I have all my songs with their own live set, each with live VSTs, live instruments (audio in), and creative use of side-chaining and other live effects. I currently try to cram them all into one big live set with each song's tracks as a group. But it's still so hard to manage all the songs at a gig that I can't talk to friends or be very present, so performance is more work than fun. Push made this a lot easier so now it's just the last 5%. Everything needs to be a no-brainer.
- - 2-4 MIDI instruments per song, 4 Live musicians, main mix in Ableton.
- FA-101 (10 in/10 out), top of the line macbook i7.
- Each set has a different tempo.
- Some tracks have VST's to be played with Push/MIDI.
- I can pre-record around 30% of the tracks to audio clips, but some require special release trails or live side-chaning.
- Live instruments are processed differently for each song with and Audio Effect Rack, but I'm willing to lose this.
- Some tracks have audio inputs for live instruments & Audio Effect Rack controlled by MIDI pedals (FCB1010).
- Some tracks have MIDI-modulated params, mapped to Audio Effect Rack that need to be no-brainer to remember.
- Each set is precisely mixed so rely on relative levels staying exactly the same.
- Live instrument tracks need to retain audio input channel setting so as not to confuse the musicians.
- Live instruments will naturally have to suffer slight gain tweaks from the amp each session.
- Levels for all songs need to be normalized and match initial house sound check.
- Headphone monitors for all musicians for click tracks, main mix, and gain for their instrument to only their monitor channel since everyone has different gain needs (external mixer/volume knob? Maybe not possible?).
- ** Unplayed songs' tracks need to be disabled to save CPU, which is unreliable after 4 songs with M4L Convolution reverb & other VSTs.
- Need quick access to each song in Push's session view to trigger clips and do knob modulation.
- There can only be ONE THING to change between songs or it's a headache.
- - Use one big live set with a separate group for each song, keep originals for future editing.
- Record as many non-live tracks to audio clips as possible.
- Store scenes with song name and tempo so song clips go from top-left to bottom-right in session view grid.
- Map each TriggerFinger knob (MIDI) to several different songs at once.
Downsides:
- CPU usage problematic after about 4 songs.
- Lose original sets' grouping for a single "song group" in big live set.
- Hard to navigate diagonally to new song in session view on push. Bookmarks? Macro? I'm a programmer....
- Have to expand / collapse each song's groups as session view gets out of control.
- Hard to homologate MIDI mapping to work for every songs.
- Direct signal from audio interface to house mains is problematic with plugging/unplugging. External mixer? A discussion on it's own.
How do I handle the main mix and monitor channels? Maybe some combination of audio interface and hardware mixer?
How do I handle session recording (external solution)?
I'm an experienced programmer, has anyone used LiveControl to make this easier? Maybe a bookmark or macro system? How about storing presets for Push for key signature, etc?
I feel like this is a pretty standard situation for anyone moving beyond the bedroom with Live, but I've been battling it for years!
Thanks
MY CURRENT SETUP FOR ONE BAND: