Live Analogue Music Production

In a day and age where making music is as easy as turning the switch on your computer ,one would ask yourself why would you want to make music without a computer, there are many advantages to creating music without a computer, although the learning curb of producing music on computer is much more easier the challenge of tweaking knobs and analoque limitations will bring out creativity that will differentiate your sound from all the numbers being churned out by late night coffee chucking computer sessions.

Another reason would be less distractions working on a a device that you can multi-task on calls out the trolls of distraction emails, social sites , Skype calls etc are more likely to get attended to when notifications are constantly popping up on your screen  and pulling you away from your creative task of producing , and one of the bigger cons of computer production is that creativity is slightly doused because of the ease of use of cut and pasting and presets abound in your vst's & thus being tempted into rapidly finish off something with the use of the instant "just add water" presets, as well as always changing up vst's and plug ins instead of perfecting a signature sound to your productions through constant tweaking of the same piece of equipment

Let's look at a basic setup if you were ever to consider to producer in the analogue realm.

Pretty much same formula used upon the house that JACK built one would usually start with the foundation of the kick hats and the rest of the drum percussion family , this could perfectly be programmed on a Drum Machine most drum machines have step sequencer anything from 16 to 32 steps , with some being able to give you in between smaller steps to give you more rhythm these steps can  be triggered pretty much like your software drum groove machines that come with DAW's a few of the new portable drum machines on the market would be:

Volca Beats:

One third of a trio of analogue grooveboxes, the Korg Volca Beats is an incredibly compact and affordable drum machine, and despite its amazingly low price, it sounds brilliant, developed with the vintage TR-808 in mind it is a brilliant compact drum machine that work well with the rest of the Volca series bundle ...

Roland TR-8

The TR-8 is a performance rhythm machine that melds the legendary sound and vibe of the TR-808 and TR-909 with features and functions for the modern age. Genre-defining sounds, classic effects, unprecedented live pattern manipulation, and solid, intuitive performance controls

Akai XR20

The Akai XR20 is an ultra portable drum machine geared to dominate the urban music world. With over 700 sounds and 99 user presets, you can add effects to your sounds and save them to your drum machine. This beat maker is so small in size and weight and has such a big library of sounds, you can take the Akai XR20 anywhere and bang out monster urban jams in no time. 

So once the drum and rhythms is down One can move onto add some melodies and harmonies this can be done through syntheziser the beauty of dealing with synths is they various parameters and knobs to tweak until you develope your own sounds ,and most come with arpeggiator , pattern creator and hold features to give you creative ease while still giving the opportunity to stay in time with your production, a huge benefit to the untrained musician and a benefit to to the repetitive nature of electronic music. With the multitude of knobs on the syntheziser you can sync your units through midi to keep all your modules well in sync here is some synthizers still being manufactured :

Korg Volca keys

Volca Keys is a long-awaited synthesizer that adds a new chapter to the long and storied history of Korg's analog synthesizers. Volca keys is a 27-key analog lead synth that generates unbelievably powerful sound from its compact body. Starting with a filter section that uses the circuitry of the legendary miniKORG700S (1974), it delivers astonishing sound that takes full advantage of Korg's half-century of know-how in circuit design. 

With a simple structure that includes delay effect and a sequencer, it's also an ideal choice as a first analog synth. It offers the richly expressive sounds that are distinctive of an analog synth, providing the enjoyment of simple yet deep sound-creation.

Volca bass

the volca bass is an analog bassline groove box that has what you need for a wide range of bass lines. 

Although simple in structure, the analog sound engine has an unmistakable presence with subtle nuances that cannot be reproduced by a digital simulation; it's a great choice for acid house and many other styles of music. The step sequencer distilled from the Electribe is not only visually intuitive; it's also a powerful way to generate "free form" bass loops that will stimulate your inspiration.

 Roland synth

Back in the 1970s, Roland launched the SYSTEM 100, SYSTEM 100M, and the now almost mythical SYSTEM 700. These modular and semi-modular synthesizers are heralded to this day for their flexibility and character of sound. In the spirit of its predecessors, the SYSTEM-1 breaks new ground with remarkable flexibility and access to a vast palette of tones with the bold, unmistakable character associated with Roland synthesizers for nearly four decades

Korg ms 20

Korg’s MS-20 monophonic synthesizer, first introduced in 1978, is still a coveted instrument to this day, thanks to its thick, robust sound, its powerful, iconic analog filter, and its versatile patching options.

Today, the sounds of the MS-20 have been reborn as the MS-20 Mini. The same engineers who developed the original MS-20 have perfectly reproduced its circuitry and fitted it into a body that’s been shrunk to 86% of the original size, yet retains the distinctive look of the original that remains unfaded despite the passage of time.

The MS-20 mini will amaze you with its absolutely authentic analog synth sound.

Korg micro synth & Vocoder

The microKorg delivers the quality sounds and features you expect from Korg at a price that will astound you. Powerful synthesis is the nature of this beast! The microKORG boasts the same dual-oscillator DSP synthesis engine found in Korg's critically acclaimed MS2000 and offers a wider selection of waveforms than almost any other modeled synth. In addition, 64 exclusive DWGS waveforms from Korg's classic DW-8000 enables you to reproduce a broad collection of imitative sounds that are traditionally difficult reproduce on an analog synthesizer with the microKorg.

Summing of your sounds

The best way to connect all the analog hardware is with an analog mixer that sums all the audio together. Ideally the mixer should have things like EQs, send/returns, and balance. Send/return connections will let people connect external hardware FX units or FX pedals, then they can selectively apply FX to each track. 

Summing your sounds together would then require you to route your individual units into an analoque mixer , your size of mixer would be determined by the amount of units you are running , then to keep them in sync one would need to chain them with midi with one unit being the master and the rest running in slave to your master unit, once routed into your mixer you would be able to solo ,mute , and eq each unit routed into the individual input channels thus giving you the flexibility to perform live with your units,

Adding some spice effects:

Most mixers have a function of send and return channels these Chanel's can be used to add effects to your selected input channels  being sent to the send channels, thus adding an manipulating your sound beyond what the specific analoque unit allows , another away of adding specific effects is placing it inbetween the unit and the inputs on the mixer give you a little bit more creative fun to manipulate you sounds think out of the box for this process is key an one can find many analogue producers using from guitar effects pedals to dj effects units, in order to give the the tweaking freedom to come up with something fresh and unique here are some effects one could look at to help you on the way:

Guitar pedals:

Some guitar pedals can be added to give more character to the sounds. For example if the drums are lacking or sound flat, a compressor pedal such as the Boss CS-3 Compression pedal can tie the drum sounds together and also create the sought after “pumping” effect. There are tons of pedals available Again it’s best to start with a few pedals, and if possible demo them in store to get a feel for it before purchasing. 

Dj Effects modules:

Dj send fx  units like the RMX 1000 or Korg Kaos pad could be a cool addition to your effects chain these effects are usually filled with a multitude of effects design to manipulate your sound in a familiar effected club music  

Recording it: 

Now once we have gotten to the stage of creating our drum, rhythm, sound and extended sound manipulation we would want to look at ways of getting our sound recorded and arrange , one way would be to use some form of hardisk/memory recorders or we could simply record it directly through to our DAW's in using this method we could looking at doing one full performance through recording a master mixed sound with all our units combined or we could look at individually recording solo channels into the DAW and the just following up with final arrangement , which ever way you choose one would find that producing in the analogue realm will trick your creative memory part of brain to  bring up surpise production results feeling less clinical and more natural soul connecting productions.