Ableton Forum

Hi, new user here, I’ve got some questions about how to use Ableton in a live band situation. Unfortunately I will need it explaining like I’m a 5 year old!

I would like to feed backing tracks to a PA and a click to the bands in-ears. What hardware do I need to do this in the simplest way possible? Just have the drummer start the song and it play to the end, then cue the next song. I don’t need to be able to manipulate the track in real time or anything.

Simplest way possible would be an audio interface with at least four audio outs. Obviously one of the audio outs goes to headphones with a click track, you can get little headphone mixers that have at least four headphone outs on them, this is the cheapest way to get click tracks. there are bluetooth in ear monitors that do the same for some hard cash, much more elegant though.

In terms of getting the drummer be able to start the song etc. that's a bit more complicated. In the case of using a drummer like that, best to use Session Scene clips, because it's easier to set the tempo for each Scene and it's a trivial matter to set up a MIDI foot controller to advance to the next scene.

So you need some sort of way to get the click into the headphones or in ear monitors, and a MIDI foot controller to advance scenes in Live. This is the simplest setup for backing tracks.

(You can do it all in the Arrangement View with markers etc. I've just always used Session View for this)

Thanks for the reply, I run the band's mix through an Allen & Heath digital mixer, could I use that as the interface using a USB connection from my laptop to the desk, and then use a midi controller to play the tracks via midi?

Apologies for the lack of knowledge, I'm literally starting this from scratch at 42, after my band's keyboard player and rhythm guitarist retired!