The Glossary: Remi Lauw | Live Show Music Producer

Next up in our series of Glossary features covering music tech roles, we caught up with live show music producer Remi Lauw.

This special Glossary series features the insights of workshop leaders and speakers from our recently announced programme – Doors Open UNLOCKED: Empowering the future of music tech with Ableton, which you can read more about and apply for a place on here.

Remi Lauw is a producer and guitarist for the R&B/Soul group Secret Rendezvous. Their music has been championed by Pharrell Williams on Beats 1, KCRW, and BBC 1Xtra, and they have toured extensively across the Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Germany, and France. Their songs have been featured in TV shows such as Love Island Australia, Good Trouble, The Last OG, and The Rookie: Feds, while their cover of At Your Best (You Are Love) has surpassed 3 million streams.

As a session guitarist, Remi has worked with renowned artists, including Mad Professor, India Shawn, Divinity Roxx (Beyoncé’s bassist), Dam Swindle, and many more across the Netherlands and Belgium.

In his role as a Live Show Music Producer, he has designed and produced live performances for major artists such as Lost Frequencies Live, Kane, Broederliefde, Nicky Romero x Nico & Vinz, Rolf Sanchez & Latin Society, Lil’ Kleine, and Jarreau Vandal.

What is your role and what does your day to day look like?
My role is essentially to translate studio productions into live performances. One aspect of this is technical: designing the setup, creating Ableton Live sets and ensuring everything runs smoothly without my presence (I usually don’t join tours as a tech, more on that later). Another aspect is creative: getting the music there, I focus on sound design, adding extra production elements, deciding what will work live and occasionally creating musical arrangements. I see myself more as a finisher of the whole process.

When you work with a good team, you can enhance what the artist and musical directors had in mind, bouncing ideas back and forth to make it better. This is the process I love the most.

As a performing musician and being producer myself with a technical background (I studied electronics before studying guitar at the conservatory), I can easily communicate and relate with artists, producers, musicians and technicians. I'm kind of helping to close the gap between all of them, it’s a fun position to be in.

Let’s say we have a production rehearsal day. First, we’ll setup and soundcheck everything with the band and techs. I’ll make sure all of the hardware, Ableton Live and MIDI-related stuff are working. We’ll level out all the songs in the order of the set while the band plays live. Sometimes, we notice that certain sounds or arrangements aren’t working. In those cases, I'll ask someone else to run the live set so I can work on additional production in another room, or in worst case on my in-ear monitors. Usually, I communicate this with the artist or MD to make sure if this is okay. You need their trust to do that. There are times when a producer, MD and I are all working on different parts of a production to get everything done by time.

In some cases, I prefer to work in the same project as the producer or MD. This gives me more flexibility. I can adjust plugins at the source, have more control over which multitracks I’m going to bounce to Ableton Live or export separate drum/synth samples. I also premix everything to my taste, having in mind how it will translate live. That means that I’m not only working in Ableton Live, but also in Pro Tools or Logic Pro.

During rehearsals I edit and level out a lot in Ableton Live with the FOH engineer and main artist to make it work with the band or performers. Once we’re happy, we start over and dive deeper on the flow/tension of the set and highlighting certain parts of the show.

For example, the live vocal is doing a cool part and I think it needs some extra support to highlight it. I’ll ask the sound engineer to record that part and send it over to me. This allows me to process it with effects and add it as a layer in the sequencer, supporting the live vocal.

Other times, I listen and realise that the song or mix feels too busy, leaving no space for the lead vocals. I then figure out whether that’s a mixing issue or an arrangement problem. Maybe the band is playing too much (they aren’t always aware what’s happening in the studio production), or the bass player’s notes are held too long, so the groove isn’t working. Perhaps the drummer’s snare doesn’t fit with the song, or a hi-hat pattern needs to be played differently because percussion and hats are in the backing tracks. Maybe you don’t need all those production elements live, just some extra backing vocals on track. I listen a lot to the original song/production and to previous live versions to pick the best elements from everything.

How did you get into your line of work?
Well, first, I never chose to do this, it just happened haha. I have my own band (Secret Rendezvous) and after our first album, we searched for a way to bring our studio productions to life on stage. We all dove into Ableton Live, and I learned a lot from the musicians I played with in other bands who were using the software live. This led to many other befriended acts calling us for troubleshooting or asking how we did certain things. (Not just me, our drummer and keyboard player are also into Ableton Live).

Fast forward... this led to being called to help with the show of Lost Frequencies Live. I learned a lot during this period about complex MIDI setups, redundancy, digital clocking, and MADI networks. I received a lot of help from the audio team, rig builders, manufacturers of the gear we were using and Ableton technical team. I joined the first tour to make sure everything kept working, but I quit after the last show because I prefer to play while on tour. I still see myself as a musician and creative first, and when everything is running smoothly, there's no challenge for me anymore.

Then came the second tour in the US and Canada, and they kindly asked me to join as their Ableton tech. I declined, and we searched for other people (which was difficult at the time). So, I spoke with the band, audio team, and management and suggested creating a more compact and easy-to-handle setup that Felix (Lost Frequencies) and the band members could run by themselves on stage. They insisted on the idea, and I designed a new, compact touring setup. The tour went great! For the following season, another tour was planned, and the setups became more complex again. I had to train a couple of people to handle the Ableton setup on tour, which was also fun to do.

Until the last tour, I was still involved with the design and programming, and only joined the production rehearsals and the first couple of shows to ensure the setup and team were running smoothly. This worked well for me because I enjoy the preparation process, which is more creative, and it allowed me to focus on my own shows and releases afterward. The only problem now was that everyone started calling me to build or troubleshoot their shows.
I built shows for Lil’ Kleine, Jarreau Vandall, Nicky Romero, Nico & Vinz, Kane, Broederliefde, and many more right after this. I’m pretty lucky to have worked with such diverse and incredible artists. I also have a broad music taste. I’m still trying to find a balance between making my own music, doing session work as a guitarist, and creating live shows for other artists. A bit of a luxury problem.

What skills are important in your job?
Of course, you need to have the basic skills: knowing how to work with Ableton Live (and or other DAWs), MIDI, hardware instruments like analog synths and drumcomputers, music theory and basic electronics etc.

But communication, social skills, reading the room, staying cool under pressure and isolate problems are much more important. I’d much rather have someone who stays calm during rehearsals or on tour and can isolate a problem, than someone who knows a DAW inside or out and can edit fast. I’ve sent people on tour who didn’t have much knowledge of Ableton Live, but stayed calm and were able to troubleshoot quickly.

If someone is excited to do what you do, what advice would you give them?
Just start with something and figure out what you’re good at. Surround yourself with like-minded people.
Keep creating, learning, stay open, have patience, be kind and keep listening to music!
The role I have isn’t just one specific thing, it’s a combination of multiple disciplines. It took me a while to bring all of them together and use it to my advantage.

What have you found surprising about your role?
When I started professionally in music, I did most things above out of necessity, because they were needed to play live with my own band and we had no budget at the time haha. So I had to be creative and smart with less.
Now I realise it’s pretty cool that I turned it into a role and get to work with so many cool people. I’m still learning every day from everyone and turning ideas into live experiences!

What are your top 3 tips for someone who wants work in the music industry in general?
The music industry is pretty small, everyone knows everyone. The good thing is if you’re good at something, people will notice that pretty quickly. Work with like minded people and grow together. Some of my tips:
1. Know your skills and also say when you’re not good at something, be honest.
2. Communication/social skills/be a team player (if you aren’t great at this, find someone who handles it for
you haha).
3. Deliver, keep learning and think outside the box (Sorry, more then 3 things, the music industry is always
evolving).

Explore jobs in electronic music on Doors Open here.