Hitting the road with modular gear

Rob Redman delves into the forgotten world of live music, exposing some key tools and techniques to help you win over the gigging masses

- Rob Redman

As musicians it’s very easy for us to lock ourselves away in our studios, tinkering, practising or even writing and producing. This is all good and well, but for many of us, sharing our music is a huge contributing factor to the enjoyment of the process. For some people, it’s even what keeps them fed and sheltered.

The last year or so has been hard for many different reasons and, even if you enjoy beavering away indoors, getting out to share your music in a live setting can be one of the most rewarding experiences. It may be that you haven’t ever experienced playing for a crowd but recent months have driven you to explore that as something to balance out the restrictions you’ve been facing.

No matter where you are coming from, it’s worth taking stock of your tools and techniques, freshening up your arsenal and planning out a few ideas for performance. Modular can appear a double-edged sword for performance, with its lack of integrated attributes but ultimately it’s one of the most rewarding instruments, as you can make it whatever you want it to be. You can patch it to play like a traditional instrument, set up sequences freeing up your hands to run modulations as you feel it, or patch a completely generative piece, allowing your initial parameters to be the basis for something completely unexpected.

The brass tacks