Firstly this is just for information purposes that may help others looking to achieve a similar goal
It may get moved to Tips and Tricks Section
Here is my set up is a MacBook Pro, 32gb Ram, i9
1.Bandhelper app on iPad for labelling songs and contains lyrics and Chords charts, it also contains midi triggers to send to control parameters such as Delay time on my vocal delay, it also sends changes for Predelay and Decay time on my Reverb also,
This is done via raw midi and WIDI Master (Bluetooth) connected to the MR18
The same midi also is sent to 2 x TC helicon Voicelive 3 units for triggering harmonies
These both have WIDI Master attached also and the Midi from Bandhelper, selects patch, harmony and key
- Bome Midi Translator on my MacBook Pro,
Rather than having a massive “Master set” in Ableton (which will eventually max out your ram)
This can be used to convert the midi to open the selected Ableton Live Set, so it’s opening one song at a time, it’s almost instantaneous.
(Every song has its own Live Set)
I make a preset named the song in Bome Midi
There is a capture midi feature, so I tap the song on the iPad BMT Translator then opens the Ableton Live Set containing the song I pressed on the iPad,
Then I duplicate the above translator preset,
on the duplicate I change it to do a keystroke, it’s set to press the space bar after 50ms, this starts the Ableton Song.
So basically it’s all hands free once the song is chosen on the iPad
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Multitracks running via Ableton Live, I use the IAC driver to “Stop” the track automatically via midi clips.
These are routed via send and return busses in Ableton to the MR18 as follows via the USB in -
CUES
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DRUMS
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PERC
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BASS
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EXTRA GTR
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LEAD
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OTHER (acoustics, keys and strings etc)
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Bv’s (not really used)
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Waves SuperRack also runs on the same MacBook Pro and the Vocal channels are Duplicated one for in ears which is direct
The other for FOH containing the processed channels via Waves
This also acts as a fail safe redundancy too
The reason I don’t run Waves via Ableton is I have the Ableton Live Sets at 2048 samples as they aren’t processing anything
SuperRack is at 128 and all the plugins I’m using are essentially “Zero” latency
The FX are also automated and set up via a Gate to trigger via a Track Bus, when the tracks hit -60 threshold the FX are automatically “muted”
I’ve been running this successfully for 2 yrs
A lot of set up and prep work
But the rewards are worth it.
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Oh I also have Lightkey running on a MacBook Air via network and that controls the lights
Also triggered from Ableton -
I also run Audio Hijack from Rogue Amoeba,
This has two session presets :
Record the FOH mix as a 2 track
Or
Multitrack each active channel
This can be used for promo material, livestreams or virtual playback
Hope this helps or inspires someone else