Cello + Ableton: How Would You Do It?

[Knuckles624]

Hello Everyone,

I am a semi-professional cellist, just recently graduated from music school. I've been playing around with Ableton for a few years now to get a lot of my compositional ideas down, but I know I still have a lot to learn. So here's what I need help with:

I primarily write in two genres: film score and dance music. I really want to incorporate my cello into both as it's my primary instrument. Currently, I own a Fishman pickup for the cello that mounts to the bridge allowing me to utilize the 1/4". My goal is to have the versatility of an effects pedal board without the hardware. Ultimately, I want to be able to hear an effected sound as I play and be able to record into Ableton. So, for this instrument, would you use a microphone or a pickup for the original signal? Which would produce a better signal to be processed? Are there plugins or software available that would allow me to essentially play live cello and control the processing of the sound in real time? Imagine trying to get the cello to make dubstep sounds in real time lol

Hopefully this comes across clear! Sort of difficult to explain what I'm going after. Let me know if you need more information.

[TLW]

Piezo pickups like the Fishman aren’t ideal as you’ve probably discovered - they only reproduce the vibrations of the spot on the instrument they’re stuck to which is a problem on any instrument where the body resonates produces a lot of frequencies at different spots and also sets the frequency balance. On fiddles/violins they tend to take out the transients and make the instrument sound a bit like a clarinet or sax, so I guess they do the same to a cello. On the other hand they resist feedback and cross-talk better than microphones, though feedback is still a possibility and they will amplify any contact between musician and instrument including accidental taps and knocks..

On balance, I’d probably go with the Fishman and eq and compress it as required or get a purpose-built electric cello, I believe several models exist and I know of someone who’s played one for years in very loud rock bands, one of which tours globally, without any sound-related problems as far as I am aware.

As for effects any plugin/effect that can be used in Live can be used to process sound as you are playing. You need to either set the track monitoring to “on” or arm the track for recording then Live will output what is coming out of that channel. To make it work you need an audio interface capable of low round-trip latency and some way to hear Live’s output without it being drowned out by the cello. I suggest you investigate in-ear monitoring for that function.

You will also need a way to control Live while having both your hands occupied with the cello. Which points towards a floor MIDI footswitch/pedal controller. I’m not really qualified to comment on those other than to say the Behringer one has been popular for years. Hopefully others with more experience will be along to provide better advice on that subject.

[Tone Deft]

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[fishmonkey]

i was going to write a bunch of stuff about miking but this DPA page covers most of it:

https://www.dpamicrophones.com/mic-univ ... ic-a-cello