Is there a better way to do this

[tayste_2000]

Ok so I’ve got about 3 weeks before my band heads out on tour and I’ve been really struggling to get together what I’ve wanted.

Basically the band runs a click track for the drummer and to keep the set flowing and to avoid awkward stops its one long 30 minute track, the clicks stop and there is a gap then start again.

In the gaps we are putting music, mainly ambience just to make it more of a show.

Ok so all of this is easy just pan each one right and left blah blah blah, well we’ve got this part down to a science where it gets harder is I wanted to run 2 midi tracks at the same time, one sending program changes to an Alesis Midiverb and therefore processing the singers vocals differently and another being converted into DMX commands so that we can program out lights.

Well this means I have to use a laptop and I’ve tried a few older ones we’ve had handy running audacity (most basic stable program I could find) and I just can’t run a 30min wav click track in it without it stuttering and then throwing everything else out of time.

So I’m wondering if there is something like a programmable midi sequencer that could be programmed to trigger say a drum machine for the click and samples for the backing tracks and chuck out the program changes for the vocal fx and lights.

Basically any other ideas on how to get this all working would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[escholl]

Why not just use the metronome function in place of a really long wav file? Most DAWs can include the metronome click on playback, and you can choose where the tempo changes. Then just include the MIDI output parts you need for each song, put them into their own tracks, and put it all together in one project file.

[tayste_2000]

What would be a good piece of software to do that on?

[TheButler]

Ableton Live.

[BigRedX]

Does Audacity do MIDI? I thought it was an audio only app. It doesn't sound as though it's the right app for the job.

In order to keep everything neatly in time, you want to be running something that's based on bars and beats rather than time. Then you can either make your click track from audio or MIDI and quantise it to quarter notes.

What are you creating your backing tracks in?

[AlX]

Digital Performer

[tayste_2000]

[quote name='TheButler' post='770726' date='Mar 10 2010, 06:17 PM']Ableton Live.[/quote]


That was always the plan but I'm not that familiar with it as a piece of software so programming it always seemed a struggle

Suppose I should be able to get an older version that will run on my 800mhz G4 Ibook

[tayste_2000]

What I think I'm going to do with the lights is buy a dmx controller desk with a midi input and the midi signal triggers programs in the desk, this will massively reduce the amount of work the computer will have to output and should make programming faily easy once I figure out how to control my lights with my desk.

[escholl]

[quote name='tayste_2000' post='770696' date='Mar 10 2010, 05:54 PM']What would be a good piece of software to do that on?[/quote]

Basically any DAW software, Audacity won't do it but Sonar, Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Cubase, Digital Performer, Reaper, Adobe Audition, FL Studio, etc should all do it, what you seem to need is actually pretty basic. EnergyXT is fun and basic and would probably do it, but I've had problems with it's stability, or at least I did a few releases ago. It depends whether the software supports tempo changes within the project file, all I can say from experience is that Sonar, Logic, and Protools will definitely do it but otherwise are probably overcomplicated for what you need. I've not used many others extensively and so I don't remember exactly if they will do tempo changes.

Really any software that supports tempo changes, supports a metronome click on playback, and supports MIDI file playback, should work fine.

Garageband would work I think, if you've got that. Don't know what the MIDI support is like, as I've only used Logic.


Ardour is supposed to be good, not used that either but it's free so maybe worth a try?

[escholl]

There is also software like [url="http://www.showcuesystems.com"]this[/url] available, but it all depends how much money you want to put into it I suppose. I'm sure there must be a way to make it work with either what you've got already or with free software.

[tayste_2000]

Well I'm going to hammer this over the weekend think I'll use fl studio on the pc and see how I go on that I'd rather not sacrifice my mac to the band

Thank you very much guys this is a great help

[tayste_2000]

So to update you guys I couldn't get all this working in time my main issue is pc stability but luckily all the venues on the tour were a bit small so this lighting would have been OTT and just more weight for us to carry around.

So what I've been thinking is a totally hardware solution so again wondering if this is possible or if there is any point to it either.
Midi Sequencer
Drum Module to produce clicks and possibly 808's
Sampler

So the plan would be load the tracks into the midi sequencer as say 5 tracks of midi commands
Track 1 - Drum machine to produce the click noise which would allow us to change the click sound over time to stop the drummer going insane
Track 2 - Alesis FX to trigger specific fx changes in the songs
Track 3 - Trigger dmx programming in the dmx board that will be in the rack using the midi connection
Track 4 - To trigger 808 sounds at specific moments in the track.
Track 5 - Triggers the playing of samples between our tracks to fill the gaps

I sort of feel that this is more to go wrong but as long as the core midi sequencer is bomb proof then if modules fail individually then it's not the end of the world it's only part of the show whereas all of it on a computer is if 1 thing goes down it all goes down.

Opinions, options etc

[cheddatom]

I know you're steering away from the idea of using a computer, but I have toyed with the idea of using a racked server with some decent audio/midi interfaces (It could have been your interfaces that let you down). Also I saw Karnivool play to a click with loads of samples and effects changes etc. They had a full protools rig racked.

[tayste_2000]

Yeah I was looking at this once I'd typed it thinking surely for the cost of that hardware I can get a fairly decent Macbook and have a new computer my self that I just take out live as well.