D
dintymoore
Guest
I've been upgrading, actually re-doing my live cyber band routine. For a few decades I've been playing around town. I've been using a Mac to blow a Roland SC-8850, which is an all-in-one sound module. Since I got into this MIDI shit in 1983 there have been a number of big shifts where I had to redo my stuff. This last week or so I spent over 100 hrs on Ableton.
I had been using QMidi on stage for about 7 years. It is an incredible program. If Ableton Live! is $300 then QMidi should be $3000 but it's $15. For one man bands I haven't seen anything that even comes close. Since '83 I programmed probably around 800 songs, and wrote charts for maybe 500 of them. I go to gigs with 350 songs on QMidi, here's what the screen looks like:
QMidi gives you instant access to your songs, and calls up the words etc... It works flawlessly. I create the songs on Cubase VST24 v4.1r2. I have Cubase SX3 and 4 but still prefer the older OS 9 version for MIDI.
Here's what I've been up to in Ableton Live, I've got about 60 dance tunes chopped and diced in there:
I've got some of the songs chopped up. I didn't store any tempos with the songs, so I can jump from tune to tune and make up arrangements.
Songs titles with an "@" after them are loops and go until something else is cued.
There's no count ins, except with at least a kick drum. So the idea is that I go on stage and the kick pulse starts and doesn't stop for a few hours. In a way like a disco or rave party - where's my pacifier?
Getting the tunes into Live was a trip. Live is very unfinished MIDI-wise. For some reason they have not made their program 100% MIDI compatable, and worse, you have to discover what's missing and what's not for yourself. I have been talking to them for over a year and they keep releasing versions with the same errors in them so I plan on ditching Ableton Live the second something new (from Steinberg please!!!) comes out.
That being said, the monster I've made is pretty incredible. You don't know what's going to happen when you go on stage (in a good way
). It's sure NOT "playing along with tracks". Fuck I hate that expression and the whole concept of "using tracks". That's too much like playing the radio. With this I can start a song, at the solo go into another song, then back to another song... a song can be 2 bars one night and 2 hours the next.
Here's what I had to do to any song I wanted to not loop:
1. make sure that this is global so when a song is playing and you trigger a new one that the bars will flow
2. this is the last bar in the song
3. this down arrow means to go to the next song
4. doesn't matter, it's for probabilities which I'll add later
5. this is the end of track, the bar after the last bar in the song
6. "Loop" needs to be off
7. this is the MSB, the CC# 000 or the variation # on my Roland
8. this is the LSB, the CC# 032 or the instrument map on my Roland
9. on my Roland, this is the actual program change #
Note that this is all what I did for my system. I don't use any audio loops and I make up all my MIDI tracks to trigger a Roland SC-8850. I also use Steven Slate drums just for the kick and snare.
I also found out that Ableton seems to completely ignore any Sys Ex messages in a track.
I had been using QMidi on stage for about 7 years. It is an incredible program. If Ableton Live! is $300 then QMidi should be $3000 but it's $15. For one man bands I haven't seen anything that even comes close. Since '83 I programmed probably around 800 songs, and wrote charts for maybe 500 of them. I go to gigs with 350 songs on QMidi, here's what the screen looks like:
QMidi gives you instant access to your songs, and calls up the words etc... It works flawlessly. I create the songs on Cubase VST24 v4.1r2. I have Cubase SX3 and 4 but still prefer the older OS 9 version for MIDI.
Here's what I've been up to in Ableton Live, I've got about 60 dance tunes chopped and diced in there:
I've got some of the songs chopped up. I didn't store any tempos with the songs, so I can jump from tune to tune and make up arrangements.
Songs titles with an "@" after them are loops and go until something else is cued.
There's no count ins, except with at least a kick drum. So the idea is that I go on stage and the kick pulse starts and doesn't stop for a few hours. In a way like a disco or rave party - where's my pacifier?
Getting the tunes into Live was a trip. Live is very unfinished MIDI-wise. For some reason they have not made their program 100% MIDI compatable, and worse, you have to discover what's missing and what's not for yourself. I have been talking to them for over a year and they keep releasing versions with the same errors in them so I plan on ditching Ableton Live the second something new (from Steinberg please!!!) comes out.
That being said, the monster I've made is pretty incredible. You don't know what's going to happen when you go on stage (in a good way
). It's sure NOT "playing along with tracks". Fuck I hate that expression and the whole concept of "using tracks". That's too much like playing the radio. With this I can start a song, at the solo go into another song, then back to another song... a song can be 2 bars one night and 2 hours the next.Here's what I had to do to any song I wanted to not loop:
1. make sure that this is global so when a song is playing and you trigger a new one that the bars will flow
2. this is the last bar in the song
3. this down arrow means to go to the next song
4. doesn't matter, it's for probabilities which I'll add later
5. this is the end of track, the bar after the last bar in the song
6. "Loop" needs to be off
7. this is the MSB, the CC# 000 or the variation # on my Roland
8. this is the LSB, the CC# 032 or the instrument map on my Roland
9. on my Roland, this is the actual program change #
Note that this is all what I did for my system. I don't use any audio loops and I make up all my MIDI tracks to trigger a Roland SC-8850. I also use Steven Slate drums just for the kick and snare.
I also found out that Ableton seems to completely ignore any Sys Ex messages in a track.
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