In this Reverb video, Kimbra shares her approach to live sampling and synthesis.
Kimbra discusses why she incorporates electronics into her performances, and demonstrates how she uses her rig.
Here’s a clips that captures Kimbra in action, live at SWSW, with an earlier version of her live rig:
What’s not explained to me here is what’s actually being used for the looping content recording/playback.
Ableton Live on a laptop under the stand?
What is the that Akai controller controlling/ triggering?
Kaoss pad loops.
Music Maker on a PS2 most likely
In the past she’s used a TC Helicon VoiceLive touch mic-stand mounted looper/vocal effects processor. Hard to see in this vid but looks like the box she’s using attached to her left to kick off the beatbox loop.
Watching the top video again it explains her tools pretty well. It’s a VoiceLive 2 that is doing the looping.
thanks for reply; watched video at work quietly, it wasn’t clear to me about that due to low volume. Also did not know the TC had looping and full parameter-over-midi control.
Kimbra used to have a laptop running Ableton Live close to the ground on her left. She’s replaced the Push 2 controller and might have switched DAWs for the current setup.
Hey video sound recording person and or editor, please choose one: Lav mic or PA mic. Is your lav mic digital? Word the day is “latency”.
Amazing loopage and what a great voice. Kimbra is like the more musically-focused flip side of what Reggie Watts does, which is stream-of-consciousness humor as much as fully developed songs. They’re very different, but also respective peak examples of what loopers are for. Mesmerizing, ain’t it?
I wouldn’t really consider Reggie Watts a “peak example” of looping. He has good musical ideas but what he does isn’t all that adventurous. This is a bit more compelling but still not very special. There were people doing more interesting things with looping thirty years ago.
I want my 4 minutes of my life back. Mesmerizing mediocrity.
I think she’s likely using the Machine Jam and Novation Launch Control to control Ableton, somewhere off of to the side. I’d imagine her laptop will no longer be on stage, and probably has a redundancy set-up now.
IMHO better clip of her using her current setting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-flYvsmi6r