Top Music Equipment For Live Performances In 2021

This is 2021. This is the next year after 2020 of lockdowns and Covid-19 scare. No one would say he enjoyed the stay-at-home orders. If anyone, it will not be the music event planners, concert managers, and musicians. 

If you’re in the live music business, these five tools have been carefully picked as a must-have for your next live performance in this new year. They are:

  • The Arturia MiniLab Mk II
  • Focusrite Scarlett 2i4
  • Guitar pedals
  • K-Mix
  • OTO Machines BOUM


    Do You Use An Arturia MiniLab Mk II?

    Arturia MiniLab Mk II is a MIDI keyboard. You know that a MIDI keyboard is also known as a controller keyboard is a piano-style electronic musical keyboard that comes with more buttons, wheels, and sliders than a conventional one and which is used for sending MIDI signals or commands over a USB or MIDI 5-pin cable to other musical devices or computers. If you’re a regular at Roaming Sound, you’ll know they have several varieties with different performance levels. The Arturia keyboard is fun to use with those pad-based controllers and the gleaming lights.

    The Arturia MiniLab Mk II is well packed with eight velocity, pressure-sensitive pads, a 25-note keyboard, two touch-strips for pitch and modulation, and 16 rotary encoders. It is also USB powered, having eight users presets and a software package that includes UVI Grand Piano Model D, Analog Lab Lite, and Ableton Live Lite.

    Are You Having A Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 Interface?

    Focusrite Scarlett 2i4  is a USB 2.0 audio interface that tops the audio quality when outputting from your laptop or another device. 

    Going by the traditional method of running a cable from the computer’s audio ports to the mixer, isn’t completely a by-gone but operating through an interface will always give you more professional input/output connections combined with a masterful level of control as well as headphone and MIDI monitoring.

    It is laced with two mic inputs, four outputs, a headphone out with direct monitoring as well as MIDI In/Outports. It is also bus-powered. You don’t need to pack along with another mains power supply in your bag. There is also a software outfit with Ableton Live Lite and several plug-ins.

    Get Those Guitar pedals

    Guitar pedals are all-pervasive, fun to use, and useful for almost every musical instrument apart from guitars. Yes, you heard that right. They’re not meant just for guitars alone. The pedal works for simple distortions in the mini-pedal formats just as well as they take on complex programmable stereo machines with MIDI control. Most guitar pedals don’t need batteries to run and if you want to power up groups of them, there are numerous ways to do so while using a single mains power source. You’ll find very affordable options in the market that are just fitting for your budget just as you’ll also find the exorbitant ones if that’s where you’d like to go.

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    Don’t Perform Without A K-Mix

    Guitar pedals make very substantial sound-design tools that you should use for your drum machines, synths, and every other instrument on stage where possible.

    Mixers must be used in your live performances. The reason is crystal clear. You definitely can’t go on stage with only a lead guitar for instance. That’d be laughable. There will always be a lot of gadgets to use in a live performance and they would all need to be synced with a mixer for a harmonious overall audio output. 

    It’s okay to have a good number of mini mixers around the stage that are relatively cheap and easily disposable just in case. But using high-quality ones will give you the confidence you need to run for hours without fear of a fall in performance.

    The Keith McMillen Instruments or the K-Mix is the right pick for your event. A full-fledged mixer with 8 inputs, 10 outputs, a USB audio interface, MIDI control surface, and onboard effects packed into a compact bundle, the K-Mix can easily work as a stand-alone with a computer, other hardware, and the main power supply.

    OTO Machines BOUM

    With a live performance hardware setup consisting of drum machines, synthesizers, and other effects, there is a need to add some form of dynamics processing to the master stereo channel before the sound reaches the primary mixer. 

    Using hardware that gives this service ensures you have a perfect controlled signal with no annoying alternating level peaks or unwanted distortions.

    OTO Machines BOUM is a compact stereo device that has compression and distortion filters and a noise gate. Its output is always clean and good-sounding. You may need to set it up as a master-channel device and remember to connect it directly to the main power.

    Be sure you have these five top use devices in your list of musical equipment when you go organizing another live performance this year. It always pays to use the best. You’ll enjoy your productions. That’s what matters.