why "Live" isn't that good for live performance, I

[kenporter]

Will two copies share one MIDI interface?
Will they share one sound card?

Just tried it on the Mac, and yes to both questions. On top of that when I have a track record enabled in both sessions I can play them both simultaneously, i.e. one VSTi from the first session, and another one from the second session. I can even playback both sessions at the same time, obviously they're not synced but it works.

Try it yourself and be amazed! It's actually really cool I must say.

Ken

[drb]

Will two copies share one MIDI interface?
Will they share one sound card?

Just tried it on the Mac, and yes to both questions.
Ken

I can't imagine that stuck notes on hardware synths would not be a problem.

[kenporter]

Will two copies share one MIDI interface?
Will they share one sound card?

Just tried it on the Mac, and yes to both questions.
Ken

I can't imagine that stuck notes on hardware synths would not be a problem.

OK, and how is that? I mean you may have that problem with just one program running. Besides, create a dummy clip for stuck notes. that sends out a note off or velocity 0 command. You're trying to debunk it I know. To be honest this is actually better than Cubase since even though you can load more than one session at a time, it completely unloads all plugins and VSTi's, meaning if you switch between a Cubase session it would "reload" all the plugins again which takes time.

Anyway, before theorizing everything that may happen, try it and see if it suits you. I think it does exactly what you were asking for in your original post. Live is pretty powerful when it comes to live performances I think, you just don't want to admit it, hehehe.

Ken

[twitterytom]

you should be able to sync them easily using a midi loopback program such as midi yoke on the PC. i know there's something on the mac that does the same.

haven't tested it though.

[ollyb303]

Only one song at a time? Only one set of vsts/fx? Isn't this what racks are for?

My live set has 30 songs loaded into it, using racks and clip envelopes to utilise several vsts/fx on each track, and I use my controllers to switch between them live.

Think you need to go away and read the manual mate

I used to have to load half of my set into my MPC2000s off 12 floppys, whack a record on, mix it in, load another 12, mix out of the record and carry on.

Count yourself lucky!

[drb]

The (powerful) laptop I have probably isn't powerful enough to run to a full song with VSTs and all while loading another equally full song, so I'm afraid I can't really test this plan under real world loads.

Perhaps someone with a better machine can try it out and see how practical it is?

How do you deal with two programs running when it comes to things like controllers being assigned for input? What hardware is active to each copy any given time?

Can you have a song running, and load up the next and not have glitches?

Can you set up up shortcuts or macros or hotkeys to load a song, and have it know which copy to act on, so you are not mousing onstage?

Maybe it's workable, but I'd like to hear from someone who does it that way.

[drb]

I reiterate that obviously if your set consists of just a handful of tracks per song, Live is very good. I'm speaking ONLY about the problem of using very complete songs that normally consist of many tracks.

A full releasable song is normally 16-30 linear tracks in my case. If I chop this all into sections as well for session view, each song has many more parts. Try and fit a few of those very large songs into a full set format, and Live is not well set up for that.

The obvious way is to mix stems, and I think that's what most people end up doing. I prefer to have the entire song still available to edit, rewrite and change at will, and not be locked into the stems I've pre made.

Surely someone sees the value in this?

Multiple tabs of full songs would a better way.

[kenporter]

I reiterate that obviously if your set consists of just a handful of tracks per song, Live is very good. I'm speaking ONLY about the problem of using very complete songs that normally consist of many tracks.

A full releasable song is normally 16-30 linear tracks in my case. If I chop this all into sections as well for session view, each song has many more parts. Try and fit a few of those very large songs into a full set format, and Live is not well set up for that.

OK, you're sort of contradicting yourself. You say Live sucks because you can't run 2 sessions in parallel and switch between them. I showed you how to do it (and so far it seems to work pretty well), and you say you can't try it yourself because your computer is not powerful enough to run 2 full sessions (complete songs) in parallel. But then again you're stating that Live sucks as a live tool. I am confused man. I guess I am not getting your point of saying Live sucks if you currently can't even use this feature!?!?!

I've loaded a different session while playing another one without any issues at all on my Mac tonight.

Anyway, I need to go to sleep...

Ken

[drb]

ful enough to run 2 full sessions (complete songs) in parallel. But then again you're stating that Live sucks as a live tool. I am confused man. I guess I am not getting your point of saying Live sucks if you currently can't even use this feature!?!?!
Ken

I never said anything "sucks".

There is a large difference between running two full copies of a program, (with all it's overhead), and running a program with two files open.

[fatrabbit]

But surely having complete songs increases complexity unnecessarily for a live situation? Or at least that's my opinion, because I want to keep things as simple as possible without having to worry about 156 different scenes mapped to a thousand different things for all my midi controllers, rogue vsts not loading or being a bitch etc. Or getting lost in a song whilst you constantly tweak non-important parameters and the audience gets bored and goes home.

I think everybody gets a little too over-excited when they start planning for performing live with computers and want to do this incredibly complex and mind-blowing performance, leaving no LFO or other parameter un-tweakable. But the best things usually seem to be so simple when you analyse them.

[optimistic]

Funny. I spend alot of time simplifying things to use live...

[Marx]

FIrst of all, It's not hard at all to make a Performance set with all your songs in one big set. Record your VST instruments as audio files (you should do this either way) and the VST effects shouldn't eat that much CPU if you have them on Return tracks. Every clip should be easy to find in your project folders.


But if you really want two separate sets.... Set up two computers connect them with a USB cords to sync the MIDI clock and use a DJ mixer to kick the audio back and forth.

then again you could just bring a few synths and a kit and play it live

[kenporter]

ful enough to run 2 full sessions (complete songs) in parallel. But then again you're stating that Live sucks as a live tool. I am confused man. I guess I am not getting your point of saying Live sucks if you currently can't even use this feature!?!?!
Ken

I never said anything "sucks".

There is a large difference between running two full copies of a program, (with all it's overhead), and running a program with two files open.

Alright fair enough, you didn't say sucks, you only said that Live isn't that good for live performances and that it's very limited.

Actually that "large" difference of having two Live programs open is about 2-3% on my computer, so not really huge in the context of having to sets open at the same time what you have asked for.

Ken

[drb]

But surely having complete songs increases complexity unnecessarily for a live situation? Or at least that's my opinion, because I want to keep things as simple as possi
.

ok, for you, 2-3%, but what if you need to have two copies of *all* VSTs open because you have two programs loaded? In a well managed program with tabs, all that overhead is eliminated. I'm not saying your plan is bad - it may be very good as a stop gap, but is not the ideal way.

I agree Live is perhaps the best we have now for live situations, but I still feel it's quite crippled by basically being designed for one long song, and not for sets of multiple songs.

In the end these limitations force people to do stems or mixdowns, and it takes some of the liveness out of it..

Also for fatrabbit:
I'm NOT interested in making complex changes onstage. I'm interested in playing the songs, while leaving the original source intact. This way, the song can be rewritten and improved week after week, especially on the road.

We often road test songs on tour, and update for the final release.

[Goran@Irrupt]

Since Live can't load more than one song at a time we must load all our songs into one set.

okay.

In the real world it's impractical to load all our songs up, since we use different VSTs and effects and track layouts in each one, as we change ways we wish to work over the years. I'm 100% sure the track layouts system you choose now, will change over the years.

So as a solution we end up mixing stems of audio, or just a two track version of the song, and playing that live. Not the same is it?
In the end, not nearly as much ability to change the music as if we could load the original "source code" of our songs, and not these crippled mixdown or stem versions.

This is fine if you use prewritten snippets of audio, but to create full tracks of release quality music, and then try to play these files in a set is not very practical. (very simple music is an exception)

Wouldn't it be nice if we could load a song, exactly as we wrote it, VSTs effects, everything, then load a second one and have it in the background waiting to be played?

Just like loading up two documents in Word. Different fonts, no big deal. Switch to next song when ready..

Can you share one audio and MIDI interface between two separate copies of Live running on the same machine? Not really.

Of course, the simple solution is two complete versions of Live loaded and running in sync. You need two laptops, and two audio interfaces, and tow MIDI interfaces and a giant mixer. Not really that practical.

If anyone has a better way to work, I'd love to hear it.

i hear ya mate. that's my nr.1 wish for the future versions of Live. i want to open 2 (two) copies of Live at the same time! and NO, at the moment that is not possible on PC's.
i bought a Kaoss pad 3 and use it for a workaround. i have one return channel rooted to out's 3/4 on my audio card and those outs are sending signal to KP3. now, i have one knob which activates sends from all channels (including other returns) to KP. when i get to the end of my song during live perfomance, i just sample the last phrase on KP and it keeps looping it in the same tempo. KP is really good in setting loop points and with a little practice you'll be doing it really easily. you can also send individual channels to KP, to be looped, it's all up to you. now, while KP is playing you can stop your set and load anothe one. you won't be needing more then 10 sec's to do it.
hope this is of any help.
w