Performing Live

[SirEsquire]

Got a question for the community here.

First of all, how many of you perform original material live with Ableton that you've composed with Ableton? Second, just how do you perform those original tunes live?

My live performances are of all original material that I've composed with Ableton. As of right now, I pretty much just open the song (or Set) that I wish to perform, and then the live performance is mainly just me re-mixing the song - mainly by launching the many different clips that I have. I admit that this is not an ideal way to perform live, but the only controller I have at the moment is a Launchpad, and launching clips is really the only thing it's good at. I plan on adding another controller that will allow me to manipulate and control multiple effects to further enhance the live performance.

At this point, I'm really curious as to how you guys/girls perform your material live. Are there other ideas or ways to perform a song composed in Ableton beyond just launching clips? I'm sure there are, and I'd love some suggestions!

To get an idea of the kind of music I make, check out:
www.soundcloud.com/matthewbarlow

[kanuck]

personally i'd say try and play some of the parts yourself. this really adds a lot to the performance in an audience's point of view. twiddling knobs and making adjustments can be visual but not nearly as much as seeing someone playing the notes directly.

Of course to do a show playing all the parts live is a bit overwhelming so a mix of pre-recorded audio, midi tracks that can be adjusted while playing back, and live key performance is what I do.

[Muzik 4 Machines]

i perform only originals and a few covers

most of the originals were programmed in the ESX and played that way for years, then i took an arrow in the knee(the tribe pads are slowly becoming unusable) so i ported them to live

my summer album was all made in logic, so i simply exported the MIDI files and re assigned stuff

my new album i make entirely in live

i only use one MEGA set live, where all the songs are available at all time

for songs made in live, the import is real easy, i just drag the als tracks in the set and move the midi track to my hardware tracks then delete the imported stuff (not just the midi clips, the whole tracks with instruments and fx, cause i dont use any soft instrument live, just hardware processed in live)

i want my shows to be seamless so the 1 session 1 song in a no no for me as i need to stop and have a silent moment which i loathe, so i have a 1000 scenes session with 6 hardware tracks, 2 "sampler"(audio tracks with clips) about 10 "return" tracks (3 hardware returns, 1 soft delay, and 3 FOH bus(kick, bass, mix without kick and bass)) and about 20 or so utilities tracks (re routing, program changes, lights)

[Tarekith]

Here's how I prep and play my Live sets:

http://tarekith.com/ableton-live-apc40-live-pa-set-up/

[SirEsquire]

Thank you all for your feedback, I appreciate it.

I've messed around with importing a few songs into one large set. I really like that concept, but how do you keep adding more als files into the Session View screen? In other words, it seems that once I've imported a few songs (each with varying amounts of tracks/clips), I run out of room on the Session View, and I can't seem to figure out how to keep adding more?

One thing that has changed drastically recently is the type of music that I'm making. I'm focused more on ambient music, so I'm creating way less tracks and clips now than I was previously with the more straight-ahead electronic, downtempo music. Whereas before, I would have well over 8 tracks and tons of clips, I now have just a few tracks and a handful of clips. This certainly will make any efforts at actually performing some of the "instruments" live a lot more feasible. Another feature I'm starting to develop is hooking my guitar up to Ableton and using the Looper to create live, ambient soundscapes - so that will certainly help with the live performance.

I'm also interested in effect tips. Any effect racks (either for returns or set in tracks) that you've discovered allow for fun manipulation and mangling live?

[Muzik 4 Machines]

what do you mean run out of space?
lack of scenes?(insert scenes)
lack of tracks (insert audio or midi tracks)

[grunzlaut]

Hey folks, after buying an APC40 a week ago i`m pretty curious about all the different ways to perform live with, well Live , too . One more aspect of this, which SirEsquire hasn`t mentioned in his question is your controller setup and integration of hardware instruments. Oh yes, screenshots and pictures of the controller setup would be nice.

And another more in-detail question: Do you use follow actions and if so, how do you integrate them into the session matrix? They seem to be very useful to create nice random, but not chaotic elements but the follow groups easily mess up the layout of a session view arrangement.

@SirEsquire: Hope I didn`t hijack your thread

[SirEsquire]

what do you mean run out of space?
lack of scenes?(insert scenes)
lack of tracks (insert audio or midi tracks)

You know, that is so obvious I just didn't think about it. I was trying to drag in .als files to an already full Session screen, and there just wasn't room. I could import/drag in maybe 3 files, and then the Session screen was full, meaning that I couldn't move any new files to empty tracks. Thank you for your solution! I am dumb...