Ableton Forum

my band does a similar thing to kid beyond and imogen heap, using live of course.

we use in ear monitors/headphones (ie no stage sound),

my problem is that in, say a 4 bar loop, there are moments when the vocalist is singing, and moments when she's not.

the mic picks up the house sound during the 'off' moments, and when you start stacking 5 or 6 vocals loops it starts to get very messy.

i've experimented with a lot of things, one limitation is that i prefer to run the mic straight thru the house sound, and take off a 'copy' of the signal (when i run it all through live i have too much feedback, also if things go awry we lose the ability to amuse the audience with our witty repartee).

we've tried this with a bunch of decent mics, i've recently acquired a ev nd967 which we haven't tried yet (we play live next on 9/1).

i've also got a presonus eureka.

i'm thinking of adding a hardware noise gate, i'm worried that i'll have to tweak it during the set, and i have more than my aging faculties can handle going on already.

i've had trouble with passive mic signal splitters, i'm also looking for suggestions there.

i'd really love to know what gear imogen heap/kid beyond are using, and what order they keep it in. their websites do not currently provide any gear info.


t.i.a.

kim

have you checked out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfBh3lZZi8Q

Here is the controller he uses by the way.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ ... sku=153511

Kim-

I'd do two things:

1. Use a mic with a VERY small opening. The less noise going in, the less noise in the mix. We use Audix mics, which tend to have very narrow sweet spots. If Christina is singing right into the spot, you should be able to eliminate a lot right there. Ash and I did a bunch of Kundalini Shock Attack gigs that had feedback issues, and the Audix mics helped a lot. They're like an evolved Shure SM58, which a lot of people still use for stage mics because they have a narrow spot, thereby eliminating noise and feedback.

2. Absolutely use a gate. Whether it's a software or a hardware gate, either will do the trick. If hardware, it's easy enough to just run the mic into the gate before it goes into the house system, then back into your setup. For our shows, we did it a bit different. We ran the mic straight into Live. The vocal input track would then be routed into another channel that would actually be mixed into the sound inside Live (that you would hear). That track would have inserts in the following order: 1. Gate; 2. Compressor; 3. Autotuner (gently used); 4. EQ. The chain should be mapped to a midi switch, because in between songs, if she's talking on the mic, you don't want it to be gated or tuned. But during songs, with 3-6ms of latency, you get a really nice clean signal to do a lot of messing with inside Live in real time.

Let me know if this works for you.

-Abid

Nebulae, what's that plugin that delivers the REALTIME Autotune? I use Melodyne ocassionally and it doesn't. Neither does the Antares one.. But I could really use some light autotuning live.

Not sure about Mac, but on PC, Antares Autotune (the lastest version) is a VST plug and does offer realtime auto-tuning. On PC, you can also use GSnap from a freeware VST site called GVST: http://www.gvst.co.uk/

Both of those will help you with on-stage auto-tuning...and even if you do so with a light hand, it can be very nice and tight sounding. And if you really crunch it, you can gay it right up, all Cher like.

I've used auto tune realtime before and it worked quite well

forge wrote:I've used auto tune realtime before and it worked quite well

You mean that time when you did a cover of "Believe" for the teeny-girls at your local mall?

nebulae wrote:

forge wrote:I've used auto tune realtime before and it worked quite well

You mean that time when you did a cover of "Believe" for the teeny-girls at your local mall?

not one of them put out

omg!
many thanks

forge wrote:

nebulae wrote:

forge wrote:I've used auto tune realtime before and it worked quite well

You mean that time when you did a cover of "Believe" for the teeny-girls at your local mall?

not one of them put out

It isn't really "sex" if you take it up the ass.

nebulae wrote:

forge wrote:

nebulae wrote: You mean that time when you did a cover of "Believe" for the teeny-girls at your local mall?

not one of them put out

It isn't really "sex" if you take it up the ass.

ah it all makes sense now - you're one of Bill Clinton's lawyers!

No no, this is ACTUALLY what many teenage girls believe here in the US. They save their virginity for marriage. Taking it up the bumm and giving blow jobs don't count. It's part of the puritanical hypocrisies which pervade our wonderful way of life.

nebulae wrote:No no, this is ACTUALLY what many teenage girls believe here in the US. They save their virginity for marriage. Taking it up the bumm and giving blow jobs don't count. It's part of the puritanical hypocrisies which pervade our wonderful way of life.

I'm on the next flight

The wife's not giving it up the bumm, is she?