[linux-audio-user] live performance with rapper/vocalist

Hello list, (Please forgive me if this post rambles a little bit...) A very good friend of mine approached me about doing some rap music live with him. He is a lyricist with a drumming background, and does a fine job at expressing himself in that particular genre. I am a jazz piano player and, of course, linux user. :) I would like to try to do some live performances with him rapping and me providing groove-based jazz backgrounds (think acid jazz-type stuff, MMW, etc.). I think this would be a great opportunity to use linux in a live performance. Here are some off-the-cuff thoughts about how this would go down: The computer would be providing beats. There should be a set of beats preplanned, a "vocabulary" of stuff to pull from, but it must all be able to be changed on the fly. Seq24, maybe? My live keyboard would provide sounds for keys and bass synth, but the laptop should have a bass synth pulled up to do repeated patterns when my left hand gets tired; I'm thinking whysynth (the dssi plugin) for this job. It would be really nice if everything could sync to MIDI clock so that an arpeggio-type app could be used (I have no idea what would do this in linux). Hydrogen would fall into this picture somehow I'm sure, but it seems like it isn't appropriate for doing stuff on the fly. Would be *great* to use LASH to pull the whole "set" up at once without having to call up individual applications. What do you all think? Are any of you doing anything like this, and if so, how are you doing it? I really *don't* want to get into live coding just yet, I'm just not ready to dive into those waters. Still, I think this would be a really cool project - "improvisational rapping" if you will. Any thoughts, gripes, ideas, general thinking outside the box, and (most importantly) specific applications that you think would be appropriate would be very much appreciated. -- Josh Lawrence http://www.hardbop200.com