Ableton Forum

i know this gets asked all the time but for you bands that use ableton, how do you ensure that the drummer/band are in sync with Live. do you play live and have in-ear monitors for the drummer with a click track or something, or so you tap the tempo with your foot. whats the best way?

what cant your drummer just play in a predefined tempo!! J/K lol

i think what ever works.. you could use headphones or always have a something rhythmic for the drummer to follow in the set. you could nudge ableton around to the drummer.. a combination.. i've heard of people using a blinking light but i dont know how well that worked out.

i think what ever works for the drummer.
if he can play to a click, either in ear or a rhythmic loop that would prolly work best.

When I play with a drummer I put a track with a click on it and send it to him through headphones or...he just follows some kind of hi-hats,kick,snare,etc that I have on a track...if he can't play with this in sync...just send him to get the beers and some chicks...

we use Live 7 in a band setting. It's a three-piece. Granted, a lot of our stuff is just noisey Eno-esque stuff, but often our drummer just plays along to the tempo of whatever is playing in Live. No click tracks, nothing. Just playing with live as he would with me on bass guitar.

Grahambo! wrote:we use Live 7 in a band setting. It's a three-piece. Granted, a lot of our stuff is just noisey Eno-esque stuff, but often our drummer just plays along to the tempo of whatever is playing in Live. No click tracks, nothing. Just playing with live as he would with me on bass guitar.

and he just has a huge monitor feed in his ear?

pretty much. we are too poor for monitors. I just put the PA speakers next to his kit. Works for everyone.

there are 3 of us playing - bass, drums and Live. The drummer uses no clicks because there's a huge downside in having the 'click' in the ears - drummers tend to play more with the click than the band. Also, imagine having to listen to the dull click the whole gig - personally, I'd go crazy.

Our drummer has a foot switch to control the tempo when necessary.

eduardoborsuci wrote: drummers tend to play more with the click than the band.

I even managed to outplay the click in unison with my bassplayer and he heard the click as well -> we concentrated more on rocking than on the click.

we both are "pros" btw.

eduardoborsuci wrote:Also, imagine having to listen to the dull click the whole gig

With some practice the click becomes a good friend of yours.



Ray

I hate click tracks! I usually just play a simple drum loop instead. It's a lot easier on the ears, and it is easier to follow.

I hate monotonic click as well. Instead we (drummer and I) have own click-clip to each row of clips I launch. The launch quant. is set to none, which means the lengths of the bars varies a little. I favor short clips (1/2 - 2 bars), one shot, this makes things swing a bit depending on my accuracy. Works great and is flexible and stays in control.

For monitoring we use closed back headphones and a pair of monitors to give some vibration.

Circular Logic looks really nice. Slaves tempo to the drummer....been meaning to try it out for a couple years now...

Somebody on here posted a software that they were working on specifically for Live, but I haven't seen it for awhile.

The basic idea, I think, is that you have a MIDI trigger on at least one drum (or guitar, bass, etc) and that trigger gets fed to the software which determines tempo and sends to Live. Check out the demo videos on Circular Logic site to see how well it works.

ethios4 wrote:Circular Logic looks really nice. Slaves tempo to the drummer....been meaning to try it out for a couple years now...

Somebody on here posted a software that they were working on specifically for Live, but I haven't seen it for awhile.

The basic idea, I think, is that you have a MIDI trigger on at least one drum (or guitar, bass, etc) and that trigger gets fed to the software which determines tempo and sends to Live. Check out the demo videos on Circular Logic site to see how well it works.

yup works quite well. only down side is the inability to recognize abrupt changes. but it still requires the drummer to listen to ableton and what is being looped, as you can get out of sync from the loop if you dont. not bad though for the first of its kind.