How I manage many live sets on stage
Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 11:27 pm
This is a follow-up post to this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=195685 and this: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=195714&p=1539079#p1539079.
Like a lot of people, I write each new song in a new live set and use a lot of crazy VSTs and ableton devices with live effects like side-chaining, etc. I've always had a hard time figuring out how to perform these on stage when switching sets, CPU usage other stage considerations (live musicians, normalize tracks to house sound check), etc come into play. This is how I do it:
Goals:
- Keep CPU managable.
- Switching songs had to be a no-brainer, and use Push's session view.
- Normalize levels to match house sound check.
- Retain ability to record loops and play songs live just like in song's original Live set.
The hardest part was figuring out how to consolidate all my song's stuff into a single track schema using at most 8 tracks, which requires some thought with pen and paper unique to your personal needs. In my case, some songs have 2 audio tracks and 4 midi tracks, some have 1 midi track and 4 audio tracks, etc. So I had to find the lowest common denominator between all of them:
- A dummy MIDI channel that I will get to later. This part is RAD.
- 3 audio tracks for either my live instruments or the occasional audio clip.
- 3 MIDI tracks for either live MIDI instruments or the occasional audio clip simulated using a MIDI drum rack.
HOW IT LOOKS WHEN I PERFORM:
TRACK CONFIG
- Create a parent instrument or audio effect rack in each audio or midi track.
- Create a chain in each parent rack for each of your songs. Copy your instruments/effects for the song there.
- Name the first macro in the parent rack "Song"
- Map the parent rack's chain ruler to the "Song" macro and map each one to the index you want to use for that song.
- Map "Device On" for each child instrument or audio effect rack in the chain to only be enabled for the appropriate index (min=2,max=2 for song #2). This ensures that only the current song's devices are executing to save CPU.
- Set the chain's gain to match the mixer value in the song's original live set. I still need to figure out a way to raise or lower all chains in a single song at once.
- I didn't have enough audio tracks for all my audio clips, so I put them on one of the MIDI tracks using a drum rack and a simpler with square envelope (0ms release), 0db level, Vel 0.0%. TIP: ctrl-click (on mac) a one of simpler's settings and select "Copy value to siblings" to copy that value to the other simplers on the drum rack.
MIDI LOOPBACK (TOTALLY RAD PART)
The real trick here is how to change the parent's Song Macro all of the tracks at once. Mapping each macro to a hardware MIDI knob would do it, but for a few reasons it would be better to have one message go out with the exact value, and have this automated with setting the tempo on the scene so I don't have to think about it. The solution is to use a MIDI Loopback device to send the song as a CC value from the dummy MIDI clip in the first scene for each song. My example uses the IAC Bus on mac, but I've heard you can also do this using MIDIYoke on Windows.
Once you set this up, you'll realize that you could instantly configure anything in your entire set from that one MIDI clip. Holy crap.
ON-STAGE FLOW
Then when on stage, you have all of your tracks in a nice unified format, Your CPU is down to a single song's load, and all you have to do to start a new song is navigate there on Push's session view, trigger the first scene, arm your first track, and start playing. Here's how it all works:
Like a lot of people, I write each new song in a new live set and use a lot of crazy VSTs and ableton devices with live effects like side-chaining, etc. I've always had a hard time figuring out how to perform these on stage when switching sets, CPU usage other stage considerations (live musicians, normalize tracks to house sound check), etc come into play. This is how I do it:
Goals:
- Keep CPU managable.
- Switching songs had to be a no-brainer, and use Push's session view.
- Normalize levels to match house sound check.
- Retain ability to record loops and play songs live just like in song's original Live set.
The hardest part was figuring out how to consolidate all my song's stuff into a single track schema using at most 8 tracks, which requires some thought with pen and paper unique to your personal needs. In my case, some songs have 2 audio tracks and 4 midi tracks, some have 1 midi track and 4 audio tracks, etc. So I had to find the lowest common denominator between all of them:
- A dummy MIDI channel that I will get to later. This part is RAD.
- 3 audio tracks for either my live instruments or the occasional audio clip.
- 3 MIDI tracks for either live MIDI instruments or the occasional audio clip simulated using a MIDI drum rack.
HOW IT LOOKS WHEN I PERFORM:
TRACK CONFIG
- Create a parent instrument or audio effect rack in each audio or midi track.
- Create a chain in each parent rack for each of your songs. Copy your instruments/effects for the song there.
- Name the first macro in the parent rack "Song"
- Map the parent rack's chain ruler to the "Song" macro and map each one to the index you want to use for that song.
- Map "Device On" for each child instrument or audio effect rack in the chain to only be enabled for the appropriate index (min=2,max=2 for song #2). This ensures that only the current song's devices are executing to save CPU.
- Set the chain's gain to match the mixer value in the song's original live set. I still need to figure out a way to raise or lower all chains in a single song at once.
- I didn't have enough audio tracks for all my audio clips, so I put them on one of the MIDI tracks using a drum rack and a simpler with square envelope (0ms release), 0db level, Vel 0.0%. TIP: ctrl-click (on mac) a one of simpler's settings and select "Copy value to siblings" to copy that value to the other simplers on the drum rack.
MIDI LOOPBACK (TOTALLY RAD PART)
The real trick here is how to change the parent's Song Macro all of the tracks at once. Mapping each macro to a hardware MIDI knob would do it, but for a few reasons it would be better to have one message go out with the exact value, and have this automated with setting the tempo on the scene so I don't have to think about it. The solution is to use a MIDI Loopback device to send the song as a CC value from the dummy MIDI clip in the first scene for each song. My example uses the IAC Bus on mac, but I've heard you can also do this using MIDIYoke on Windows.
Once you set this up, you'll realize that you could instantly configure anything in your entire set from that one MIDI clip. Holy crap.
ON-STAGE FLOW
Then when on stage, you have all of your tracks in a nice unified format, Your CPU is down to a single song's load, and all you have to do to start a new song is navigate there on Push's session view, trigger the first scene, arm your first track, and start playing. Here's how it all works: