hey TK - this one goes out to you:
Sneak-Thief live in Leipzig, June 16 2007
http://sneak-thief.com/Sneak-Thief_live_in_leipzig.mp3
(67mb, 160kpbs)
…and here’s the sequencer without anymore of those nasty faulty pled’s (i went through 4 of them, 2 of which arrived DOA):
Not my flavour of music, but well performed! 
Good stuff!!
Great, thank you very much!
It listened to the session four times today in the car (direction Italy - nostalgic feelings - perfect match ;-))
Best Regards, Thorsten.
Pretty retro sounding… 
Pretty retro sounding…
…everything that’s new is old - and everything that’s old is new 8)
for argument’s sake, you never hear the word “retro” when describing jazz or blues - so why with dance music? heheh.
…everything that’s new is old - and everything that’s old is new 8)
hey no worries! i didn’t take “retro” as a negative comment
what i did want to do is have some fun and challenge ideas about what’s old and what’s new.
for example, “minimal techno” is quite popular in europe with many people believing that it’s a hot new thing. nevertheless, minimal techno started over 15 years ago with producers such as robert hood, joey beltram, jeff mills, etc.
as for me, i think there were some beautiful musical paths that were started in the late 70’s and early 80’s and were cut short when the 90’s came along. my goal is to carry these ideas further into the future (instead of simply dwelling on the past).
Hi all this my first Post, i´m going to build a mbseq soon… ;D
I only want to honor the music by sneak thief, in my city the clubs would explode i think…
For my point of view, this mixes (i heard several) are very great funky electronic dancemusic. Very nice performance, i heard no mistake or whatever and there are many , lets say influences, like disco, techno and also pop, in a well sounding way worked up…
I guess the partys were big fun 8)
Well and it´s to be heard that the 90ies are comming, maybe in the same way like the 80´s has been hyped…
Cheers and keep rocking!
hi tobsen - thanks for the nice comments! what city do you live in?
here’s a totally different set with no disco this time - but still very old-school:
Sneak-Thief - BoogieBreakin (Live) 88mb / 192kbps
http://sneak-thief.com/Sneak-Thief_-_BoogieBreakin_(Live).mp3
…
Hi sneakthief,
I must say that I really liked your performance in Leipzig. I’ve just started downloading your new set and I’m looking forward to listening to it… although it’ll still take some time…with my … 56k modem… :
As I’m very new to this kind of music I’d like to ask you some questions. First of all: What are you doing on stage? It doesn’t really loke like you’re playing everything “live”. At least I can see no keyboard or anything like that. And, how are you preparing such gigs? And last but not least, do you plan every single thing you do on stage or do you have a special kind of communication so that both your part and the part of your friend fits together?
Yeah, I know it sounds a bit noobish,.. but I am a noob concerning such music. And I’m really interested in new kinds of music. I just don’t want to keep floating around in the “MTV-Pop-Rock-Mainstream”, but discovering new stuff.
regards,
matthias
hey thanks, but i know it already…
superp funky, i hope the people got down on this 8)
i´m from Frankfurt, i´m looking forward to if you are around oneday, btw let me know if yes…
Sneak-Thief - BoogieBreakin (Live) 88mb / 192kbps
http://sneak-thief.com/Sneak-Thief_-_BoogieBreakin_(Live).mp3
- electro, breaks & boogie - no disco
Yeah! I like this style even more!
Perfectly performed as always - new food for the car CD player!
Best Regards, Thorsten.
Hi sneakthief,
I must say that I really liked your performance in Leipzig. I’ve just started downloading your new set and I’m looking forward to listening to it… although it’ll still take some time…with my … 56k modem… :
As I’m very new to this kind of music I’d like to ask you some questions. First of all: What are you doing on stage? It doesn’t really loke like you’re playing everything “live”. At least I can see no keyboard or anything like that. And, how are you preparing such gigs? And last but not least, do you plan every single thing you do on stage or do you have a special kind of communication so that both your part and the part of your friend fits together?
Yeah, I know it sounds a bit noobish,.. but I am a noob concerning such music. And I’m really interested in new kinds of music. I just don’t want to keep floating around in the “MTV-Pop-Rock-Mainstream”, but discovering new stuff.
regards,
matthias
Hi Matthias - there are so many ways of performing live, each with varying levels of improvisation and automation.
1. What am I doing on stage?
First lets start in the studio: I produce my material using a Yamaha RS7000 sequencer sampler (and before that an RM1x). Both of these are full-fledged midi sequencers that use a “pattern sequencer” approach. So each song can have up to 16 sections, and each section has up to 16 different tracks.
I can change the structure of a song on the fly, mix in the bassline (or any other element) from a different track, transpose melodies, add fx to individual sounds, etc. And yes, the RS7000 has a two-octave keyboard on it so I can manually play arps, melodies and trigger samples. In other words, if people are really getting into what I’m playing, I can extend a track much longer in a non-linear fashion and improvise to my heart’s content! But if people don’t seem to respond, I can instantly change the musical direction.
Note: If I just hit play and didn’t touch anything, my sequencers would play the same 4 bars over and over again.
I also do live vocals, some of them which are vocoded through one of the Nord’s.
2. Equipment
On-stage I use my RS7000, my DIY-sequencer sequencing a tiny live-pc running Kontakt, two Nord Micromodulars, Roland M-10DX digital mixer, a Redsound C-Loops II, a TC Fireworx and sometimes my Rozzbox.
It’s been a 10-year journey to get to this point. Back in the 90’s I used to bring out a lot more!
(Latronic Notron, Yamaha A3000, AN1x, RM1x, FS1r, Juno 106, TC Fireworx, RNC Compressor, 24 channel mixer, JL Cooper MSB+ midi patchbay)
3. On-Stage Communication
I perform either alone, or with my wife Lindsay-J (vocalist and wind-synth player) or with Gitano (vocalist). In order to coordinate with what I’m playing at any moment, I use hand-signals to tell them when I’m going to bring in a particular section of a song.
Also, Lindsay-J improvises with her wind-synth and Gitano messes around with fx on various tracks.
4. Custom MIDIbox Software Description
Over the last decade, I’ve written all sorts of material (over 100 different songs, some completely finished, some very raw) on my rm1x and rs7000’s in pattern-mode.
As I mentioned previously, pattern-mode consists of up to 16 sections, each having 16 tracks. This is the basic sequencing paradigm that I wanted to use.
For my live performances, I need control over groups of tracks and not each individual track on this machine. Look at the following typical example on my rs7000:
Track Instrument
----- -----------
1 kick
2 snare
3 hihat
4 claps
5 rides
6 other percussion
7 vocal samples
8
9 bass
10 melody 1
11 melody 2
12 pad
13 sfx 1
14 sfx 2
15 sfx 3
16
Since it’s more efficient to control instrument groups, I spent a month recording *all* of my studio synths and samplers and broke down songs into various 1-16 measure loops, so now the typical track looks like this:
Track Instrument
----- -----------
1 kick
2 all other drums
3 bass
4 melodies 1+2, pads
5 vocals
6 sfx 1-3
So, this gives me the ability to improvise with song structure, as well as being able mix & match parts of various songs in order to create a spontaneous live performance, albeit with bigger building blocks than your traditional midi sequencer.
However since I also use my RS7000 live, I still have very fine control over midi notes and such with one half of my setup.
The other huge benefit of all the sampling is that I don’t have to bring as much gear when I perform, and yet Kontakt’s scripting language is very powerful and allows me to retain the expressiveness over how the samples are played back.
The most important aspect is being able to respond to the dancefloor, and this setup accomplishes that nicely. The hardest part is finding a balance between automation and ability to control.
If you want to know more about performing live, please visit http://livepa.org
hey thanks, but i know it already…
superp funky, i hope the people got down on this 8)
i´m from Frankfurt, i´m looking forward to if you are around oneday, btw let me know if yes…
Cool - Ich muss mal noch in Frankfurt spielen! heheh. Ich gebe dir Bescheid, ob ich da 'nen Auftritt sichere
Yeah! I like this style even more!
Perfectly performed as always - new food for the car CD player!
Best Regards, Thorsten.
Feed the player, feed it! heheh.
Thanks TK - couldn’t have done better it without your tools.
