Ableton Forum

Hi guys,

Thanks to those who helped me out in my other thread with preparing for my first jam using Live. It went well and I think we're gonna make a bit of a go of it.

We've got two laptops running Live (with a few vst synths, samplers, etc. - one has an Axiom 25 and the other a Yamaha SHS-10 keytar), an electric kit and another dude with an acetone keyboard and a vintage Korg (not sure what model it is - doesn't say on it). We're also looking at incorporating some live percussion, a guitar played through a theremin and anything else that comes to mind.

We all play a bit of everything, we all sing and 3 of us MC. I'd say that opens up a few creative possibilities... We shall see!

Anyways, I've found heaps of tips and tricks related to drum'n'bass production but nothing about live performance. Of course, a lot of the production tips help too in a way but I was hoping for more.

So I was wondering if anyone can offer me anything that would help?

I've created a set with the different instruments I'm planning on using. I'm using the control buttons on the Axiom to switch between tracks but now I've run out of buttons 'cos I'm up to 6. This also may mean that I'm going to start putting strain on the CPU?

If I'm only getting 6 songs out of this set, should I create another one for my next 6 songs?

Does anyone else work this way?

If it came to playing a gig (we're aiming to do that within 6-8 months), how would you approach the mixing guy in the place (especially if they're not used to mixing electronic bands)?

I've got loads of questions but this is going on too long... This may be asking way too much for someone to even read it! So if you did, thanks! If you can respond, I'd love to hear from you!

Cheers
Neil

grow a mullet

then get your ass to the barber and tell him you are sick of looking like as asshole.

Live DnB? Wow, I can't wait to hear a set if you record it. Given that I would recommend a pre show ritual of coffee, Red Bull, and coke if you aren't above that sort of thing.

As far as what to give the sound guy I would run everything except vocals through your own mixer and give him a stereo feed. We all have horror stories of giving a live sound engineer too many isolated lines to individual instruments and they f it up. DnB would probably make it that much more difficult for them with the fast tempo, not a lot of time there for them to fix/screw up the levels.

i'd get a sound engineer(treat as another member)to mix interactively
and- a bass player(live drum and bass was the thread title, after all)

When you say live dnb do mean "live" as in you'll be playing all the instruments including drums live (in which case I hope you have a really good drummer)?

What you have to work out is, is there anything that you'll be leaving for the computer to do, and how much improv you want to be able to do. If you want to perform a set of rehersed songs, as a band would do, then I've found the best way to do things is to record everything in live properly - ie get all the mixing automation right, eq, ect, etc... basically get everything sounding as good as it could possibly sound, and then use these sets as the basis for a 'live' set.

You then bounce everything that you're not going to be doing live down to a single audio track so as to save on CPU, and use the automation from your recording for your audio inputs, and automate your VSTs to turn off when you not using them. We run vocals into live too, cause we have VSTs we run on the vocals, but you have to decide if it right for you, cause you then don't have a soundguy to deal with mic feedback and stuff. And you have to have a fairly decent soundcard so latency doesn't through the singer off. But as a result, we just give the soundguy a stereo output, which is nice cause it means we can play unconventional venues (like clubs that only usually have djs)

That's what's worked for us - (we've performed like that - there two of us, I play almost all of the VST keyboards live and there's a singer who plays bass live and a alesis padkontrol drum pad - so in many ways a pretty simmilar setup to you), but it won't work for everyone.

You basically have to find a balance between what you want to do (ie complete freedom to improvise as much as you like, for example) and what you can do, based on CPU limitations and physical limitations (ie the number of arms and fingers you have)...

beats me: Thanks for the advice dude... I hadn't thought of doing that. We'll definitely be doing a recording at some stage so I'll try to remember to post it here.

D K: The only sound engineer I know is already in the band but we'll have a think about that anyway. Thanks for the tip about the bass player but I believe we can use the synths for bass frequencies, as is the case with most drum'n'bass.

abliveuser: Thanks to you too for your reply. Good to hear from someone who's done it before!

Yes I mean 100% live and yes we have a good drummer. We wont be leaving the computers to do anything live at all.

eg. My part in the band may be: In Song 1, I play Synth X which is loaded into Track 1 in Live... When Song 2 comes along, I push the button on my controller that activates Track 2 which has a different synth in it. That's really all I'm using Live for (ie. as a host I guess).

Any changing of synth/effects parameters will be done with knobs on the midi controllers.

I wanted to run vocoders and other vocal effects through Live but I don't think it's going to be doable judging by the latency I got when I tested it.

Thanks heaps for the comments mate!

Cheers
Neil

if you are going to play everything live with no loops then i wonder why you even need a laptop and live?...obviously vst instruments is a plus.

so many hardware synths have vocoders. i use my little nord micro for vocoder. something like a korg ms2000 etc could handle all your bass and be pulled in for vocoder duties.

the best live drum'n'bass acts i've seen are shapeshifter (new zealand), the bird (oz) and london electricity. they were good mainly because first and foremost they have shit hot drummers and bass players (synth or guitar).

i think some new live acts can overcomplicate their set-ups. heavily layered trax can sometimes loose impact in the live area. it's amazing how the energy of a couple of talented muso's playing just a few sounds comes across compared to lots of layers and trickery.

i dunno i'm just rambling...sitting in bed with the flu. i cant wait to hear what you guys come up with though

just read your initial post again. you dont need a separate track for each different instrument yolu play in each song. look into instrument racks in the manual. you'll be able to combine all the instruments you need into the rack and use the axiom to choose each one when you need them. there'll be no limitations then

Thanks for the responses lunabass...

I don't own any synths and dont have money to buy any, so vst synths is all I can use really. Live seems to be the easiest way to host them and switch between them, while keeping the levels of each one where I like them. It also allows me to use a vst sampler.

If I could afford a synth with an inbuilt vocoder I'd definitely buy one!

Thanks for the advice about keeping it simple - definitely rings true.

In regards to racks, I'm using Live 5... There's no racks in 5 is there? Might have to upgrade if I can afford that at any stage. So how would switching between instruments in a rack with the buttons on the Axiom be any different from switching between tracks? I'm still going to run out of buttons after 6 aren't I?

Cheers
Neil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIbjUfJRaeM

london elektricity's tips on playing live d'n'b

Awesome! Thanks heaps for that... I'll check it when I get home. Work has of course blocked YouTube

abliveuser, what's your computer/audiocard setup for Live shows?

What latency and bit/sample rate do you run at?

Thanks!

Thanks again to RhythmSickness for the video link... It wasn't really all that educational but it was pretty damn interesting!

Kodama wrote:abliveuser, what's your computer/audiocard setup for Live shows?

What latency and bit/sample rate do you run at?

Thanks!

We were using a maudio 410, but we've just got an Alesis Io26 cause we need the extra inputs. The Alesis seems far more stable at low latencies - we've been testing it 16 bit 44.1 (any higher quality than that would be a waste in a club environment) with just 3ms without any problems, but we'll probably bump that up to about 10ms for the next show we play to may sure that we don't get any glitches mid-gig.

Computer wise - its a Dell Core Duo 2.2 (ie not Core 2 duo) as fas as I know (its the singer's machine) with 2 gigs of ram - so not exactly a monster, but it hadles it well, especially considering we run video from live in addition to all the VSTs