This will help avoid unexpected issues regarding plug-in compatibility, or RAM and CPU usage When you’re preparing and practising for an imminent live set, do it with the computer you’ll be using for the actual performance, so you build and organise your set around what that one can handle. RemixVideo is newer and more stripped down (not always a bad thing) but it is easier to learn and has one unique asset – as well as running standalone, it’ll function as a plug-in within your DAW, so you can run full interactive visuals from inside Ableton Live’s Session View. It looks complex, but if you’ve spent enough time with music software, you’ll find many common elements and working methods. Resolume is a popular choice for adding graphics, stills, movies, or live camera inputs and controlling them with hardware controllers, or from a DAW. You could pair up with a VJ and let them handle it, or take it on yourself. VJ software is a great way to take control of the visual side of your performance. Turn off that extra MIDI input – problem solved. I’ve see situations in soundchecks where a keyboard is mysteriously loading different patches and it turns out it’s receiving MIDI from something else in the rig. In your software preferences, disable unused MIDI inputs or outputs – this can help avoid weird MIDI loops in live situations. The same techniques can be used to give separate clicks and headphone mixes to band members, it’s possible to go as far as vigil them a recorded voice to talk them through their parts and cues…”Ready? Here comes the guitar solo…” and so on.ĥ. It’s easy to cue your parts, DJ-style, in advance of adding them to the mix, if you have a soundcard with more than one stereo output, you just have to configure a cue output in your software.įor example in Live, once you’ve set up your cue outputs, you can adjust the cueing volume from Push or a MIDI controller, or just with a mouse… and anything with a cue-button icon, including tracks, the browser, sample swapping, etc, can go through your headphones first. More artists are using in-ear monitors for everything, which can make for a bizarrely silent onstage experience, but generally makes for better sound quality and happier vocalists. Sometimes there isn’t even a sound engineer present and you have to work it out for yourself. You’ll hear your music through the PA and hopefully, you’ll get monitors on stage, pointing roughly towards your head. Monitoring is usually brutally simple at small gigs. Then everything goes through a Kaoss Pad Mini so I can fuck it up further.” Right on cue I map as many sounds – melodic notes, beats, atmospheres – on the MPC, so I can play them in a conventional way from my Roland SPD-6 pads. So I try to find a few repeating sections for each song, usually around three or four to create the skeleton of improvised versions of the songs. And I’m performing on an AKAI MPC1000 – very much a drum-loop-based sampler. “My studio compositions are pretty linear, ie, not loop-based and not generally made of repeated sections. It’s quite possible that the drum-machine audio will sound out of time with the beats. You might have a selection of beats and instrument parts playing in your software and also a couple of tracks dedicated to processing audio from a hardware-drum machine. Timing is also relates to audio latency, where – super-simplistic version – audio coming into the computer might not be in time with audio generated in the computer. The Multiclock has enough controls and visual feedback to keep things flexible and interactive as well, the best of all possible worlds. Tap tempo is also an easy way to sync to vinyl in a DJ set and Live has nudge buttons which can be very helpful in those situations.įor ultimate timing stability, use an external time-keeping device like E-RM’s Multiclock, which generates its own clock and sends via USB, MIDI, CV, or as an audio pulse. Of course, everybody can play along to the computer as a click track, but with any software that includes a tap-tempo function, there’s no reason why the computer can’t follow the musicians instead. Timing matters get more interesting when a live band is involved. The only downside is that many of these fancy stompboxes need mains power instead of batteries. They’re great for guitar and bass (duh), but also excellent for synths and drum machines, especially stereo pedals. For quick jams, Link works great over WiFi, but for the larger or more critical event, you can take the more secure option of using ethernet cables. Tempo changes are smooth, and there’s no ‘master’ or ’slave’ relationship everybody is on the same footing. There’s no start/stop/position information, it’s a constantly flowing stream that you can jump in and out of at any time. It’s a simple, stable, method, partly because it only deals with tempo. Despite the name, Link doesn’t require Live to be present as any apps that support it can talk to each other and sync.
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