Thoughts

Visuals are getting more and more important at live music performances. Especially when it comes to electronic music performances since the audience can often not see or fully understand what the musician is doing on stage. Because of this, the audience can tend to feel distanced from the performer which defeats the purpose for many of going to a live performance.

The importance of visual stimulation at big EDM concerts has become greater than the performance itself. Deadmau5 is one of the biggest DJ’s in EDM today and he has spoken openly about what he is doing on stage. Basically he has very little freedom because everything has to be synced according to the videos and light show. He is constrained to work on a set timeline because of a SMPTE feed that controls the visuals. Furthermore, he said that this is what all the big EDM DJ’s do, they just don’t all admit it. s (http://deadmau5.tumblr.com/post/25690507284/we-all-hit-play)

It wasn’t long ago when Dave Wexler, who is better known as Strangeloop, had to travel with a huge flightcase with a video server in it. This was the case for Armin Van Buuren’s Mirage Tour in 2010. Strangeloop has also made visuals for artists such as Skrillex, Flying Lotus and Eykah Badu. For todays shows he travels with a laptop which is 10 times stronger than the server he was using before. The prosessing power of laptops is growing fast so it is becoming possible for smaller artists to make elaborate visual shows without investing to much money. http://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2013/08/14/behind-the-screen-the-art-of-edm-visuals/#5f33f4996ea1

Visuals don’t have to be to complicated to have a big impact. Just having something different from all the others is sometimes all it takes. Kraftwerks visuals for their 3D tour weren’t complicated. Simple shapes and animations. while the members of the band barely move on stage was enough because of the 3D experience that captivated the audience. http://stuckbetweenstations.org/2014/03/27/kraftwerk-3d-live/