help! help! Ableton + Live Cover band + MIDI

[Sebastian]

Hi friends,

Im in an 80s new wave cover band. I have found some tabs for some arpeggiator parts for songs by Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, New Order. I have been able to open these MIDI parts in Ableton and assign any plug in soft synth etc.

What Im trying to get my head around this, how to set this up for live performance. I know there are several possibilities but Im kind of confused still on how to execute this.

Option #1 - Have the band follow the arp on Ableton. The entire arp for the whole song is already written out thanks to the tabs. Pretty much treat as playing to a click?

Option #2 Hook up singers keyboard to computer via MIDI and.........trigger arp with keyboard keys? Or something like that? This is where Im confused because I know Ableton has a lot of flexibility on this.

Option #3 any other ideas?

[Tone Deft]

POST LINKS!!

practice both ways with the band and see what shakes down.

#2 is slightly more interesting to watch.
#1 could leave someone's hands to do something more interesting.

[Sebastian]

thanks ToneDeft. But for #2....Im confused....would it be press keyboard key once and have it play the whole sequence?

This is a secondary question......if we are successful with this, how do you recommend changing files quickly from song to song?
In other words, after playing Hungry Like The Wolf, I think it would take way too long to close that Ableton file and then re launch the file for say "Blue Monday"

[Tone Deft]

re: #2 it's been a while since I've used an arp but IIRC there's a 'hold' function on it, so it could be 'press once to turn it on' or 'the arp will only play while you hold it down.' with hold on you'd have to stop the song or turn off hold to stop it, IIRC.


as for different songs, I'd make each song it's own scene and maybe its own set of tracks. so, Hungry Like The Wolf could be tracks 1 through 10 on scenes 1 through 5 while Blue Monday could be tracks 11 through 15, scenes 10 through 15.

you know about using instrument racks and the chain selector right? it doesn't save CPU but it's a way to change on the fly what a track does.



LINKS!!! funny, I've googled the guitar tab for thousands of songs, never googled for an arp pattern, I've only done 'Run' by Pink Floyd, that was fun.


hth.



LINKS!!!

[yur2die4]

It all comes down to the drummer.

Do you use a drummer? drum machine? beats on computer??

[Sebastian]

we use a real drummer. we are only 4 and the singer plays some keys but he is not a keys player.

sorry, what is IIRC?

no i dunno nothin about instrument racks no

does it matter if the arp track is MIDI or should it be converted to Audio/wav for whatever reason? I suppose converting it to Audio would allow the elimination of using the soft synth in the MIDI track?? (confused here)

[Tone Deft]

IIRC = if I recall correctly. www.urbandictionary.com is pretty good for picking up on interweb slang.


yes, if it works DEFININTELY bounce to audio, much less strain on your computer which is critical for performance, right?

audio and instrument racks, very cool devices. which version of Live are you on? if you bounce to audio you might not need this trick. this would be a way to have two or more different VSTs on one track.
(this is from memory, it might be off.)

- go to your Live instruments, drop in a MIDI RACK
- it goes into the first 'chain'
- drop another VST onto the rack (anywhere but on the first chain.)
- the second VST goes into second chain.
- similarly you can right click inside a rack and 'create new chain.'

at the left end of the rack are little circular buttons to show different parts of the rack. one is to 'show/hide chain.' enable that one. see the little orange marker? right click in that are and 'distribute evenly.' you should see horizontal bars that show a chain's 'range' in relation to the chain selector. now assign a midi knob to that button to make it move.

try this with two different midi VSTs, play midi notes and move the chain selector.

also notice there are fades between chain selector groups.

of course, check the manual, this is a bit of a deep topic.

hth

[yur2die4]

Electronic or Acoustic drums? Drums get noisy and it is hard for the player to hear what is going on. If you have Ableton Live running melodic content, it either has to go along to the drummer (next to impossible) or the drummer has to play along to it (involves click track). I'd say that the first step is making sure you can get the drummer and ableton live to play along nicely. After that, playing parts off of Live should be a breeze.

[Sebastian]

thanks. drummer just emailed me that he doesnt mind at all playing to click, would just need headphones or monitor.