how to keep the music going between sets?

[mike holiday]

the track import feature is nice also, but you need automapping set up,

now if i could only get the user remote script to work with my sends in a version of live other then 6.0.3

[WaveRider]

can just add all your tunes' .als files directly onto the track list title bar (you'll see a small generic file icon appear). just drag and drop where you want. all tracks and their associated audio, midi, plugins and settings will appear where you drop the .als

my problem with that, is that the set that I drop in:
-doest not have midi controllers mapped
-the sends are not imported


so all this has to be manually set-up, so it has to be done before hand

or maybe there is something I do not understand?

[WaveRider]

although the drop the .als on the running track is a great feature, I think it might be more usable for some than others. When there's a lot of returns and routing going on in each set, this can be a pain and a show killer.
Pretty much all of my live sets are very different from each other and don't really lend themselves to being interchangable like this.
If you're doing a more scene launch/ minor tweak kinda performance then this will probably work pretty well.
What I do instead of a kaoss pad (which I don't own) is to use the 2 instance of Live technique but have one of these acting kindof like a kaoss pad.
I'll set it up with 1 track of audio set to record the output of the soundcard.
Towards the end of the song on the first instance of live, I'll record some of the end of the 1st song into the 2nd instance of Live (which has some of the most common effects I use for a little noise fun).
then as I fade or end the 1st song in the 1st instance, I'll begin fucking up/tweaking stuff in the snippet of audio in the 2nd instance.
While I'm doing this, Song/ Set 2 is loading up in instance 1 and when it's all good, I'll mix outta the noise I've been doing back into instance 1 and away we go.

man this is bright! can't wait to try this...

[synnack]

can just add all your tunes' .als files directly onto the track list title bar (you'll see a small generic file icon appear). just drag and drop where you want. all tracks and their associated audio, midi, plugins and settings will appear where you drop the .als

my problem with that, is that the set that I drop in:
-doest not have midi controllers mapped
-the sends are not imported


so all this has to be manually set-up, so it has to be done before hand

or maybe there is something I do not understand?

I just make "live" versions of my songs that have all the returns and complexity removed. I render any vsti's to audio clips. I sample any vsti sound that i want to play on stage and throw it in sampler/simpler.

I takes a bit of up front work to make these but live's "resample" feature makes it pretty easy and it enables you to fit more in one .als, pre-map and have fun.

[eamoon]

I haven't found a magic answer to this question. I've tried a lot of approaches, more or less in this order:
- 3-4 songs per set, moderate routing complexity / tweakability, and transition tracks played from another app (max/msp) while the next set loads. This worked out pretty well in less dancey settings, and let me swap in different sets for different shows without a huge amount of prep work.
- 1 song per set, with external hardware to keep things rolling while the next loads. This was fun, if a bit messy. No predetermined order, but you still need to practice transitions and bring a lot more gear.
- 1 big set, with lots of time put into bouncing things down, consolidating returns, and planning a fixed play order (so I'm basically just hitting the "do the next thing" button to step through scenes, and tweaking effects/mutes/etc.) Sometimes I haven't put enough prep time in and this hasn't turned out so well. Sometimes I have and it's been a lot of fun.

Still haven't tried the "start with an empty set and a big library" approach. That much mousing around doing "computery stuff" is a bit of a turn-off, but it could go in really interesting directions.