Although I never leave the Session View, my live sets are very structured. I have one non-stop Ableton document with all the clips I need laid out over about 30 tracks and 60 scenes (hence the CPU issue!); each scene is a section of a song with the start and stop messages relevant to that section.
Everything is mixed, balanced and mastered in advance on my desktop computer so I don’t need to worry about errant levels and clipping, or whether I’ve got enough cowbell. I stick rigidly to the set list (there are around six relatively lengthy songs) because I know it works and I don’t need to worry about tempo or key changes.

Most of the clips are bounces of several instruments in order to save on RAM and CPU (I originally had about 300 loops). However I also have about six soft synths and loads of effects, largely Guitar Rig, running in real time.

Meanwhile I keep myself busy with my BCR2000. I never touch the mouse and I know the set well enough to play without even looking at the screen.
My job is to launch scenes sequentially at the right time with the scene control buttons I’ve assigned. This means the structure of each song is quite rigid but not fully sequenced, so I can go back and replay a section the audience is loving or equally gloss over the rubbish bits.
Within the songs I leave myself room to mess around as well. Throughout the set I tweak the hell out of the pre-mapped dials on my controller - this might be shuffling drum patterns, fades, mutes, distortion drives, filters, delay… you get my drift.

Basically the set is more geared towards simply making good music, rather than showing off improvisational skills and so on. If I ever get the money for something more performance-oriented like a Lemur, I might approach live music from a different angle.

Please help me.

Manny—-saxyartsy at yahoo

I make a living as a full time children’s solo music and movement entertainer and please pardon the simplistic nature of my setup, but this is currently what I do: Record all of my original music on Garageband,mix to iTunes and load’em all on my iPod nano. I plug into my Fender Passport little P.A. and use the minus lead vocal tracks as my backing band for each show.

Does this work for me? I get away with it, however because I wear a wireless headset mic and move all over stage and on and off, the overall continuity of my performance lacks a b it when I have to run back to the iPod to pause so I can speak to the kids/parents, etc.

I have always wanted to have a setup sort of like a sequencer chain, where I could perform 2 or 3 tunes in a row and then everything stops so I could speak. Having said that I would always like to have the option of cutting off the music at the end of the 2nd tune and doing this from a distance (remotely…footswitch or other method).

a friend mentioned Abelton’s LIVE to me however I’m not very familiar with it’s capabilities. If someone/or someones would be so kind as to recommend a setup that might work for me using LIVE, I would so very much appreciate it.

Aside from the Passport I do have 2 other PA heads both 12 channels each. I currently own a Macbook which I would hope to use to run LIVE.

Thank you all in advance, for any advice.

Sonic Transfer

put to side the controller, this is how i aim to set up my live template.
i have 6 main channels deck A and deck B each with two channels next to,labled either mix A1/A2 and B1/B2,or follow A1 etc depending on what i use them for.
i can either pre programme some mad breaks and loops to cut in on the second channel to deck A/B leaving the third channel to A and B for dropping a full track to cut in in places, really the choice is down to the individual and the set you are doing, you could just drop in full tracks on all 6 channels, but i still class the deck A and deck B as my main sights to mixing irrespective of what i place in each ajacent slot, i still mix deck A with B as you would turntables etc the other channels are just for dropping in excitement.

I then add various effects as master effects to deck A and B the usual gains and eq amongst others then I may add some to to the connected tracks A1 etc.
But I also add various copies of some effects that are in the master deck channels A/B, and assign the same controller but reverse the order off the effect so as say deck A effect comes on and A1 and A2 go off so instead of using the main channel faders to mix I use the effects to swap from track to track , a good example being a filter on deck A mixing into A1 etc as the filter on say deck A comes in the copied filter on say A1 fades out so you have more than just a basic crossfade a better blend in which you will be surprised what will mix, you can also spice it up by adding as second effect to the same controls in similar way for those stubbon clashing mixes a reverb will tame down the fade etc, you should get the point , don’t forget though you will have to be ables to switch the effects on A1 off via a control button if you want to use it as normal via the faders.
Basically sky is the limit its all on your imagination, along with return and sends for sending further effects into the mixe and maybe a grain delay with joystick/ribbon controler for mangling the overall sound on the main master.

On top off this sampler or operator and impulse drum macine, with loops set up
to trigger in , you can also take some samples of the songs key points, and keep these ready to drop into sampler etc to add to your own midi loops so you really get that remix going.

As I said all on the imgination, the most difficult part is what to assign where and how much control you have.

Last point that I failed to mention, this is where the pros will be seperated from the blaggers because off the effort put in, I cut all my tracks into 16 bar lengths and use follow action, so with this I have key display of where my tune is at and where to mix in .
I blank out the rest of the tracks name in the other following sections so I have blank canvas to right in reminders of what and where I will mix, ie; say second track section from end I wright in mix, again you should get the point.
All my tracks are coloured white.
Obviously you don’t have to wright in you can just mix on the fly, but for more complex mixes in say a club envioroment it helps to know where you are at and what is next if you want to be the best.
So hence I save all my tracks in 16 bar sections with just the first section named and the rest blank.

If you are using pre programmed sections in A1, A2, B1, B2, etc I use another colour say grey and have the clips volume down i.e a blank clip that plays through using follow then where the audio clip lies this will be white so I know where it comes in so I don’t get confused when also cutting in effects and loops manually – no cluttered mixes.

It goes on!

I have dreamt of things such as ableton when a small boy at the age of about 11, mixing tape to tape – jive bunny style lol, I used to dreamt of a way to make the music mine.
I would never off thought the spectrum zx and such computer based stuff would have evolved to this, so much to learn and not enough time in life to do so, now at the age of 37, I hope this helps some off you rock the dancefloor, good luck.

These mixes will be up on my website for xmas.

Summing it up:

DECK – A / MIX A1 / MIX A2 / DECK – B / MIX B1 / MIX B2 / DRUMS / SAMPLER/
Or what ever other additions or variations.

I set up 4 tracks and load them with songs to mp3jay, set the a/b’s so i can crossfade and cut. In 6 i built some various effect racks, set them up as sends, and set up keystrokes to turn things on and off. The tracks need to be cued and tempo sync’d, just minor details. From there i will creat a few more tracks for extra beats/sounds/etc.
An evolution x-session handles all the basic knob/fader bidnis, and the computer keyboard is loaded with keycommands.

For non dj performance, somwhat the same but with a lot more tracks.
Or Reaktor.

_h