wow so you have extremely limited exposure and experience to live music and based on that you can say with certainty that in 2025 only a tiny percentage, I mean you see people play in outdoor markets and cafes so obviously you know what happens in arena and stadium toursSure, there's a tiny percentage... and that's it.Yes because you can't play live with software with other musicians or somethingAnd that usually means hardware![:lol:]( "Laughing")
All the times I've played music with friends, it is always with physical instruments (guitars, bass, synths, vocals, percussion) I love making compositions by myself in my studio, and both software and/or hardware works fine. But when it comes to live playing with other musicians, it is always hardware.
If I think of all the places I've listened to live music; clubs, bars, cafes, outdoor markets, street buskers, festivals, etc., it has been rare that I've seen live musicians playing a midi controller connected to a laptop.
And even if there is a band where the keyboard player is using a laptop with a midi controller, the rest of the band is playing guitar, bass, drums, and so on.
When it comes to groups of musicians playing live music, hardware reigns supreme.
I gig out 3-5 times a week it's how I earn my living. If you had seen me gig at all in the 40 or so times I have played you would have seen me playing an 88 key Montage M
Only I use that as a controller because it's built like a tank, can hold up to stress of gigging, and has an amazing Keybed, that is what you saw, but if you looked closely you would see I am ACTUALLY using Gig Performer on a laptop and what you heard is the sound of plugins, even a few sounds coming from the Montage plugin being played via MIDI from a Montage being used as a controller
The reason why I.do this is the exact same reason a TON of keyboardists do this on all kinds of shows and tours besides the fact they sound great and the audience doesn't care, is the reality that with Gig Performer or Mainstage you get tremendous amount of control including automation that you can't get from hardware
So your first song you want to use 3 synth sounds set up as splits across your keyboard, on one of those you want to use Valhalla Vintage Verb, on another which is an EP you want to run it through an amp sim and finally the last one is a B3 get you want to run through a Leslie sim
All of that is pre-programmed ready to go including the outputs of everything being sent digitally directly to the FOH and Monitor Consoles including the separate mixes for you inears
But that is just the first song, in a split second you are now playing song #2 with 2 instruments this time and another split point different effects chains and different monitor and in war mixes, but everything was preset and ready to go so you can change it with no effort in a flash
Now we move on to the third song and you just have one timbre from a single get a grand piano but you have a different effects chain
You do this 10-15 times for each song in your set. You can't really do that with a pure hardware rig with that amount of speed and accuracy
Now let's say I just want to jam at a friend's house awesome. I have no idea where the muses will lead us. If I had all hardware I could hire a semi truck and bring a Steinway Model D grand piano, a chopped B3 with a full Leslie, an EP or two, a DX7, a Jupiter 8, an Oberheim OBXa, Minimoog, an entire orchestra, etc or I could bring my laptop with all of those sounds inside of it and a controller
The reality is modern hardware and software sounds awesome but in a live setting where you are playing with other musicians a plugin based workflow with Gig Performer or Mainstage offers SIGNIFICANT advantages over a pure hardware setup. It doesn't matter if you using it in your buddy's garage or on a festival stage in front of 100,000 with a TV audience into the millions
Statistics: Posted by IvyBirds — Mon Apr 21, 2025 5:54 pm
