Ableton Forum

for all of you cats doing gigs with your laptops I'd like to know how you route your laptop audio for monitoring at your performances.

do you put anything between your audio card and the house speakers or the house mixing board like a hardware compressor or a limiter?

do you do so but only use software compressor or limiters

do you use nothing and just go audio card to mixing board

if you are mixing tracks with something like tracktor do you set up differently

just how important is this aspect of your performing

could you give details of how you run your set?

Alesis Picoverb on an aux send under my control.

Is all.

If I owned a nice hardware compressor and could be arsed to carry it around, I would - but I'm not a laptop performer as much as I'm a member of a band. I'm the 'drummer'.

-Paws

Just my tiBook, live/ reason/ fx, an emi 2|6 and an oxy8. They're connected to the club's dj mixer, if not - I have a behringer console (1602) which is quite good and portable.
I'll allways check the sounds before, to see if they sound good enough. Live gig is supposed to sound a little rough, because, well, it's live. If I need I do some eq and gain trimming, but that's mostly it.
If it's a dj set (I dj with ableton), I only need my laptop and soundcard, which makes it even easier.
Running the set - prepare the general flow, see how your tracks develope in real time, then decide on the order of the tracks. Usually I don't improvize on the track order. Allways measure time, and do a proper general rehursal at home, before the sound check.
Oh yes, allways buy the best cables you can get. I won't even explain why

Hope this helps

i run a vst eq and a vst compressor on the master output of live.

rs

thanx for the responses everybody and hey.....where is everybody else??

i just run my balanced cables out from my master 1 (L) and 2 (R) outs on my RME multiface directly into my jbl eon 15's--no hardware mixer, effects, etc. Also no software master effects, compression, eq etc. What i hear is what i'm playing and exactly what the mix sounds like--so if its not sounding good, or something is too quiet/loud, i can adjust accordingly. I record the master out onto a track in Live to have a recorded stereo version of my performances, and can always add any needed limiting, comp., eq. later. I find adding it on the front end can kill dynamics and therfore the vibe. just my two cents.

ryan