Ableton Forum

Hey all !

It's becoming really tiring lately to take my nearly whole studio when i want to play live, and that is mostly my live set has a lot of live audio channels, therefore i need to take my sound-card and my 8 channel amplifiers, which they are both huge and too much of a hassle.

My set is usually consists of:

2 x Microphones
Novation Circuit (stereo input)
Guitar from pedal board (also stereo input)
Timeline as a send in Abelton (also stereo)

I also use Mobius looper in Ableton which i have it run through some of the channel like one of the microphone, guitar and circuit, and that's why i cannot just give my inputs directly to the mixer or the PA, they have to go through my set.

I guess that leaves me with only that the PA has to be connected to my laptop, or i have to take my sound-card always.

What do you think guys? what do you do usually? any ideas?

Thanks in advance

Hi Yousefk,

Not sure I completely understand your issue, but what I do is just use my cheap 18i8 Scarlett for live stuff. That's it. Lots of ins and outs. Not the best sound card for sure but does what I need it to just fine, and its small, lite, and cheap. Not sure why you have to take your own amp to gigs? Do you use it for monitoring? Do you need it to mix your tracks live every time from the mixer and not from Ableton?

Like I said not exactly sure what your setup is but I think the little 18i8 alone would be able to do the job? Btw one thing that I do like about the 18i8 is the 2 headphone outs on the front, super handy, one can be setup to be a cue line from Ableton.

McAnix wrote:Hi Yousefk,

Not sure I completely understand your issue, but what I do is just use my cheap 18i8 Scarlett for live stuff. That's it. Lots of ins and outs. Not the best sound card for sure but does what I need it to just fine, and its small, lite, and cheap. Not sure why you have to take your own amp to gigs? Do you use it for monitoring? Do you need it to mix your tracks live every time from the mixer and not from Ableton?

Like I said not exactly sure what your setup is but I think the little 18i8 alone would be able to do the job? Btw one thing that I do like about the 18i8 is the 2 headphone outs on the front, super handy, one can be setup to be a cue line from Ableton.

Thanks a lot for your reply McAnix, you actually gave me an awesome tip, i never knew one of these small Scarlett can give you 8 channels of inputs, that is exactly what i need, and it's small.

I take my Amplifier because my sound card (Apollo Twin) has only two inputs, usually i connect them together via ADAT, that's why i said i have to take them both every time.

Just for curiosity, why do you think 2 headphones is handy? one is enough to put as a cue in Ableton, and the other?

Best

Oh I see,

Well the Scarlett 18i8 isn't a great sound card at all, when I first plugged it in I was so disappointed not that I was expecting much but when I started taking it to gigs I realised how handy it was. Got it for crazy cheap at a sale, never would have bought it otherwise but now I'm kinda happy with it. For demos, gigs and random recordings having all those ins and outs is nice.

Yeah I you're right, I just use the extra head phone out for more speakers at home.

Cheers!