Live Set - Software for Performers

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JohannesTress
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Live Set - Software for Performers

Post by JohannesTress »

Hello alltogether,
yesterday I've seen Johnny Hostile as support act of Trentemoeller. He did a solo show with ableton live working as a samplebox and live fx rack. I couldn't see what kind of foot controller he was using but now I'm wondering if there's a chance of using our beloved linux audio apps to make something similar come true.

I'd need:

1. A sampler/Looper which could load all sorts of backing tracks. There's the main problem: How would it be possible to use one controller for different songs (and the different samples). I think in ableton (I don't know it quite well) are different "scenes" for that purpose. So you can change the Scene number with one button and all the other buttons of the controller are controlling the next scene (and all the included samples).
I know giada looper quite well, but I couldn't imagine of a way to use it like this, because there are only limited controller possibilities.

2. A foot controller which should make all the needed commands accesable.

3. For live fx theres a carla rack loaded with some fx.

Do you have any ideas of setting up something like this?

Yours

Johannes
tatch
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Re: Live Set - Software for Performers

Post by tatch »

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noedig
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Re: Live Set - Software for Performers

Post by noedig »

On the software side, maybe mididings can help you.
http://das.nasophon.de/mididings/
It allows you to do advanced midi filtering and processing by writing a Python script. You can create multiple scenes, and a GUI is available, useful for live use.

When you have a few scenes set up, you can get creative on how you implement it.
e.g. you have a pedal or midi controller with a few switches/controls. Two controls are assigned to switch to the next/previous scene. The rest of the controls are used within each scene.

Example 1
Set up mididings with 1 output port. Each scene sends the incoming control messages on a different midi channel (scene 1 -> channel 1, scene 2 -> channel 2, etc.).

Example 2
Scene 1 sends the control messages as is, to the output port (e.g. cc1, 2, 3, 4). Scene 2 also sends the control messages to the same output port, but first converts the messages to different ones (e.g. instead of cc1, 2, 3, 4, send cc5, 6, 7, 8 ). The same incoming messages for each scene, but they are converted to different messages depending on which scene is selected.

Example 3
Setup multiple output ports. Each scene sends the control messages to a different output port. In this case you can have multiple instances of Giada, or different apps, each connected to another port.

And so forth. Mix it up, be creative. It might be a bit more work than in Ableton, but it's doable.
GordonS
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Re: Live Set - Software for Performers

Post by GordonS »

I haven't yet gone far with my setup, but I'm settling on MidiDings and Qtractor as the control core on the PC and TouchOSC as the controller.
http://hexler.net/software/touchosc

It has a Linux editor/configurator.

My setup will then have leadsheets on a 10" Android tablet and TouchOSC on a 7" Android tablet. I have yet to decide whether or not the PC itself will be headless.

Gordon.
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