Daft Punk are widely renowned for their stunning live show which incorporates a wide variety of technology to effectively recreate their iconic recordings for use in the live arena.
This is a basic outline of the equipment Daft Punk are currently using.
- Ableton Live: Daft Punk use Ableton live sequencing software to order their loops into scenes to provide structure to their tracks. This means they can position their loops prior to the live performance allowing them to seamlessly play each scene through in perfect timing. Although this may sound like just pressing play on a CD player Ableton's abilities to interchange between scenes, drop in new loops and effect the loops through an assigned MIDI controller provides a means of improvisation. This can be seen in the clip below at a minute and a half into the video where they apply a filter to cut out the music allowing the crowd to sing along generating a powerful performer to crowd dynamic. Daft Punk also use Ableton's effect plugins in their recording which means when improvising with effect application the outcome resembles that of their recordings which contributes to their faithful live recreations, as Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter comments: "One of the things I prefer in Live is the proprietary Ableton effects plug-ins. They are amongst the warmest software effects. Sometimes I will import a Pro Tools track in Live, just to bounce it down with Ableton effects, to make it sound warmer and crisper, or dirty — I love dirt. I'm not a big ReWire fan, so I do it the old-school way, importing and exporting the sound files." Critically speaking Ableton Live is certainly the best developed sequencer for live performance, its simplicity in assigning midi controls and building live sets is unmatched and it is no wonder why Daft Punk have chosen to use this sequencing software. Prior to Ableton Live electronic performers would have to play a lot more of the music live into looping stations and use large modulators, effect rigs and and sampling hardware, which to create the live show Daft Punk perform today would be near enough impossible.
- Customised Super Computer: Daft punk use 2 custom designed super computers to run Ableton Live and to communicate with their MIDI controllers and Synthesisers. There is little information available on the specifications of their computers but they have certainly been enhanced for live music purposes. It is likely they would have increased MIDI and Firewire capacity and powerful CPU's to handle the large amount of processing required to run their live show and communicate with their lighting rig.
- Jazz Mutant Lemur : The Jazz Mutant Lemur is probably the most versatile MIDI controller available today. It allows the user to take the interface of any sequencer, virtual instrument plug-in, VJ software or lighting controller that can communicate using MIDI onto a touch screen. This allows easy manipulation and customisable layouts and modulators, which provides a simple but powerful means to develop a unique live style and performance capabilities. Daft Punk normally use 2 to 4 Jazz Mutant Lemurs in their live show for a variety of purposes. The main purpose for the Lemur in their set up is to control Ableton live, this would include dropping samples, changing scenes, adding effects and controlling loop stations. Secondary to Controlling Ableton, the Lemur's are also connected to their impressive lighting rig and pyramid stage, through the Lemur the lights can be set up similarly to to the scenes in Ableton live, and the images on the screens of the pyramid can be effected in such a way that responds directly to the music.
”We can mix, shuffle, trigger loops, filter, distort samples, EQ in and out, transpose or destroy and deconstruct synth lines. We keep some surprises on the side too!” Thomas Bangalter on the MiniMoog Voyager RME
- Behringer B-Control Rotary BCR2000
The BCR2000 is a basic midi controller which can be assigned to control different effects, synthesisers and to trigger loops etc. Daft Punk use two of these midi controllers to control their effects like with their other controllers. The LED features which light up around the knobs are ideal for live use as the settings are more visible, however with Daft Punk's budget it seems odd that they would choose one of the most basic inexpensive control units available, however reviews of this product all claim it is perfectly reliable so perhaps splashing out on the top of the range equipment isn't always necessary.
Use of Samples
Daft Punk are respected as pionneers of the dance genre, combining 80's Disco with early french house music, this is done by drawing on large variety of their inspiriations and recreating a brand new track with the use heavy but well placed use of samples, such as the use of the instrumental sections from the track 'cola bottle baby' by funk / disco artist Edwin Birdsong in the Daft punk song 'Harder Better Faster Stronger', and the Oliver Cheatham's Disco song 'get down on a saturday night' in Daft Punk's 'Voyager'. Daft Punk unlike their inspirations are able to add so much more to disco sound and French house sound thanks to advances in technology it could be argued that their heavy use of sampling is cheating but they bring so much orginality to the older genres and dated music styles that they are brought into the sound of the modern day but still retain their orginal disco feel. In my opinion this is equally as creative as writing the orignal music itself.
