Producer-DJ TS7 needed some specific solutions to take his computer-based creations into the live arena. writer and music technology trainer Martin Delaney had the honour of taking a supporting role, and reports back from the road…

As a music technology trainer and lecturer, one of the most rewarding aspects of my job is to help artists get ready to go on stage – whether it’s a gig at the local pub, or a nationwide tour. Recently I was called upon to help the producer, DJ and artist TS7, also known as Thomas Sampson, prepare for a music video shoot and a scheduled live tour. Thomas is an established DJ and producer, with a healthy audience online and in the real world; the challenge was to prepare him for live dates where he’d be performing his own music and looking for ways to be more interactive, using his more traditional musical skills in public for the first time. Once the job was completed, I went back to Thomas, and we discussed the concepts and the tech behind his video and the new touring setup.

It seemed that the decision to incorporate live playing was a natural one. “I’ve been DJing for the best part of 10 years now,” he says. “You know, it’s something I love and it’s something I enjoy, but I’ve played the piano since I was five years old. My dad was very big on jazz; live instruments and sessions had always been a big part of the household when I was growing up. A lot of electronic musicians don’t play actual instruments; they’re great at sound design, and arranging, and mixing – the technical stuff – but in terms of the actual live side, they don’t seem to go there, so we thought it could be quite a unique selling point and now, a few months later, we’ve made that happen.”

The project began with that simple idea, and then some research was required. “Me and my manager Sam discussed how to do it, and we were online looking for references – it was something that neither of us had done before. We looked at Disclosure, who are incredible electronic artists, and I drew inspiration from them. I took aspects of their performance approach, and implemented them into my own.”

Once the artist has an idea of what they want to do, the real work begins. We had a few Zoom sessions, a lot of phone calls, some emails, and we began laying out the options regarding how to present the material. iPad sketches and Keynote graphics were called into play to illustrate the configuration options, they really help to visualise everything as clearly as possible before involving the physical objects.