Live playing with laptop / controller

[MrVegas]

Looking for insight into folks that are bringing laptops to live gigs with keyboard controllers. Initially my thoughts were not really in favor of this type of setup, but I think the right equipment and enough preparation could result in a happy glitch-free marriage between computers and controller keyboards at worship gigs / small clubs, etc.

 

One thing that appeals to me is the idea that you don't necessarily have to grab your mouse or trackpad to change instruments, trigger loops, whatever. So something like the Native Instruments Komplete Control looks appealing.

 

Opinions?

 

 

[StevieDeepD]

I use a Nektar LX88 to control MainStage with native sounds, as well as Arturia Analog Factory and Roland Sound Cloud synths. Patch changes and sequence start/stop from the LX88, only time I touch cpu is to turn it on/off.

 

- S

[BadDog1123]

I gig with an 80's/90's band using two Studiologic MIDI controllers (SL88 and Numa Compact 2X) running through Gig Performer host software on a Windows 10 laptop. All of my instruments are virtual and include Arturia V Collection 7, Native Instruments Kontakt 6 (with several third-party instrument libraries), IK Multimedia Hammond B-3X, Air Music Technology Velvet, Xpand and Structure samplers, and some miscellaneous freeware synths and effects. I run the whole rig through a Steinberg UR22C USB audio interface into a Radial ProD2 stereo DI to FOH and to my Sennheiser IEMs. I've been doing this for only about 6 months, but the results have been excellent with only a very few live performance glitches as I perfect my setup. I can preset all of my patches into setlists within Gig Performer, so changing songs and song parts is a snap on a touch-screen laptop. Plus, I am carrying around WAY less gear. I have spares of almost everything in case something ever breaks.

[MrVegas]

That sounds really interesting. I'm going to look into that Gig Performer. Do you use a DAW with your setup as well?

 

[BadDog1123]

No, just Gig Performer. It doesn't come with any instrument or effect plugins, so you'll have to buy them separately. And it only supports 64-bit plugins.

 

Here is the link for Gig Performer. Highly recommended and the developers are great to work with.

 

https://gigperformer.com/

 

[John H Carter]

Also check out Cantabile - my rig is 100% software with this running it all. John

 

[Iconoclast]

Been doing it for years. About 9 years ago I started using Mainstage for a couple patches and then it slowly took over my rig. In the last year I've done several shows with just Mainstage. Now that the piano's and EP's are getting better there's not a lot of holes. I basically use Arturia V, Keyscape and the basic Logic instruments.

 

I work with a guy who's keyboard fly rig is a couple of sustain pedals, a Korg Nano controller, and a computer. All he asks for is an 88 key controller of any variety. Monster player.

 

I totally think it's the wave of the future. I wish there were more "pro" level keyboard controllers on the market.

[Bill Spencer]

Since 2014, I've been using my MacBook Pro running MS (now, used other hosts before) on most all my gigs, either for left hand bass or "top" keyboard sounds. The few fly gigs I do, I just take the laptop, nano control, pedals, like above. The laptop has NEVER crashed. (JINX!) Don't count on the computer based setup saving you any time programming your sounds/controls- if you want to have a number of controllers custom mapped per patch, it takes a bit of time. This is by far outweighed by all the other advantages discussed above.

 

 

[Dr Mike Metlay]

This is actually a lot of fun to do, but don't fool yourself: to get it working bulletproof, you need to work hard ahead of time to get everything going the way you'd like, and be prepared to acid test it in actual gigs and be ready to fix things and tweak them as you go. Most of the people who complain that laptop-based rigs and controllers "don't work reliably" haven't put in nearly enough legwork to test them. This stuff isn't magic; if you don't tell it what to do, it won't do it.

 

Ableton Live is very good at controller mapping. Some devices are recognized by the software and map to functions without having to do anything explicit, but it's super easy to set up pretty much any other MIDI device manually. Basically the entire DAW has MIDI Learn built in, should you need it (and you can also assign functions to QWERTY keys).

 

[MPN21]

Gig Performer is so intuitive and easy to use and with built-in script it can do complex tasks as well.

[BadDog1123]

I will second Dr. Mike's statement that there is a lot of prep work involved in making your setup bulletproof (or as close as one can get). I use two Windows 10 laptops, one primary and one "spare". I have spent MANY hours optimizing the laptops to remove "bloat", reduce latency, and improve overall reliability. If you go the Windows route, I recommend implementing the tweaks outlined in this guide: https://www.cantabilesoftware.com/glitchfree. I also run Process Lasso (http://bitsum.com) to optimize Gig Performer's priority and processor affinity settings. If you are uncomfortable or unwilling to get your hands dirty with PC/Mac operating system maintenance, you're better off sticking with hardware synths.

[MrVegas]

Lots of good information here, I really appreciate it.

[Ulf]

Here is the link for Gig Performer. Highly recommended and the developers are great to work with.

 

https://gigperformer.com/

 

Agreed. I have a lot of bad experience with using computers (i.e. Mac Mainstage, NI) instead of "real synths" for playing live, some really embarrassing and expensive failures...

 

But the developers behind Gig Performer may actually be able to convince me to try it again. Super responsive and nice!

 

[Markay]

I will second Dr. Mike's statement that there is a lot of prep work involved in making your setup bulletproof (or as close as one can get). I use two Windows 10 laptops, one primary and one "spare". I have spent MANY hours optimizing the laptops to remove "bloat", reduce latency, and improve overall reliability. If you go the Windows route, I recommend implementing the tweaks outlined in this guide: https://www.cantabilesoftware.com/glitchfree. I also run Process Lasso (http://bitsum.com) to optimize Gig Performer's priority and processor affinity settings. If you are uncomfortable or unwilling to get your hands dirty with PC/Mac operating system maintenance, you're better off sticking with hardware synths.

I have never found any need to get my hands dirty with Mac OS. It comes with native audio and midi drivers which are easily accessed inside MainStage. Sometimes folk ignore the fact that Apple is the provider of all the software needed for live gigging and they have done a lot of research and testing to make sure it all works nicely together.

 

With Windows as you say it is almost essential to get your hands dirty. Before I switched to MainStage I had a reliable Windows gig laptop running Cantabile and Brads guide linked above is a really good guide on how to configure a Windows gig machine.

 

[mte]

I've been gigging with laptop exclusively for 4 years now. Started with MainStage and a late 2011 MacBook. I never used much integrated sounds/instruments but instead used different 3rd party synths/sample libraries.

As my setup grew I wanted to optimize it as much as possible, so that one sample library / synth is loaded only once, thus reducing load time. With MainStage this proved to be quite cumbersome as you need to add a layout control for every plugin parameter you want to change across patches. And with MS upgrades a lot of this broke.

So I tried GigPerformer but it only provided low running cpu and simple usage and I still couldn't do what I wanted regarding loading one library only once.

Now I'm a happy user of Cantabile 3 Performer.

 

But I must warn that in order to make a reliable setup there is a lot of learning and work involved including a lot of trial and error before fully understand how things work. But if you accept it you get rewarded with the best sound possible in a compact form, not possible to achieve with only one hardware keyboard.

 

It's not for everyone but I'm very happy with the end result. It's just not an easy path.

 

Regards

[PianoMan51]

Here are two mistakes that I made with MainStage that wasted many many hours of effort. YMMV.

 

1). After playing gigs with MainStage for years I realized that I never ever looked at the laptop screen during a gig. But I had spent a lot of time developing and tweaking the screen setup. Oh, it looked incredible, but was useless. BTW, for lyrics and leadsheets: an iPad running iGigBook which can send MIDI messages per song.

 

2). My main board (VAX77) talked to MainStage, and I baked that keyboard deeply into my Concerts. Worked great until the keyboard broke, and I was stuck with a very complex software rig that could not work with any other board. If I had to redo it today I would decouple the keyboard from the software. Use a Korg Nano (or something like it) exclusively for controllers. And only use the keyboard for keys, pedals and pitch and mod wheels. All splits done In MainStage.

 

 

[BadDog1123]

Yup, really important to use your MIDI controller "generically" so it can be swapped out (in case of failure) with another board. I originally went the same route as PianoMan51, embedding all of my patch, pedal and split logic in the keyboard. Big mistake. When it died, I had to rebuild everything but this time I let Gig Performer handle all of that stuff. Now my two keyboard controllers just send notes, velocity, aftertouch and pedal info.

[Mighty Ferguson]

1). After playing gigs with MainStage for years I realized that I never ever looked at the laptop screen during a gig. But I had spent a lot of time developing and tweaking the screen setup. Oh, it looked incredible, but was useless. BTW, for lyrics and leadsheets: an iPad running iGigBook which can send MIDI messages per song.

Can I ask for more detail on this? I'm looking at MainStage very closely right now as the center of my next rig. It looks like you can use a lead sheet as a background on a song by song basis, but it's not clear to me if that requires disabling the control mappings or if they can just be removed from the display for a particular song. Is the rule of thumb to just use something else for lead sheets? If I didn't want to add an iPad to this, is there something else I could put up on the Mac screen that people recommend?

 

An unrelated question about controller choice: I've been looking at the Nektar Panorama T6, as there have been a couple of posts on here about the keybed being particularly good. It's priced well, and has a nice assortment of controllers. Plus it's light. After emailing Nektar asking about a high trigger point when the velocity sensitivity is turned off, they confirmed it doesn't do this. I don't think that's necessarily a dealbreaker, but it would have been nice. If anyone knows of a similar controller that does this, I'd be interested to hear about it.

[PianoMan51]

I"ll respond to the Mainstage part.

 

I don"t use the Mainstage screen for lyrics or leadsheets because I don"t like the big laptop on top of my keyboard and I can use a cheap used iPad to display what I need, directly in front of my face, and it"s minimally intrusive.

 

 

[Nathanael_I]

I guess I have a hybrid rig. I started on a Mainstage rig about 10 years ago, and it worked great. I tried a Kronos for a bit, but after using a laptop, it was just too limiting and slow, and I had gotten use to the sound quality of good software instruments and samples. I did move to GigPerformer last year, and have found it to be a wonderful host. It definitely takes time to curate patches and VST's that work for a given purpose, but the resulting sound quality is delightful. But I say it is hybrid because I wanted to have some capability if the computer goes down (which has never happened). My rig is a Nord Grand for 88 piano notes, my VAX77 just as a non-piano controller (notes, velocity, and AT only), and an OB-6 desktop (no keys). I normally play piano samples from the computer, and the computer handles the OB-6 patch changes, and all layers and splits.

 

But, the Nord Grand can do all kinds of simple piano + pad stuff on its own, and gives me some ability to continue.

 

I agree with the sentiment that it takes a bit to get it all sorted. I standardized my sound design on UVI's Falcon. If there are patches I want from my studio synths, I sample them and then set up expressive programming and envelopes in Falcon. This gives me a uniform interface for all sound creation, and allows me to access my special synths with only my laptop. Once the setup price is paid, the rig is very rewarding to play, and I fully enjoy the sound quality through IEMs.

 

When the Osmose comes, I am hoping that it will displace the VAX77 and become my "synth" keybed and "solo" keyboard. I'll probably still take the OB-6 - it just sounds great and is so easy to tweak while playing!

[EricBarker]

When the Osmose comes, I am hoping that it will displace the VAX77 and become my "synth" keybed and "solo" keyboard.

If you ever sell your VAX77, let me know. I've been looking for a folding piano for frequent air travel, and that looks ideal!

[jeffincltnc]

I really like the Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol controllers for browsing and tweaking on the keyboard. As long as you are using NKS plug ins it"s a useful tool. They"re built pretty well and have nice Fatar actions. I have Komplete Ultimate 12, Arturia V Collection and lots of Soniccouture instruments and appreciate the easy access in Komplete Kontrol. It"s not really useful for other plug ins like Addictive Keys, Addictive Drums and other go tos even if they are Kontakt instruments.

 

I love it at home but I don"t gig with this. The biggest issue I run into is that my MacBook Pro will randomly lose the USB connection to my Scarlett interface. It"s not like this happens every hour but it happens often enough that I don"t want to reboot during a gig and sync my interface. If it happens at home that"s another thing.

 

What do you MacBook users do for a good USB interface on the gig? I don"t really feel motivated to throw tons of money at this issue when I have stage hardware keys for that reason.

[Reezekeys]

What do you MacBook users do for a good USB interface on the gig? I don"t really feel motivated to throw tons of money at this issue when I have stage hardware keys for that reason.

How about throwing zero $ at the issue and use the headphone outputs? Unless you need more than two channels of audio at the gig of course.

 

To anyone that says the MacBook's regular audio output and Core Audio doesn't have audio quality or low-latency performance good enough to gig with, I have a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in.

[Tusker]

Opinions?

 

I'll echo a lot of others here. I run Mainstage but I also have hardware for plan b. Even on a hardware only gig, I typically have plan b. That's just me. YMMV.

 

- Macs are easy for everyday people to bullet-proof. Windows is fine if you like to tinker.

- With a laptop rig, bullet-proofing is the responsibility of the performer, not the software/hardware vendors

- KISS (at least at first)

- Mac headphone outs sound great, but they do take computer resources. If you have the resources, go for it (see KISS above)

- Once you streamline your workflow, you should be able to do a complete gig without touching your computer during the performance.

 

HTH. All the best.

[jeffincltnc]

This is good to know (thanks, Reezekeys!).

 

Does anybody here gig with an internal interface within a keyboard with built in sounds as well?

 

For example, I *think* the Yamaha CP88 and Roland RD-2000 both have internal digital interfaces so I assume this means I can use a Mainstage setup on my laptop, perform with a Roland or Yamaha stage piano, use the internal sounds of the keyboard as my "plan B" in case of laptop failure, and have everything routed through the outputs of the keyboard.

 

Is anyone doing that here? Do any other keyboards offer that?

[Reezekeys]

- Mac headphone outs sound great, but they do take computer resources. If you have the resources, go for it (see KISS above)

Just curious... you're not saying that a Mac's built-in sound output might use more resources than a 3rd-party USB driver for an external audio interface? I've never heard this. If you really want to "KISS", seems to me there's nothing simpler than the headphone output of a laptop going directly to a powered PA speaker. That's what I've been doing for many years. My laptop is almost seven years old (late-2013 MBP) and I have no audio issues with my setup.

 

I had a MOTU MicroBook IIc for a while but it disconnected itself on a gig. Only happened once, but that was enough for me. Too bad because going to the headphone output lost me the ability to mix my in-ears from my Roland controller keyboard. The MicroBook would also have come in handy when our bass player had an emergency medical situation and I needed to play LH bass - I could have sent that plug-in's audio through a separate output to a bass amp and the house and kept my keys in stereo. And, I mixed an ambience mic through the MOTU's #3-4 inputs which helped my monitoring. Maybe someday I'll try the setup again, since MOTU's drivers have probably been updated and I'm on a different macOS now. The bottom line is that no number of groovy features outweigh having a reliable setup.

[EscapeRocks]

 

I love it at home but I don"t gig with this. The biggest issue I run into is that my MacBook Pro will randomly lose the USB connection to my Scarlett interface. It"s not like this happens every hour but it happens often enough that I don"t want to reboot during a gig and sync my interface. If it happens at home that"s another thing.

 

What do you MacBook users do for a good USB interface on the gig? I don"t really feel motivated to throw tons of money at this issue when I have stage hardware keys for that reason.

 

Using the headphone out from your MAC, as others have said is the most inexpensive way to go. As Reeze said, when I did that, I experienced no extra resources being used.

 

Now, my gig rig is a 2018 Mac Mini in a rack mount. I run it through the new 3rd generation Focusrite 18i20. I have NEVER had a disconnect where I had to reboot. Same when I used the 18i20 2nd gen with my 2012 Macbook Pro.

Something to check: make sure in Mainstage that Autosave is turned off. Make sure on your Macbook that auto-checking for updates is turned off. Basically turn off EVERYTHING on your Mac not related to your gig. WiFi, Bluetooth, etc...

 

The Focusrite 18i20 is also a stand alone mixer, so I can added more hardware keys to the rig as I need.

 

 

[Tusker]

If you really want to "KISS", seems to me there's nothing simpler than the headphone output of a laptop going directly to a powered PA speaker.

 

Agreed.