The framework of the rig

02.08

Darren’s rig is an incredibly complex-looking combination of hardware and software that he’s honed over the last year to perfectly serve his exacting live performance requirements. “I’ve made a sort of live production system based around Ableton Live,” he begins, “and this is the fifth – or something – iteration of my live rig. It used to be hardware when I started out – I was using Kaoss Pads, other things like that – and my gear grew and grew, and got heavier and heavier, and more accident-prone and difficult to manage and use. And every piece of new hardware that I wanted the functionality of would degrade the signal path further. So I decided to make my own software with Dave Gamble, from DMGAudio. He’s a genius, and he built me this live production system from scratch in C++.

“It’s like four iPads, a Novation Launchpad and a looper by Boss – the RC-505 – and all of that works with this laptop [MacBook Pro], which is running Ableton. And I’ve got this immense Ableton [set]… I say immense; maybe it’s not the biggest in the world, but it’s a bit mad. It’s basically a drum machine and multiple loopers, all splayed out into different categories of instrument.”

The first iPad in the chain is used for live processing of Darren’s incoming vocals. “So, there’s a ring mod, which is available at any time. There’s drive available at any time, spectral weirdness, vinyl things – there’s all kinds of stuff. But they’re one-finger, two-fingers-at-a-time things.”