Objects browser / after gig report

Official support for: mutools.com
Post Reply New Topic
RELATED
PRODUCTS

Post

I'm in the process of preparing a small gig with my band and I chose to go with MU.LAB because of it's many good features.
First I though of making a new composition for each song, but because MU.LAB gives you only the option to select the next composition I decided to put all songs into just one composition (I don't know in which order we'll play the songs). I marked them with locators and used tempo changes which all worked fine until after I added around 30 songs. Then it became a lot harder to navigate through all of them to find the right one.

I though it would be much better if there was a browser for the compositions so I came to an idea of the object browser:

Image

It's not revolutionary, but notice the Compositions Manager :)


Since we are playing this Friday I know I wont have this feature, even if Jo thinks it's the most important feature in MU.LAB's development ever, so I wanted to ask more experienced users is there a better way to do what I need than the one I used?
Last edited by Branis on Sat Dec 26, 2009 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Top

Post

i was in the same kind of sauce a while ago, while preparing a gig. all my projects were already made in mulab and i was banging my head hard trying to find the best way to use mulab live for multiple tracks. eventually, i went for the one track/one project method. in order to optimize project loading times, i decided to render all the parts that i won't be playing/tweaking live and that was really the whole plan.

your locator method is ok, even though it becomes unusable after adding 30ish songs. maybe you can split that into 3 projects or something? there's no chance you will be playing 30 songs without a break. ;] perhaps picking groups of 10 tracks that work well together into one project per group would do the trick?

finally, about the browser idea... the composition browser is cool, but i really wouldn't like to see tabs added to the interface in mulab like your screenshot shows. the way everything is layed out without compromises such as tabs, hidden screens, and so on, is an important part of what makes mulab so great for me.

anyway, if simply adding a composition section to the current version of object browser is ok with you, i'm giving it a +1. just no tabs ever please. :D

EDIT: ufff, looking at your screenshot again, i really can't decide if i like the tab idea or not. dragging and dropping sequences from there would be really neat.
Last edited by bpblog on Sun Dec 13, 2009 9:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
Bedroom Producers Blog << Free VST Plugins!
Top

Post

Hi

I do not use the multiple compositions feature in MULAB rather I keep all my songs in separate sessions. For me I can work on each song separately, back them up, move them around and rename them at will.

I have taken a look at how MULAB handles multiple compositions and it seems to play them in the order you add them "next" moves forwards in a loop fashion. Although you can name the compositions it does not seem to display what composition you are actually on, unless you do "Compositions > Edit Properties" or similar.

Your compositions browser or similar would make things much easier to navigate with.

It is all down to how each user uses their DAW and if you are doing this live it must be flawless so that you do not play the wrong song next etc.

I personally use each song in a separate session and then use open session and have them named some thing like this (not actually like this but hopefully you get the idea):

1a-Song1
1b-Song2

This would give me 1x = 26 songs

Then for the second set after a break for drinks etc

2a-Song27 etc etc …

The reason I use an alpha/numeric system is so that it stacks up in an alpha/numeric fashion in the open session dialog.

When using single sessions I also have the benefit of seeing the name of the song in the very top left of the mulab screen.

Anyway that is my method. Although I have not played to a live audience yet I have practiced my sets hundreds of times and for hours at a time and my method works for me.

But with all things in life there are many ways to do stuff. I would be keen to hear from others about how they use the multiple compositions thingy.

Whatever system you choose you better get practicing soon as Friday is not that far away and you need to be confident on what song actually plays "next" etc.

Good luck for Friday

OZ
Top

Post

Thanks for your suggestions :)
Luckily the gig was postponed for one week so I'll have more time to test various methods.
Top

Post

[Branis] - When you actually play the gig I for one would like to know what method you finally chose and how well MULAB did during the show.

Anyway good luck.

OZ
Top

Post

Thanks, I'll report after the gig.
Top

Post

About the object browser idea: I also thought about it to add something like that in M. It's not yet planned for M3 for i want to do some more thinking before adding such thing; it's also related with some other ideas on the whishlist.

About playing live gigs with MU.LAB: Is the play order of the compositions fixed? If yes you could name your comps so that they match the play order e.g. "01 FireStarter" "02 MoonWalker" "03 HerRomanHouse" "04 Desert" etc...
Then Select Next Composition will match your play order.
Top

Post

PS: In M3 you'll have 2 separate funx: "Select Composition" (via list) and "Select Next Composition". Both funx are shortcut-able via key and/or MIDI ;)
Top

Post

mutools wrote:About the object browser idea: I also thought about it to add something like that in M. It's not yet planned for M3 for i want to do some more thinking before adding such thing; it's also related with some other ideas on the whishlist.

About playing live gigs with MU.LAB: Is the play order of the compositions fixed? If yes you could name your comps so that they match the play order e.g. "01 FireStarter" "02 MoonWalker" "03 HerRomanHouse" "04 Desert" etc...
Then Select Next Composition will match your play order.
Thanks for the suggestion. I don't know yet about the play order, maybe we'll end up fixing it after all.
Are the compositions rotated by name, not by creation date (or time)? I mean, for the next gig, could I just rename the compositions to get a new play order?
PS: In M3 you'll have 2 separate funx: "Select Composition" (via list) and "Select Next Composition". Both funx are shortcut-able via key and/or MIDI ;)
That's very good news :)
Top

Post

Branis wrote:Are the compositions rotated by name, not by creation date (or time)? I mean, for the next gig, could I just rename the compositions to get a new play order?
Yes, the compositions are listed alfabetically.
Ah, but that's when doing a drop down list.
When doing Select Next Composition, the order doesn't change by renaming the comps, sorry bout that. But i'll make it work alfabetically in that function as that's the most logical/consistent ;)
Top

Post

Here is the report after the gig as promised:

I finally decided to make a session per song and name them similar to what TheGuysanIdiot suggested. That way I could easily find the next session. The loading time was about 10 sec, mostly because of the drum samples, which was perfectly acceptable.

Each session contained one RMV with all drum samples, two Alphas, one LL3, a couple of insert FX for the Drum Rack (Voxengo TubeAmp and DDMF NY compressor), a master reverb /Acon Digital StudioVerb), a limiter at the output (Pocket Limiter) and some songs had a couple of audio tracks. On top of that we had a synth (Yamaha AN1x), a guitar (Rickenbacker), a bass (Danelectro), a vocal and another vocal/vocoder.

The computer was a Dell inspiron 1521 with Vista Home Premium connected to a Presonus Audiobox USB. Before the gig I switched off the wifi card, closed most of the startup programs and put the computer to sleep.

In some songs I played the AN1x, in others one of the Alphas or LL3. I set my AN1x with local control off and having a session per song allowed me to save the session with the correct channel selected, so I didn't have to think about selecting the right one during the gig.

All in all MU.LAB preformed perfectly, though I didn't stress it too much. The CPU load was about 40-50%.

Alpha had a stuck note twice during the gig (while I played it, not while being sequenced by MU.LAB), so I had to switch it's process off/on, but I was lucky it happened in such a moment that it didn't pose too much of a problem. I'm not sure who's fault this is, Alpha's or MU.LAB's. No other problem whatsoever.

Here are a couple of suggestions that I think could improve MU.LAB a bit:

1. Opening a new session displays a dialog "Open session will close this session, OK?". The answers Yes and No are activated by Y and N respectively, but I think it's easier (and probably more intuitive) to find Enter and Esc keys on the keyboard. Actually, I think this dialog is not really necessary because the session will not unload unless you select a new one and click OK in the browser.

2. MU.LAB doesn't save, how to call it, the state of the plugin GUI - open or closed. I sang a couple of songs where I wasn't too sure about the lyrics, so I loaded a TrackPad VST and pasted the lyrics there. I saved the session with TrackPad's GUI open and positioned how it suited me best, but after re-loading the session the GUI was closed. The state of the plugin's Hide panel is not saved either, though I reported that already.

As a conclusion I can say that it's pretty safe to go live with MU.LAB :)
Top

Post

Hi Branis

Thanks for writing your gig report. Glad it went well.

I will wait until Jo has responded before I comment on your ideas.

OZ
Top

Post

Branis wrote:Alpha had a stuck note twice during the gig (while I played it, not while being sequenced by MU.LAB), so I had to switch it's process off/on, but I was lucky it happened in such a moment that it didn't pose too much of a problem. I'm not sure who's fault this is, Alpha's or MU.LAB's. No other problem whatsoever.
Or the MIDI driver.
1. Opening a new session displays a dialog "Open session will close this session, OK?". The answers Yes and No are activated by Y and N respectively, but I think it's easier (and probably more intuitive) to find Enter and Esc keys on the keyboard. Actually, I think this dialog is not really necessary because the session will not unload unless you select a new one and click OK in the browser.
Agreed, the alert should come a bit later, i.e. just before the previous session is effectively unloaded. Will be improved in M3.

Edit: When the alert would come later it's a bit weird. I'll leave it like it is now.

Ideally the alert should not come if nothing has changed in the session. I'll keep on thinking about that track-changes aspect, cfr another forum topic here.

The [Return]/[Escape] suggestion is added to the whishlist.
2. MU.LAB doesn't save, how to call it, the state of the plugin GUI - open or closed. I sang a couple of songs where I wasn't too sure about the lyrics, so I loaded a TrackPad VST and pasted the lyrics there. I saved the session with TrackPad's GUI open and positioned how it suited me best, but after re-loading the session the GUI was closed. The state of the plugin's Hide panel is not saved either, though I reported that already.
It's on the whishlist.

Thanks for your feedback!

As a conclusion I can say that it's pretty safe to go live with MU.LAB :)[/quote]
Top

Post

Hi Branis

Now that Jo has responded. I will make my comments also.

The "Open session" dialogue does indeed need modifying and I am sure Jo will find the correct balance between "silent and non-silent" messages as he is also looking into other dialogues within MULAB. I will not comment further on this until Jo releases the test M3 so that we can all comment on such dialogue messaging.

The "save state" stuff I was already aware that this was on the wish list for a later time and would be handy one day.

What I really wanted to comment on was the MIDI stuck notes stuff.

I personally have been using MIDI for years and years and MIDI stuck notes have always been around for one reason or another.

I believe that MULAB itself does not have any MIDI stuck notes issues. All my chosen VSTi etc NEVER have stuck notes. One example:

Windows XP (SP3) > AXIOM 49 > M-AUDIO MIDI driver > MULAB > Sylenth1

The above is just one example of my own setup that NEVER has had a MIDI stuck on note.

When I use the above term "my chosen VSTi" I carefully check all VSTi and make sure they are CPU friendly and have no MIDI stuck on issues.

In the past I have had VSTi that had MIDI stuck on note issues but an update to the VSTi by the supplier removed the problem.

During my recent Windows 7 trial I was unable to use the M-AUDIO MIDI driver for my AXIOM 49 as it was not written at the time of my trial. I had to use the Windows 7 generic MIDI driver and guess what I got MIDI stuck on notes occasionally in many DAWs.

So to sum up my own experience I would always look at the VSTi I was using and check forums and internet for other users with MIDI stuck on notes. I would also try and get the latest vendor MIDI driver for the operating system I was using.

Back to your own setup as it is much different from mine. You need to try and track down what is causing the MIDI stuck notes. Failing that all users need to know how to handle it if it happens using "Panic", "all notes off", "process off" kind of stuff.

So lets face it MIDI stuck on notes do exist we just need to limit them and act when one occurs.

Anyway well done for using MULAB live I think that is great.

OZ
Top
Post Reply

Return to “MuTools”