Playing live with Live

Share your favorite Ableton Live tips, tricks, and techniques.
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johndoe99
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue May 03, 2005 7:00 pm
Location: Pittsburgh

Playing live with Live

Post by johndoe99 » Tue May 03, 2005 7:09 pm

Hi there --

I have solely used ACID, Sound Forge, and FruityLoops for my entire electronic music career (probably 4-5 years now) but -- after a few of my remixes have gained some attention here in Pittsbugh -- people have just started asking me to play out live for the first time...

...I have no idea what this entails, but I do know that the software I use currently is incapable of it. It's also all unavailable for Mac, which is what my laptop is. Ableton Live seems like the best and, really, only solution!

So, my question is this: How possible would it be for me to remix "on-the-fly," i.e. take acapella tracks that have already been "warped" so that they are on beat and mix them, LIVE, with whatever instrumental tracks I choose -- possibly cross-fading the instrumentals under the vocals and/or switching up vocals in mid-song? Furthmore, what sort of hardware would I need for this?

I'm sorry if this is a topic that has already been extensively covered. Any help would be very greatly appreciated.

hambone1
Posts: 5346
Joined: Fri Feb 04, 2005 8:31 pm
Location: Abu Dhabi

Post by hambone1 » Thu May 05, 2005 2:30 pm

Live will do ALL that... and plenty more!

So pony up your dough, hit the manual hard, and then send any questions out into this forum. You'll find many experts here who are all too willing to help anyone who's made the effort to buy the program, read the manual, and search the forum first. There are some superb third-party books out there, too. And a fair degree of literacy helps.

Welcome! :D

AndrewDuke
Posts: 346
Joined: Thu Apr 21, 2005 4:46 am
Location: Halifax NS Canada
Contact:

Re: Playing live with Live

Post by AndrewDuke » Thu May 05, 2005 4:14 pm

johndoe99 wrote:Hi there --

I have solely used ACID, Sound Forge, and FruityLoops for my entire electronic music career (probably 4-5 years now) but -- after a few of my remixes have gained some attention here in Pittsbugh -- people have just started asking me to play out live for the first time...

...I have no idea what this entails, but I do know that the software I use currently is incapable of it. It's also all unavailable for Mac, which is what my laptop is. Ableton Live seems like the best and, really, only solution!

So, my question is this: How possible would it be for me to remix "on-the-fly," i.e. take acapella tracks that have already been "warped" so that they are on beat and mix them, LIVE, with whatever instrumental tracks I choose -- possibly cross-fading the instrumentals under the vocals and/or switching up vocals in mid-song? Furthmore, what sort of hardware would I need for this?

I'm sorry if this is a topic that has already been extensively covered. Any help would be very greatly appreciated.
download the demo and get playing and you'll want to buy it soon thereafter. i regularly feature live remixes in my live performances.
you can check em in the listen section here: http://andrew-duke.com

andrew

Maurice
Posts: 48
Joined: Sat May 08, 2004 9:46 pm
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Contact:

Post by Maurice » Fri May 13, 2005 2:48 am

John,

As a fellow Pittsburgher playing live with Live, I can tell you that it can be done. You can do a lot on the fly, but I find that one's life gets a lot easier the more you set up in advance. That said, you'll want to leave a range of options available to make decisions in the moment, so that you'll actually be having fun playing, as opposed to just making scene changes.

I'll be using Live next Thursday evening (May 19, 7-8PM) outside Ethnic Artz (1102 E. Carson on the South Side), playing guitar (processed and looped through Live) and pre-structured percussion (again, done in Live) for a troupe of belly dancers. It'll be free, so come on down and feel free to ask questions afterward.

Cheers,
Maurice

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