Who uses ableton as part of a live band setup?

MusicIsMath · Post by **MusicIsMath** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 7:08 pm

I have recently purchased Ableton live6 with a view to use it for live when we have sequenced stuff that needs to be running in the background as well as enabling us to use vst's n such live.

If you have this kind of setup then would you be willing to drop some info our way so that we can get our bums off the seats and get this thing running?

It's installed on a laptop, not the fastest but above the minimum requirements and increased ram to 1gb from 512mb so that should help.
As for the audio interface, we are using the NI AudioKontrol 1.

What we will be looking to do is have any audio we have pre-recorded, running out of ableton whilst using some sequences & instruments from within reason. Also a few vsts.

stonee · Post by **stonee** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 9:20 pm

I will be.

I'm so excited!

MusicIsMath · Post by **MusicIsMath** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 9:26 pm

stonee wrote:I will be.

I'm so excited!

Had our first live jam today, unfortunately having a couple o issues with ableton at the mo but will hopefully get it running for next week. Had a great time using some reason bits with our live drummer, keyboardist, singer and myself (bassist, dj, keyboardist, didge, percussion...wateva else lol) Was nice to finally get out of this room (studio also) and try n jam some projects, came up with 2 new track idea's also so not bad for a 4hr session

Just really wanna get ableton running solid so we can sequence some stuff that we are unable to play live due to lack of hands haha.

Khazul · Post by **Khazul** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 9:53 pm

Will be soon - actual band too - not just the laptop

MusicIsMath · Post by **MusicIsMath** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 10:08 pm

Khazul wrote:Will be soon - actual band too - not just the laptop

Will have to make sure we keep eachother uptodate via these forums and we can just contribute our findings n such to one topic?
Would be nice to get a glimpse into how others incorporate live into thier setups and what, if any new tricks learned to make things easier for the rest who are just getting into it for live use.

I have no real experience with it at all, when i first booted it up i just looked at it and turned it off lol, looked complicated compaired to the likes of sonar and cubase of which im used to...so i guess it's another learning curve i'll have to get into.

roby · Post by **roby** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 4:26 am

we do, although not recently. it has worked like a charm. we have it set up with a click track for our drummer, an fb1010 for triggerng clips, and a midi keyboard.

lunabass · Post by **lunabass** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 5:12 am

What style of music?

Do you need to be able to "jam" with the backing tracks or simply press play?

You can set each tracks backing into a serious of scenes so that when you are ready for the next section in a track or a different track, you're just one button press away from launching the backing.

The drummer will definately need a click track or some way of interpreting the tempo of the loops. There is software called inTime if your interested in slaving the machine to the drummer, not the other way round which is most often the case

I use a BCR2000 with a connected foot pedal. this gives me plenty of knobs for controlling the crossfader, filters, fx etc and enough buttons for navigation and triggering the required clips.

MusicIsMath · Post by **MusicIsMath** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:13 am

lunabass wrote:What style of music?

Do you need to be able to "jam" with the backing tracks or simply press play?

You can set each tracks backing into a serious of scenes so that when you are ready for the next section in a track or a different track, you're just one button press away from launching the backing.

The drummer will definately need a click track or some way of interpreting the tempo of the loops. There is software called inTime if your interested in slaving the machine to the drummer, not the other way round which is most often the case

I use a BCR2000 with a connected foot pedal. this gives me plenty of knobs for controlling the crossfader, filters, fx etc and enough buttons for navigation and triggering the required clips.

Sounds good mate. Our stuff is kinda electronic mixed with live instruments so having the freedom to jam with it would be nice....ya know, for those times when we lose ourselves in the music on a middle 8 or outro...pink floyd/zappa stylee lol.

Cache · Post by **Cache** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:49 am

yeah i use live as part of my band. i run my vocals through it also and sequence beats + bunch of vstis

my live sets have about 25-30 tracks. but most of those are made up of vstis that i disable when not in use.

feel free to hit me up with any questions you might have...

rbmonosylabik · Post by **rbmonosylabik** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 10:45 am

I do. We're a 4 piece band, a singer, 2 guitarists and me doing beats, bass and noise.

For us, the songs structures are for the most part laid out beforehand, but we leave some parts here and there with freedom to rearrange and make longer or shorter as needed. I also use FX like beat repeat and delays and other stuff to make it all sound unique everytime.

We're also experimenting with feeding the guitars into live, doing some crazyness with it, then sending it back to the guitarists' amps. We also sometimes feed the vocals in and use them to double a chorus or vocal line later in the track, or load the take in Ms Pinky and scratch it after it's recorded.

I have it all laid out in a BCR2000 so I can launch and tweak everything needed on the fly without touching the computer, but still have the computer nearby in case I need to do some special adjustment quick.

Coupe70 · Post by **Coupe70** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 10:49 am

I am doing the electronics in a band with bass, piano, drums, singer.
The drummer has a small headphone mixer and gets a click track
(a MUST in this setup) and my master out from me and a master
mix from the foh. so he is able to raise my loops and the click out
of the main mix as far as he needs it.
in parts where no loops and no drums are played he uses the click
to guide the others by gestures or by little hihat and ride drop-ins.

There are some live videos here:
http://www.myspace.com/shambelleband

http://www.shambelle.de

feel free to ask me if you would like to know more...

Heiko · Post by **Heiko** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:16 am

Nice one mr Coupe!

Good vibe going on there, keep Groovin there! Enjoyed it very much.
I'm also using Live on stage with some bands, basicaly triggering lots of scenes, to create space for impro(I work mostly with India music, lot of strength in impro there!), using fx to spice things up.
check us here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yst--I4uEVo

Grtz to all
Heiko

Coupe70 · Post by **Coupe70** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:55 pm

@Heiko:

I am not so much in that indian style, but i like the way you
work and your singer has a beautiful voice ! i do nearly the
same, but with electronic stuff combined with jazz musicians.

You can see it here:
http://freenet-homepage.de/coupe70/dahe ... WR2007.htm

We did a multitrack-recording of that gig, but i still have to mix it...

darkcatt · Post by **darkcatt** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 5:29 pm

I intergrated Live in to a real 5 peice band setting. I have a tech guy stand off on the side and watch over everything. Then main thing I can't stress enough is make the laptop for music only. No internet, messanger, video games etc.

Sure it may suck but you are just adding variable to the equation.

DO the xp tweaks if you are running XP. and freeze as many tracks as you can. Tarekith's link rocks

http://tarekith.com/assets/XPTweaks.htm

chrisedmo · Post by **chrisedmo** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 6:27 pm

I use it in our band 'Banquet'. We are a four piece band (Guitar Drums + Bass + Vocals) but i have a behringer fcb1010 which is set trigger of clips that we have created. I don't just press play and away we go, i like to have the flexibility and be able to go longer in say the chorus or verse or outro.

I the drummer has a click and i then assign buttons to play, stop and individual scenes.. I would like to start incorporating live loopping - which is something i am working on...

You can see pictures of our live set up on: http://www.myspace.com/banquetmusic