How to move your arranged tracks to live session performance

[Gregory Wells-King]

I picked up a link from a forum user about Tom Cosm tutorials, which are great and a bit different from the norm, and found this great tutorial about moving your arranged productions into session sets for live performance.

Something that has nagged me, since starting with live, creating tracks not a problem in either view, but getting to a live audience a bit more tricky.

For some reason I overlooked this simple method, and it's really really pleasing to watch.

I feel like xmas has come early for all my latest tracks.

Thanks Tom..

http://vimeo.com/1701545

[Wunjo]

Tom's a pretty cool dude, I'm thinking about asking to meet up and smoke a fattie with him when I go to New Zealand next year.

[sexface]

This is one of the best tutorials I have ever seen and revolutionized my live performance.

The only workarounds I had to find were the use of Sends! What is interesting, though, is that the more I used this method, the less I used Sends in my compositions. Tom got inside my brain!

[Gregory Wells-King]

Nice one !!

Yes I've been experimenting today after work, and can see I need a few more tracks than 6>8 and need to extend my launch quantization to 16 bars to give time to muck around while in the mix, but the basic idea is really sound, lives 'Resample' mode is worth a mention for the need to remove input noise, a feature of Live 8's upgrade. but a really helpful one to preserve a quality mix.

As you so rightly said, He's insidemy head also, somehow dusting of thoughts you'vr hsd before, "I must get around to, etc etc"

[Kent_in_CO]

Yup...this was a total gamechanger for me too. I did a presentation at a meetup a few days ago spreading the word about this approach. Anyone who wants to play their own tracks at gigs needs to know about it.

One note about sends/returns: Tom doesn't cover it in his video, but there's a way to get the output from your returns (reverb, delay, etc.) into the resampled format. On the I/O setting, just select one of the "live" tracks instead of the Master. I route my sends to a track that I call "Texture," similar to what Tom has for "Rest." This helps me maintain any ambiance that I've dialed in with reverb on a send, along with anything else on a send/return.

Mind's kinda fuzzy today; hope that made sense!

Kent // SEVEN7H WAVE // www.seven7hwave.com

[outershpongolia]

This is one of the best tutorials I have ever seen and revolutionized my live performance.

The only workarounds I had to find were the use of Sends! What is interesting, though, is that the more I used this method, the less I used Sends in my compositions. Tom got inside my brain!

I ran into this problem too, with the sends.. basically I just got rid of thme in my production template and I use delays and reverbs ON the actual tracks..

OR

I limit myself to only ONE group using the sends ( usually my "synth/effects" group ) and then route those to that resample track..

I did like the idea of sending those tails into the "Rest" ( I call it XTRA ) but then if I cut out one of the synths you would still hear the tails? thought that'd be sortof awkward..

I love this setup, what I do is get the audio back into session view in that 8 scene by 6 track chunk and I drag that to the browser..

NOW I can drag and drop FULL songs in their chunks.. EMPTY live set to start, drag and drop your chunks in to make your set..

[23kon]

That video is an interesting watch and an inspiring way of converting from studio to gig situation.

At the moment i've got lots of tunes that I need to transfer into something usable for playing gigs and will probably end up doing something very similar.

I could see me ending up with more than 8 tracks though so there could be more drum-breakdown able to be done within songs.
I'd also be keeping some of the Midi Synths as midi so they could be tweaked in a live situation.

To me that would give a good balance between having too little to do and too much to do when playing gigs.

This kind of freedom was what I was expecting to see when this guys video started off as he moaned at seeing people playing gigs with ableton live and they werent actually "doing" anything, just playing songs.
But that's all he's really doing too - but will sometimes break down the tracks.

Have you guys checked out his other videos, some interesting stuff.

[outershpongolia]

That video is an interesting watch and an inspiring way of converting from studio to gig situation.

At the moment i've got lots of tunes that I need to transfer into something usable for playing gigs and will probably end up doing something very similar.

I could see me ending up with more than 8 tracks though so there could be more drum-breakdown able to be done within songs.
I'd also be keeping some of the Midi Synths as midi so they could be tweaked in a live situation.

To me that would give a good balance between having too little to do and too much to do when playing gigs.

This kind of freedom was what I was expecting to see when this guys video started off as he moaned at seeing people playing gigs with ableton live and they werent actually "doing" anything, just playing songs.
But that's all he's really doing too - but will sometimes break down the tracks.

Have you guys checked out his other videos, some interesting stuff.

The beauty of it is that he doesn't have to worry about making it completely live all the time .. cause he can just ride it out with the follow actions if he needs to.. but then at the same time it's versitile enough to start switching things up and getting as deep as you want live when you're comfortable with what's going on. So it's like having a backup plan, but you can still get down how you want.

much deeper if you keep some MIDI synths in tact and do more than 6 or so tracks like you said, so while you're taking care of those live, you might like the computer to handle other things meanwhile, if you want it to.

[23kon]

yeah that was my thought, keep the automated-ness (ok im making up words now) of the song playing itself but still being hands-on with synths.

That'd be my perfect setup and the way im going to tackle live performance going forward

[outershpongolia]

I'm not much of a keys player, but I always figured if I was going to have a certain soft synth sound on hand per-song, I would fix up something with program change messages, and limit myself to making all of the patches in one synth. then you can have MIDI dummy clips sending program changes - so right along with launching a scene for the next song, you're automatically changing to the right patch.

[Gregory Wells-King]

The configurations are endless, but somewhere in between a unique live performance, allowing you a free hand to play somesamples/Key's or add atmosphere, (what ever your level of musicianship) the beauty is it releases the best element of Ableton Live for the unlimited potential in both non and trained musicians. We all meet on some comon ground..in these difficult times, I kinda like that...

I'm glad we've found something useful..

G...

[sexface]

Yup...this was a total gamechanger for me too. I did a presentation at a meetup a few days ago spreading the word about this approach. Anyone who wants to play their own tracks at gigs needs to know about it.

One note about sends/returns: Tom doesn't cover it in his video, but there's a way to get the output from your returns (reverb, delay, etc.) into the resampled format. On the I/O setting, just select one of the "live" tracks instead of the Master. I route my sends to a track that I call "Texture," similar to what Tom has for "Rest." This helps me maintain any ambiance that I've dialed in with reverb on a send, along with anything else on a send/return.

Mind's kinda fuzzy today; hope that made sense!

Kent // SEVEN7H WAVE // http://www.seven7hwave.com

Yeah, this is what I end up doing and it ends up working out great! I am also coming around to the idea of the track not sounding EXACTLY how it was recorded, haha.