2 man band, all live, using live...

[clarpark]

Is there anyone out there doing what we are doing?

We play everything live. I have a midi track firing clip record functions via IAC for each song, we just spend about a day per song scripting/arranging/figuring out how and when to play each part. Oh, and the video is synced via GRID2.

http://www.thegoodlisteners.com

[s.balm]

I like it.

Cool site, took me a second to find the video though.
Have to click on Preview...

Best,

s.

[dj_statikfire]

i'd love to know more, but honestly, that website is terribly annoying to navigate

[dizzyj]

Is there anyone out there doing what we are doing?

We play everything live. I have a midi track firing clip record functions via IAC for each song, we just spend about a day per song scripting/arranging/figuring out how and when to play each part. Oh, and the video is synced via GRID2.

http://www.thegoodlisteners.com

That sounds like something similar to what im trying to put together. We have 2 people, one on keys, one on drums. Both of us can record/trigger our own loops. Were still figing how to get it all to work tho.

Could you go more into the firing clip record via iac? whats iac?

[WaveRider]

Is there anyone out there doing what we are doing?

We play everything live. I have a midi track firing clip record functions via IAC for each song, we just spend about a day per song scripting/arranging/figuring out how and when to play each part. Oh, and the video is synced via GRID2.

http://www.thegoodlisteners.com

Cool! Nice to see musicians doing live stuff.... do you mix your tunes or pause between them?

[KU]

My brother and I are doing similar format

I'm in Santa Cruz, CA


Playing everything live... we use loops as segways occasionally


the sound is like a modern jammie deep acid house

[clarpark]

It's been a bit of a nightmare, due to the constant software upgrades. Also when we added video using Grid2 I had to slide my midi notes that fire clip event back to account for a CPU delay.

I wish I could know how to better optimize my processors, I have a dual 2.o g5 with HD core and Apgogee Rosetta 800 HDx. I feel like I should be getting better results, Sometimes when my partner hit a midi note with a pitchbend the audio cuts out for a bleep.

Also I want a more rack type setup. Maybe when the new Mac Mini's come out I'll use 2, 1 for live and one for video and put them side by side in a rack.

Anyone got any ideas about this topic?

http://www.thegoodlisteners.com/

[quandry]

Cool, fun stuff. Aren't some of the drums, back-up vox, and guitar parts that come in at various parts pre-recorded--it seems like it, but maybe they were recorded earlier in the night/prior to the video snippets being shown? My duo, Mixed Bag has been doing ALL live looping peformances (zero pre-recorded material, each night the set starts out completely blank) using Live for three years now. I play Live, bass, keys, live drums via Midi Drumkat and FL rewired into Live, Kurt just plays his guitar. I loop my stuff with Live (and sometimes his guitar), and then get busy with a host of controllers and effects, doing lots of crossfading things in and out. Check out a few snippets of our live performances, unedited, all-live:

http://www.em411.com/release/quandry_em ... slinky.mp3

http://www.em411.com/release/quandry_em ... ten_up.mp3

As for transitioning songs, I'll often pull out everything but the drums (or I'll sometimes leave one keyboard/bass/guitar loop going), then slowly changes Live's tempo to the new song, then get a loop or two going, then throw a bunch of delay on the snare and then yank all the drums out, jump to a new, clear step sequencer in Fl, and play new drum beats into FL. It helps our transitions and endings to have Kurt always playing guitar--he can hit a sustained chord on songs the end on the one, while I simulateously crossfader everything else out, often using delay on one or more of the elements to have a bit of trailing off and not an abrubt ending. Songs that start after one of these endings are just me listening to the click and playing a bass or keyboard part solo. Great to see more people doing live stuff with Live, and adding vocals into the mix--cool!

Ryan

[smart1123]

Harpi Clarpark,
are you running protools as a rewire master? you could try this and run all your plugins tdm thru rewire... this would definitly free up cpu load, supposedly PT 7 is optimised for RTAS (and VST wrapped RTAS) now so that you can run a third more plugs. (i know there are drawbacks to this situation so put your protools guns away everyone) anyhow you could experiment with that, your HD core should be taking a big load off of your cpu, but if you are running without protools you may as well have an 002 or something equivalent as you are not using all the power of the DSP chips on the card.

Sorry if this is obvious.

[quandry]

P.S. on your performance issues, you might at least look at the performance test threads to see mac vs. pc performance. Not trying to start a flame war or cross anyone over to the "dark side", but basically Ableton at a core coding level is not as effient on macs as on pcs, in terms of cpu usage, fwiw. If you are looking to add a second computer, it would probably eliminate your problems, but maybe check into the performance threads on the general forum to see real statistics of the two platforms that are a bit eye opening. also, fwiw, in scores of gigs over three years, not a single problem on my toshiba. I run 13-16 tracks at once, 50 effects (live and plenty of vsts), and rarely go above 30% cpu.

[hambone1]

It's been a bit of a nightmare, due to the constant software upgrades. Also when we added video using Grid2 I had to slide my midi notes that fire clip event back to account for a CPU delay./

Use Live's delays. I do all of my live audio, video and lighting in Live, and use various negative delay settings to make sure the video and lighting are all in sync. It takes roughly 250 ms for audio to travel to an iBook running a visualizer, generate the visual, travel to the G5 running Arkaos VJ, and finally to the projectors, so I just set up a -250ms delay on the aux send that feeds the visualizer. The waveforms then end up tightly synched to the audio. The pan heads on the scanners take roughly 250 ms to get moving, the tilt heads 150 ms, and the strobes 150 ms from the time the CC clip launches until the strobe fires. Setting up various negative delays makes the sync really tight.

[Per Boysen]

Is there anyone out there doing what we are doing?

We play everything live. I have a midi track firing clip record functions via IAC for each song, we just spend about a day per song scripting/arranging/figuring out how and when to play each part. Oh, and the video is synced via GRID2.

http://www.thegoodlisteners.com

Yes, similar but differen musical style. Like you, I (and my collaborators) play everything live, but then I also like to compose live. So I'm typically starting out with an empty set, fill it up and empty it, during a concert. No audio clips, only live playing of different instruments and recording them as dynamic audio loops into Möbius VST (not as Live Clips). I usually play alto traverse flute, tenor sax and stratocaster electric guitar (cello bow, glass slide) through a TC Electronics Fireworx. The TC goes into the sound card to be looped and mangled in Live and Möbius. For drum sounds I usually do vocal beatboxing, play a jaw harp or a shaker.

A screen shoot of my laptop screen posted at http://www.looproom.com/Mobius_Live_Set.JPG

The window above Live is the Windows application Möbius (yes, I left my Powerbook for studio work and picked up a Centrino lappy for live stuff). Möbius is a Live Looping application that equals a rack of eight stereo Echoplexes - although I like to use only four, and work more with layering sound into the same loops, sound-on-sound wise. Each Möbius track can hold many loops and you can jump between them, adding new layers in one loop or cut in/out slices into another loop, all on the same track. One common technique is to build loops of different "chords" and then jump between these loops to instantly compose with chord changes (done while playing leads over the top). On parallel Möbius tracks you can record a loops of different lenghts - it's even possible to create poly rhythm by looping in different loop lengths.

In a couple of day I'll do a gig with a percussionist and I will loop his stuff in the same way. We will then also use a speech track as a pre-recorded Live Audio Clip. A video projector will blow up graphics from Tunnel running on a Powerbook. The Powerbook has it's built-in mic picking up audio to mangle the live graphics to the beat.

Anyone interested in Möbius can check it out and downoad it at http://www.zonemobius.com/

To simultate the OS X IAC bussing in Windows XP I'm using MIDI Yoke http://www.midiox.com/. This makes it possible to send MIDI control data between tracks and plug-ins in Live just like you can do on a Mac

[Machinate]

hey clarpark! Wicked setup.

So let me see if I got this straight: You're basically using a long midi clip filled with record+playback commands (via IAC), so the drums that come in half-way through "condition down" were actually a loop recorded automatically in the very beginning of the song? Are the drums midi? Can't tell on the video.

If so, I'm mighty impressed... this adds a whole other dimension to arrangements for live songs (although, as an aside, it's amusing that you've rejected pre-recorded audio in favour of pre-recorded midi, innit? )

I recently got into sequencing record functions in a live environment, it's some tricky shit.

[edit: I'm fucking impressed! I've never seen such maticulously planned looping!! ]

[clarpark]

cool, thanks for all the responses.

For starters we play EVERYTHING live. We start our show with empty live sets (with 4 exceptions, a reverse bird sound on one song, a warped gtr sound on another, a hitchcotch sample on anther and a garbley moog sound on the last. Other than those we have maticulously arranged our songs so that every part has to be played at some point.

So for the conventional pop song with a big bridge, we plant parts early on. we typically plant parts for the first minute then we're good to play the songs in their native order. We have arranged our planting arrangements so that it feels like a long extended intro, moving from section to section layering background parts. Most songs get the drums out of the way right off the bat. It makes for a nice dynamic when they come back in.

So yes, 1-3 midi tracks routed to the iac bus and then back into live as a remote trigger for clip events. We typically mess up so fataly that we stop 1 or 2 songs and start over during our set. The audience likes it, I've heard that they feel like they are on the edge of their seat watching us.

I wish there were a few different features, like automator, dual processor support and built in video. Then live would be sick as hell as opposed to just plain sick. Regardless Live makes protools look like an old man.

Thanks Ableton for making such a cool application!

[Jalebee]

hay ...

well .. we'r pretty much doin the same thing .. tho we have 4 ppl in our band ... 1 singer+ tabla player , 1 on percs + drum pad , 2 laptops synced on live , the first doing grooves and the other for melodies .. ours is amore of a dance act .. from prog house to breakz and even psy ...
you can check out some mp3's and video's http://www.jalebee.in/download.htm