i have found the million scenes/one huge file to not work very favorably either. yes, you always find workarounds when the tool you have doesn't do the job, but i don't understand the backlash to feature requests. jeez - just let them exist for what they are.
when i first create a song, i do it in single files of course. and over the creation process i use many different instruments, effects chains, mappings, and so on. i tried very hard to keep using the same template, but i find that to be too compromising.
when it comes time for a live performance, it's a royal pain in the ass to do the "workaround" process of stuffing that all into a single file. part of what makes my band what it is, is the immediate access to all the "raw" stuff - we don't use any freezes or audio clips or mixdowns of anything - each of us wants to be able to touch any little thing, and none of our songs are ever the same as a result. that's a GOOD thing. otherwise, we should just go back to being DJs.
we gave up on complex and time consuming workarounds, and now use a bit of audio filler (musical snippets, sound bite samples, etc) while we wait for the next project to load. i'd rather not do that, and i think it is perfectly reasonable to request ableton to address that somehow. if you don't, well good for you.
here's my really big bitch about live - try keeping good sync between two machines. and it gets worse and worse as ableton ages. THIS is what's got me looking for a different host now. so many things i absolutely LOVE about live, and just a few things i really HATE about live. so as long as i keep coughing up my $499 + $149 + $149 + $149 etc, you bet i will ask for new features.
after all it is called LIVE, not DJ Your Own Snippets With A Mouse On Stage.
RANT! - Performing live and moving from one tune to the next
SimonPHC wrote:wow you guys haven't had the pleasure of playing a live set with a sampler with limited memory, synths without presets and sequencers that you can't edit when they are in "play" mode, with limited MIDI.
I still have nightmares about playing with my old setup, which was based around an Atari 1040, MMT8s , merge boxes and samplers like the Akai S900 (floppy disk powered) . It was a total fucking nightmare anyway - it obviously imprinted the horror on me so much that 10 years later I still dream about it.
each atari disk could only hold 3 songs, I had to have all disks available at all times because the set order changed about.
losing a disk onstage, or if one failed to load .. disaster. Even if it worked ... loading one song took about 20 seconds. 20 seconds of heart attack.
try to scream to band members over the top of the PA noise about whatever failed to load up - the sampler, the sequencers, the atari, the SY85,?
aaaargh, awful.
Is seriously miss those days, I dream about them too, in the good way.Angstrom wrote:It was a total fucking nightmare anyway - it obviously imprinted the horror on me so much that 10 years later I still dream about it.
Sorry to get on everyones nerve here, I just failed to see how you guys used Live.
My ideas haven't changed though. I feel some of the things you need might kill some of the good stuff Live has offered me, like overview, access and easy use.
I arrived at the idea of accessing sets like spreadsheets in an Excel workbook, too, and saw it as a good idea. [edit] Why do you think it's a bad idea?
Dragging and dropping several .als files into a bar at the top of the Live session view, like a spreadsheet into a 'workbook' and having it accessible via a tab, having those tabs be midi activated to be able to move from set to set... seems like that would be great.
There is always that 'global' ends up being not 'global enough' because of the extra layer of abstraction that is missing needed to make it happen that makes the 'working in' difficult. But each set is a "session" and each has it's own parameters and they all live in a'session collection' that handles swapping the parameters in and out effectively.
I don't use individual drum tracks, I have several alternate beat makers, audio clips and midi clips/soft synthdrums that I switch between using mute or xfade or fading in and out. I set things up more or less left to right, rather than with scenes. I also have two laptops for audio and one for video, and can transition from one audio box to the other with a mixer (L6 on one and L7 on the other at this point).
In a set, maybe I have three or four stereo drum machine type tracks from left to right, and then 2 or 3 bass-like tracks, and then 2-4 lead tracks, and then 2-3 other atmosphere/wash tracks, then maybe 2-3 external in tracks for vocals or live instruments. When I'm playing, I fade in/fade out arm/disarm tracks to add/subtract elements.
[edit] while one laptop is 'performing' the other one can be loading up a new set. But how much easier it would be to do the tabs thing!
Dragging and dropping several .als files into a bar at the top of the Live session view, like a spreadsheet into a 'workbook' and having it accessible via a tab, having those tabs be midi activated to be able to move from set to set... seems like that would be great.
There is always that 'global' ends up being not 'global enough' because of the extra layer of abstraction that is missing needed to make it happen that makes the 'working in' difficult. But each set is a "session" and each has it's own parameters and they all live in a'session collection' that handles swapping the parameters in and out effectively.
I don't use individual drum tracks, I have several alternate beat makers, audio clips and midi clips/soft synthdrums that I switch between using mute or xfade or fading in and out. I set things up more or less left to right, rather than with scenes. I also have two laptops for audio and one for video, and can transition from one audio box to the other with a mixer (L6 on one and L7 on the other at this point).
In a set, maybe I have three or four stereo drum machine type tracks from left to right, and then 2 or 3 bass-like tracks, and then 2-4 lead tracks, and then 2-3 other atmosphere/wash tracks, then maybe 2-3 external in tracks for vocals or live instruments. When I'm playing, I fade in/fade out arm/disarm tracks to add/subtract elements.
[edit] while one laptop is 'performing' the other one can be loading up a new set. But how much easier it would be to do the tabs thing!
UTENZIL a tool... of the muse.
oh yeah!!!! trying to make a set from lots of song files is LOTS of work. if live could load the next track while playing the first one!!!! then crossfade to the next.... that day will be a dream come true!!!!Khazul wrote:
Pages ableton - we want pages - two song pages + global active - A page and B page (song A, song B) + a global loops/phrases/fx page.
it can easily be done with 2 systems, but please we need a setlist ortherwise I need to set up the next laptop while I perform on the first (????)... I think this sets apart the dj from the musician... the dj works on his next cue while the current song is playing.... but a musician performs the track so he cannot be bothered with loading up the next one!!!!! that is my dilemma, perform live OR set up my next cue while the track plays by itself!!!! but that is not my path as a musician. I want the software to let me go thru my set TOTALLY UNATTENDED , I am playing live and cannot babysit a laptop at the same time!!!!!! Please abes, focus on musican features not live DJ features !!!!! do you get my point????
I can guarantee that I've spent more time in my musical career lying awake at night trying to think of how to transition fromone song to the next in my live sets than anything else. Yeah, I was one of those who had to do it with hardware synths, and it was a hell of a lot harder (though Roland's Megamix and Emu's XMIX were godsends at the time). But it's still something that is not well addressed in Live without requiring either lots of tracks, or lots of scenes. Not to mention (in my experience) the one area where it's still important to focus on the computer screen to keep things straight.
Oh well, if it was easy everyone would be doing it.
Oh well, if it was easy everyone would be doing it.
tarekith
https://tarekith.com
https://tarekith.com
I would do like others in the thread, each one of my songs was broken down into 8 tracks:
- BD& Snare
- Percussion
- Cymbals
- Bassline
- Lead
- Synth 1
- Pad
- Fills
So I would make 32 bar audio clips for each part, and these were arranged on a scene for each song. Below that "main" scene for the song, I might have a second scene with variations of each clip, or maybe the parts for a longer drop/build depending on the song. Each track had audio effects that fit the part. For instance, makes no sense for me to use delay on basslines, but it does make sense to have a resonant filter. Leads might get both filters and delays, pads might get a reverb, etc.
I'd have 8 buttons on my controller (BCR200 previously, now an SL37) assigned to fire the currently higlighted clip on each track. I'd also assign a knob to scroll up or down scenes (this highlighting different clips), this is how I selected which clips to fire and transitioned from one song to the next. I could introduce each element of the next song one at a time that way, or multiple ones at once.
Overall it was pretty flexible, but it did mean that I was looking at the computer screen way more than I wanted. Also, after a time I got kind of tired of how inflexible audio loops can be. Unless you're into the whole glitch thing, it gets old trying to think of new ways to tweak clips without making them unlistenable. I think if I did a live set via software again, I'd be more likely to use midi clips and virtual instruments (from the Suite) instead. Much more you can do with a synth in this regard.
That said, I've now gone back to using hardware for live use, namely a Machinedrum, Korg EMX, and Xone62 mixer. I missed the good old days, limitations and all.
- BD& Snare
- Percussion
- Cymbals
- Bassline
- Lead
- Synth 1
- Pad
- Fills
So I would make 32 bar audio clips for each part, and these were arranged on a scene for each song. Below that "main" scene for the song, I might have a second scene with variations of each clip, or maybe the parts for a longer drop/build depending on the song. Each track had audio effects that fit the part. For instance, makes no sense for me to use delay on basslines, but it does make sense to have a resonant filter. Leads might get both filters and delays, pads might get a reverb, etc.
I'd have 8 buttons on my controller (BCR200 previously, now an SL37) assigned to fire the currently higlighted clip on each track. I'd also assign a knob to scroll up or down scenes (this highlighting different clips), this is how I selected which clips to fire and transitioned from one song to the next. I could introduce each element of the next song one at a time that way, or multiple ones at once.
Overall it was pretty flexible, but it did mean that I was looking at the computer screen way more than I wanted. Also, after a time I got kind of tired of how inflexible audio loops can be. Unless you're into the whole glitch thing, it gets old trying to think of new ways to tweak clips without making them unlistenable. I think if I did a live set via software again, I'd be more likely to use midi clips and virtual instruments (from the Suite) instead. Much more you can do with a synth in this regard.
That said, I've now gone back to using hardware for live use, namely a Machinedrum, Korg EMX, and Xone62 mixer. I missed the good old days, limitations and all.
tarekith
https://tarekith.com
https://tarekith.com