Have the Gig of my life soon, need advice!

paolo topaz · Post by **paolo topaz** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 5:38 pm

Hi Guys,

I've been using Live for five months now and love it, I have a uc33 and M-Audio Audiophile and will be getting a trigger finger tomorrow.

I have the gig of my life in Pacha this saturday and was just looking for some advice on any precautions I should take to make sure it runs as smoothly as possible.

I generall run seven tracks of audio with auto filter and a three band eq in each, should I change this to a 4 band to conserve CPU? Most of the time I get no audio dropouts but since I tried to get a 1GB ram upgrade in place of the 256 I have now( current spec 512ram 1.33, 12"G4 60GB HD) and the machine wouldn't accept it and since then I have more dropouts, should I do a ram reset again?

I have all my clips ready, loops, stabs, accapellas etc and have a huge pallet of tunes to play, my only concern is that something might happen within Ableton 5(I have 5.02) and ruin the night, I'm bringing all my cds and some records as backup and like always will have a cd cued to a beat in one of the 1000s with the channel open so I can bang it in should anything go wrong.

I'm just looking for tips on what's the beat settings on a compressor on the master to act as a good limiter etc and any tests or configuration I could do on my system before the gig to make sure it works well.

The spanish seem to be vinyl junkies and doubters of ableton so i really have to put on a proper show to convince them so any tips woud be great.

thanks in advance

Paolo

TonySoprano · Post by **TonySoprano** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 5:50 pm

Adding more RAM will stop the OS from paging to the hard-drive, so try and get more in if you can, as that'd be the first cause of drop-outs. Even another 256MB would help here. Secondly, defrag your hard-drives, as this help avert dropouts too. Have you done the Live thing before and know that your power supply is 'clean' when plugged into the mains, and to an amp?

spiderprod · Post by **spiderprod** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 5:50 pm

if it work in the studio , it should work on stage .

the best advice i can give you is to have a good shot of vodka before you start playing .

paolo topaz · Post by **paolo topaz** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 5:53 pm

Thanks for the tips Tony, I'll try to get the ram to 1.25 tomorrow please forgive my ignorance but what's the best way to defrag my hardrive?

thanks

Paolo

spiderprod · Post by **spiderprod** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 5:54 pm

TonySoprano wrote: Secondly, defrag your hard-drives, as this help avert dropouts too.

do a back up before the defrag as sometimes it create audio clics when the files are defragmented ,you might not like it .

TonySoprano · Post by **TonySoprano** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 5:56 pm

Never heard, or experienced, that one before.

nebulae · Post by **nebulae** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 5:58 pm

I have encountered the vinyl-only snobbery before. My suggestion to get past this is to DO a lot while on stage. Even though vinyl jockeys can take a break in between records, you can't. The second you do, people will think you're letting the computer do all the work. So practice in front of a mirror moving your hands around a lot. Get it in-da-air, so to speak, interact with the audience when you're not doing anything with the audio, audition with headphones a whole lot, and in general take advantage of Live's features to do the most you can while on stage. If you no longer have to worry about beat-matching, what else can you do with Live? The answer to that question is what wins people over from vinyl-only snobbery.

Good luck, and let us know how the gig turns out.

TonySoprano · Post by **TonySoprano** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 6:00 pm

If you're on Windows XP, right-click on My Computer, choose Manage, and under Storage is the Disk Defragmenter. At the very least, take the Analyse option for all your drives, and see how fragmented they are.

paolo topaz · Post by **paolo topaz** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 6:11 pm

cheers for the advice,

I understand completely what you mean about crowd inter action and so on, at first I was too locked into the screen but now that I'm used to it and am familiar with with my controller layout I spend more time looking at the crowd and shining my torch into the crowd and jumping around when caning the efx 1000.

Carl Cox recently slated Sasha for his 'reading his emails' appearance and I agree to a point that anytime I've seen a dj I find it much easier to have a laugh if he's really into it rather than just standing there like Digweed does.

I run osx on a 12"G4 powerbook 1.33, 60gb hd, how can I derfrag it safely?

many thanks on tips

any thoughts on default settings for a limiter on the master

Paolo

netchaiev · Post by **netchaiev** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 6:50 pm

You don't really need to defrag on osx. Run a free utility like Onyx(find it at versiontracker.com) to verify and repair permissions (like having every thing in place, w/ the right name etc..). Actually even though osx is "journaled" and keeps itself in order, once in a while repair permissions just cost 10-15mn.
But having an external HD can be usefull either for speed (versus stock internal if 4200rpm) and or for backup reasons (loss of file etc.. you sart from the ext driveor run Live from it.
Otherwise, get a drink and enjoy!!!!!!!

smart1123 · Post by **smart1123** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 6:53 pm

The best way I have found to defrag my mac is to have a firewire drive with a minimal system on it with any utilities I might need (Disk Warrior and Tech Tool Pro in my case). Repair Permissions, boot from external, repair catalog using Disk Warrior, then defrag (optimize) using TechTool Pro 4. If you are using Tiger make sure you have the latest updates (Disk Warrior 3.0.3 and TechTool 4.0.6 I think... check the websites.)

www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/

www.micromat.com/

Good Luck

vinkalmann · Post by **vinkalmann** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 8:51 pm

Sounds like it might not be an issue for you, but get there early to set your gear up. It's NO fun trying to get your stuff set up while someone else is playing. The last place I played didn't have enough room to set my laptop up with all the turntables and CDJ's. Learned a good trick though, throw a jacket on top off one of the turntables and presto! a spot for your PC.

Good luck! Don't get too caught up in effects or anything your first time out. The first thing that you are going to learn as was stated before is you have a lot of time after you get a track going that would normally be taken up by beatmatching the next track. Smiling and throwing down always seems to do the trick.

cosmosuave · Post by **cosmosuave** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 3:32 am

Run thru your sets in dim lighting conditions because this is what you will encounter when you play... Less chance of screwing up.... Speaking of screwing up do not let anyone know that you have screwed up the majority won't notice... Read the crowd and apply accordingly to your set....

Bring a flashlight (torch for you anglos) some duct tape / power bar /spare cables / back up audio device (ipod cd player) in the event of failure... Also do a sound check if you can..... Keep all liquids away from gear!!!

What kind of set are you going to do?

Locke · Post by **Locke** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 3:39 am

Ground Loop Isolator

paolo topaz · Post by **paolo topaz** » Thu Nov 17, 2005 1:36 pm

I've never seen a anyone use a ground loop isolater, what's the beneifit?

Also should I use a voltage regulator on my plug board?

I've been trying to get a gig in The Loft in Barcelona so I could bang out the tech house and electo but no luck yet,

The Pacha crowd in Barcelona really liked Bob Sinclair last summer so I'll be playing more house than usual but hopefully at six in the morning I can unleash the power of ableton with some sick loops and synths!!

One last thing, I've noticed some audio dropouts lately, don't know if it's since I went to the Mac store and they tried to put in a gig update but it wouldn't accept it, so I'm back to the standard 256 with the 256 upgrade.

I've done extensive searchs and came across one thread where alot of users noticed dropouts when lauching clips for the first time, this is exactly what happens to me when I launch, but it doesn't happen when I launch the same clip again, it's almost like you hve to prime the clip like you would prime a crb before starting a race kart, I have the majority of my clips saved in my default set, Will starting them al once row by row before I bein to play be a tempory cure?

I have Live 5.02, is this problem still unresolved?

Does anyone run a limiter on there master that doesn't reduce dynamic range? I have a compressor II running on the master but al I realy want is to limit the output when I load up a load of clips, any ideas?

thanks a million for advice

Paolo