Unpopular Opinion: All DAWS suck (for playing live)

[machinesworking]

How many times does one need to change a preset during a song?

I know this is probably a rhetorical question, but hey..
One song I used to do in Live with Kore involved Session clips launching various parts of the song, on vocal queues from the singer, and with most parts the keyboard set up would change with the Session clip from Kontakt, to Zebra then to Massive for the big break, this was common in that line up.

[machinesworking]

Somehow thousands of artist perform live with the current offerings.

As for changing presets, in ableton one good way to change between sounds is to use a an instrument rack with several instruments in it and use a macro control for selection, you can automate it.

The problem with that way is all instruments are loaded into the CPU at all times. Live is a lot less forgiving than other DAWs doing this. Bitwig supposedly does a good job with this. I haven't done a shootout though.

[BONES]

One day I'd like to sit down and program a whole gig using a small set of instruments for the whole thing. I don't think it would be that hard but it would be very, very time consuming. I reckon I could probably get it down to Battery, bx_oberhausen, ArcSyn, Thorn, Monoment, TRK-01 (Reaktor), VG_Carbon and an instance or two of Kontakt. So somewhere between 8 and 10 instruments in total for a set.

[warp x]

viewtopic.php?f=102&t=273050

[tooneba]

I think electronic music can be more about adjust parameters of a synth live while preprogrammed notes are playing

Sure, it can be but I think we can all agree that's not what it should be. Nobody wants to go to a gig to watch someone twiddle knobs (unless it's ladies' night at Bada-Bing!), it's not what makes live music great.

No. A lot of weird German are enjoying watching someone on the stage producing beeping noise from a synth and midi note generator, and giving a nod of understanding what they are hearing.

[jancivil]

twiddling knobs while a program passively reproduces the note-ons is not playing music live. It may be a form of play, but so is diddling yerself.

[docbot]

Doing some more reseach I found out that Bitwig actually has quiet a great way to load different tracks without stopping the sequencer.

The secret lies in it's Instrument Selector device, which can switch between layers using Program Change messages. This essential let's you house all your tracks on single Track Group and functions a bit like it would using Mainstage. You just have to keep your Note Data on separate channels and use the 16 Midi Channels to route notes accordingly.

Speaking of it, Mainstage is actually a great solution for playing live as well, I've never really dug into it, but's very sophisticated and I'd imagine the next version would streamline the interface a bit to make it even better.

Here's a screenshot:


Another thing I've found out that another great way is to just use a hardware drummachine as a midi clock master, this way you can just keep the drummachine running and load new software projects that than automatically slave to the drummachines speed again.

Ceephax Acid Crew is basically doing this with a 707 and a RS7000
See:

Only problem with using a DAW would be that each project has different plugin latency depending of what kind of plugs you use, so it woud actually be better to have the Software run as the Master Clock, because it's easier to delay Midi Events that a Outputed to keep everything in Time. But only Renoise and Logic can to this, do to this in Ableton and Bitwig you would have to buy a Expert Sleepers USAMO which sends out Midi via Audio to take latency into account and then you would be forced to go with the Mainstage type of project layout again

[melomood]

I love how people want everything to be dead easy for them as if live bands haven't had to deal with issues since the inception of bands performing live. Thousands of bands have had to deal with tuning between songs,broken strings,setting up sounds from handwritten diagrams, mic feedback,hell, Todd Rundgren once finished a show after fracturing his arm,but hey
You deserve everything you whine for handed to you on a silver platter with a pretty bow

[vurt]

yeah ffs break a bone! put some effort in

[machinesworking]

I love how people want everything to be dead easy for them as if live bands haven't had to deal with issues since the inception of bands performing live. Thousands of bands have had to deal with tuning between songs,broken strings,setting up sounds from handwritten diagrams, mic feedback,hell, Todd Rundgren once finished a show after fracturing his arm,but hey
You deserve everything you whine for handed to you on a silver platter with a pretty bow

I can agree with this, watching guys on the Ableton forum complain about the weight of a 15" MacBook Pro for "gigs", but it is weird when upon observation, a program named Ableton Live has since forever not been focused update wise, on playing live. Or that specifically for practicing and playing Live with seamless gaps between them a dinosaur DAW like DP offers a much better layout.

The truth of the matter is most people are more interested in bedroom producing than playing live, so we will probably get comping in Live before we get some sort of way to chain multiple Sets together in a seamless way for performance.

[docbot]

lot's of unproductive naysayer here. Evolving Technology is always a trade of just like an iPhone has much more features than an Nokia 3310, the Nokia 3310 still excells when it comes to battery life. It's similiar with Hardware equipment and Software that relies and CPU Cycles running on top of other Software, you might be able to do much more with software, but at the same hardware has a immediacy and loadfree interconnection possibilities that's hard to reproduce with software.

there is of course no harm in using to brain to find a better way to use software in a certain usecase.

you're free to cast band members for your electronic music project that resembles kraftwerk on stage, but please don't get on my nerves telling me that I should stop trying to find an ideal solution to a problem and should instead stop being lazy and just carry a alienware tower to my gigs... mkay

[docbot]

This is a real head scratcher isn't it?

I've used Ableton Live off an on for years for live performance, backing tracks with Kore as the brain for live synths and FX etc. Everything in one Set, no need to switch projects etc. Kore is no more, but the idea lives on with other things like Freestyle. The thing about using Live though is it makes more sense to use the Session View, this in band practice can be a pain. If you're going over a part you need to either toss it into the Arrangement or open the original project etc. etc. Bitwig would be very similar for live uses, and one advantage of both of them is less chances of audio glitches when messing with things in a live environment.

Digital Performer is near ideal for Live use if you set up audio tracks in various Chunks and VSTs in their V-Racks. It queues the next song for you automatically, or you can program the change to any length you want, pausing doesn't affect it, and it's dead easy to rearrange the live set on the fly if you need to. I think it's especially appealing if you're a guitar player live, since setting up Amplitube etc. and having DP change presets with program change messages is pretty flawless, and in practice you're looking at the full linear arrange sequencer. My only drawback at this point is Clips aren't as advanced as any of the other Launchers out there, with no real hardware support, just dumb MIDI learn. MPE is still a 16 channel affair as well.

Logic is looking really good for live use these days, the clip launching feature is pretty solid, but changing synths on the fly is up and down arrows from what I can tell. I find the whole way record is armed in Logic slightly more frightening to trust in Logic than Live or DP, but the Marker switching of parts of a song is pretty cool.


I'm working in Logic a lot more these days, but I'm probably going to be using DP10 for Live use, it's just a cleaner experience for the way I set things up.

thanks I've never even touched DP and wasn't aware of this feature at all. There don't seem to be too many vocal DP Users around on the net, so I kinda keep forgeting about it.

[Yorrrrrr]

Yes, the main purpose of DAWs is certainly no live playing. However, many DJs/Producers have been successful using Ableton Live.

[Tony Ostinato]

i'll second that hive can respond to program change. its like diva, it uses a master "midi programs" folder that it loads on startup and then switches to programs in that folder when receiving a program change message

if you edit the preset and save it to the same folder it will still load the old version until you restart hive/diva, kind of maddening

and all instances share the same midi programs folder. i really love albino 3 in that each instance can access its own selected folder. albino 3 can also layer up to 3 presets which is awesome along with keymapping for each preset. developers should really look at albino 3's setup, they nailed it.

but again i've used hive live onstage since it came out, and also diva, over hundreds of gigs with an equal or greater number of program change messages being sent and received over midi in reaper with no problem. in fact in that "playing thru the presets" video its doing that. the opening organ in "rather be" is a hive patch

[machinesworking]

This is a real head scratcher isn't it?

I've used Ableton Live off an on for years for live performance, backing tracks with Kore as the brain for live synths and FX etc. Everything in one Set, no need to switch projects etc. Kore is no more, but the idea lives on with other things like Freestyle. The thing about using Live though is it makes more sense to use the Session View, this in band practice can be a pain. If you're going over a part you need to either toss it into the Arrangement or open the original project etc. etc. Bitwig would be very similar for live uses, and one advantage of both of them is less chances of audio glitches when messing with things in a live environment.

Digital Performer is near ideal for Live use if you set up audio tracks in various Chunks and VSTs in their V-Racks. It queues the next song for you automatically, or you can program the change to any length you want, pausing doesn't affect it, and it's dead easy to rearrange the live set on the fly if you need to. I think it's especially appealing if you're a guitar player live, since setting up Amplitube etc. and having DP change presets with program change messages is pretty flawless, and in practice you're looking at the full linear arrange sequencer. My only drawback at this point is Clips aren't as advanced as any of the other Launchers out there, with no real hardware support, just dumb MIDI learn. MPE is still a 16 channel affair as well.

Logic is looking really good for live use these days, the clip launching feature is pretty solid, but changing synths on the fly is up and down arrows from what I can tell. I find the whole way record is armed in Logic slightly more frightening to trust in Logic than Live or DP, but the Marker switching of parts of a song is pretty cool.


I'm working in Logic a lot more these days, but I'm probably going to be using DP10 for Live use, it's just a cleaner experience for the way I set things up.

thanks I've never even touched DP and wasn't aware of this feature at all. There don't seem to be too many vocal DP Users around on the net, so I kinda keep forgeting about it.

Mostly DP got sidelined by the juggernaut that is Logic with Apples backing, when it was mac only, the windows version works great or is a mess depending on configuration it seams.

It’s really old school, even it’s implementation of Clips is, but if you want linear sequences all on their own timeline and chained together, with global VSTs that workin all sequences, DP does it the best. It’s not as bullet proof as Bitwig or Live in terms of uninterrupted audio, and it isn’t native MPE, like Live it’s a workaround. I constantly wish MOTU would sell it or dump more money into it though, because the basic concept of Chunks is a really good idea.