Live performance and setup

[Johnnyjazz]

Hello folks.
With your permission I'd like to illuminate myself by asking what is the best way in organizing tracks and clips (in session view) for live perfomance with push and a keyboard? To be specific, let's say I have 6 songs (transitioning to one another), each having different Bass patch, drum sounds and percussive elements, and one song represents a scene. Regarding the Drums, is it better to have each sound sepparately on tracks (kick, snare, hat etc), or in a drum rack for every song? If so, does that mean that I'll have to work with 6 drum racks on 6 tracks only for drums? And that's valid for the bass and synth too.

Many Thanks !

[Tagor]

it doesent work that way, i think.

there are different ways.

- one and most common is to freeze & flatten

- the other is to have 2 workstations to perform live

- on win you can run 2 instances of live
one played via push the other by an apc
but your keyboard will only work for one instance

- you can try to build up your set by dropping tracks
and deleting live whats not needed

- helpfull can also be clyphx
speccialy when you want live to go automatically to notemode or drumrack
after scene-trigger

[TomKern]

@Tagor
WTF are you on about?! Nothing in OPs description even remotely demands two instances of Live or two computers

To OP:

It's a bit difficult to say what you need to do because you have not told us how you plan to play your music.

For instance, when you ask if you need several DrumRacks does that mean you plan to input your drums live? i.e. via a step sequencer or by finger drumming. Or do you just plan to play back prepared clips.
The same question goes for the rest. Basically we would need to know what exactly you mean by playing "live", before we can give better advise.
But whatever the answer is, you can rest assured you won't need a second instance of Live or even a second computer to do so

[Stromkraft]

whatever the answer is, you can rest assured you won't need a second instance of Live or even a second computer to do so :wink:

I don't think I'm agreeing wholeheartedly on this. I'm struggling moving finished sets to a performance context myself.

There are certainly obstacles to route around putting multiple sets into one set. Which is what you want considering loading times of Live sets. These issues shouldn't be glossed over even if there exist workarounds. Not every system and song structure can accommodate these. I suggest some careful exploration of the possibilities in the sets in question.

I do agree merging into one set to be a first option to try when setting up a live performance as it makes things easier to have all material under your fingers.

You're also right how you intend to perform is of importance here for how you specifically set up your sets and your instruments within these.

[Johnnyjazz]

@Tagor


It's a bit difficult to say what you need to do because you have not told us how you plan to play your music.

So. I'm a keyboardist and I wanna playback from my Mac clips in a live set, consisting of several pieces that imply different drum sounds per piece, bass and synth. I'm not sure how to organize the beats and bass mainly. Do I have to have a sepparate track with a drum rack for every song?

Again, I'm thinking of a live set of 6,7 pieces organized in scenes in Session View.
one refference that comes to mind is Taylor McFerrin...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdt9OnZKxak

[Johnnyjazz]

For instance, when you ask if you need several DrumRacks does that mean you plan to input your drums live? i.e. via a step sequencer or by finger drumming. Or do you just plan to play back prepared clips.
The same question goes for the rest. Basically we would need to know what exactly you mean by playing "live", before we can give better advise.
But whatever the answer is, you can rest assured you won't need a second instance of Live or even a second computer to do so

You are saying that if I only playback clips I can import them from other projects in the live set without having to build drum racks on the tracks in the live set i wanna use live? And if I intend to play the grooves ocassionaly by finger then I have to have drum racks on different tracks for every song....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWl6VV2fBUQ

[TomKern]

whatever the answer is, you can rest assured you won't need a second instance of Live or even a second computer to do so

I don't think I'm agreeing wholeheartedly on this. I'm struggling moving finished sets to a performance context myself.

There are certainly obstacles to route around putting multiple sets into one set. Which is what you want considering loading times of Live sets. These issues shouldn't be glossed over even if there exist workarounds. Not every system and song structure can accommodate these. I suggest some careful exploration of the possibilities in the sets in question.

I do agree merging into one set to be a first option to try when setting up a live performance as it makes things easier to have all material under your fingers.

You're also right how you intend to perform is of importance here for how you specifically set up your sets and your instruments within these.

Yeah maybe I was a bit harsh to Tagor, I tend to do that. Sorry.
But still OPs post read not like he wanted to run different live sets, but he was specifically talking about having different scenes and different drum racks in one set. Which is also the smart way to do it. So suggesting to go with different instances of Live seemed like really bad advise to me.

[Tagor]

have you ever heard of programmchangemessage ?

depending on your bass-vst or synth you can try to change the bass-patches via clip-trigger.
on drumracks you can rack(group) all your drumkits and select/mute/unmute them via chainselectors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHp30S7tzgs

i told you, there are different approaches.
ask 5 and when you lucky you get 7and an half answers.

until live can not load 2 sets along byside, it will be always a hassle to transition
2 creations, thats the point of 2 instances or 2 workstations.

of course you can pre-record 2 audio tracks, put them on different scenes and play
some tones on a chosen instrument-rack to that, but where was the point to have access
to the elements of the track in a live-situation ?

best way is to learn the software and find a comfortable way to deal with it.

[TomKern]

So. I'm a keyboardist and I wanna playback from my Mac clips in a live set, consisting of several pieces that imply different drum sounds per piece, bass and synth. I'm not sure how to organize the beats and bass mainly. Do I have to have a sepparate track with a drum rack for every song?

Again, I'm thinking of a live set of 6,7 pieces organized in scenes in Session View.

What I'm saying is that I can not answer this question for you. You need to decide how exactly you want to play your music, before we can make suggestions that help you set it up.

But just musing here to maybe help you think about this a bit more clearly. When you talk about being a keyboardist I assume that is the important part for you to do live right?! Meaning you'd want to play melodies live with a keyboard probably with different patches of a synth plug-in.
If you for instance always used the same synth and that synth even accepts Program Change messages to change patches you are in luck, because that will be very easy to do via different clips triggering the patch change so that you just have to start playing. It gets a bit more difficult if you used different synths, but not by very much.

Which then leads to the question of how do you want to play the other instruments (bass, drums). Are you happy with them simply playing back from pre-made clips? Then you can print everything to audio and then just separate them into the pieces for different parts or even songs. To use them as backing tracks for your keyboard playing (though I would probably separate them a bit further into more clips and scenes so that you have different scenes for verses and chorus etc.)

If you want to input the drums yourself live then the situation changes of course. But also that leaves several options. For instance do you want to work with one shot single hits, or would you rather work with longer parts. Maybe you even want to loop those parts and simply trigger loops creatively.

Really there are so many different ways to play electronic music live. You will have to think about what you want to do, what you can manage to do and how you plan to do it.

We can then help with the specifics once you made up your mind about those things

Good luck

[TomKern]

Hey Tagor, sorry again if I came across a bit too rude last night

on drumracks you can rack(group) all your drumkits and select/mute/unmute them via chainselectors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHp30S7tzgs

May I suggest in this case to rather go with Samplers on each drum pad and then simply use the SampleSelector to change the samples of the active kit via clip envelopes. Seems a lot more straight forward to me.

[Tagor]

@ Tom
sentences starting with WTF into my direction i principly do not take personal. so no worries

@ JohnnJazz
Learn ClyphX
Buy an Apc or launchpad
use your Push as Instrument & the apc/Lp to navigate thru the scenes
script you clips via clyphx, so that they point your keyboardfocus (arm) or push midi-input
to the instruments you wanna play when the scene is triggered.

i am sure that way you will have no problem, but instant fun, and this Taylor McFlurry thing will be boring
quick because you possibilties to rock live will be beyond over that what i saw in this boileroom.

you need only 1 Instance to do this, until you get the Idea that you wanna load a new set...
in this case you better prepare some transition and play them back via winamp or what the people use today
or you beatbox and clap in your hands until ableton live loaded your new-set-or-track.als

[TomKern]

[Tagor]

So. I'm a keyboardist and I wanna playback from my Mac clips in a live set, consisting of several pieces that imply different drum sounds per piece, bass and synth. I'm not sure how to organize the beats and bass mainly. Do I have to have a sepparate track with a drum rack for every song?

Again, I'm thinking of a live set of 6,7 pieces organized in scenes in Session View.

What I'm saying is that I can not answer this question for you. You need to decide how exactly you want to play your music, before we can make suggestions that help you set it up.

But just musing here to maybe help you think about this a bit more clearly. When you talk about being a keyboardist I assume that is the important part for you to do live right?! Meaning you'd want to play melodies live with a keyboard probably with different patches of a synth plug-in.
If you for instance always used the same synth and that synth even accepts Program Change messages to change patches you are in luck, because that will be very easy to do via different clips triggering the patch change so that you just have to start playing. It gets a bit more difficult if you used different synths, but not by very much.

Which then leads to the question of how do you want to play the other instruments (bass, drums). Are you happy with them simply playing back from pre-made clips? Then you can print everything to audio and then just separate them into the pieces for different parts or even songs. To use them as backing tracks for your keyboard playing (though I would probably separate them a bit further into more clips and scenes so that you have different scenes for verses and chorus etc.)

If you want to input the drums yourself live then the situation changes of course. But also that leaves several options. For instance do you want to work with one shot single hits, or would you rather work with longer parts. Maybe you even want to loop those parts and simply trigger loops creatively.

Really there are so many different ways to play electronic music live. You will have to think about what you want to do, what you can manage to do and how you plan to do it.

We can then help with the specifics once you made up your mind about those things

Good luck

^^^nailed it to the point

[Schmidi]

What I typically do:
-- layout your song in arrangement
-- add automation and some fills (so your soon to be loops are more interesting and you don't have to work as hard live)
-- bounce all song elements into 7 distinct audio tracks (kick/snare, perc/cymbal, bass, leads, synths, fx, vocals = 1-7)
-- you launch these elements from your Push live
-- Track 8 is your "live" track. In your case it sounds like drum racks
-- make track 8 an instrument rack with a nested drum rack chain for each of your full songs
-- make a midi clip for each scene which chain selects the instrument rack to the appropriate drum rack, thus you will have the correct drum rack each time you change scenes.

You could mix it up and have simplers/samplers too if you'd rather play notes live.

Hope that makes sense.

Schmidi

[Johnnyjazz]

[/quote]

What I'm saying is that I can not answer this question for you. You need to decide how exactly you want to play your music, before we can make suggestions that help you set it up.

Thanks for the link ! To be more specific, I intend to play programmed midi clip grooves by mye, not long sample style rhythmic/melodic phrases. And besides this, bass and synth pads all from my Mac. My question was strictly about the different prerecorded drum kits,bass and synths sounds needed in every song in a live set and how to organize them in session view to play them, for a minimum of 6 songs.