Working as a full-time accompanist at two dance conservatoires in Central London, Bobby performs live music for technique classes, including contemporary, ballet, and creative classes during the week, and open classes for kids and adults in the evenings and Saturdays. “I improvise all of the music for each class, and I only have about 15 minutes to break down my kit and set it up again between classes”, Bobby explains. He has been an accompanist for 10 years and was a music technology teacher for 20 years before that. Bobby has put all of that experience to work in building his performance rig. “I started with a Korg WaveDrum 10 years ago but, I wanted to provide a variety of sounds and textures for the classes. I invested in a Roland Octapad, and built up a mini drumkit that provides a huge pallet of percussive sounds and allows me to send MIDI to my iPad for melodic and orchestral sounds. I have used Quantiloop as my live looping app since it was first released”, he continues. “The whole rig fits into 3 flight cases that I had custom-made made and I strap them to my motorcycle for driving between the two schools. I also use a lot of Bluetooth devices to reduce cables and save time when moving my equipment around the building”.
Kit List:
Roland Octapad SPD-20 Pro (with CME Bluetooth WIDIMaster MIDI I/O)
Roland PDX-8 snare
Roland FD-8 HH
Roland KD-7 Kick controller+ Sonor Perfect Balance pedal
Apple iPad M1 1gb
CME xKey Air 25 keys
Roli Seaboard keys
IK Multimedia iRig Blueboard
iRig Pro I/O audio interface
JBL Eon Compact PA speaker
Bobby has created a successful career out of a niche and has used some amazing ingenuity to build a rig that is expressive and very portable indeed.
For more information on Bobby, you can find him on Youtube here:
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