Re: Using pre-recorded material in performance

[Mark Hamburg <mark_hamburg@baymoon.com>]

Some random thoughts:

* Drum machines are the moral equivalent of pre-recorded material 
unless you program them on the fly.

* If you use pre-recorded material, you risk having the audience lose 
the ability to tell what was looped live and what was pre-recorded. 
Arguably at some point, it doesn't even matter what you play live, but 
you can probably put enough histrionics into the playing to get around 
(or fake) that.

* Live manipulation potentially compensates for a lot of canned 
material.

* My personal take is that it's nice if the audience has some hope of 
connecting some physical action to what they are hearing. With looping 
that generally has to do with the initial creation of the sound. With 
canned material, manipulation and calling attention to bringing 
elements in and out starts to turn those elements into live material.


You can ask yourself some questions:

* Am I playing to entertain the audience or to make an artistic 
statement?

* Given your goal, do pre-recorded tracks help or hurt that goal?

* Does looping help or hurt that goal?

* Does playing help or hurt that goal?

Mark