Using samples with a live band (no click)

booooonzo

band consists of bass,gtr,keys/synth, vox and drums (were acoustic with some triggers but switching to edrum)

we have been playing to a click but its very restrictive.

So ive been looking into this for a while and I think ive found a solution (although not tested fully yet)
Has anyone had any dealing with this setup?

-Macbook pro running ableton live 8
-clips loaded and tempo set using tap tempo (trigger on the kick or from a roland spds sample midi pad) for songs that start with out samples say.
-also run a click to the drummer for reference, but the click/samples will follow drummer using tap tempo.
-launch clips and start stop ableton using the edge triggers on the roland spds pad.
-send midi sync out from ableton to synths for any efx and arppegio syncing needed. (will a korg r3 handle a slightly shifting tempo??)

I also noticed abletons new looper which will take the incoming loop (say a bass riff) and detect its tempo and set the tempo that way

anybody any experience with any of this?
any insight would be great as it will be an expensive experiment otherwise!! (dont have macbook pro yet)

cheers

i57dwun4yb1pt8

i would get your drummer to practise more to be honest .
once he's grooving with the click/ samples

you should all be able to follow him fine.

PaulBrewer

booooonzo wrote: »

we have been playing to a click but its very restrictive.

Varying Tempos live is a risky business I'd suggest.

Is the problem you don't like the Tempos as set i.e. they probably don't feel fast enough live ..... or that you can't play along with them ?

If it's the latter making them a variable will probably make it worse.

What sort of music do you play?

What would happen if the kick stopped for what ever reason, or skipped a bar or two ?

booooonzo

Cheers guys, Its more to do with being able to change on the fly so if we were to miss a bar or wanted to do a slightly longer/different version we could and the samples wont play at the wrong time.

Just makes the whole think less linear.
Then again we can just use ableton and a click and get that result to. probably safer!!

if the kick stops ableton will just play on or the tempo could be tapped with a blank pad on the spds.

I think its risky myself but ive read it works so was just wondering if anyone has done it?

PMI

Doing this every day

We dont run to a click, but we have a solid drummer and I trigger samples or sometimes use tap tempo on certain loops/sounds to lock in time....

You can only do this if the drummer is 100% on it....

It can open up some options depending on how clever you get with your editing ie: mapping slices of a song/loop across the keys allowing you to reverse things etc...

Im using Ableton 8 and Kontakt as my main sampler as Ive found it rock solid and a few other soft synths....

go for it....

PaulBrewer

Just to clarify PMI.

It you who triggers to drummer ? Not drummer triggering , or 'automatic' triggering ?

Your drummer is indeed very good.

booooonzo

Ah deadly man, thats great to know cheers.
what laptop and interface are you guys using? do you find the tap tempo good?
I read it only take 4 taps to get the temp synced?

PMI

Paul I always set the pace usually with a loop or some kind of subliminal pulsing synth that crowd dont really notice is synced to a tempo.....

some samples I have to run live and its up to me to get my ass in time

The Drummer is also triggering claps, other snares and 808 booms etc.. off of a few roland v drum pads....

Boooooooozzzzz yeah the tap tempo can kick in after 4 but if you have a bit more time I would use it, I like to go way past 8 so I can get the groove with the old finger haha trick is to push a head slightly if you always aim for on time you will make the track drag when you drop in the loop/sample or whatever.... no matter how good you are

Have some J90 Vids on you tube search most recent and there are a few synth tracks and stuff flying about

beatpoet

booooonzo wrote: »

I also noticed abletons new looper which will take the incoming loop (say a bass riff) and detect its tempo and set the tempo that way

anybody any experience with any of this?
any insight would be great as it will be an expensive experiment otherwise!! (dont have macbook pro yet)

cheers

Looper doesn't detect tempo but when you punch in a loop it can set global tempo to that loop and start Live playing at the tempo of the first loop.

beatpoet

Also tap tempo will not work well from a drummers kick trigger. I'd suggest having someone tap in the tempo as PMI suggested.

Also Live is not a good MIDI master, better as a slave. There's been problems there since MIDI was implemented in Live 4 and 8 is the same. You might run into problems with sync on an arp for a whole track. Few bars will be fine though. So as long as the arp is retriggered you should be fine.

If you know the tempos of the different sections, just trigger loops as scenes and you can set the global tempo and time signature in the scene for that loop/section. It will change when that scene is launched.