Loading the next track without interrupting audio...

kproject · Post by **kproject** » Wed May 24, 2006 1:43 am

That's a lot of information. I wonder which solution would be the most appropriate. Which of you guys have tried these suggestions on live performances?

Question:
Possible to use 2 Laptops and a Mixer and just mix the tracks? Doesn't matter if using effects, same beat, etc.

zstowasser · Post by **zstowasser** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 2:40 am

Has anyone considered two laptops and synching them together?

I noticed when dragging in a saved live set to a currently open one the midi controller assignments and send/receive channels don't come through.. wtf?

I'm not sure if this is the right thread to post on but its what I found!

Lord Kahn · Post by **Lord Kahn** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:41 am

Why hasn't anyone mentioned Racks at all? There's a chain parameter that you can assign to an envelope on your clips. So each track can have it's own effects rack (and set of instrument/midi presets) and there's very little CPU (if any) used on the other racks.

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:00 am

Simplify.

Why have huge Live sets when you're only controlling a fixed number of elements? Pre-render the rest.

Dummy clips are a fantastic way to control and adjust any MIDI-mappable parameter. You can even sequence the track that does the parameter setting so the settings happen automatically. And they don't have to be fixed values, either. They can be curves and patterns, which obviously stay synched to the tempo.

I'm using my FCB1010 to fire preset surround send levels with dummy clips. For example, I can step on a button, and 50% main track goes to the back of the room with 100% live percussion, and 50% live percussion comes from the front with 100% of the main track. After the solo, another FCB buttons sends 100% of the main track to the front and back, and mutes the percussion. I've got various surround track send configurations of live percussion, two decks, and four loops.

There is HUGE in potential using dummy clips to set up and control any and all combination of MIDI-mappable parameters!

nobbystylus · Post by **nobbystylus** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 12:12 pm

i would also say.. do you really need a whole track dedicated to just one loop/midi part that you will never play again throughout a set? Give each track a purpose.. BEATs, Basslines, squiggly noises, etc, and then map out your tracks like this, with commonly used FX/Sends etc which can be used througout a set, not just for one songs... then you can get into Dummy clips/midi feedback etc etc if you want to 'zero' your fx settings when you get to mix the next song...

Schizophonix · Post by **Schizophonix** » Thu May 17, 2007 4:13 pm

Hello again...

I know I started this thread a long time ago, and having read everyone's ideas and contributions, I finally decided to make one BIG set for all of my tunes and automate effects activation/deactivation etc.

The problem that I stumbled upon this time is the following:

In live settings, I use an endless controller for controlling "scene selection" or in other words I browse through different scenes using a knob and then launch them with a button on my MIDI controller (BCR2000).

As we all know, MIDI controllers have 128 different values. My set has about 300 different scenes. So when trying to browse through the scenes it skips every other scene. Which means I have a limit of 128 scenes per set.
Going back to using the mouse on stage is out of the question...

So there go my BIG SET ideas out of the window...

I made maximum effort to reduce the complexity of the effects, but now I need to reduce the number of scenes to half, which practically means amputating my set...

So I raise my voice to the heavens for one final time:...

IS THERE ANY WAY TO HAVE A SEAMLESS SET WITHOUT SACRIFICING (TOO MUCH) COMPLEXITY?

Having two instances of Live playing at the same time and somehow mixing between them would be the ideal solution.... It seems that this was possible until Live 3 or something but since Live 4 the program needs exclusivity over the soundcard, so the second instance cannot use the same soundcard...

Anyway, I have faith in the forum user's creativity and imagination, I have learned a lot from this forum and I am pretty sure someone out there has faced a similar issue and has found a way around it...

Thanx for your attention....

zstowasser · Post by **zstowasser** » Thu May 17, 2007 7:11 pm

what about using a different midi controller? maybe the endless knobs on a novation would work, i've checked them out and they click for every next value.

or better yet - use buttons to move up/down in scenes rather than a knob.

senator adam · Post by **senator adam** » Thu May 17, 2007 10:49 pm

hey,

I use a BCR200 with a huge set, use a scene for each song, and have more than 20 channels (8 for drums, 8 for others, 1 live synth, one live sampler, and some others for random crap ). On the BCR I have the 4 bottom right buttons control navigation. The left top button is Play scene, the top right is stop, the bottom left is move down to next scene, and the bottom right is move up

Works well for me.

senator adam · Post by **senator adam** » Thu May 17, 2007 10:50 pm

however, i had to edit the buttons so they control CC60-126, because for some reason Live wasn't recognizing all 127 for each press of button. Not sure, why, but I fixed it by doing that...

Clearscreen · Post by **Clearscreen** » Thu May 17, 2007 11:37 pm

Having two instances of Live playing at the same time and somehow mixing between them would be the ideal solution.... It seems that this was possible until Live 3 or something but since Live 4 the program needs exclusivity over the soundcard, so the second instance cannot use the same soundcard...

it might be worth your while checking out an echo indigo pcmcia audio card. it's drivers can take audio from 4 stereo software sources at once (ie 4 programs can use the soundcard simultaneously). you could also try ntonyx VAC (virtual Audio Cables) on PC (http://www.ntonyx.com) or Jack (or something similar) on osx and route the output from the two versions of live to a third version (or a simpler program like bidule) as a master. the problem with doing it this way is the amount of hard drive use that occurs when loading a new set - this can result in dropouts in the playing audio. although you could use higher latency to help with this if you're playing live, more latency isn't really what you want.
still, might be worth trying...

also, it might be worth looking into using the 'drag n drop' method, where you save each audio/midi track (part) of your whole track as a .als in the browser and drag an drop em into your set one at a time whilst playing other parts. works fine for me and keeps lives track count managable. of course this means using the mouse a bit more which may not suit you - although you could look into using autokeys scripts maybe to get around this.

good luck with it, it's not the easiest thing to deal with and i don't think there necessarily is a definitive correct/easy way to do this.

Schizophonix · Post by **Schizophonix** » Mon May 21, 2007 12:17 pm

Thanx for the ideas, Clearscreen... Unfortunately the ntonyx drivers generate a lot of digital noise (dropouts), unsuitable for playing live...
I might consider the drag and drop solution, erasing each tune as I drop the next... This might solve the "too many scenes" issue...

Take care

capo-wear-i · Post by **capo-wear-i** » Mon May 21, 2007 3:44 pm

As we all know, MIDI controllers have 128 different values. My set has about 300 different scenes. So when trying to browse through the scenes it skips every other scene. Which means I have a limit of 128 scenes per set.
Going back to using the mouse on stage is out of the question
So there go my BIG SET ideas out of the window...

Erm... have you even opened the BCR2000 manual ?

You're using the BCR encoder for scene select in absolute mode - it needs to be in relative (2's compliment) mode. This sends a relative value when you turn the encoder (eg increase by +10, decrease by -5 etc..) instead of an absolute value (eg 34, 128). Have a quick read of the BCR manual on how to do this, then re-assign this 'scene' encoder in Live (it recognises the different modes when you re-learn).

That way you can go between any number of scenes - I've got a couple of hundered in my set.

EDIT : Sorry - no malice intended, but I was just surprised that you hadn't looked into what the BCR could do.

stjohn · Post by **stjohn** » Mon May 21, 2007 11:06 pm

The Phat Conductor wrote:you can just program the clip to mix the wet/dry to 100% dry.

you could have some submaster tracks with dummy clips!!

anti-banausic · Post by **anti-banausic** » Thu May 24, 2007 8:27 pm

capo-wear-i wrote:
As we all know, MIDI controllers have 128 different values. My set has about 300 different scenes. So when trying to browse through the scenes it skips every other scene. Which means I have a limit of 128 scenes per set.
Going back to using the mouse on stage is out of the question
So there go my BIG SET ideas out of the window...
Erm... have you even opened the BCR2000 manual ?

You're using the BCR encoder for scene select in absolute mode - it needs to be in relative (2's compliment) mode. This sends a relative value when you turn the encoder (eg increase by +10, decrease by -5 etc..) instead of an absolute value (eg 34, 128). Have a quick read of the BCR manual on how to do this, then re-assign this 'scene' encoder in Live (it recognises the different modes when you re-learn).

That way you can go between any number of scenes - I've got a couple of hundered in my set.

EDIT : Sorry - no malice intended, but I was just surprised that you hadn't looked into what the BCR could do.

This is a quality suggestion. One that I had almost forgotten due to the fact that I mostly use the BCR in Mackie Emulation, where one knob is already set like this.

Use this to your advantage.