rough show of hands

With my use of arpeggios in many of the tracks I make, I would say it would be near on impossible to perform most of the tracks Ive done, with the possible exception of Journey.

I think it would be impossible for me, unless I set everything up in the groove matrix. but then it would be more or less just me hitting buttons. I would have to create some artistic stage show with naked bloody girls crawling around on stage, and odd movie back drops of my art.

hmmmmm......might be kinda fun....wait, scratch that Idea,...social phobias....

I got more and more into a sort of 4 or 5 piece group sound and 'played in' about half of the parts, but then 'derived' the other parts from the midi data of those parts.

Then, of course , there's the dissection of frozen audio into sections and feeding that to various grain machines and 'other' for the all-important atmospheric effects.

It wouldn't be easy
I see P5 as a 'studio as tool' with midi and to some extent audio
maybe some Sonar users see Sonar as 'studio as tool' with audio, but my sense is that they're more about capturing than manipulating

something like Ableton is definitely geared to manipulating audio

at the mo i'm recording everything into sonar "live" whether it's acoustic gtr, or squelchy synth arps, using the lappy as a fancy instr/fx box, out some speakers, in some mics, it's great fun*

*ymmv

ORIGINAL: wrench45us

the other extreme is one guy on a stage with a laptop hitting a single button

that's what i'm trying to avoid, as i wouldn't be particularly entertained by it myself... but now it's "what bits can/shall i play?!" and which bits are sequenced/triggered... and of course everything is becoming re-arranged from a "performance" perrspective as opposed to a "programmed" one

Regarding the original question, my answer would depend a lot on how the performance was actually delivered. It seems like the more common format is a laptop performance. If that's the format, then I'd answer yes, I could pull my stuff off live with a laptop and P5 & the groovematrix or Ableton live. But it sounds to me like your question is asking about a more traditional performance - i.e. musicians playing instruments rather than triggering and mashing up pre-recorded patterns in real time. If that's the question, I think I'd have a hard time pulling off a traditional live performance, mainly because my songs rely fairly heavily on harmony across tracks rather than within tracks.

I've always thought that electronic acts, with this near universal use of laptop performance, have missed the boat on live performances given the huge variety of midi controllers out there. Where are the modern day Kraftwerks?

ORIGINAL: wrench45us

where it's a very different world for P5 users -- even if Sonar is used in the mixing/mastering

That's a good point. Since I do 95% of my work in Sonar and rely on P5 for only the initial 5% (i.e., getting basic ideas down), I would be pretty limited (crippled?) for live performance. If I ever decide to perform my stuff live, I'd definitely have to recreate my projects in P5 to take advantage of the Groove Matrix.

and let us never forget Grandpa Mojo

and his combo platter of software/hardware and live

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wmJmoy53zI

not I... I play 'arrangers piano'.

ORIGINAL: wrench45us
How many of you could honestly say that you could perform your latest 10 compositions or so in a live venue with recognizable semblance to your posted song?
(given the appropriate number of clones and equipment)
...The question is getting to muscial skills, but also compositional workflow -- possibly to distinguish this group and market from Sonar 'recordists'.

This is why I went back to college (yes, I was a drop-out). I had the realization that my skills were sadly lacking in a lot of areas, even though I've been playing professionally/semi-professionally for the last 27 years. I would "create" a piece in Project 5, and then in trying to replay it a few months later, I would find that I couldn't do it, or could perform it only with great difficulty - and it wasn't as if the parts were truly all that difficult.

I decided that enough was enough - I was tired of being illiterate, at least in a musical sense.

TBH, it hasn't been all that easy (waking up long dormant brain cells never is). There are days when I wake up and ask myself "why the heck am I doing this?", especially when an assignment is due or I've failed an exam, or I'm when I'm having trouble memorizing a piece.

However, yesterday I looked at a piece of music and after a quick visual run-through I was actually able to play it! Woo-Hoo!!!

Also, I've been exposed to a lot of more new/old music that I'd never heard before, and has given me an enlarged compositional palate to create with - as soon as I can find the time.

I know that not everyone can afford school, or has the time for it. I didn't either until recently, due to circustances I won't go into here. Still, next time you're in a bookstore - pickup that "Music theory & sight-reading for Ninja Groove-matrix Project-fivers*" book (or any other music theory book) and actuallly read it. You won't regret it.


*Hypothetical book title that doesn't exist, but should...