Ableton Forum

I think a previous thread begs the question: who is using Live for performing live successfully and if so what is your approach, how do you avoid crashes and audio glitches? What version are you using on what system, what hardware etc.? I am curious myself (as I am sure are others) because I love Live and I want to perform with it. I have been using it primarily for composing and production but I eventually want to get into using it for a live AV show and some of the problems people seem experiencing has me a little worried.

at home!

I mix down all my tracks to little audio-only clips then for live sets, i make a mega-set with a couple of tracks each for drums/bass/pad/lead/others and drop the clips into those.

live, i use a midi keyboard and trigger all the clips off the notes, as well as faders etc for effects controls.

of course this means the whole set runs at the one tempo, but that is not such an issue for the music that i make.

Thanks for your input nerveagent. Anyone else?

I use Session as an inspiration catcher & building blocks repository then Arrangement to assemble it.
When in session view I like to jam with myself a little by playing and recording more material than needed. For example if I need a 4 bar bass part, I can play half an hour with my bass guitar and then use the same sample as many times as I want to pick up variations. At Arrangement time I can make good use of it! I could have played the bass line directly in arrangement in 1 shot but doing so I'd have certainly lost some inspirational play...and fun!

- Best
- Pasha

Live on Macbook DJing 6 audio tracks (2 decks, 4 loops) and live Impulse percussion played on a Yamaha DD-55C. Behringer BCR-2000 for quadraphonic audio control (push-button crossfades, many sends to route main decks, loops, and live percussion to front and/or back of the room). Behringer FCB-1010 for selecting Impulse patch and surround send presets, and for starting/stopping tracks and loops. Macbook also has video, lighting and camera MIDI sequence triggers on it.

Live on a G5 doing Arkaos VJ video sequences to 2 10' screens and control of sequences to 29 DMX lighting fixtures (floods, washes, blinders, lasers, scanners, strobes) and 2 remote pan/tilt/zoom cameras. Video and lighting played on Faderfox LX-2. Visualizer on a Mac Mini fed into Arkaos, and remote camera control on a PC.

Everything MIDIed together. It can be as automatic or as manual as I want. Some audio tracks have complete video and lighting sequences running alongside, and some I play manually.

Just adding a Microkorg for soloing over looping middle sections.

I use Ableton onstage on a PC laptop, triggered by an FCB1010 and 2 wiimotes. The wiimotes also trigger VJ software on a second laptop.

Live is used for clip/scene playback, live looping, FX processing.

Audio is usually in quad (the rear speakers are fed by an FX return bus),

[looking forward to a surround pan in Live version x ]

In terms of crashes etc: I have had only one major problem, which in fact was caused by a phantom power glitch from a faulty XLR connector. This happened right as a theatre show began - I disconnected the firewire audio card when I was checking connections to the gear...........so I had to reboot everything in the middle of a show while a DVD playback was happening. I managed to get XP and ableton started up with seconds to spare - but the FCB1010 didn't reconnect for some reason so I was crouching down checking my email onstage for the rest of the gig. But in 4 years of using Live on Macs and PCs, I have had no other problems with actual crashes.

What is more of a concern for me (particularly in Brazil) is that the AC power tends to be unstable (that is a nice way of putting it) - so power failures are more of an issue. So I use a UPS onstage for the laptop and the dreaded FW410 for security.

hambone1 wrote:Live on Macbook DJing 6 audio tracks (2 decks, 4 loops) and live Impulse percussion played on a Yamaha DD-55C. Behringer BCR-2000 for quadraphonic audio control (push-button crossfades, many sends to route main decks, loops, and live percussion to front and/or back of the room). Behringer FCB-1010 for selecting Impulse patch and surround send presets, and for starting/stopping tracks and loops. Macbook also has video, lighting and camera MIDI sequence triggers on it.

Live on a G5 doing Arkaos VJ video sequences to 2 10' screens and control of sequences to 29 DMX lighting fixtures (floods, washes, blinders, lasers, scanners, strobes) and 2 remote pan/tilt/zoom cameras. Video and lighting played on Faderfox LX-2. Visualizer on a Mac Mini fed into Arkaos, and remote camera control on a PC.

Everything MIDIed together. It can be as automatic or as manual as I want. Some audio tracks have complete video and lighting sequences running alongside, and some I play manually.

Just adding a Microkorg for soloing over looping middle sections.

sony vaio 1.8ghz
windows xp pro
edirol fa-66
trigger finger

i dont have any problems at all until i run several instances of the same vst plug-in (Guitar Rig, Acoustic Arts Reverb)....but even then its manageable.


i don't feel my computer is very powerful...but i think :

keeping it minimal by deleting programs/shit i will never use
...making sure my windows registry is correct
...and keeping my graphics properties low

all help drastically.