Using Ableton Live for live performance

[rozmo]

Hi,

After hauling lots of synths and samplers to rehearsals and gigs for many years, I have decided to switch over to an Ableton Live-based live setup.
My setup consists of a Macbook Pro, RME Babyface, Virus KC as a controller (soon to be replaced with a Panorama Nektar P6), a Dave Smith Instruments Mono Evolver Keyboard on the side, and of course: Ableton Live. The softsynths I'm using are Sylenth, Kontakt and Oddity. Soon I'll add Komplete and maybe a launchpad.

Now I'm trying to figure out how I can use this setup in the best way live on stage. I would like to avoid as much mouse clicking as possible, and control as much as possible from my controller. Primarily I want to use Live as a host for playing the softsynths live. For the time being I won't be using its clip launching capabilities.

My question is: how can I setup a live set?
For example, for song 1 I need an instance of Sylenth on one part of the keyboard, and Kontakt on the other. For song 2 I'll need Kontakt and Oddity. For song 3 I'll need Sylenth, Kontakt and Oddity etc. I would like to switch to those different setups with my keyboard.
How can this be done? Should i use program changes? Should i load a different Ableton Live set per song?
Ideally, I could flip through different setups with my midi controller, so i shouldn't be looking a the screen etc.

Thanks in advance!

[samsteeno]

Ableton Push.

It's all the advice I can give, because its all I use.

I don't have to look at my laptop at all; I set up all my instruments up as different tracks and scroll through them easily using the d-pad on Push. I find launching clips and playing alongside them using Ableton Push very easy, fun, and it makes a tight set.

Everything is well setup on the Push for studio use and live performance; it's great for jamming out. You can pretty much do everything from the Ableton Push without looking at your laptop – browse instruments/effects, control parameters, quick switching between launching clips and playing, etc.

[rozmo]

Thanks for your response.

Is Push really the only way? I assume it's a very userfriendly way, but it can't be impossible to setup a few 'multis' without Ableton push and flip through them without too much hassle.

What do you mean with setting up your instruments as different tracks (per song)? If I find a way to setup my controller to scroll through the different tracks, this might be a solution.

[Winterpark]

Read up on creating Instrument racks.

You can use this in conjunction with midi-mapping of the chain selector to choose different synths all via a slider, set of keys, or rotary knob.

[Schmidi]

Rozmo, the blessing and the curse of software is that there are TOO MANY ways to do what you want! My experience with software live pa is that I've spent way more time developing methodologies and templates for playing a live set and very little time actually playing and making music! I have on many occasions longed for my good old hardware groovebox, a polysynth, and a kaosspad so I could just fucking make some tunes and not spend hours planning a set.

My advice, keep it really simple!

Here are the main ways you can go about doing what you said in your post:

Learn about making/"grouping" racks. Then learn about "rack chains" and the "chain selector"
--If you get that stuff down, you can make a "lead" or "bass" midi track with a custom rack that would have every synth/patch in your set and the "chain selector" would allow you to midi assign 1 knob to switch through them!

or

Mess around with the "Looper" device. Might be more your style

or

a nice controller like the Push, Maschine, APC40, or Launchpad with some custom scripts that can be found online

or.... See where this is going? TOO MANY OPTIONS!

[Schmidi]

Also, concerning your hardware synths. Be advised that Ableton has almost no sysex support, so program changes can be a beyotch depending on the hardware!

[DessieK]

Haven't used push yet so can't comment on that... but its definately not the only way.....

as other posters have mentioned...
Instrument racks are fantastic and can achieve what you want -
If you use chains on the racks they are very powerful - you can easily switch between banks of vsts, effects (different settings for each song) by turning a dial....
I recently went through the same process where i condensed several live sets into one... it was a lot of fun...

Last bit of advice is - bounce as much of your VST tracks as possible..(the simpler the better) only keep the ones you want to play/perform with...

[rozmo]

Thanks everyone for helping me out here! It was really simple indeed using instrument racks. Very quick setup, clean and clear visualization of which zone is assigned to which synth etc. I'm actually glad I don't need to use multiple channels on my synth itself to control different synths, and that I don't need to use program changes/sysex etc. For the moment, I'll be using the Virus as a controller, and not as a synth (for live performance that is).

It's going to be a bit of a dilemma: keep the Virus (great keybed, nice sounds) or ditch it and go for something more modern and something that integrates much better in a DAW like the Panorama Nektar, giving up a great keybed and sounds (although softsynths can sound great too ofcourse). Some sliders and drumpads would be nice too..

Anyway, this approach has a much nicer workflow and is really a LOT easier than using prehistoric racks

[Grantos]

Ableton Push.

It's all the advice I can give, because its all I use.

I don't have to look at my laptop at all; I set up all my instruments up as different tracks and scroll through them easily using the d-pad on Push. I find launching clips and playing alongside them using Ableton Push very easy, fun, and it makes a tight set.

Everything is well setup on the Push for studio use and live performance; it's great for jamming out. You can pretty much do everything from the Ableton Push without looking at your laptop – browse instruments/effects, control parameters, quick switching between launching clips and playing, etc.

x 2 on the PUSH advice! amazing controller for music production & live performance.

[102455]

Just thinking out loud here....

Once Live 9.1 comes out, what you could possibly do is use a second (small) screen as a touch interface near your main keyboard, and have some nice big buttons on the screen (via Max For Live?) that you just touch to switch to the correct synth for that song. You could have the song names on the buttons.

[ian_halsall]

Just thinking out loud here....

Once Live 9.1 comes out, what you could possibly do is use a second (small) screen as a touch interface near your main keyboard, and have some nice big buttons on the screen (via Max For Live?) that you just touch to switch to the correct synth for that song. You could have the song names on the buttons.

Dual screen support is a bit underwhelming imo.

I tried it a few times and found it worse than 1 screen - swapping between session and arrange when I didn't want it to.