Anyone using Live in theatre productions?

[Z3NO]

I'm interested to know if anybody's using Live to control a theatre show in a cue stack system rather then for sound design/production, and what your experiences are.

[Angstrom]

I have done, although not in the last year or so.
The biggest lack, was of crossfade between scenes.
So a transition from an "interior" scene to an exterior scene would be abrupt, rather than being able to manage a smooth transition. I concocted a way, but the nature of the show meant that at the transitions I was also busy resetting triggers and manually selecting presets for the triggerable samples ( the performers had foot triggers).
It was a good experience, but lacking a couple of small functions which would have made it easy.
Scene-to-scene crossfades, and simple rack "presets".

[Z3NO]

There is a neat way of solving this problem by having a midi track assigned to 'control', then sending CC messages via clip Midi ctrl though the IAC bus to handle both automation and triggering of scenes.

Did you have anything else (lighting, video) controlled via Live?

[Angstrom]

There is a neat way of solving this problem by having a midi track assigned to 'control', then sending CC messages via clip Midi ctrl though the IAC bus to handle both automation and triggering of scenes.

that's pretty much how I handle my preset changing worries.In fact you don't actually need the IAC bus or other virtual routing.

If you make a master rack to contain each 'preset' and use chain select zone/ranges then you can pick your presets using the chain select. Assign a macro which changes the chain select. That macro can be either manually turned, or automated via clip based modulation. So now you only need a clip marked "preset 2" and pressing it will turn the macro (and the chain select) to pick out the required 'rack preset'

That said : it's a pretty shitty workaround, and I would really love a simple "Live" preset manager which can be given a list of presets used in the set, and a nice big preset name display. But hell, for now most of us are stuck with this chain select nonsense.
here's a longer discussion of this method, http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... 4#p1042274

Did you have anything else (lighting, video) controlled via Live?

No, all of the visual side was handled by a program called Isadora. It's a boxes-and-wires app created by a friend of mine specifically for performers to trigger visuals. IE: it's simple to use, but powerful, and you dont feel compelled to enroll on a 2 year night course to understand what the hell variable scoping/private variables are, like some boxes and wires apps around here *cough* *cough*.

Again - that visual side was mainly triggered by performers, with me babysitting the Isadora scenes via a midi controller.


I'm not really a theatre guy, but I have been involved in creating live performance stuff like this a few times. Compared to performing music live on stage it's pretty easy!
It's less stress than performing, you get a chair and a desk light, you can have a crib sheet, and a cup of coffee/beer. I found it all very relaxing.

The app is fully capable of doing whats required, at least - I didn't find a better system

[Z3NO]

M4L isn't really well suited for these purposes. And the learning curve is way too steep.
My goal is to experiment using Live as an easy but powerful alternative to already existing systems and setups and find ways to actually simplify things rather then complicate them further. Trying to program Max patches to control the technical elements of large productions like this one would be an unnecessarily large effort.

[Z3NO]

@ Angstrom. Thanks for your reply. I am familiar with the chain selector.

I didn't know Isadora, I'll take a closer look, but as I intend to let an external media server handle the video, I doubt It'll be much use to me, I was instead considering using Live to control an on-board lighting package like Chamsys MagicQ, which in turn would control both lighting and the external media server. Anyone has any experience with something like this?

[luddy]

It was a good experience, but lacking a couple of small functions which would have made it easy.
Scene-to-scene crossfades, and simple rack "presets".

Was there no possibility of using Live's crossfader here, by assigning half the tracks to the A side and half to the B side, and fading from left to right and vice-versa at each scene change?

-Luddy

[Z3NO]

Thanks Peter, as i said i am very familiar with Max and what it can do, and as i also mentioned, it is not well suited (not said it's not possible to do) for the purposes of what i'm trying to achieve. I see Max as having to reinvent the wheel each time... just does not cut it.

maybe i've not explained myself clearly enough, all i'm trying to do, is implement Live in currently used industry standard setups to simplify a few things, namely I'm referring to programs like Qlab, which is currently pretty much an industry standard/leader (in my view undeservedly) in theatre show control/operation.

On productions like the one i posted (perhaps not the best example) that may require control of 150 moving lights, 100 generics, 10 universes of LED fixtures, 6 video projections and multichannel playback mixed with live sound, i need for someone to have written the majority of the code for me, (like the kind folks at Ableton) and not have to create it all myself from scratch (like using Max)

now in light of all this, has anyone come across similar setups?

[borg]

I've used Live for several years in theatre productions, although only as a big sequenced sampler/plug host, and sometimes with a live input or two.
For mega productions as the forzabruta in your link, I'd forget about doing it all in Live, you'd at least need several computers.
When shopping for a lighting desk, I once saw a demo of the e:cue software, which involved led walls, moving lights, video, audio... you might use live to trigger events in the soft.

I have always kept it 'simple' and never ran into problems (hardware audio mixer, lighting desk, video mixer/matrix, live camera's, computer for prerecorded video, computer for soundscapes), even doing such shows on my own (although operating all those machines during busy scene changes was an act on its own and needed lots of practice too to feel comfortable).

[chapelier fou]

It really depends on what kind of things you want to do....

I use live for theatre things when I got to play synths, or particular live effects. But it's true that the scenes system with no crossfades is more suitable for songs.

For soundscapes, continuous sound and heavy processing, the best remains audiomulch. I've used it with dancers and theatre and it is awesome.

[Z3NO]

I've used Live for several years in theatre productions, although only as a big sequenced sampler/plug host, and sometimes with a live input or two.
For mega productions as the forzabruta in your link, I'd forget about doing it all in Live, you'd at least need several computers.
When shopping for a lighting desk, I once saw a demo of the e:cue software, which involved led walls, moving lights, video, audio... you might use live to trigger events in the soft.

I have always kept it 'simple' and never ran into problems (hardware audio mixer, lighting desk, video mixer/matrix, live camera's, computer for prerecorded video, computer for soundscapes), even doing such shows on my own (although operating all those machines during busy scene changes was an act on its own and needed lots of practice too to feel comfortable).

Now we're on the same track...
I've also previously always used Live separately from lighting and video, and always mainly just to run live sound and effects. But since I've discovered the possibilities of the IAC driver, I've been wanting to experiment with implementing it as a means of full show control. Of course I would still let something else control both lighting and video. Video preferably on it's own separate media server, but operation could be centralised all within Live. I've not looked at e:cue before, looks interesting. I've used Chamsys products on large scale shows before and they've always proved very stable and incredibly resource efficient, so I'm fairly certain the software could happily run alongside Live on the same laptop. Like you point out, my main area of concern is stability, so I'm not really quite confident enough to recommend it on my next production and don't really have the time or money to invest in hiring out a rig just for testing purposes...

But I find the possibility has a lot of potential.

[Z3NO]

It really depends on what kind of things you want to do....

I use live for theatre things when I got to play synths, or particular live effects. But it's true that the scenes system with no crossfades is more suitable for songs.

For soundscapes, continuous sound and heavy processing, the best remains audiomulch. I've used it with dancers and theatre and it is awesome.

I've solved the scenes crossfades issues long ago. Using the IAC bus. Works a charm.

[Rupert Brown]

I saw a launchpad in a theater the other day actually, couldn't see his laptop but I think he was hitting audio and lighting queues off it.

[Nortniluhreg]

I have used Ableton as my main tool for sound design in theatre. I am a theatre artist and sound artist and ableton is my tool of choice from beginning to end in the entire sound creation process for a piece of theatre. Ableton is exremely versatile because I can pretty much make whatever sound I want and then send it wherever I want. I recently did a show that took place in a robot culture where the appliances talk to you and by having the appliances placed near the speaker audience members saw the illusion of people talking to their appliances. Myself as the sound operator got to, in some ways be a puppeteer to fire off all the talking cues to interact with the actor rather than just listen to one talking track with timed pauses that the actor has to get perfectly. Audience members were curious and captivated by the sound design.
The way I dealt with things like cross fades between ques would be by using dummy clips rather than the built in cross fade ableton has. Each channel goes to its own dummy channel before it goes to the master. The clips in the dummy channel are silent but they contain envelopes for things like volume, panning, effects, etc. So if I want to cross fade between cues I would have the cues on two separate sound channels that each have their own dummy clip. It would look like:
all tracks @ 60 bpm so that one beat = one second
cue 1: channel 1 sound plays, dummy 1 volume envelope rises over 4 beats.
cue 2: channel 2 sound plays, dummy 2 volume envelope rises over 8 beats, dummy 1 volume envelope falls through 4 beats.
So one of the nice things in this case is that the sound can play in the sound channel and not be heard because the volume envelope is down in the dummy clip.
Using dummy clips is key to my process and delivery for theater sound design. . Ableton has everything a sound designer needs to deliver sound in theatre.Add M4L and your capabilities are endless, you could start adding video to your cues if you had jitter.

[LeifonMars]

I also do all the sound design stuff in Live, but to create and launch quelists I find Live somewhat too much work, especially when we have QLab as well, which is excellent for that.