Are there "plants" in this forum?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
mokomo
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Location: Tokyo

Post by mokomo » Wed Jun 16, 2004 11:27 pm

"But you would certainly also agree that the "electronic" music scene, whataver exactly that is, is also filled with fantastic diversity? There's so much out there....And we are are necessarily including Hip Hop/Pop/et al in here as well, no? "

Absolutely agree.

Damn, 820am here and I gotta go squeeze myself onto a sardine-packed train to the office. Just in the mood to crack open that old has-been dinosaur Live 3 and set a few things whirling instead ...

quandry
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Post by quandry » Wed Jun 16, 2004 11:36 pm

sorry the gig didn't go well, I've had one or two like that when its just not my night. That said, there are a lot of good suggestions in here, smart-ass or not. Live is not the problem. As for the sound in the club from the PA--helps to get there early and do some sound checking--if the bass sounds weak, add an EQ 4 on the master out and adjust while something is playing to make it sound like it should. Some people also put limiters on the master out--lives comp II or the free endorphin could do the job.
Forge is dead right--heat was the problem on my bad night--too much dirt on my heatsink, caused a total shut-down. As for other latency/driver/controller issues--that is stuff that one needs to carefully configured, and also not Live's fault. Without a great low latency ASIO soundcard (pcmcia is best (RME multiface is what I use), then firewire, then usb), it will be hard to have many effects and tracks and still have a low enough latency to make controller response feel good. Without the lastest and proper drivers, soundcards and controllers can not work well. I also advise against using usb for powering devices--my new uc33e was causing some serious issues til I hooked it up to a wall wart and used the real midi out signal. Also make sure you don't have controller conflicts and overlaps if using multiple controllers.

Aside from technological computer issues, as you have experienced, a gig is a high-pressure situtation that one needs to be adequately prepared for to enjoy and do well. Especially for solo performance. One should not only have a clear idea of the songs and material to be played, but should also have a very well thought out and personalized Live set that has control assignment and effects in place to allow as much possible control of as many Live features at once as one's setup allows. This is crucial because you need more than a mouse in one hand to really zip along--the more hardware and computer keyboard control you have, the smoother you can flow--I'm all about two-handing--one on the mouse, the other on all kinds midi controllers. Also, one needs to practice the set in FULL at least once, if not multiple times to troubleshoot the system, and to get smooth with the material.

Basically, doing a full night of solo Live performance take a LOT of preparation and practice, especially the more complex you get. I do live performances a coupla times a month, and my Live set starts out completely empty except for effect and controller assignments. I build up songs by looping my bass, guitar, and keys then I record live drum triggering using a drumkat into FL rewired to Live--once the loops are built up, I use all kinds of effects and crossfading to morph the loops and remix stuff live. Total of 13 tracks, 3 sends, 26 total effects--it is a complicated setup, and I'm am never just sitting there bobbin' my head--constantly moving and switchin focus. Not trying to brag or anything, just trying to encourage you--with a properly set up system and lots of practice, Live can allow a solo performer to pull shit off that without Live would be next to impossible, and it can and does run smoothly, even on a pc!

Ryan

A DJ
Posts: 99
Joined: Wed Jun 16, 2004 4:31 am

Post by A DJ » Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:29 am

@ topic , i must admit i am kinda hooked to this forum coz of the love and crazy posts and the search for knowledge ... i am not sure on how long ive been member( i nvr log in tbh)
and if there are people here "spreading the word" about how good live is ,than so be it , but i think that the program doesnt need it....


for me its like dis:
i am a DJ who has been slinging tunes for over 15 years and i am gonna go digital with live....

coz i think DJ ing is becoming boring to me...
to only have 2 or 3 turntables and maybe a sampler or drummachine to play with isnt enuff for me anymore

so i was looking for something new...there "live" comes in


i am gonna use live to DJ with because:

the ability to totally change songs and drop loops in on the fly and use effects and what not to entertain the crowd is brilliant....i can see them happy faces again,

to have a HD with me that contains maybe 500 songs is ace...no more backbraking with two cases with at max. 140 records( i like to have as much records with me as i can :P ),

i can be as diverse as i wanna be.... so a heavy techno set on friday and a disco seventies set the next day is possible,

the ability to buy online mp3....saves me a shitload of money
one track costs about 1 to 2 dollar or euro
i used to buy records for 11 euro a piece

thatw what i think is the beauty of live

evryone has an angle
i use it coz i am lazy and i wanna be a very versatile entertainer/DJ
and i wanna make a comeback

sure i am just using other peoples tracks and use loops that i got from sample cd's but thats what ive been doing the last 15 years( the last 5 years have been a bit slow :( ) and i am pretty F** good at it

but here comes another great thing, i wanna make my own tracks and with live its so easy now for me to be crossing from DJing into music composing

so my ambition is this: create and play music, from my own or from someone else to entertain people

with live i can do it

evrythings possible

and i aint no plant


@ the guy whos gig didnt go well...read the forum about possible solutiuons and answers and better luck next time :)

Guest

Post by Guest » Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:34 am

nice one, dood.

Ryan

nunrgguy
Posts: 61
Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2003 10:57 am

Post by nunrgguy » Thu Jun 17, 2004 5:33 am

:D Thaks for the replys. Not a Craig David loop in sight ya cheeky bastard :D :D :D It's ALL self produced.
I think it was forge that asked. The system is an Athlon 64 3200+ 1 Meg Ram Remote 25 Audio with ASIO drivers, UC33. All USB running from a powered hub. Glitches and latency galore.
Now, it may be that the hard drive is being thrashed too much - currently internal 4800 rpm becuase all of the loops are from entire track length files - tracks have been mixed down to 4 sub groups from Logic and then looped up in Ableton so the hard drive is having to do a lot of work I guess. If that IS the case then I'm not quite sure how people are using this for DJing becuase I don't for one minute imagine that people are putting whole songs into live, looping them and then exporting all the loops separately. So....is it really only possible to get the audio glitch free using firewire drives?

dkonstrukt
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Oct 26, 2003 2:28 pm
Location: Singapore

Post by dkonstrukt » Thu Jun 17, 2004 6:03 am

not knowing how you've configured your system exactly, it seem like the weak link in your setup is the 4800rpm harddisk. you might want to consider a 7200rpm harddisk, which is usually what's the minimum recommended harddisk speed to work with for audio-related stuff :)

cheers,
kc

forge
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Post by forge » Thu Jun 17, 2004 8:13 am

yeah man, hard drive for sur - you will hit the limit with a 4800rpm pretty quick!! I stuck an internal 7200 drive (hitachi 7k2 60gb - £150UK a few months ago) and I also use an external drive for the audio

but as you have a gig of ram (I'm assuming you meant gig although you said 1mb :lol: ) then u might want to first try pressing the RAM button on as many of the clips as you can - preferably on shorter clips/loops, but whatever you can get away with - that will load the samples into ram rather than streaming from the hard disk - the ram function was implemented specifically for that problem as not many notebooks ship with 7200rpm drives.

Give that a go and buy yourself an external drive (you dont have to have an internal 7200 if you have external - I mainly got mine so I could still use the laptop without dragging the external drive everywhere I go (like round the girlfriends etc) because there's so many bloody peripherals as it is!

Guest

Post by Guest » Thu Jun 17, 2004 12:12 pm

nunrgguy wrote::D Thaks for the replys. Not a Craig David loop in sight ya cheeky bastard :D :D :D It's ALL self produced.
I think it was forge that asked. The system is an Athlon 64 3200+ 1 Meg Ram Remote 25 Audio with ASIO drivers, UC33. All USB running from a powered hub. Glitches and latency galore.
Now, it may be that the hard drive is being thrashed too much - currently internal 4800 rpm becuase all of the loops are from entire track length files - tracks have been mixed down to 4 sub groups from Logic and then looped up in Ableton so the hard drive is having to do a lot of work I guess. If that IS the case then I'm not quite sure how people are using this for DJing becuase I don't for one minute imagine that people are putting whole songs into live, looping them and then exporting all the loops separately. So....is it really only possible to get the audio glitch free using firewire drives?
Definitely get the external fw 7,200 RPM 8 MB cahce drives, no question. Plug your uc33 in (trust me) with a wall wart and standard midi cable. Plug the remote 25 in the same way, even if you have to buy a little usb to midi port. Is the remote 25 acting as your soundcard whilst plugged in and powered by usb? If so,I think its sketchy, at least the power part, and usb soundcards are not ideal at all. And using a usb hub is a recipe for glitches and latency--I highly suggest that you don't use the usb for power on either device, and if at all possible, don't use the usb for connectivity on the 25. Worst case at least power them both with wall warts, lose the hub, and just plug the 25 in with a usb. Glad you found these forums to help sort these issues out, hope this helps the next gig go more smoothly.

Ryan

forge
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Post by forge » Thu Jun 17, 2004 1:46 pm

yep - never quite understood the remote 25 being USB - seems crazy to me to design such a full featured unit and not give it better bandwidth than usb1.1

Ryan - did you mean not use the uc-33 via usb - just the controls via midi?? Is it really that much better? I've been using it as a midi interface too so that would be a blow to think it's not stable enough to use live - I haven't used it much as that yet as I have a fw410 but the plan was to sync my mac to my PC via midi from or to the fw410>UC-33

Guest

Post by Guest » Thu Jun 17, 2004 2:41 pm

forge wrote:yep - never quite understood the remote 25 being USB - seems crazy to me to design such a full featured unit and not give it better bandwidth than usb1.1

Ryan - did you mean not use the uc-33 via usb - just the controls via midi?? Is it really that much better? I've been using it as a midi interface too so that would be a blow to think it's not stable enough to use live - I haven't used it much as that yet as I have a fw410 but the plan was to sync my mac to my PC via midi from or to the fw410>UC-33
I had a 100% stable setup, then I added a brand new uc33e a few weeks ago. Then I started getting weird "hangs" in Live where the cpu meter would spike to a few hundred %, and I'd have to "end now" since Live was totally unresponsive. Then sometimes when I'd go to open up Live after having previously used Live with the 33 plugged in, but currently not plugged in, and Live won't open, just starts to load then it disappears. These things happened fairly regularly, so I said screw this and found an old adapter that fits the uc33e, and plugged it into my ever growing midi chain, and not a single problem since. It could just be my particular computer and setup--I do have a DM2 plugged in and powered by usb, and a usb-to-cordless mouse thing, so maybe I'm pushing my usb limit when I throw in the uc33e as the third usb device. Reguardless, nothing but smooth sailing again since going wall wart and real midi out ot the uc33e, definitely not going back. That said, if it works usb style on your system, go with it. I definitely could not do my regular live set for more than an hour without the uc33e freaking out Live when I had it usb, so if you've had hours and hours of stable usb uc33, then you're probably fine. Also, your plan is foiled because the uc33e doesn't send midi thru at all (or so the manual says), so it will have to be uc33>410, sorry.

Ryan

djadonis206
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Location: Seattle, WA.

Re: Are there "plants" in this forum?

Post by djadonis206 » Thu Jun 17, 2004 7:51 pm

mokomo wrote:
Or am I just being cynical when there is too much love around?
Have you used the program?

Probably

I'm from the US and the program changed my whole outlook on making music in the Computer - sorry
Ableton | Elektron

Music

Guest

Re: Are there "plants" in this forum?

Post by Guest » Fri Jun 18, 2004 12:58 am

djadonis206 wrote:
mokomo wrote:
Or am I just being cynical when there is too much love around?
Have you used the program?

Probably

I'm from the US and the program changed my whole outlook on making music in the Computer - sorry
Ah, you're from the US, that explains it.

Europeans have an enhanced genetic make-up that also supports cynicism, sarcasm and healthy negativity.

European: I REALLY like your new green and purple shoes :-D
American: Hey thanks dude :) Word up.
European: Eh no, I meant they are ridiculously ugly
American: Huh? I thought you said you really liked them?
European: I didn't really mean it.
American: Ooooh <long pause>
....
American: But then why did you say you really liked them if you don't like them?
European: Oh god.
American: No but, I just don't get it. Did you change your mind?
European: Just eat your donuts. And stop smiling all the time. It's making me nervous.

Guest

Post by Guest » Fri Jun 18, 2004 1:06 am

whattt? You clearly haven't hung out much with anyone for the states if you think people here aren't humorous or sarcastic--I think the youth of america are sarcastic to a fault. But bringing the whole american/euro thing up was really mature. :wink: :wink: :wink:

Guest

Post by Guest » Fri Jun 18, 2004 1:17 am

American sarcasm is like

"I'm soooooo totally not non bogus"

(i.e. way overstated, just incase anyone gets confused)

nunrgguy
Posts: 61
Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2003 10:57 am

Post by nunrgguy » Fri Jun 18, 2004 11:34 am

That's interesting about the USB - does powering peripherals via USB use up bandwidth or is it just not a reliable powering system?

Yes the Remote 25 audio is doing the audio, that was the whole point of buying it so it could be done from the one box, otherwise I would have just bought a Remote 25 audio and have had the convenience of a few extra knobs too.

Re the bass: As yet I don't know if this IS Ableton's time stretching or the soundcard. What I would say though is that if a piece of music sounds great in a club mixed and mastered as it is, played off vinyl (which, yes, will have been additionally mastered for the format) and also sounds great off CD then the same track should sound the same coming out of a PC with NO additional EQ - it should sound exactly the same as off CD. That wasn't the case. Again I must add before anyone jumps down my throat that this could be a soundcard issue but whatever, additional EQ should not be neccesary.

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