Using computer based midi processing live.

[darksun]

I was wondering if anybody has tried this and what gear they were using. here what I was looking to do. I have a full accoustic kit and I was looking to trigger the whole thing with roland triggers and hook it up to a roland td-20 brain. Then I would route that brain to a computer (apple powerbook probally) and run some audio based sampler program (machfive with maybe the lm4 drum module and wizoo mistended drums) and then put that out into the pa etc.

I was wondering how well that would track and what would be the delay etc. I know that the midi it self shouldn't be a big bandwidth hog since midi is not processor intensive. But I am concerned with software and over all latency since even a little bit could be nerve racking during a performance. Also if anybody has any recomendations for software on the mac for doing this let me know. I am flexable on the software but it needs to be mac compatible since getting a PC in not an option. :)

Thanks

[The Mank]

Triggering acoustic drums live can be a real nightmare...
There are so many more things on a live stage that can mess with drum triggering compared to a rehersal room or bedroom.As an example one venue might have a really solid built stage,great, and the next night it's a flimsy plywood construction that shakes likes grannys vibrator with new batteries every time the bass player hits a string ..So. how does this effect the triggers? If you are using old style rubber edrum pads then very little but if you are triggering an acoustic resonant shell then be prepared.So first you have to know your drum brain inside out in order to make slight adjustments for every different venue.One band I teched for had a drum riser so high, and all drums were triggered, which vibrated so much I spent most of the show editing the DDrum brain to cut out cross and miss triggers.I'm not saying this will happen every show because it won't,but be prepared.
The next problem will probably be with latency,the time delay between hitting the pad and hearing the sound.When using a dedicated drum brain with built in sounds the latency is so low that it is undetectable, but start using a sampler or laptop and you could experience a micro time delay that is recognisable to the ear.One tip to help reduce the latency is to turn off "Local" in the global edit section.This turns off the on board sounds and turns the unit into a straight audio to midi converter.This bypass of the internal sounds will help speed things up.
The only software I have used with my edrum kit is Native Instruments Battery and EXS24II sampler in logic, and with a little tinkering I got pretty good results.I favour Battery for drums as this is what it is designed for and some of the kits that come with this software are excellent with many different velocity hits.
At first I would just try editing the onboard sounds of your TD20 and try taking that out live first before you start adding a laptop with software and complicating things more.
Next Power...if somebody knocks out your power cord during the show you would have to wait for the computer to reboot,unless you have a back up$$$$, and then the software and samples to load.Not as quick as the TD20 will boot I can tell you.
And last theft.How do you feel about your nice G4 laptop sitting on stage waiting for its new owner.I've seen it happen at a large venue with security.
Ok so all this post is negative but I'm just trying to warn you of things that could go wrong but don't let this put you off.Prove me wrong mate..

Mank

[darksun]

Thanks for the good tidbits. It is definetly something that I will have to consider I will definetly mess with the td20 first and if that is good enough just use that and use battery for the recording. I have heard a lot of good things about battery I will check that app out. I think that it is similar to the lm-4. I think that it comes with some nice sounds too. :) Yeah theft is awlays a key concern when your talking 3k for a laptop. I think that I am going to wait for the g5 laptop to come out. also I can bridge it with logic if I need more proc power. I am not to worried about the power thing since I will have the laptop fully juiced up.

I am still a bit leary about the latency though. I will look into what you said to bypass the td-20 sounds to reduce the over all latency. Thanks again for all your input. When I get everything set up I will let you know how it all turns out. :)

[The Mank]

Another thing that will help will be to use an external firewire hard drive, with an rpm of 7200, to store the samples on.Laptop hard drives can be too slow when put under pressure.And make sure you have as much memory installed that you can afford.

Mank

[by-tor]

Abeltons live is a great application for live midi stuff. It is really meant for "live" stuff.

[darksun]

cool I will check that app out to is that compatible with battery? I was thinking about getting a firewire800 drive to run some of the proc intense stuff. I will at least have 1gig or more of ram :)

[nk126]

Abeltons live is a great application for live midi stuff. It is really meant for "live" stuff.

Yeah, Live rocks for both real-time MIDI and sample-based stuff. I've used it before to trigger sequences in live performance (from both a keyboard controller and MIDI drum trigger) and to trigger individual drum sounds from an octapad. You can also use it with rewire slave applications to give you access to dedicated drum machine programs and other dedicated soft synth/samplers.

For just triggering drum samples it's probably overkill, but if you're doing other sequencing, production, performance, and even recording work, I think it's one of the most versatile apps out there. You can manipulate and loop samples to your heart's content ... Version 4 has pretty solid MIDI synth support now, as well


I just wrote a review of the new version of it if you're interested:
http://www.powerbookcentral.com/columns/hildreth_kravitz/live4.shtml

Also, the comment about hard drive speed is totally true -- the 4200 rpm drives that come stock in many iBooks and PowerBooks tend to bottleneck well before the system itself, especially if you're working with digital audio (as opposed to pure MIDI). Keeping your samples on a 7200 rpm firewire drive will definitely help.

And don't hold your breath waiting on a G5 PowerBook. Ain't gonna happen anytime soon ...

[by-tor]

And don't hold your breath waiting on a G5 PowerBook. Ain't gonna happen anytime soon ...


True dat!!

[darksun]

Thanks for the review I will check it out. do you know if you could use rewire to connect live to something live Machfive. The on;y reason being that machfive seems to interface with everything. Also I might look into logic as well even though it is not sepcifically geared for live you can network it to other computers. Like those new mac minis would be cool. The only thing that I am not to keen on in live is the interface but I guess it is stripped down so it doesn't take up proc bandwidth. I might also end up getting some motu gear as well. :) We will see it is still a ways out I am not going to get the laptop till at least september so hopefully there will be at least an upgrade in there. I know the g5 is a long shot but here is to hoping. If not who knows maybe I will spring for one of the big powermacs or an older xserve to go with the laptop. I might also be doing some live recordings at the sametime so we will see. I might just end up using the td-20 for the live sound and capture the midi and then record the band and mix in better drums after the fact :). I really like the mixtended drums :)

At this point I am just doing the research. I also need to save up and get the gear for my kit which will end up being around another 3k :(. Man I need to find a cheaper hobby.

[nk126]

Thanks for the review I will check it out. do you know if you could use rewire to connect live to something live Machfive.

I've never used Machfive ... If it's rewire compatible, it'll work, though.

The only thing that I am not to keen on in live is the interface but I guess it is stripped down so it doesn't take up proc bandwidth.

yeah, it's a different kind of GUI. I happen to like it a lot, but I'd only ever used ProTools before Live and hated ProTools' GUI ... I know folks who use Logic, etc. regularly and tried Live and hate the GUI.

At this point I am just doing the research. I also need to save up and get the gear for my kit which will end up being around another 3k :(. Man I need to find a cheaper hobby.

Seriously ... this stuff ain't cheap, and there's always new gear to buy!