Daft Punk's Live Performance Mixing Equipment

Over the summer, I had the pleasure of seeing Daft Punk's "Alive 2007" tour at beautiful Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado. Check out this clip of Daft Punk performing Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

The show was a sensory feast. The lighting, LEDs, videos and other visuals were incredible. Daft Punk, two French guys who always dresses up as robots, controlled their "greatest hits" set from atop and giant pyramid in the middle of 0the stage that was decked out with more lights, LEDs and video screens than some casinos in Vegas.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to see what the two guys behind Daft Punk were actually doing in the pyramid--it was clear they were manipulating something, but the audience sure couldn't see what it was.



Given the tight audio visual synchronization of the show, I don't think it's hard to accept that a good portion of their set was just being played back from some unseen machine backstage. Hey, it's the 21st century and most performers understand that modern audiences expect a "show" and the value of expert production occasionally means sacrificing some "live" elements.

So what exactly was Daft Punk doing back there? From the picture above, it's clear that there is definitely some equipment they are doing something with up there in the pyramid.

I've done some research and have found a bit more about the equipment that Daft Punk uses in their modern live sets.

Moog Voyager Rack Mount Edition

Daft Punk uses several of these powerful analog filter devices in their live set. Costing almost $2500 a piece, the machines are extremely high end and can even be controlled via MIDI. The Minimoog Voyager RME is based on one of the most classic synthesizers of all time, the Minimoog. The Voyager has six sound sources. Five of these (three voltage-controlled oscillators with switchable waveforms, a noise generator, and an external line input) pass to a mixer with independent level controls. The mixed output of the sources is then passed through the voltage-controlled filter and a voltage-controlled amplifier, each of which has its own ADSR envelope generator. The voltage-c ontrolled filter can itself be made to oscillate, thus comprising the Voyager's sixth sound source.

In addition to similar features of the original Minimoog, the Voyager was designed to have a memory bank capable of storing 128 presets, a touch pad modulation control, dedicated LFO, two modulation busses (one controllable via the modulation wheel and the other with a foot pedal), two ADSR envelopes for filter and amplifier control, a pressure-sensitive keyboard, 14 voltage-control inputs, and MIDI input/output.

As cool as the Moog Voyager RME is, this next Daft Punk "instrument" is truly out of this world.

JazzMutant Lemur Modular Touchscreen Controller

When Daft Punk performed their collaborative hit "Stronger" with Kanye West on the Grammys this year, the energetic performance hit it's pinnacle for me with these live overhead shots of Daft Punk operating some sort of touchscreen-based instrument that looks like it's from a science fiction movie. Check out this video..towards the end, Daft Punk gets the spotlight:

At first, I thought it was just for show. The entire performance of the song was incredibly visual, so I figured that Daft Punk was just keeping with that theme. But was there really any way those amazing displays were actually controlling the music?

YES! These amazing touchscreen controllers are called "Lemurs" and are made by a company called JazzMutant. Here's what JazzMutant's website says about the Lemur.

The Lemur is a top of the range control surface for audio and media applications, that breaks from the prior art on several grounds. Its major innovation consists in its brilliant modular graphic interface concept and its exclusive multitouch sensor technology. The continiously growing palette of configurable graphic objects enables you to design made-to-measure interfaces by using the free available JazzEditor. This endows the Lemur with the unique and protocol independant capacity to adapt its behavior according to the application you are controlling: sequencers, modular synthesizers, virtual instruments, VJ software, 3D animation tools and light control.

Essentially, the JazzMutant Lemur is an interactive videoscreen touchpad that can be utilized to control all sorts of things with visual style unmatched by hardware based devices. Check out this demonstration:

Even better, owners of the $3000 Lemur can even create custom interfaces for the machine, which is very likely what Daft Punk did for the Kanye West Grammy performance.

New Business Card

I just made this business card for myself.

It was weird because the concept of it just sort of popped into my mind and I made it. Strange how creative inspiration just strikes you once in a while.

The Sad Truth about Steve and Barry's

A few months ago, I was stoked about Steve and Barry's, a new chain of collegiate-style department stores quickly expanding to mid-level malls throughout the nation. S&B's appeal is their prices: jeans are 2 for $20, polo shirts 2 for $15...the prices are lower than even Target.

A few moderate celebrities have even signed on (with altruistic intentions) to promote "fashion at a price everyone can afford". New York Knicks guard Stephon Marbury has a signature shoe collection (Starburys) that cost only $15 a pair. Sarah Jessica Parker launched a line of hundreds of pieces called "Bitten", with nothing in it costing more than $20. A few weeks ago, Amanda Bynes (the girl with the pigtails from "Hairspray") launched a line called Dear targeted at teens.

From this description, Steve and Barry's probably sounds awesome. I thought so too. I think the clothing industry is ridiculous. It's just too easy to drop a fortune on clothing, especially in a mall. For younger people, it's easy to blow an entire paycheck on a single outfit. It truly seemed like someone was finally creating a remedy for this situation.

So what's the big problem with Steve and Barry's? Well, their clothing is just not made well. It falls apart. The other day, I found myself wearing an entire outfit made of Steve and Barry's clothing I purchased only a little over a month ago. My shirt had lost half of it's buttons, my shorts were ripping and my Starbury shoes were falling apart. I've NEVER had clothes fall apart on me like that, and my lifestyle is more sedate than ever.

So, I went home and audited my other apparel from S&B. Not surprisingly, almost every piece of apparel I purchased from them was in some stage of deterioration.

I guess once again, it goes to prove that you just cannot expect to get something for next to nothing. It's just a shame Steve and Barry's doesn't produce well-made inexpensive clothing.

Two Things

1) Oreo Cakesters may be the best desert invention ever.

2) Avery (the company that makes all sorts of printable labels) offers a free Microsoft Word wizard for producing labels if you buy one of their packs of labels. This file is 26 megabytes. Why? Does anyone remember the days of 3.5" floppies? Well, a modern label generation script for Word would take up like nineteen of them. If I recall correctly, even Windows 95 didn't even span that much. Bloatware? Sometimes I think software companies take the ubiquitousness of broadband connections as an unspoken approval that lazy programming is okay.

If you haven't bought a wii yet

.....here is one more reason why.



Wow. Things like this make me realize the tremendous positive potential of technology.

Cirque du Soleil's CORTEO

Last night, I had the pleasure of seeing Cirque du Soleil's latest production to hit Denver. Corteo was a blast! Let me preface to say that I've seen almost every Cirque show post-Quidam. And Corteo was easily the best since Quidam.

The show was positive and exuberant despite it's morbid clown funeral storyline. But as Cirque shows usually go, the storyline doesn't really matter anyway. But the acrobatics on the other hand...

The acrobatics in this show were some of the best and most innovative I've seen yet. Opening with an amazing aerial act on three huge chandeliers, the show whizzed from one amazing act to the next, including an act that can aptly be described as a "human trapeze". The way some of these people can flex and bend is incredible.

One of my favorite parts of Cirque shows is the music. A few of the more recent cirque shows have departed somewhat from the traditional "cirque" sound. Varekai's soundtrack CD wasn't really a soundtrack to anything. Zumanity is bizarre. Ka is too cinematic. But Corteo was Cirque du Soleil! I can't wait to buy the CD.

The drummer was just amazing. His energy and precision was incredible. All of the musicians are supremely talented, just like every other member of the troupe. A super-talented violinist competed in a friendly musical duel with the amazing whistling ringmaster. There also was a classical guitarist who was just incredibly fast and precise.

As a longtime techie, I've always loved Cirque's technical aspects. This one was excellent with incredibly awesome lighting that was exciting, but not overwhelming. They had some wonderful lighting cues and great effects. The automation was incredible. A cool overhead trolley-winch system offered plenty of opportunity to fly performers and set pieces in, or to slowly float across a bunch of angels or a clown on a bicycle.

They also had a couple of neat radio controlled things. By things I mean "walking shoes" and "robot light head car-thingys". It was innovative use of RC for sure...I was glad to see Cirque including interesting objects like that.

The only disappointing act was a high-wire walk that got progressively more absurd. A very-taught safety cable attached to the performer allowed her to effortlessly pull off all sorts of tricks including walking up a 45-degree sloped wire and hula-hooping. At first it seemed cool, but when you realized that the safety cable was holding all her weight, it really felt like a gimmick.

I gotta say, my one complaint was the hospitality aspects. They didn't have nearly enough bathrooms (which were all unisex, so now us guys get to wait in line like girls too) or concession stands. I'd think that they'd lose a lot of business from people not wanting to wait in a long line. Plus, my 60 year old mom requested a booster seat cause she is tiny, and the usher wouldn't give her one because she said they were only for kids. That's funny, seeing as we paid TWICE as much as what a kid would have, the almost-senior would have the higher priority.

Here is a video clip I found on YouTube from the show. It's a little tiny girl in a harness suspended by helium-filled weather balloons. And that's just the beginning of it.



Anyway, that's it. Don't miss Corteo!

7-11's other new way to kill you