I've found that narrowing down the number of MIDI devices onstage to the bare minimum required to do the job works best. For the one man show.

There is enough to keep track of as it is, the extra added complexity will build up pretty fast.

Save the use of them all, the daisy-chaining, etc. for the home studio where if something fails or goes antsy, all that is lost is a bit of recording time.

When I used to use Band in a Box as my virtual jazz trio, I also worked up several songs that I could play well unaccompanied, some Ballads, Blues, etc. just in case the computer stuff went wrong onstage. It proved to be good preparation, as sometimes in the middle of a set things would just happen, computer would just stop working right, so a reboot onstage would be necessary, having those unaccompanied performances memorized and at the ready allowed for me to do things like reboot or even finish a set altogether without the audience even knowing there were troubles. The break thus became the time to quickly troubleshoot a disconnected or broken cable, etc.

A plus to that is I found out that some people really enjoyed the unaccompanied performances, some folks don't understand the nature of Band in a Box at all, they just assume it is a recording playing back. When those types realized that the performer could, well, perform, it helped their perception of my act tremendously.


--Mac

PGmusic FAQs, Tutorials and Updates! click here

You must be Audiominds.
www.audiominds.com