rEalm's Live Set methodology
2003-08-13 by erik_magrini@Baxter.com
Hey all, some one on the 505 list asked about how I set up my live sets, here's a copy of my reply. Thought it might be interesting for a few people, so I posted it here too: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I know how hard it is to set up a Live PA, and how helpful it can be to read other people's methods, so here's mine: The XL-7 is the main device, 95% of the tweaking and playing I'm doing during my sets are on that machine. The SP808 really is only functioning as a sample playback unit, and occasionally as an effects device for those samples too. It's not even synced via MIDI except to provide MIDI clock information for the effects. As this is largely a hit and miss affair in terms of the effects actually syncing to the XL-7's tempo properly, I may not even bother with that MIDI cable in the future. Tracks 1-7 on the XL-7 are my main percussion parts, BD's, snare's HH's, and other drum stuff. Track 8 is set up to Trigger samples on the SP808 (more on this in a bit), and tracks 9-16 are my instrumental tracks. The key here is that every Track has the same type of instrument for all of my XL-7 Patterns. This makes it very easy to know what each track is playing while doing the live thing, and it also means I can switch to pretty much any Pattern and know how it's going to be laid out. All of my XL-7 Patterns are 8 measures long, I've tried other lengths, but this one seems to work the best for me. If I make them shorter, I don't get to program that much variety into each one. If I make them longer I can add more variety, but it makes switching Patterns that much more difficult for me. I may set up for this really dramatic Pattern change, only to find out it still has 8 (or 12, 16, etc) more measures to go before the switch. Then I'm just sitting there waiting, not much fun. In addition to the 16 sequenced tracks available in each Pattern, I also set up custom Triggers in my XL-7 too. These are basically like the RPS function on the 505's, I have 16 of them that can be Triggered at any time during the set, regardless of what Pattern I'm playing. Most of these are simple arpeggiated ethnic and tribal drum sounds, though a few are snare and HH based too. These allow me to drop in different percussive elements during the set, which serve two purposes: 1. They allow me to give the entire set more of a cohesive feel. Since I use a lot of the Triggers more than once in the set, they add a subtle background element that helps give the whole thing sort of the same feel. 2. They help me maintain some semblance of continuity while switching Patterns. Because my Triggers are independent of the Pattern being played, I can switch Patterns and have the same percussion sounds still being sounded. Helps to make transitions more seamless IMO. The SP808 has two main roles; it plays back sequenced loops and other samples that compliment the XL-7 Patterns, and it lets me manually drop in vocal samples when I want to. The sequenced loops were originally constructed in Reason, using breaks I've collected or occasionally modifying a refill here and there. Because Reason can act as a MIDI slave, I'd set the XL-7 to be the master and create my 8 bar Patterns in the Redrum and Dr. Rex modules. Once I was happy with how the loop was complimenting the XL-7 patterns, I would set the L and R locators to 1 measure, and export these as audio files. So my 8 bar Reason Pattern, would in effect become 8 separate 1 bar audio files. The downside to this is that the tempo of the Reason stuff can't be changed after the fact, so you have to decide on your Pattern/set tempo ahead of time. At this point, I would use the 808 conversion software with an external ZIP drive to transfer the samples to the SP808. Each SP808 sample bank corresponds to an XL-7 Pattern, with the 8 samples forming the loop being placed on pads 1-8. I would also place some random vocal samples on Pads 9-16 as I saw fit. The last two songs in the set use guitar fills which I had recorded in Cubase SX, and then imported to the SP808 on the last 8 pads for that Sample Pad Bank. As mentioned earlier, Track 8 on the XL-7 controls the SP808. Because each Pad Bank in the Sp808 can be recalled via simple program changes, I just inserted the appropriate PC message at the beginning of each pattern on that track. The XL-7 has a GREAT feature where events placed at Tick 0 in the XL-7 are NOT repeated each time the pattern loops, so I didn't have to worry about the samples reloading each time the Pattern loops. This way, every time I change patterns, the Sp808 automatically updates to the correct Sample Pad Bank. Then I inserted CC#7 (volume) commands to control the volume of the Pad banks, since they varied greatly Pattern to Pattern. The last step was to insert note events at the beginning of every measure that would trigger each of the 8 loop pads sequentially. Why 8 pads for the loop instead of just one? Because this way I can mute the drum loop from the panel of the XL-7, without having to wait until the pattern loops around again before it starts playing again. The most I have to wait now is one measure. I did have to play with the sample start times in the SP808 to get everything to sync up correctly. I think the data compression Roland uses messes with the sample accurate loops I had set up in Reason, though I can't confirm this. Overall I'm pretty happy with the set up, it's flexible, small, and now that the pre-production work is done it's pretty easy to set up and play. rEalm [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]