wannjl Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 I am used to dedicated hardware for my live work 4X per week. What do I need to use a PC/Laptop for extra sounds/sound sets for live work? I need to bring things up fast and many times (ugh) I don't know ahead of time what songs we will be doing for that day. My list is as follows. What am I missing? * PC with wireless mouse * Touch Screen (I need something bigger than a laptop screen) * MIDI/USB interface * Komplete 10 (or other sounds) JL Hammond XK3, Yamaha PSR-s610, Leslie 3300, Neo Ventilator, Motion Sound Pro-145(fixed!), Yamaha Clubs & Subs, Hammond T-220 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElmerJFudd Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Hmmm, well if you are going to use more than Komplete you'll need a VST host. Some people like this one, http://www.cantabilesoftware.com/ Yamaha CP88, Casio PX-560 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CEB Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 The big question is how fast you need to ready for the next tune. Do you know before the gig at starts at all what songs are on the menu so you can do a quick setlist arrangement? How many possible different performance setups? I have one gig, a 10-piece show band where I only use about 10 performance setups. No problem. I can do that standing on my head everything is in one bank of my S90XS. I don't even use Master Mode. I have a Top 40 gig that requires we stick very close to the setlist because some setups depend on loading song files on the FA-06 to load the Sampler with the correct banks. The goal is to kick stuff off boom.boom.boom. It depends on how fast is fast. Set List management is the critical piece. I'm a hardware guy so I aint no help but there are some programs that are supposed to be very good for live patch management. "It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne "A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!! So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wannjl Posted March 3, 2015 Author Share Posted March 3, 2015 Set List management is the critical piece. I'm a hardware guy so I aint no help but there are some programs that are supposed to be very good for live patch management. What are some names of software for patch management? JL Hammond XK3, Yamaha PSR-s610, Leslie 3300, Neo Ventilator, Motion Sound Pro-145(fixed!), Yamaha Clubs & Subs, Hammond T-220 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wannjl Posted March 3, 2015 Author Share Posted March 3, 2015 The big question is how fast you need to ready for the next tune. Do you know before the gig at starts at all what songs are on the menu so you can do a quick setlist arrangement? How many possible different performance setups? We go immediately from one tune to another. I do know the set before hand... but the leader will occasionally add songs at will on the fly. I am used to changing drawbar settings before/during songs, as well as choosing up to two layered sounds at a time (upper split) and an additional sound (lower split) on my Yamaha arranger keyboard. My Hammond XK3/dual manual( not "c" version) and my Yamaha arranger are not Midi connected. I would love to have preset setups per song that I could immediately call up... which is why I am considering going to a PC based system... in addition to my Hammond. JL Hammond XK3, Yamaha PSR-s610, Leslie 3300, Neo Ventilator, Motion Sound Pro-145(fixed!), Yamaha Clubs & Subs, Hammond T-220 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wannjl Posted March 3, 2015 Author Share Posted March 3, 2015 Is there any way to have a foot switch connected to the PC to move from one patch set to another? USB? JL Hammond XK3, Yamaha PSR-s610, Leslie 3300, Neo Ventilator, Motion Sound Pro-145(fixed!), Yamaha Clubs & Subs, Hammond T-220 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Throbert Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Cantibile and Forte are the two main ones being used for PC. For audio PCIe cards usually have the least latency. RME is the leader, but Lynx recently came out with a couple of cards that are supposed to be pretty good. Lynx runs a close second to RME. Triton Extreme 76, Kawai ES3, GEM-RPX, HX3/Drawbar control, MSI Z97 MPower/4790K, Lynx Aurora 8/MADI/AES16e, OP-X PRO, Ptec, Komplete. Ashley MX-206. future MOTU M64 RME Digiface Dante for Mon./net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wannjl Posted March 3, 2015 Author Share Posted March 3, 2015 Would an Alesis Control hub work double duty as a MIDI in from my keyboard to the PC and foot switch to change patches/sets? http://alesis.com/control-hub JL Hammond XK3, Yamaha PSR-s610, Leslie 3300, Neo Ventilator, Motion Sound Pro-145(fixed!), Yamaha Clubs & Subs, Hammond T-220 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davinwv Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 If you must call up sounds at a moment's notice & you don't even know what type of sound you might need, a software rig (PC or Mac) is not for you, and you would be much better off with a ROMpler with quick access categories. I've been using a PC as my only sound source for live gigs & sessions since 2008. The scenario you describe is where a live software rig falls down IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CEB Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 My solution was to buy the Kronos. Not sure if it will help but it sure looks fun. You could have all you songs setup in setlist mode in alpha order and call them up from Set List as they are called up. Also you can arrange the Set List at the start of the night in your Show's order ..... That is the theory anyway. But It is a $4000 keyboard after buying a good case. I will know more in about a month. "It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne "A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!! So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 My list is as follows. What am I missing? * PC with wireless mouse Batteries-- lots and lots of spare batteries. Every wireless mouse I've ever owned has eaten batteries like M&Ms, and you wouldn't want to get stuck in a live situation with a mouse that starts acting flakey, or stops working entirely, because the batteries need to be replaced. Michael Rideout Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardware Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 I still use hardware, only replaced hardware samplers and lost my B3 in the war before the last one. Went from Scope DSP Cards and Gigastudio to a Scope DSP rack and Bidule. Never a crash once, and 6 nights a week in Vegas for 20 years. Magnus C350 + FMR RNP + Realistic Unisphere Mic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timwat Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 It sounds to me that the sound source itself isn't the real question - the real question is quick, reliable and pain-free access to the intended patch/voice/combi under duress. That's the part I don't know for software - what's available for fast patch access? Is it Set List Maker, that iPad app? Has MainStage gotten any better at this? Even hardware doesn't always do a great job of this - Kronos Set List mode is about the best I've used, and Kurz has their QA bank mode. But some hardware (Nord comes to mind) doesn't do you any favors. .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Ableton Live and Acoustica Mixcraft let you create clips that can be launched using a pad controller (Live has Session View; Mixcraft has Performance Panel), so you could set up tracks for each keyboard, and clips for each patch, then select patches by pressing the appropriate pad on the pad controller. An advantage of this is that you could quickly change patches in any order without having to load a different project in the DAW. A disadvantage is that neither Live nor Mixcraft provide for the use of SysEx messages-- they're filtered out. Michael Rideout Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonnor Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 I use a WIN8.1 tablet and Cantabile (mentioned earlier) for live shows. We also try to make up paper setlists ahead of time but quite often the front man calls out a song a couple bars before the end of the current song. With Cantabile I have a master setlist of all our songs (that I leave open on the tablet), and a Liquid Foot midi controller on the floor that I program the paper setlists into before a show. If all goes well, I just hit the down arrow on the LiquidFoot then hit the "GO" button to send a PgmChg to CanTab, which in turn sends PgmChg messages to all my instruments setting them up for the next song in about a tenth of a sec. If there is a callout song that's not on the paper setlist, I scroll to it on the CanTab master list and double-click it there. Same result of automated PgmChg messages getting to all my units. All my controllers and sound modules plug into an 8x8 midi patchbay which connects to the tablet via USB. Cantabile also lets you do input processing of the midi, like splits/layers/transpose, Continuous Controller mapping, etc.. It's very slick for live. There's a Cantabile/Forte thread on these forums somewhere that goes into great depth on each application. ~ vonnor Gear: Hardware: Nord Stage3, Korg Kronos 2, Novation Summit Software: Cantabile 3, Halion Sonic 3 and assorted VST plug-ins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 I've got a Win8.1 tablet, too, so thank you for mentioning Cantabile! I did see it mentioned earlier in the thread, but didn't realize it was more than a VST host. The price looks really nice, too. Michael Rideout Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davinwv Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Brad @ Topten Software is currently working on Cantabile 3. He has been releasing preview builds to existing users. The latest preview build is only missing one or two features preventing it from becoming my daily driver and supplanting Cantabile 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonnor Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 CanTab2 is a beast. It can do way more than I use it for. The only things I hate about it is the scaling of the GUI (objects are WAY too small in the super high rez modern tablets) and the font (can't make text bigger). Both of these are fixed in v3. ~ vonnor Gear: Hardware: Nord Stage3, Korg Kronos 2, Novation Summit Software: Cantabile 3, Halion Sonic 3 and assorted VST plug-ins. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.