion pads if you are so inclined, and there is the Korg Volca series of synths/drums/sampler as well. All good stuff and compact. You could also look at the various options in loop pedals, all the way up the the Boss Loop Station models.

It all depends on what skills you have, the approach you want to take, and the budget you have available. I LOVE hardware, so I think I get what you're going for, but honestly, most people nowadays would probably just go with a laptop with Ableton and a controller keyboard.
You have a lot of choices, and a lot of decisions to make. Remember that whatever rig you come up with, you will be carrying it in and out of the clubs (often at 3:00 AM), so you may want to consider compactness and weight.
 
I'm still not exactly sure what is it that you want to do though? "Control the beats" is kind of ambiguous, as is "recreating the beats live". Are we talking about preset rhythms/loops with some additional instruments or something else? The laptop + peripherals, while it may sound tedious, is absolutely the most flexible setup for this kind of thing – non-computer setups tend to need a bit more thought before diving in and a more precise goal about what you want to achieve. Then again, if a simple drum machine + synth combo sounds like it's enough, then there are a lot of options in that area (alone).
 
So, the consensus that's forming here Mike is that you have to clarify what you want to do, before any purchase (or even gear recommendation) makes sense. Of course, one of the factors you might decide to use in clarifying your goals and making your decisions could be "I hate computers." That's fine, just understand that's probably the easiest, most flexible, and lightest-weight solution available at this time...
 
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