VSTi on stage, still a nightmare in 2017?

[PhilG]

For more than two years I´m trying to build a stable live setup.
My goals:

• Tempo synchronized backing tracks together with live played keyboard (VSTi, arps, chords and melody)
  Starting the playback and ability to tap/adjust tempo from a hardware device
  Acceptable overall CPU hit
  Acceptable load time between projects/songs
  Stable performance

My hardware:

• Antelope Zen Tour
  Moog Sub 37
  NI Maschine Jam
  NI Komplete Kontrol S49
  Arturia Spark
  Arturia Beatstep Pro
  HP Elitebook 8470p
  Core i5 2x 2,7 GHz
  16GB Ram
  2 SSD - 1st for OS, host and VSTi, 2nd for Kontakt and other sample libraries.

The software:

• Windows 10 Pro 64bit (optimized for audio)
  Ableton Live 9.x / Bitwig 2.x
  NI Maschine
  NI Komplete
  NI Komplete Kontrol with a lot of NKS compatible plug-ins and Kontakt 3rd party libraries
  Omnisphere/Trillian
  Stylus RMX
  U-HE Bazille, Diva, Zebra (HZ), Repro 1
  Arturia V5

I never would have guessed what a nightmare this would become.

The biggest disappointment has been NI Maschine Jam together with the NI Komplete Kontrol keyboard.
The keyboard is always following the actions on the Jam.
This means when you play a sound on 1st group of Maschine with your keyboard and press a pad to start a loop, the keyboard switches the midi focus to the group of the loop.

So basically you can´t play the keyboard and use the Jam at the same time on different instruments/groups.
Absolute showstopper, so I opened a ticket at NI in November 2016.
Result until now, none!
But now we have Komplete Kontrol MK 2 and Maschine MK 3 with still the same behaviour instead of a working solution for my request.

So NI Maschine software is simply not usable on stage as a stand-alone solution, if you want to use it together with a NI keyboard!
It has the potential to become a new standard, but ...
(NI-ToDo -> compatibility with NI Komplete keyboards, no aftertouch, multicore support, 3rd party vsti integration, no more focus on HipHop or Dance producers, combination with Komplete Kontrol...)

Komplete Kontrol and NKS
Yeah, this has been a nice vision, but why no love for 3rd party integration?
It is nearly impossible for most of us to integrate our favourite plug-ins.
The software itself is nice, but there are some essential things missing or not suitable for live usage.
Some hardware options can only be adjusted in the control software and not on the keyboard, like split zones, velocity/aftertouch curves and MIDI channels.
I can´t recommend using Komplete Kontrol as plug-in with more than one instance in the live host, it is not stable or intuitive enough to handle.

But which NI instruments are slim and stable enough to be used live on stage?
Massive, FM 8 and DrumLab, that´s it
Most Kontakt/Reaktor libraries are having too long loading times or are too demanding on CPU on lower buffer sizes (256 samples) or have annoying small bugs.
For example Rounds doesn´t save the correct preset state with the project it is saved in.

The same for 3rd party libraries, best example is Output.
I have the complete package and love it, but I never would use one thing from them on stage.
They have too many small bugs, especially in the preset handling and are eating too much CPU for a single instance.

Or Electro-Acoustic from Soniccouture, a genius idea to build "acoustic" drumsets from recorded drum machines.
I would use it on every track, but a load time of 45sec from SSD? No way!

Next problem, the Arturia Spark hardware
I can´t understand, why this device has been kind of abandoned from Arturia and practically got no updates the last years.
It has such a great potential, but has still too many small bugs and oddities.
BTW, I had to kick most instruments from Arturia out of my "live compatible" list because of instability, CPU usage and/or bugs concerning the preset management.
Only SEM and Mini are safe enough on stage for me.

And the other?
U-HE?
Only Repro-1 is live capable as this is the only instrument to have an OptIn or default option for multicore usage, when loading a preset.

Spectrasonics?
With Omnisphere/Trilogy you have to be careful, some presets (internal FX) are overkill for a dual core i5!

And the live host?

I gave up on Ableton Live, it is great for audio, but I never could get it stable with all my plug-ins.
And I tried it since V4 with different PCs or Macbooks during the last years.
It crashes way too often and it is not performing good with some demanding plug-ins, like Diva or Omnisphere.

Bitwig is nice, but lacks some important features, for example an easy multi-out handling.
And there are still some serious bugs and oddities.

So here i am still not knowing what to do next.
But I have gained a lot of respect for all musicians who are using a laptop together with a keyboard on stage

[andymcbain]

The key is to keep things simple as possible. On paper I can't see why you'd have issues with your setup and Ableton Live, but every setup is different and you've outlined problems that I wouldn't have considered. I've been using Ableton Live for years in various setups... I used to run up to 8 stems from Ableton into an external mixer, alongside a couple of MIDI channels to external synths... that was on my old 2007 MacBook and it was super stable. These days it's an i7 MacBook Pro with 1 instance of Sylenth, Stereo backing tracks, 1 x External MIDI Channel going out and a couple of hardware synths going in - all mixed internally at low(ish) latency. Aside from Sugar Bytes Effectrix I'm only using Ableton's stock effects, and I think they're absolutely fine. The whole setup is solid.

It's a shame you can't get Ableton stable - it's never let me down...

[thecontrolcentre]

In Live there is an option to lock any control surface to any plugin, so you should be able to focus Maschine & your keyboard on different plugins.

[PhilG]

The key is to keep things simple as possible. On paper I can't see why you'd have issues with your setup and Ableton Live, but every setup is different and you've outlined problems that I wouldn't have considered. I've been using Ableton Live for years in various setups... I used to run up to 8 stems from Ableton into an external mixer, alongside a couple of MIDI channels to external synths... that was on my old 2007 MacBook and it was super stable. These days it's an i7 MacBook Pro with 1 instance of Sylenth, Stereo backing tracks, 1 x External MIDI Channel going out and a couple of hardware synths going in - all mixed internally at low(ish) latency. Aside from Sugar Bytes Effectrix I'm only using Ableton's stock effects, and I think they're absolutely fine. The whole setup is solid.

It's a shame you can't get Ableton stable - it's never let me down...

Thank you for your answer.
Yeah, the relationship between Live and me is one of the big mysteries in my life.
I always hear how stable and reliable Live is, but it is and never has been for me
Ableton Live hates me.
I just rebuild my system from scratch, fresh install of Windows 10 1709 and all plugs/programs.
Fired up Ableton Live the 1st time and it welcomed me with a cascade of four crashes.
One crash per session is normal and although I´m quite experienced, I don´t know why.

But like you wrote, stems and external synths seem to be the better option than running too many plugs.

[PhilG]

In Live there is an option to lock any control surface to any plugin, so you should be able to focus Maschine & your keyboard on different plugins.

The connection between Jam and Komplete Kontrol Keyboard is hardcoded.
I can use the keyboard in MIDI mode, but then I loose integration features.

My mistake has been that I thought Komplete Kontrol and Maschine go together fine.
They don´t, because this are two separate products for different needs.

It seems that todays producer prefer to play on grids and hit pads.
The workflow is mainly pattern based and concentrating on loop manipulation.
And the industry is following the mainstream.

But I am an old-fashioned musician, who wants to use todays technology and integrate it in my timeline-based workflow and thinking.
My musical roots are in the 80s, working with multi-track tape machines and hardware synths
So I want to play keyboard with full control over the sounds I use with velocity, aftertouch and hardware elements (Modwheel, pitchbend, knobs and so on)
That´s why I can´t keep an eye on a grid and hit the right button in the right moment to fire up the next loop in time.
The song and the arrangement are fixed, the backing track should run automatically and I just play leads, pads and want to put some extras on top.
But on stage you have to keep contact with the audience, so the arrangement has to be flexible.
You need to be able to adjust the tempo and this is the biggest problem with playbacks, you need an option to add breaks, fills and loops with varying length to give room for solos of other musicians, talking to the audience, cheering and so on, and the ability to return to the playback to the point where you left it.
That´s the secret of a living performance, which is satisfying and worth to remember for both sides of the stage.
We are a trio with guitar, violin and synths/laptop.
The laptop or Beatstep Pro should deliver all rhythmic parts from drums, bass and some extras.
But I want to have the ability to play with the filter of the bass or add drum fills or loops in between and anytime.
That´s the point where I´m stuck.
I have seen live that it is possible (Valravn and Euzen).
And I remember some epic concerts from Ultravox and the early OMD before they went pop.

For example Christopher Juul from Euzen is a master of combining Rock/Folk and Electro, it is most impressive what he is able to achieve on stage.
They change seamless from Techno/Trance to straight Metal with hardcore Dubstep elements over soft Folk piano and back.
I have been left speechless with tears of joy in my eyes and deeply inspired for my musical future.

[funky lime]

Or Electro-Acoustic from Soniccouture, a genius idea to build "acoustic" drumsets from recorded drum machines.
I would use it on every track, but a load time of 45sec from SSD? No way!

Did you re-save the .nki files after installing the library? No way should even a large library take that long to load on an SSD. Sometimes, even freshly-installed 3rd party libraries need re-saved (or batch re-saved, if there are lots of .nki files); this usually cuts the loading time down by quite a bit.

Many Kontakt instruments use its built-in convolution reverb as part of the sound, and it eats up CPU cycles quite hungrily. You can get in there and disable it, if you're okay with compromising a bit on the sound.

Also, some people use Vienna Ensemble Pro. It's aimed at people using slave computers via LAN, but I've heard of people just using it with the one computer, loading their huge multi-timbral Kontakt setups into it and routing that to their DAW (i believe via ReWire) so that even if they switch projects, they don't have to reload all their libraries and wait for them to load into memory. Reaper lets you have multiple projects open via tabs (not sure if Ableton does this), and you could just have each project be its own song, with FX routed and MIDI mapped as needed before-hand, while keeping all your same instruments loaded outside of the DAW inside VEP. I've also read that, depending on what DAW you use, VEP can help you utilize multiple cores more efficiently.

<fanboy>
I've used Reaper on stage with no problems, granted my setup wasn't super complex. From what I've read, Reaper is more efficient with multi-core stuff than Ableton. It's also way more customizable, if you're willing to roll up your sleeves and spend some time fitting it to your needs. There's an amazing community that has contributed hundreds (actually, probably thousands now) of user-made scripts, effects, extensions, templates, themes, etc., almost all of them totally free of charge.

It fits that old-school timeline paradigm much better than Ableton in my opinion (though there is a user-made extension that adds an approximation of Ableton's "session view" to Reaper for triggering loops and clips.

The routing can be as complex as you want, with audio, MIDI, OSC, transport, automation. If you can imagine it, you can probably wire it up in Reaper. Just don't expect the program to hold your hand along the way; there is definitely a learning curve for the more esoteric stuff. It's quite easy to link one MIDI device to a particular track or VST, and a different device to another track or plugin. You can even have one plugin control another plugin, or have any audio channel control any FX parameter. There's a lot of really insane stuff you can do with it, even without delving into the massive library of user-made extensions (conveniently available with ReaPack).

It's also very inexpensive at $60 for a personal license, and the "demo" is actually a fully-functional version that never expires; it just has a nag screen for a few seconds when you boot it up.

</fanboy>

Also, I wouldn't load 1709 plugins onto my live rig; that's just asking for problems. Maybe experiment with a seperate partition, or at least a seperate user account, for live usage.

[PhilG]

Did you re-save the .nki files after installing the library? No way should even a large library take that long to load on an SSD. Sometimes, even freshly-installed 3rd party libraries need re-saved (or batch re-saved, if there are lots of .nki files); this usually cuts the loading time down by quite a bit.

Yes that has been my first reaction, but Electro-Acoustic initially loads one huuge nki and the instruments are snapshots you choose from within the GUI.

Also, I wouldn't load 1709 plugins onto my live rig; that's just asking for problems. Maybe experiment with a seperate partition, or at least a seperate user account, for live usage

That´s a good point, I´ve been thinking of using a Surface Pro for live usage.
Most instruments allow installation on a second system.

[waltercruz]

Hi friend! I've been playing live with (only) a computer since... 2011, I guess.

I used to have a backup keyboard, but, financial crisis, and I had to sell it (a Korg Micro-X).

So.. I mostly play on bands - a Pink Floyd Cover and play my only material on some other bands. Have played on a Nine Inch Nails cover too.

Most of time, I use Mainstage as a host. With the Pink Floyd cover, we use a lot of backtracks but it's quite simple: two waves playing, one of them if the click track that goes to me and to the drummer, and other is the backtrack itself, that goes to the PA.

In another band, Stoyca, I use Ableton Live + APC, as we work more with some loops.

You speak about "Acceptable load time between projects/songs", but really, when playing live, you create a project that is your whole show, and open it once, only in the start of the show.

My most used VSTis for playing: Pianoteq, Lounge Lizard, Kontakt, UVI Falcon (For B5 hammond), Reaktor 6, sometimes Diva and Arturia plugins too. I used to have problems with older versions of Arturia plugins getting unauthorized suddenly, but after doing the offline authorization, the problem stopped.

I used to have some problems with my older macbook (2010 core 2 duo(, but my current computer (2013 i7) is more than enough for my needs.

[thecontrolcentre]

You speak about "Acceptable load time between projects/songs", but really, when playing live, you create a project that is your whole show, and open it once, only in the start of the show.
.

Yep. That's how I work in Live. Set up scenes for each part of every song you're performing all in one session view.

[PhilG]

You speak about "Acceptable load time between projects/songs", but really, when playing live, you create a project that is your whole show, and open it once, only in the start of the show.
.

Yep. That's how I work in Live. Set up scenes for each part of every song you're performing all in one session view.

Yes, that´s the most common way.
But I abandoned Live and uninstalled it last week after trying to switch some Bitwig projects to Ableton Live.

For example:
There is one killer arpeggiated patch from Omnisphere I wanted to play live that was fine within Bitwig, but with Ableton Live this patch alone caused crackles and dropouts at 50% CPU load even at 512 samples buffer size!
Just tried this buffer size for test purpose, normally I´m at 256 for live usage.
In Bitwig I can use this patch together with three more running VST, no chance to do this in Ableton Live.

In our songs the drums, bass and some fx loops or simply the whole rhythm section, are played by Bitwig clips only.
A song is arranged via "next action" per clip, so it is not so comfortable to have all songs in one project.
I don´t want to watch the grid all the time and trigger single clips manually within a song when I don´t have to.
In Bitwig I can load multiple projects organized in tabs and activate one by one, that´s not possible in Ableton Live.
I think that´s the historical reason why people who are using Ableton Live organize all songs in one big project for the stage.
With the NI Maschine Jam you can step through the project tabs and activate the audio engine of Bitwig directly from the hardware without the need to touch the laptop.
Using the Jam as tempo master with the possibility to tap the tempo is working perfectly.
I can use the touch strips for FX, sub mixing and parameter editing easily.

Bitwigs documentation and manual are a pain to go through, but I discovered some things on Youtube and other sources, which helped me to create a working setup now.
Hopefully

[someone called simon]

There seems to be nothing quite like Mainstage in the PC world, I've used it for live looping guitar, plus live soft synth keyboard and drum sequences with no issues.

Another thing is Zen.audio ALK, which is currently Mac only but I think a PC version is on it's way. It's a pretty unique product, but it launched with some stability and other issues, and is currently going through a major rewrite I believe. It would be worth checking out some videos of it, it might suit your needs/workflow when it gets stable and PC compatible.

[PhilG]

There seems to be nothing quite like Mainstage in the PC world, I've used it for live looping guitar, plus live soft synth keyboard and drum sequences with no issues.

Another thing is Zen.audio ALK, which is currently Mac only but I think a PC version is on it's way. It's a pretty unique product, but it launched with some stability and other issues, and is currently going through a major rewrite I believe. It would be worth checking out some videos of it, it might suit your needs/workflow when it gets stable and PC compatible.

Unfortunately PC users still have to struggle to get their gigs running.
I kicked every Apple product out of my life, because of the route and quality of their developments after the tragical loss of Steve Jobs.
The earlier Macs had been excellent specialized tools for creative people, but became more and more streamlined without outstanding advantages compared to Windows machines.
Except some very nice Mac-only apps or technologies, like built-in professional audio and multiclient MIDI drivers.
Thank you for your suggestion of ALK, but I think there is a long way to go until this is ready for stage.

[waltercruz]

For example:
There is one killer arpeggiated patch from Omnisphere I wanted to play live that was fine within Bitwig, but with Ableton Live this patch alone caused crackles and dropouts at 50% CPU load even at 512 samples buffer size!
Just tried this buffer size for test purpose, normally I´m at 256 for live usage.
In Bitwig I can use this patch together with three more running VST, no chance to do this in Ableton Live.

This seem weird. Have you checked Ableton or Omnisphere support?

In our songs the drums, bass and some fx loops or simply the whole rhythm section, are played by Bitwig clips only.
A song is arranged via "next action" per clip, so it is not so comfortable to have all songs in one project.
I don´t want to watch the grid all the time and trigger single clips manually within a song when I don´t have to.

Well, you can do the same on Ableton with follow actions.

In Bitwig I can load multiple projects organized in tabs and activate one by one, that´s not possible in Ableton Live.
I think that´s the historical reason why people who are using Ableton Live organize all songs in one big project for the stage.

i don't think that it's just historical reason. Even when I work on Mainstage, I load a project that is the entire show. The reason is that, doesn't matter how fast is the machine, if you close a project and load another, there will be some interruption and some loading time.

Have you checked the Daniel Mintseris masterclass on Linda? maybe it can help you.

https://www.lynda.com/Ableton-Live-tuto ... 921-2.html

Also, using some way to turn off VSTs that you're not using in the moment is very useful.

https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=195844

[PhilG]

Post by waltercruz » Thu Nov 30, 2017 4:09 am
PhilG wrote:
For example:
There is one killer arpeggiated patch from Omnisphere I wanted to play live that was fine within Bitwig, but with Ableton Live this patch alone caused crackles and dropouts at 50% CPU load even at 512 samples buffer size!
Just tried this buffer size for test purpose, normally I´m at 256 for live usage.
In Bitwig I can use this patch together with three more running VST, no chance to do this in Ableton Live.

This seem weird. Have you checked Ableton or Omnisphere support?

No, because it happens with Diva, Zebra and some Kontakt Patches too.
It´s pretty obvious that Live 9.7 has a very bad CPU efficiency, at least with my dual core i5 Laptop and compared to Bitwig 2.2.
Maybe it will be better with an i7 quad core, but I don´t have the money for it.

I´m pretty done with Ableton Live, it never has been stable for me and each time I try, I was reminded very fast why I put it aside.