u/w live mixing desk

[crazysugarboy]

This is a rather techy question Does anyone know how the big blue mixing desk that Rick and Darren "play" work? I've noticed in pix, vids etc that they place strips of obviously magnetic... err.. strips onto the desk, which hang from their 2 Mac monitors - do these control what the various switches "do"? I am simply intrigued as to how this wonderful music that we know as underworld reaches our ears.

[King of Snake]

well for starters the blue thing is just the construction that holds the desk and various other equipment. The desk itself is a Midas Heritage (not sure which model) (www.midasconsoles.com). I think they have two Macs on the right that run all the audio loops in Logic. The straps are just to identify which sound is on which fader on the desk for each track.

[DaddyAdv]

The strips are the usual tool of a mixing engineer. You just write down what channels gets which input (likewise bass, kick, etc.).

Rick does a lot of (funny) scribbling and acronyms for the different loops and sound on the strips as you can see in this pic:
http://effingood.com/lux/images/DSC01368.JPG

[DaddyAdv]

And what I saw on the latest live pics, the second Mac is running Ableton Live, there are several Laptops on stage, too.

[Mike]

Rick does a lot of (funny) scribbling and acronyms for the different loops and sound on the strips as you can see in this pic:
http://effingood.com/lux/images/DSC01368.JPG

10 points for each track you can guess from that lot

Mike

[verbal]

I've been really curious about how they load each track. The two times I've seen them live it seems like they never touch the computer. Like it automatically loads the next track.

I know that having one big file in Logic wouldn't work too well.

[gaborez]

this is a better pic of the mixer strips:
http://effingood.com/lux/images/mixerstrips.jpg

some of the little captions are obvious e.g. "crazy crazy crazy", "ride the train". there's also a "brill timing" / "click" on the same strip. i like the little guitar drawing on one of them, backed up by the word "gtr" just in case it wasnt obvious what the pic was

these mixer strips would be fantastic memento's. dear rick, please may i have one?

i've always assumed that on a basic level the macs are looping each song part into each channel, and ric & darren can fade/punch in/out different loops when they feel like it. each loop can be say a diff bassline, different drum loops (or individual drum sounds), strings etc. i'm sure it's more complicated & they probably have more control than that but i guess that's how it works.

only 67 days to the nyc gig, people. not that i'm counting...

[TheBang]

Originally Posted by gaborez

this is a better pic of the mixer strips:
http://effingood.com/lux/images/mixerstrips.jpg

More Cow Bell!! (6th strip from bottom)