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

[kenporter]

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.

Think about it, that's basically exactly what you were asking for in your original post. I mean the problem is that if you can load more than one song into tabs so to speak there are two ways this can be done. Either they all run at the same time, meaning all your VST's etc. are running and you will need a lot of CPU or the non-active session unloads all the VST's etc. so that you're only using CPU for the currently playing session, which means when you select the other session in the background it will need to reload all plugins and softsynths which is not instantaneous. You were asking for something instant, which can only be done if all sessions are loaded and running at the same time!
Like I said before, in Cubase you can load more than one session, but it will always unload the plugins for the session that's in the background.

It can't be done any other way. Like I said think about it, how can you have 2 sessions running at the "same time" without having all the plugins running? The only other way this could be done is with VST3 plugins which only use CPU when audio goes through them or with internal Live plugins which only use CPU when audio goes through them. However, with VST2.4 spec plugins (which pretty much all plugins are these days) what you're asking for can only be done in one of the 2 ways I have described above.

Ken

[kenporter]

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.

w

Like I said in my initial post, on PC's enable "Allow Multiple Instances" in the preference (Look and Feel tab) of Live and you will be able to run 2 or more copies of Live at the same time, sharing the same audio interface and midi interface. Just tried it on a PC at work too...

Ken

[Goran@Irrupt]

Like I said in my initial post, on PC's enable "Allow Multiple Instances" in the preference (Look and Feel tab) of Live and you will be able to run 2 or more copies of Live at the same time, sharing the same audio interface and midi interface. Just tried it on a PC at work too...

Ken

nope, it doesen't work with my Presonus Firebox.
w

[nowtime]

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.

+1000

A "Next-Song" function is basic for any performance, each being completely independent from one another. That is the ultimate creative freedom. Having one Performance Set is a big mind-fuck, but I am getting it nailed down out of necessity. Having a new Macbook Pro is a big help in the matter.

[amoeba]

i have to agree with drb and a few other here. the "live" part of live that is missing for me is a way to easily get from one song to the next, as seamlessly as possible.

yes, there are workarounds, and i have used them all to varying degrees of success. it's a royal PITA to dump everything down to a stem-style file, and it does create limits. one night i might want to just jam solos on a single instrument, the next night i might want to ride knobs thru the whole thing. and each of my songs is a totally different setup of instruments, track layout, mappings and so on. i tried for a long time to get the perfect template, but it's too limiting.

i would love to see the tab suggestion. even a way to crossfade between two tabs. of course there are ways to somewhat deal with this, but don't slag on drb for an honest and very legitimate feature wish.

for now, the best thing i have found to do is create small audio mini-songs that i run in a separate app in the background while i close a live file and load up the next. it's not ideal, but it does give a bit of a "breather" between songs, and is pretty seamless as far as the audience is concerned.

but i pray for tabs, or whatever will let me bring the next song up before the previous is finished. that would really make live "live" for me.

and fixing the damn midi clock i/o would help tons, too.

[yearlongyeti]

Hi all I must say it sounds like you guys have alot more going on your sets than I do but I pretty much do the same as pitch black. Have a look at he video http://www.pitchblack.co.nz/Default.asp ... bletonlive (40:08).

[six_o_clock_crow]

I have a small, cheap Behringer DJ mixer. I plug the laptop into one channel, and an MP3 player with 'interlude drones' into the other channel. I can then fade from the laptop to the MP3 drones. The drones play while I load up a new song and I fade back to the laptop when the new song is going.

I was advised against doing this on another thread, because it seemed clunky - and I admit it is a bit. But it gives me the flexibility of not having to use one big set for all songs. I kind of lose track using one massive set, and there is a proecessor load issue doing it that way I find.

Anyway, my method works for me which is I guess what counts. I do agree that being able to run multiple sets, synced automatically, seems like an obvious feature for the future. But it's not a deal breaker for me with my workaround.

[DGA]

for me, one of the most powerful features of live is the ability to play multiple songs in the same session. I#ve got a hardware sequencer and other gear, and the options of transitioning between musical ideas, which is one of the most exciting possibilities of performign electronic music, is greatly limited.

There are obviously some condensing requirements to make a single session performance practical, but remember the old adage of keeping things simple. If you are working on stuff in between gigs, jsut bounce down the audio and put that in your live set.

Just how much stuff are you tweaking live that you need it active? The fact that tehre are countless users performing with small controller setups should indicate that it is possible to effectively express yourself with some consolidation.

[Newecho]

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?

This is the right idea for me as well. I say this because I had this exact capability years ago with hardware synths and it was fantastic.

Up until 2003, I played synth for http://www.hfoz.com. For over 10 years I played used a playlist concept with various hardware synths.

In a nutshell, I used a workstation that supported SCSI. Early on an Ensoniq TS-10, then a Korg Triton. For each song, I set up splits, layers, FX, samples into "Combis". If I needed a sequence or to use real time pattern play (like triggering a clip), I'd store splits, layers, FX, samples, and sequenced patterns into a song slot.

Before the show, I'd load up an entire nights worth of data (patches with splits and layers, combis, samples, sequencer) off a SCSI drive. It took about 2 minutes. From there on out it was instant access with no load times for EVERY song in the set list. If we decided to move around in the set list, no problem, just pull up the combi or sequence. Everything was stored in memory at that point so loads were instant. I played 100s of shows this way.

On a historical note, I actually used the same method prior to this with an Ensoniq VFX and an Ensoniq EPS but I used floppies. Load times took forever so I'd load between sets. Even though I'm not gigging these days, I still own a Korg TR which loads all this off of an SD card in under a minute.

Of course, performing with Ableton Live has so much more potential for improvisation and control. It would be a HUGE time saver if Ableton implemented song playlist feature as you describe as we could all simply drop songs into the playlist rather than spending time re-engineering elements to work in a live scenario.

Mark

[drb]

I think it's interesting that a lot of us still resort to using some external device to allow song transitions. Other are obviously finding these same limitations in Live.

Shows can truly be different each night if we have the freedom to drop out one synth part, or change the level of the snare or write a new bass line right before a show? How can you do that with stems? Can you edit and re-render and drop all that back into your master set. Yes you could, but in reality we are all lazy, and if I want to change a part in a song I change it, because I effective am playing the "source code" of a track each time.

As I've said before, we could all mix down to stereo tracks and play these and pretend that's live, but isn't that really called DJing? Not saying that's a bad thing. Just not what I wish to do as a live performer.

I like the chaos and freedom that having full unmixed songs and multiple audio channels brings to a performance.

This steps into the DJ/musician/digital DJ debate, but I think we can all agree that whatever method we choose to work, having greater tools to allow it would be nice.

[Newecho]

I wanted to also mention that I've seen Howard Jones and Robbie Bronnimann perform a few times. When I saw them, they were running Live on multiple laptops with hardware synths in support.

This year, they changed their rig. Robbie still uses Live, but Howard switched to only using a Roland G8. Here is a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw6XwR3ssDo. Here is an audio interview from his podcast where he discusses the switch.

I think this is a cool idea because he's got an instant on synth combined with the power of Live.

Mark

[erikstauber]

+1 for a "next song" tab. Until then, this is how I do it

I actually run 3 instances of Ableton for my live shows. 2 are used to load and run my songs, and 1 is used as a virtual mixer for our vocalists.

Most of my live sets are about ~500mb, with anywhere from 20 - 60 tracks each. I totally agree with drb - I just want to use my finished set and not spend a bunch of effort dumbing down the set.

I've got a quad-core running windows XP, and it works beautifully. I wrote a macro program that does all the next song loading automatically, so all I have to do is click through my set list and I can go from song to song seamlessly.

I don't have much experience with Macs, but for Windows computers, I've had various success running two or more instances of Ableton with different soundcards. I've tried a Presonus firebox and a M-audio lightbridge, and both crashed regularly. Now I use an RME HDSP9652, and I've never had a problem.

So in summary, this works really nicely, although I still with Ableton would have a next song tab as my setup does add complexity.

[SimonPHC]

the OP should just learn to live with the limitations of Live. people expect everything these days...

[six_o_clock_crow]

Just how much stuff are you tweaking live that you need it active? The fact that tehre are countless users performing with small controller setups should indicate that it is possible to effectively express yourself with some consolidation.

It's not necessarily that I have loads of stuff I want to tweak in every song. But I don't want to use the same set structure (e.g. same number of tracks, same number of sends etc etc) for every song.

I know I could have just one set structure reserved for playing live, but I don't want to work like that - I want multiple small sets that I can access at will.

The funny thing is, I don't actually perform live! But te way I am working on recordings is in a 'live performance' way. You might think "why not just work on each song seperately and then mix them into an album?" But I don't want to work like that

[DGA]

I think it's interesting that a lot of us still resort to using some external device to allow song transitions. Other are obviously finding these same limitations in Live.

Shows can truly be different each night if we have the freedom to drop out one synth part, or change the level of the snare or write a new bass line right before a show? How can you do that with stems? Can you edit and re-render and drop all that back into your master set. Yes you could, but in reality we are all lazy, and if I want to change a part in a song I change it, because I effective am playing the "source code" of a track each time.

As I've said before, we could all mix down to stereo tracks and play these and pretend that's live, but isn't that really called DJing? Not saying that's a bad thing. Just not what I wish to do as a live performer.

I like the chaos and freedom that having full unmixed songs and multiple audio channels brings to a performance.

This steps into the DJ/musician/digital DJ debate, but I think we can all agree that whatever method we choose to work, having greater tools to allow it would be nice.

who said anythign about stereo tracks? Think about mixing a bunch of stuff on a hardware mixer. The groups are there for adjusting levels of grouped instrument types. There is a difference between running 16 or more tracks open or consolidating to 8 or so. Chances are oyu will be more dynamic directly manipulating 8 tracks with a commonly available dedicated controller than switching controller banks or mouse clicking unless you bring out controller after controller.

kick, drums, synth, bass, samples, vocals - You could get by with 6 tracks with a ton of clips for all of your songs. You'll kill yourself or at least the dancefloro if you try to micromanage everything. Add 2 more tracks for additional synths or samples or whatever else, and that is a healthy amount of live arrangement.

Do you really need every drum individually tweakable or can you consolidated a few and work with an eq and effects to vary things up?

Are you adjsuting dynamics processors live? Will having 8 vocal tracks really bring out something that 8 clips in one vocal track will not?

This is where building your own effect chains in return tracks can help you out, and develop a signature lvie sound for yourself as well.

it would be super nice for one piece of software allows you to drop full vst chains in and out with nary a glitch, but the technology has limits.