Anyone using Live in theatre productions?

[madlab]

I use it all the time. About the scenes presets, I think I'm going to try it with Kapture on my next job. The crossfaer trick also was used a couple of time but then you have to think a lot about your track setting and that can be a pain. I agree that the preset system should change. For now I use clip automation to(de)activate some chains or single FX. I'm now starting to use M4L Live. The multichannel tools are a nice addition (considering the lack of true support for multi-output tracks) and I'll see what I can do to add new functions to Live with video, sensors, etc.
And finally I bought Max...

[pepezabala]

have been using live for various theater/dance-productions and love it. For one piece we had live sending midi notes to the lighting computer in order to trigger scenes, worked totally fine.

For automated fades I used dummy clips.

here is a video of a little puppet theatre thing I did this year with friends:

http://vimeo.com/30618010

during the piece I am triggering scenes according to what happens on stage, mix a bit with my nanokontrol, and tweak some sounds and efx live.

This next one was a bigger production, here we mainly produced and then had to start playback on certain cues, but no real live tweaking:

http://www.lamprianidou.com/Per4mer/sitz2_V.html

[Z3NO]

Hello folks. Cheers for your replies.
Since my original post I have found my ideal setup integrating Live with QLab and Yamaha digital sound desk.
The productions I work on tend to have fairly complex cue systems with live instruments, radio mics, multiple sound cue playback with different fade times, video and lighting desk sync etc.
As LeifonMars said, I found that on complex programming, Live is just too much work, where QLab makes life a lot easier, but Qlab falls short on tasks at which Live excels, so a combination of the two working together is perfect for my needs.
I also found that Live is just not reliable enough to take on full responsibility for the show, so I route all the sound through the desk and not the soundcard.
Typically I use Qlab for simple tasks and Live for complicated ones, but still use Qlab to 'fire' all cues using midi routed through Live to trigger scenes and dummy clips which in turn send midi to the sound desk, lighting desk and video server.
This can turn into a bit of a headf**k in the long run, so i keep things simple by handling all cues from Qlab, all automation and envelopes from Live, leaving all of the live sound processing for the desk (except for the effects which I route through Live).
There are many benefits to my setup in my view:
1) By spreading the tasks over different systems I minimise the risk of global failure and each system uses fewer resources.
2) Fewer and more specific tasks make editing much easier.
3) As the live sound is always routed through the desk I can easily switch to manual takeover when s**t hits the fan, so I never lose all sound.
4) Absolutely phantasmagorically intricate levels of automation can be achieved where sound, lighting and video work in perfect sync!

[LeifonMars]

Hello folks. Cheers for your replies.
Since my original post I have found my ideal setup integrating Live with QLab and Yamaha digital sound desk.

Haha, at the theatre we have Live8, QLab complete bundle and Yamaha LS9-32 mixing desk. Pretty ideal, indeed.

[Z3NO]

Sweet. What theatre is this? In which country?
Don't see this kind of setup 'in-house' very often.

[LeifonMars]

Sweet. What theatre is this? In which country?
Don't see this kind of setup 'in-house' very often.

A small town theatre in Finland (don't care to be more precise since I don't want to be identified). Although, we're a small house, we do 1 or 2 musicals per season, and therefore we have pretty complete setup. We used to hire desk and stuff, but luckily theatre management realized that rental costs of 2 seasons cover the expenses of getting own set up.

[Palmer Eldritch]

Beside my personal productions I am working as an audio-engineer in a medium-size theater at a medium-size town in germany (3 stages).

At the smallest (official ) stage we are using a yamaha mixing desk (DM1000) in conjunction with Live on a Mac.

At the 2 bigger stages we are using digital mixing desks from Salzbrenner-Stagetec, also in conjunction with Live on a Mac.
For Video we are using "Wings" on Windows-PCs.

For cue automations like (cross)-fades/routings/effects/etc we use sometimes the scene-sequence of our mixing desks but often we program that directly in Live via the dummy-clip-method or sometimes via the IAC-control-method.

In some cases we are also sending midi-clips to the lightening desk and/or to our video computer.

At the moment we do not using VSTs or AUs for shows because maximum stability is the highest priority while a live-show (for us).

In some dance theater shows we are using the timeline (arrange) view of Live where we have, besides the audio-tracks and the midi-control-video/light-clips, a (pre-produced) video-track with a timecode of the given track which we send to the stage-manager.

Now we also have licenses for m4L and I plan to use some of the patches that I had programmed (if I will be sure that they do not cause trouble).

In our set-up Live is extremely solid in my experience.

Beside Live we also have a ProTools TDM-System in the production studio and native ProTools versions at the show-control-rooms.

As I know, Q-Lab is very common in Great Britain but in germany It seems that Live is very popular for theater-shows at the moment.

cheers, palmer

[swishniak]

It seems that Live is very popular for theater-shows at the moment.

cheers, palmer

i will second that. just finished a tour for a piece i made music for and performed in. im using live on stage. had a backup macbook pro on stage next to me, but never had one blip or crash in 50 shows! (only non-live plugin being guitar rig).

[chris vine]

yep, been using LIve exclusively in theater since Version 4. Never had a crash, but always been aware of trying to keep it simple, minimize 3rd party plugs etc. I usually run the sound and/or perform onstage. If I was designing the sound in a more conventional setup with cue stacks, and another technician running the sound etc, I might be tempted to use something like Q-lab. Not my thing really, listening to cues from the DSM at the side of the stage, but sometimes ya gotta do it.

[Z3NO]

I also do the design process almost entirely within Live, but the cue stack programming is another game for me.
I don't use any 3rd party plugins during show and Live runs along Qlab on a dedicated machine and still, a couple of times I ran into serious problems.
Once I lost sound output through the Master channel on loading a project and another time I lost output channels on the sound card as well as few other minor problems, so since then I'm just too scared to leave too much audio processing in Live's hands.
Some of the production companies I work for would be reluctant to accept "I had to reboot" as an explanation.
In any case, I'm quite liking my setup and so far it has proven rock solid, (touching wood) so i'mma stick with it, but I'm always curious to hear what other people prefer. There's always something to learn.

[swishniak]

nice to hear that so many others out there are using it. id be curious to hear other tips for keeping a stable, crash free setup. my routine usually looks like this:

- not use too many 3rd party plugs
- restart right before performance
- always carry osx system dvd
- backup to time machine the as much as possible on the road

any other practices / superstitions out there?

[Z3NO]

nice to hear that so many others out there are using it. id be curious to hear other tips for keeping a stable, crash free setup. my routine usually looks like this:

- not use too many 3rd party plugs
- restart right before performance
- always carry osx system dvd
- backup to time machine the as much as possible on the road

any other practices / superstitions out there?

I usually keep all my connections wired and turn airport off, if I have to use a wireless connection I use a router connected via ethernet and ad-hoc networks (so airport still remains off).
Label all my connectors and colour code with lx tape according to groups. Makes a huge difference when you're trying to find your XLR cable buried under a pile of lighting/sound/video spaghetti.
Have a proper break and eat some food before the show.

[chris vine]

Well, I agree routing through a hardware mixer is a good idea - and have audio backup via MD or CD if you are really worried.
If the theater doesn't have a UPS, bring yr own for your system!

Yes, disable WIFI, internet, firewall etc etc just have the system purely for the job at hand.

If you have a solid audio card like an RME you should be OK especially if you are just playing clips on cue.

I am still using XP and my laptop is stretched to the limit CPU/RAM wise, so I tend to run Ccleaner just before a show just to clean out the system.

The only problem I have encountered was a faulty XLR connector on a DI box shorting out the 48v phantom power whenever a dancer jumped on the stage - this caused a shitty M Audio card to lose the FW connection and I did a reboot of the whole thing (onstage) while a technician played a cd track - that was quite stressful - and then the midi controllers were not recognized by Live on reboot so I had to use the trackpad for the rest of the show.

[Z3NO]

Well, I agree routing through a hardware mixer is a good idea - and have audio backup via MD or CD if you are really worried.
If the theater doesn't have a UPS, bring yr own for your system!

Yes, disable WIFI, internet, firewall etc etc just have the system purely for the job at hand.

If you have a solid audio card like an RME you should be OK especially if you are just playing clips on cue.

I am still using XP and my laptop is stretched to the limit CPU/RAM wise, so I tend to run Ccleaner just before a show just to clean out the system.

The only problem I have encountered was a faulty XLR connector on a DI box shorting out the 48v phantom power whenever a dancer jumped on the stage - this caused a shitty M Audio card to lose the FW connection and I did a reboot of the whole thing (onstage) while a technician played a cd track - that was quite stressful - and then the midi controllers were not recognized by Live on reboot so I had to use the trackpad for the rest of the show.

Yeah. I don't have any midi controllers attached to the Mac. Only one single easy 'GO' button which looks like this.


The 'Spacebar' wasn't really cutting it for me.

[chris vine]

nice, me like