Tips for live performance

[Cherax]

Whelp, I've somehow managed to land myself my first gig playing original stuff. It's at a half-hour set at a humble little club, and it's unpaid, but I'm just stoked to finally be getting my music out of my bedroom and into the real world.

My music is heavily electronic; I'll be playing with a Microkorg and a microphone running through Ableton Live. I'm saving up for a proper controller, but all that kind of DJing technique is beyond me at the moment. I'm trying to make a concerted effort to actually Do Things on stage in other ways, rather than just pressing play and singing every now and then (fun fact: I did this at my uni's band comp while miming DJ actions on a laptop keyboard, and wept inwardly). Does anyone with live experience have any tips in this regard? Even just advice on stage presence would help (funner fact: I used a bubble machine at the aforementioned band comp, and the sound guy told me off afterwards, because it made the wooden floors sticky and hazardous).

In otherwords: how do I make my act EITHER Ableton not doing everything OR me being cool enough to disguise the fact that Ableton is doing everything?

(Funnest fact: the second song in my set is my Winter Wrap Up remix. No-one's going to know what the hell hit 'em.)

[Peak Freak]

...

[the4thImpulse]

I will be honest I am a little confusded as to what your questions are, I will try to answer the one below.

In otherwords: how do I make my act EITHER Ableton not doing everything OR me being cool enough to disguise the fact that Ableton is doing everything?

I am in the works of setting up Ableton as a full DJ preformance platform and it can do can do wondrous things already, but like you said it can be easy to let Ableton do everything for you. I asked a question about what I could do with a Ableton set on another forum and I think it may help you think of more stuff to do when you play live.

[DJSheogowrath]

I've never done live stuff, so I can't really help you on the mixing, but definitely try to just go out there, enjoy yourself, and enjoy the music. Try not to be too exaggerated but try not to be too stiff, and find a good balance. To give an example, I hate Steve Aoki because his sets are all gimmick and his mixes are pretty mediocre. But there are also guys like Deadmau5, Zedd, and Porter Robinson, who energize the crowd and have fun, and also make some of the best mixes I've heard. So remember that, and keep a good mix, and you should be fine.

[Cherax]

[*]Keep an eye on Tomatoes or other vegetables, they might be thrown at you. Yes, that actally happens also to good musicians, because of jealousy or because they are fans of another DJ/Band/whatever.

I'll never forget this. ;D

[Versilaryan]

Even if you don't have an Ableton controller, you can set clips to activate at different MIDI signals. Meaning, you can just use a regular keyboard and have different notes activate different clips. Obvious problem with this being it's hard to keep track of what is what. (One of my friends tried to do this with little to no practice. Many lulz were had.)