Ableton Forum

Hey,
I'm new to ableton, I use Logic 9.
I'm going to start playing shows in a band I just joined and I want to find out how to go about setting up my session the best.
mostly I'll be triggering clips (if I can get them automatically triggering that would be awesome) and playing omnisphere.
The whole band is going to go straight into my laptop and I'll send to our own sweet monitors were are just about to get.We need the whole thing to be locked to a tempo track i can send to our drummer also with changes and everything.
The sound guy is just getting one stereo mix of us for the house system, but our system is going to be pretty loud so getting a good mix would be important to.
Lastly I want to to figure out how to control fx for each inst separately using artillery 2 (2 guitars, bass and vox). I know how to use artillery I just want to switch between the different tracks, or put one on each track and switch between them.

So far All I have is an Axiom 49 1st gen and the guys are giving me a small mixer I'll find out what kind and post it later. I'm open to controller suggestions if its difficult to do this with just one Axiom.

AXIOM 49
http://maudio.be/images/axiom49p2.jpg


I know its a tall order but , I'm gonna figure this out one way or another...
I need to get on that stage man!

This is our latest track, the only one with me/synth on it (if you dont like metal and just wanna help me out the synth picks up more around 2:52 on)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpaxA-H-WYg

If you want MORE here's our Facebook. You should like our page ;D
The first ep with me on it will be completely out soon and its only gonna get crazier and more synthetic in the future. Think electronic windup with metal drop and tones of other stuff like that. We do all our own Mixing and mastering.
http://www.facebook.com/weareGFAP

Thanks!
D

If you don't feel like explaining it all just give me some words to Google!
I want to be playing by mid December.

Well thanks for nothing Ableton forum I guess....

I wouldn't mix everything through your laptop live to be honest - particularly the drums. That's solely from a live sound perspective, though you said that you want to effect audio coming from all instruments - does this include the drums? Also, do you want to actually trigger anything live or are all sequences/changes pre programmed (you did say you wanted things to trigger automatically)? Do you want to do anything like recording clips on the fly and replaying them - that kind of thing?

I guess I'm wondering if using Live over Logic is of any advantage to you. The real advantage to Live is the workflow for creating tunes and the ability to trigger clips on the fly and I kinda don't see where that fits in with what I listened to as you sound like quite a live band. For instance, I use Live for getting ideas down and creating a tune, then usually lay it out in Logic and produce it in there. I also use Live for playing live, but that is because I don't have any pre-determined structure and pretty much do everything on the fly. Live provides a lot of freedom to play this way. Personally (and others disagree which is fine), I prefer mixing in Logic. There have been many debates about this, but to my ears mixes sound better in Logic. And there is a 64 bit version which utilises you machines full capability (if you have a loaded machine). Again, that is personal opinion, though I still use Live for playing live as it really gives a flexibility that Logic does not.

Anyway, I highly advise not just sending one stereo out whatever you do. If you do route everything through your laptop, I would still send an output for each instrument/vocal and let the sound guy mix it. You can then send an additional stereo signal of any audio generated in Live/Logic - or better still depending on your number of outputs, split that too. And again, send separated drums to the sound guy. I use BFD2 and send separate outs for each drum even though they are not played Live. It just sounds way better.

Sorry can't give any advice on Artillery as I have never used it.

In terms of controller, I guess it really depends on what you want to do. The Axiom should be fine for playing keys, but if you want a load of buttons and knobs, there's a ton of options. A cheap option a lot of people use is the Behringer BCR2000 or BCF2000. If you have a better budget, the Akai APC40 is a popular choice with Ableton users as it is designed for Ableton. Lots of fader, knobs and buttons to trigger clips, samples, notes etc etc. All will of course work with Logic too.

Hope this helps a bit. If you can be a little more specific in terms of effects, routing, what exactly you want to do in Live etc, I can try to help a bit more.

well I said that I'd be putting "(2 guitars, bass and vox)" through Ableton, so that doesn't include the drums.
I'd like to set it up so I can ( if this is possible) have the midi and audio set up so it can be triggered automatically first but then midi also be played if I choose to do so.

I don't think I'm going to be recording clips on the fly to much yet.
I don't want to use logic because it has a history of crashing in my experience, live is just more stable.
The track up there is just the beginning of my band letting me play with them. Its kinda light on the synthesizing because all of it was written after the fact, so I only had so much room in the freq range to deal with.
In the future were going to have a much more electronically influenced set. our whole set is going to be on one long click track with me dropping beats in-between each song while they put there guitars in different tunings for the next track. Like one album mastered in the scence that the length of the whole set is pre-programmed into live with one giant click that the drummer follows the whole set.
so down the road I will be slapping on my on improvisations and making beats in the moment as I get more comfortable and my technique grows.

Its all about blowing people away with the show now a-days so I'm defiantly leaning towards getting more controllers. the aka apc40 not only seems like it works well but also looks interesting so I think Id go for that.
MORE knobs buttons and lights!

as far as routing I think I've got the live instruments covered… maybe.

I have each inst channel grouped with one instance of artillery on the group channel and a midi channel sending midi to the group. then I just set my axiom group buttons to arm whichever track I want to mess with. that seems to be working. and yeah I'm going to be sending each of the 4 inst right to the sound guy after that.

I just need to rent a really nice interface and figure out how to do the audio/midi clip launching AND send a changing tempo track to our drummer and I think I'm good.
I'll deal with latency issues later I'm just focusing on the over all basic setup knowledge first.

Oh and thank you, Very much for replying.

01000100 wrote:well I said that I'd be putting "(2 guitars, bass and vox)" through Ableton, so that doesn't include the drums.

OK

01000100 wrote:I'd like to set it up so I can ( if this is possible) have the midi and audio set up so it can be triggered automatically first but then midi also be played if I choose to do so.

Yep, that is doable. In arrangement view, lay out your track as you would in any DAW. Then (on different tracks) in session view, create clips of audio or midi and you can launch them whenever you like on the fly. Because they are on different tracks, I would suggest you prefix the track names so you know whether a track is audio/midi based on stuff in the arrangement view or session view.

01000100 wrote:I don't think I'm going to be recording clips on the fly to much yet.

Once you have the basics set up to launch clips, you'll pretty much automatically have this ability anyway.

01000100 wrote:I don't want to use logic because it has a history of crashing in my experience, live is just more stable.

Not sure I agree with that statement! Not saying that Live is not stable, more that Logic in my experience is too...

01000100 wrote:The track up there is just the beginning of my band letting me play with them. Its kinda light on the synthesizing because all of it was written after the fact, so I only had so much room in the freq range to deal with.

Fair enough.

01000100 wrote:In the future were going to have a much more electronically influenced set. our whole set is going to be on one long click track with me dropping beats in-between each song while they put there guitars in different tunings for the next track. Like one album mastered in the scence that the length of the whole set is pre-programmed into live with one giant click that the drummer follows the whole set.

This approach can be problematic - well that is probably more the way I play as all my tracks seem to have quite different setups. If you are re-using the same template for each tune, you may be okay. Just create a track to send to your drummer and route a click track and whatever you want to it. You can edit the tempo in the Arrangement view. Easiest way to do this is to right click on the tempo and choose "Show Automation in New Lane". You can then use this to automate the tempo across your whole set. You can also add time sig changes anywhere you want. Right click in the area you set your loop point in and select "Insert Time Signature Change". Any click track you create for the drummer will pick up on this tempo change, so you should be okay.

01000100 wrote:so down the road I will be slapping on my on improvisations and making beats in the moment as I get more comfortable and my technique grows.

Not really something you can get too much advice on unless you have really specific questions - all about playing with midi effects/M4L etc and getting creative...

01000100 wrote:Its all about blowing people away with the show now a-days so I'm defiantly leaning towards getting more controllers. the aka apc40 not only seems like it works well but also looks interesting so I think Id go for that.
MORE knobs buttons and lights!

Yeah, if you are launching clips and controlling stuff - probably the best all in one solution. Novation Launchpad + Generic controller (like the BCR2000) will give you more buttons and knobs - guess it depends if you really need them or not.

01000100 wrote:as far as routing I think I've got the live instruments covered… maybe.

OK. If you have any questions, post back, but try and be specific!!

01000100 wrote:I have each inst channel grouped with one instance of artillery on the group channel and a midi channel sending midi to the group. then I just set my axiom group buttons to arm whichever track I want to mess with. that seems to be working. and yeah I'm going to be sending each of the 4 inst right to the sound guy after that.

I guess if you go for something like the APC40, you will have to re-arrange a bit, though it has been designed with Ableton in mind, so configuration should be easy.

01000100 wrote:I just need to rent a really nice interface and figure out how to do the audio/midi clip launching AND send a changing tempo track to our drummer and I think I'm good.

Kinda explained above. The launchpad or APC40 are set up to imitate the session view by default (well the launchpad is anyway). So the 8 columns represent 8 tracks in Session view and the 8 rows represent 8 clips on each of those tracks. So without moving around at all, you can launch 8 clips on 8 tracks. You can then move around to choose other tracks/clips to launch (the chosen track/clips are represented in Live by having a red border around them).

01000100 wrote:I'll deal with latency issues later I'm just focusing on the over all basic setup knowledge first.

Best approach and latency should not be too much of an issue if you have a decent machine, though you may need to think carefully about how loaded your set is with plugins so you can get latency as low as possible without worrying about audio glitches. Try the above out and if you have any specific questions, post back.

Wow Thanks for this thorough reply to all my questions. I'll experiment and get back soon as I can.
but really this was a huge help, thanks