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Ableton Live on Stage Part 2: Goals & Gear
By Fitz - 2/22/2007

The first part in all of this was trying to figure out exactly what we wanted to do with Live on stage and what hardware/software we needed to accomplish it. Thru all this we plan to keep the golden rule of engineering firmly in mind:

K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple Stupid!!

What Ableton Live has to do:

• Play all drum parts
• Play all sound effects
• Play a few bass parts
• Play a few synth lines
• Give Fitz access to several software synths for soloing

How We Want It To Work:

We need Live to play the proper song sections in order automatically BUT allow us to:

• Jump at any time to the next section of a song
• Linger indefinitely in certain song sections (mostly intros and solos)

Live should also be able to switch between songs quickly and easily.

Hardware:

• Mac Laptop (currently a 17" 1.5 G4, but probably a smaller Macbook for actual stage use)
• Novation X-Station 25 keyboard (a brilliant piece of gear that handles midi, audio out, and offers cool controller options all in ONE device that has ONE cable going to the laptop)
• Basic Hold Pedal
• Cool stand for it all -- pending

Software:

• Ableton Live 6.0 (with Sampler and Operator options)
• Lots of drum loops from Drumcore, GarageBand, and Peter.
• Subtle Soft MidiPipe - translating the hold pedal to keystrokes (details coming in a later post)
• Native Instruments B4 Organ
• AudioDamage BigSeq - pulsing backing lines.
• Audiodamage 914 Fixed Filter Bank - subtle filtering and tone coloring
• Camel Audio CamelPhat - for twisting and filtering drum loops
• PSP VintageWarmer - overall mix compression

By Fitz - 2/22/2007 | Permalink