Using a laptop in a live band

[johnm59]

Hi guys,

sorry if this has already been covered, please link me to a thread that covers it if so.

This is very much a case of me knowing what i want to do but not being terribly clear on how to do it. Also, at one point in my life I was quite tech-savvy, but those days are long gone...

so anyway

I play in a live band, 2 guitars, bass, drums, the usual. What we want to do, to make a tighter and more epic live set, is to incorperate a laptop to play synth tracks along with the live music. i'm currently using a macbook with Logic

What I want to do is to have a click track that goes to my (the drummers) ear monitors, and the synth tracks going to the PA.

I have an m-audio mobilepre usb interface which I have used for other stuff, but i'm told I'll be able to use it for this.

Links to specific gear would be appreciated. I'm not scared of spending a bit of money on quality gear but at the same time I don't really want to be carting a vanload of gear to each gig just to get this done

thanks

Johnny

 

[stevel]

Hi guys,

sorry if this has already been covered, please link me to a thread that covers it if so.

This is very much a case of me knowing what i want to do but not being terribly clear on how to do it. Also, at one point in my life I was quite tech-savvy, but those days are long gone...

so anyway

I play in a live band, 2 guitars, bass, drums, the usual. What we want to do, to make a tighter and more epic live set, is to incorperate a laptop to play synth tracks along with the live music. i'm currently using a macbook with Logic

What I want to do is to have a click track that goes to my (the drummers) ear monitors, and the synth tracks going to the PA.

I have an m-audio mobilepre usb interface which I have used for other stuff, but i'm told I'll be able to use it for this.

Links to specific gear would be appreciated. I'm not scared of spending a bit of money on quality gear but at the same time I don't really want to be carting a vanload of gear to each gig just to get this done

thanks

Johnny

Johnny, I'm sure it's been covered elsewhere, but to give you the quick answer:

Run your sequence on the laptop. Send your sounds to the Synth.

Now, it depends on if you want to run your synth sounds in stereo through the mains or not.

If you don't, you can pan all your synth MIDI tracks (or even if you record them as audio) full Left.

Then, either use the built in MIDI click, or, physically record a click track as one MIDI track, and pan whichever one full Right.

I used to record an actual click track (a track on channel 10 assigned to a percussion patch, using a good strong click sound our drummer could easily hear and distinguish beat 1 on, and then copied and pasted for how long it needed to be for the song).

The advantage to this method was I could make countoffs like 1...2..., 1.2.3.4 and have the click lay out for free sections and do a second count off to bring us back in, which isn't possible with the built-in metronome.

When you do this, your synth will send all of the synth sounds out the left output jack, and the click out the right output jack.

You take the left output jack cable and plug it into, say channel 15 on your board. That goes out to the mains.

You take the right output jack cable and plug it into channel 16 on the board, and don't assign it to the L/R main mix. You then use your Aux to send that to a monitor mix for the drummer (so only the drummer gets the click, preferably in in-ears) or any one else who uses in-ears.

This way, the drummer gets any music they want on channels 1 through 15, and as much of the click on 16 as they want. But only channels 1-15 go to the mains for example.

If you want to run your synth sounds in stereo, you need to have a way to send the click/metronome out a different port.

For example, if your synth has assignable outs, you can send your synth patches out the L/R outs as usual (and use two channels or a stereo channel on the board) and Assign whatever patch the click is using to one of the assignable outs, and run that to another channel on the board.

If you use the click from Logic, or you record an audio version of the click in logic, you may be able to assign that to a different port - so your audio from Logic would come from the computer's little stereo mini-plug, which you'd run into a channel on the board (stereo, even though it's not coming through the mains) and then send all the MIDI out to a synth and run that to two channels.

If you're using soft synth sounds from within Logic rather than an external synth, then basically everything is *really* audio. Again, you'd need to be able to assign the synth tracks either all left, and the click right, or, assign the synth tracks center, and the click to a different output bus.

Which busses you can assign to depends on your interface - if it only has L/R out, you'll probably have to opt for the non-stereo synth sounds (unless you can send the click out a different interface or directly from the computer for example) but if you have multiple outs on this, you can send the synth sounds/audio to one stereo set of outputs, and the click to another.

The key is getting the click sound and synth sounds separated from each other either at the computer, interface, synth module, or some combination so that you can take them into different channels on the mixing board so you have indpendent control over where to send the sounds as mains/monitors feeds.

HTH,
Steve

 

[KLINKDETROIT]

(or you record an audio version of the click in logic, you may be able to assign that to a different port - so your audio from Logic would come from the computer's little stereo mini-plug,)


Do you find that the audio coming from the computers mini out plug is good enough quality or is it better to buy an interface like presonus ect?