hi ppl..
i'm new in the live set world (and in the ableton live's too)... in the last times i've heard lots of great live pa's: nice sound, nice arrangements, nice vartiations etc rarely boring and very exciting... but i was wondering about your "standard" (if it exist) way of organizing a live set. how do you create/start it? you just slice your release tracks in to sections (drums, bass, etc..) and then you play with them (with efx, looping)? or for example you've got in ableton a track only for the kick drums, an other track for the hats, etc.. and you just combine the clips and add efx?? another thing: do you prepare a specific live set? i mean, do you try it at home with a precise playlist, arrangement, etc.. or is it only improvisation??
ok, these questions could be very stupid.. but i'm really courious about it...
Well, the system may vary from user to user, but here’s how I do it.
Not meant to be a standard, just my way do do it.
I have always –more or less- the same structure in the tracks I build, the tracks are always at the same place, bassline is channel one, synths two and so forth.
As soon as I am done with the track I get rid of all the effects I need for the mixdown, so I record new tracks and I can get rid of EQ, Compressor and such, so that I end up having a „nude“ set, just audio clip. I don’t use any MIDI tracks in my live act so far.
When I’m done with the boring re-naming, I simply ctrlC and ctrlV the clips in the main set, where I have then all my tracks copied from session view, I just have then to set them in the right order.
IN this way I am very flexible, I really keep everything separate as much as possible, every sound has its track and I can rearrange on the fly, like bassline of track 1 with synth of track 2 loops from whatever other track, that’s why I can do new versions of my tracks on stage (I would never play a track live that sounds exactly similar to what I record in the studio). A little midicontroller controls the send of each ableton’s mixer channel.
All the drums come from an mpc1000 now, every sequence has every track separated (kick, hats, snare, hat loops, blah blah) and everything goes routed in the mixer. I also have 3 stereo pairs and a mono out from the computer, so I have as much separation as possible, I like to play with the mixing desk when I play live. I also have an effect patched in the send/returns for some delay/reverb action.
Oh, and I love to play live, it’s fantastic.
sorgenkind, very interesting way... yes, your way it's just like the one i was wondering: separate tracks for each sound (to have more flexiblity as possible) , 99% of audio clip, re-arrainging on the fly, etc... anyone want to explain theeir own way?
thx for the link drake...
..just a thing that i've noticed right now: listening to the various live pa's i've seen that often the metrical (is it the right term??) structure is not used. i mean the arrangement of the clips in 4 or multiples of it (kick for 4 bars, kick + hat for 4 bars, breaks at the 7th bar and so on...). ok, this absolutely doesn't affect the live set performance.. but, maybe it's part of the improvisation or simply some artist's dont take care of it in the live sistuation?? have you noticed that?
thomasjaldemark wrote:...when teh set we're working on right now is complete (which can take a month...)
A month?! Must be a great set.. This would never work out for us, considering we play every weekend and travel and EVERY set we play is completely different and brand new!
