Whats your live setup

How do you guys set up your rigs/programs/controllers when you play live?

Over the last week, I've been preparing for a live show via a handful of different ways, trying to figure out the best setup solution that's as error proof and as flexible as possible. There doesn't seem to be a "best method" based on what I've messed with. Thus I'm curious how you guys do what you do when the people are watching.

For my last show I took all my gear... I don't know if

I want to do that any more... Maybe for special occasions, but I want to make it a little more polished and a little more failureproof (ie my virus can randomly freeze... My last show was fine, but I know it'll happen eventually)

So for future shows... Laptop, apc40, launch pad, and iPad with touchosc

Laptop with Ableton, and a Korg ESX. Sometimes I use a Boss SP-202 or play bass.

laptop running FL Studio, novation x-station, roland space echo re-issue, and microphone.

If I'm playing in my electronic duo, then the second dudes setup includes a bunch of pedals, mic, microkorg, and esx1.

Usually works out well enough :)

laptop + ableton, apc40, monomulator (for live clip chopper), midi keyboard, kp3 and alesis ineko

this is my latest live setup, for some sort of improv set. quite happy with everything

seems a lot of people favor the apc40...is it really the tits? im getting by in ableton with LPD8 which is super minimal/low budge and doesnt have any faders but is there something super advantageous about having that whole heapin surface?

well if you use live for live sets, it's great (it's ok for producing as well)

the launchpad is the alternative, but i prefer the apc because of all the knobs and faders.

it's super advantageous because everything is automapped, but you can also re-assign anything on it to whatever you like

also, you have the monomulator, so you have all those monome apps

i like my apc

for my previous electronic gigs i've just used a laptop with my songs playing from buzz or winamp. but i'm in the process of collecting some cheap equipment in order to do something a bit more live/freeform. current idea is to have a korg electribe es-1, a bunch of guitar pedals, an old yamaha portasound keyboard and a cheap midi controllable synth of some sort (probably a general midi sound module or one of the extensively editable sample based workstations like the roland mv30), with a laptop controlling the sampler and synth via buzz or keykit or something similarly freeform, and using the portasound to play live leads or ambience. pretty barebones setup really, but would be easy to improvise with!

If I eventually wanted to start doing gigs. How much is the apc40? I was kinda looking at the novation launchpad it doesnt have knobs unfortunately but it has the add bonus of being sick cheap. Ive seen it for like 80 squids.

I like the launchpad a lot, but you're really going to want knobs I'd recommend the launchpad and the nocturn together.

Downside of that alternative though is that novations automap doesn't work for live, so the apc40 is much more easy to setup and use right away.

Also there is the apc20....

Incoming wall of text...

I've spent over 2 weeks now exploring all the different possibilities with Live setups. I don't regret the time I spent at all. It was incredibly rewarding academically and creatively.

My focus was purely on flexibility, fault tolerance, and being able to maximize time. What I mean by "maximizing time" is the types of gigs I get (and I'm assuming most electronic acts) are usually explained to be "Play for X minutes, but be ready to play for another whole hour incase one of the DJ's shows up late cuz he was doing busy being an awesome DJ. The next show I'm doing I was told to prepare for 40 minutes but expect to have to be able to play for another hour.

First of all I decided its far better to do pure audio unless you are a keyboard wiz. I mess up far too often trying to play things out live, and if you are processing the audio real time with a VST and trying to run it through fx, this can basically devour your CPU. Pure audio allows not only more audio manipulation but keeps the CPU much lower, so you can in essence build a more complex fx chain or arrangement mangling devices.

The best way in my humble opinion to split up the audio if you have the option would be 2 tracks... drums and everything else. I explored splitting it up into 4 groups each for my APC40 columns (drums, fx, synths, vocals) but I ended up never processing those things as individually as I initially planned. I mostly just messed with the drums. Having the drums on a separate audio file tho allows you to do all the drum processing you want while the rest of the song plays, so nothing can fall too far off kilter.

First, I say make an arrangement set. Iterative development of your set is key. After exploring a bunch of possibilities, I started off by making a purely arranged set in ableton live. Basically dragging warped songs of mine into the arrangement window and auto mixing everything together. Yes this is hella cheap, but it provides you with a backup plan if things start having problems, also it allows you to guage which songs you plan on playing in your sets. You can still mess with fx chains while this sort of set is playing, and you can still sync your set with other programs so you can run Renoise next to Ableton for instance, and not have to really worry about Renoise crashing. When this is done, I recommend bouncing it and splitting it up into songs. I'd keep a copy of this in Winamp/Itunes, so if in the terrible event that your DAW/laptop crashes, you can still get things going off of an iphone or media player.

Next, I think its best to drag the songs you warped from arrangement into session. You can split up your songs into loops if you want very easy. Make a loop off the first song that has an 8 or 16 bar loop in the front, then make copies of it and set the start point to increasing values (9, 17, 25 etc) after you do one or two of these, you can split up an entire song in less then a minute. This allows you to trigger your "patterns" on the fly. Now you have both an arrangment and a session that mirror eachother basically. This is a good thing, as if you need to you can switch between the two at any time. Ableton shares the resources so your footprint will be the same size as the arrangement. I can forsee getting a bit too drunk or experimental and messing up in session, and switching over to arrange instead.

You will find that when practicing with this above method you do spend a lot of time waiting the moment when you can press a button (in my case on an APC40, but triggering a scene via any method will suffice). This is not a bad thing if you have a decent stage presence, but if you are like me, I'd rather be tweaking things or mangling them instead of dancing around on stage. So I think the next best thing to do is to set "follow actions" on your clips that you don't plan on mangling. If your song has been split into multiple scenes, I'd delegate a few of those that you want to mess with, and make the others do follow commands automatically (after 8/16 bars, play next etc). This will allow you to mess with fx and twiddle knobs as your songs play, still allow you to trigger whatever scenes you want on the fly, but also you can set up scenes with no follow actions to kill time or build tension. I like to make the build ups with non-follow actions that loop area's before a drop, that way the whole audience see's me press a button when I feel like things should get interesting.

On a side note, I got max4live and have spent a considerable amount of time creating an "instrument" that allows me to control far more of my live set via an alternate "user mode" on the APC40. Once you dig into the API you can really make it do whatever you want. I've created the ability to allow visual indications of things that are going to happen or will happen. Also all the glowly lights and whatnot make it look like I'm doing some super IDM stuff.

Anyways this is all purely subjective, but I think this is the best and safest way to do a show if you aren't really a dj or stage performer. Having a setup like this, my 2.3ghz macbook pro breathes comfortably at 2% cpu on average, I'm able to tweak and re-arrange the entire time, and I have backups and failsafes if things go hairy.

Peace

mainly Monomachine + Souncraft compact 4 mixer with a Kaoss Pad 3 hooked into the recording bus

maybe my G2 with a touch screen laptop soon

What is the ultimate piece of hardware to have? I been looking at Beardyman videos all morning and the kaoss pad looks pretty fucking sweet.

Ive got a 25 key midi controller and I really feel I'm not getting the most out of it. I play melodies on it but I usually edit these after anyway and I never use the drum pads at all. Anyone recommend some tutorial that'll help me get more use out of it. Also there is no windows 7 drivers so nothing is auto midi mapped

I really want an APC40 but I don't know if I can justify the cost, as part of me thinks I would never use it for actual composing.

That being said I want to start gigging, and I think that would be a great tool.

well, i don't use it for composing, except for mixing the first 8 tracks as i begin a new song. after 8 tracks, it's over.

it's good though, having the master fader and the cue knob always near...

Naw APC40 is great for composing. Obviously slamming your tracks into arrange, but there is plenty of secrets to discover in a setup like this. Without giving away too much, just look at the monome.

Good call. I forgot about max4live too. Sometimes I feel I am a bit thick for all that though but I imagine I could eventually come to grips with that.

For me, investing in any sort of gear is a huge deal, and requires a ridiculously large saving period. My not being able to make a decision on what I want sort of prevents me from setting a goal to get anything meaning I don't save anything, and consequently, don't get anything. Fuck me. Personal revelation....

hammer + dustbin lid.

I pre-record everything and watch porn instead.

damn Acid1 thanks for sharing. This is really something I've been wondering about as well. I think the audio loops are probably the best way to go. i might keep a drumsynth or something live, as I like to tweak the actual timbre during playback. Audio tracks w/ effects + a soft or real synth in the mix would be winnnnn.

Thanks for taking the time to write that. You are a king among men.

  On 7/8/2010 at 8:07 PM, slightlydrybeans said:

damn Acid1 thanks for sharing. This is really something I've been wondering about as well. I think the audio loops are probably the best way to go. i might keep a drumsynth or something live, as I like to tweak the actual timbre during playback. Audio tracks w/ effects + a soft or real synth in the mix would be winnnnn.

 

Thanks for taking the time to write that. You are a king among men.

np man!

here is an old image of what i brought when visiting some friends + a borrowed yamaha mixer.

add a dx200, paia fatman, and you're about there

traktor

a tractor.

  On 7/9/2010 at 3:53 AM, hahathhat said:

here is an old image of what i brought when visiting some friends + a borrowed yamaha mixer.

 

add a dx200, paia fatman, and you're about there

blar. damn. That is nice. I've got the KB version of the MS2000. I'd love to get an MPC as the performance brain. I love simple but good setups like this. MPC is next on my list in a big way. Too bad they ass rape you for one in europe.