Bandlab Sonar ... LIVE

[Harddrive]

My band is back on line now and about ten gigs in, happy to report that Bandlab Sonar handles everything superbly. Multitrack audio mixed with plugins, midi to outboard and synths, interface with aforementioned footswitch and driving the whole MIDI to DMX lighting rig. Really chuffed with it. Some excellent gigs too.

2022 diary now filling up too.

Thanks Bandlab Sonar and thanks to lot for your help.

HARDDRIVE

[Noel Borthwick]

Tip for using it live. Turn off dropout detection. This will let the app keep running even if it runs into a potential dropout condition. Much better than stopping playback!
Set this to TRUE in preferences | configuration file.

[Lombardi]

6 hours ago, Harddrive said:

My band is back on line now and about ten gigs in, happy to report that Bandlab Sonar handles everything superbly. Multitrack audio mixed with plugins, midi to outboard and synths, interface with aforementioned footswitch and driving the whole MIDI to DMX lighting rig. Really chuffed with it. Some excellent gigs too.

2022 diary now filling up too.

Thanks Bandlab Sonar and thanks to lot for your help.

HARDDRIVE

I'm interested in the specifics of your application of Cakewalk by Bandlab for live gigs.  Are you using the Playlist and if so, how well does that function?  Are you using audio backing tracks (a mix) or the entire project file?  Is there a lag time in loading each song?  Are you using vst plugins to process live audio (voices, guitars, etc..)?  Where does the footswitch come in?  Is it a midi controller?  I have tried the PlayList in the past without a whole lot of success.  It was rather cumbersome when it worked and quirky regarding opening and closing files and eating up screen space.  Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Bill

 

[Harddrive]

11 hours ago, Lombardi said:

I'm interested in the specifics of your application of Cakewalk by Bandlab for live gigs.  Are you using the Playlist and if so, how well does that function?  Are you using audio backing tracks (a mix) or the entire project file?  Is there a lag time in loading each song?  Are you using vst plugins to process live audio (voices, guitars, etc..)?  Where does the footswitch come in?  Is it a midi controller?  I have tried the PlayList in the past without a whole lot of success.  It was rather cumbersome when it worked and quirky regarding opening and closing files and eating up screen space.  Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Bill

 

My rig is a fairly decent Windows laptop with a fast setup (it never breaks a sweat to be honest) which I got custom built by Novatech in Portsmouth UK. On it I have BLS which is connected by a single into three USB splitter. The songtracks are all individually track recorded mixes of 'my version' of songs, mixed and mastered as best on phones then better optimised in the rehearsal studio with the PA we use and so that it sounds okay on the IEMs we use. All the mixes have VST plug ins such as compression and EQ (the presets shipped with BLS are pretty good, TBH, just need a few tweaks to sweeten in places on either individual tracks or on busses) My buddy has a Mac running Reason and three controllers and has his sound arsenal split and spread across them.

The USBs connect to firstly my Roland FA06 (which is stuffed with the Axial updates), to the footswitch (which, thanks to the kind folk on here is programmed to send a 'spacebar' command for my buddy to start the songfile) and to my 'desk', where it splits further to control my Voicelive, Lexicon MX200 and a DMXIS lighting 'dongle' which has it's own VST plugin in BLS.

The songs are as said, all multitrack audio. I have MIDI tracks sewn in which control the effects (PrCh, CC for on/off), my FA06 (PrCh), and the notes in the DMXIS assigned VST Plugin which changes pre programmed scenes (strobes, lasers, hazer, moving heads, washes)

Songs are stacked in different Play Lists as sets. Load a song, the next one loads behind it ready for a spacebar from the footswitch. The mixes we have are engineered to drop out the synth sounds my buddy is playing and that usually is basslines and obviously drums. I play the odd song on my Roland AX Synth. Unfortunately, because the MIDI on the AX Synth is via Bluetooth I am currently and sadly not using the synth engine in it (the radio TX/RX is pretty shit also) so I am thru-ing a track to play my FA06 which gives me 15 layered patches on Ch1 anyway. I link this via a PandaMIDI remote.

It sounds complex - it is. But the effect is good and  although it's fun setting it all up, the audience love it. The only snags we have had recently are drunk customers and people wanting selfies, mid song. A while ago the firmware in the DMXIS dongle threw a six but that was fixed the next day with a clean out and reinstall

Any other Qs, please fire away

HARDDRIVE

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Harddrive
Changed photos

[InstrEd]

Nice set up

[Harddrive]

38 minutes ago, InstrEd said:

Nice set up

Cheers InstrEd.

Taken some time to get it all right. Bloke I work with knows his stuff and can provide his part of the deal with his extensive Reason knowledge and array. And he's an 80s synth aficionado too, which helps. I short, it wasn't difficult slotting him into the Bandlab Sonar rig!

HARDDRIVE 

[Harddrive]

16 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Tip for using it live. Turn off dropout detection. This will let the app keep running even if it runs into a potential dropout condition. Much better than stopping playback!
Set this to TRUE in preferences | configuration file.

Gig tonight - but will definitely look at that next time I have my gear out for a tech refresh

HARDDRIVE

[John Vere]

Wow and I thought my set up was complicated. Good job on that. 
I have played using backing tracks since the early 80’s Bars stopped hiring bands and were only hiring  singles and duo’s. First the drum machines then the Atari driving midi. I miss the midi control of all my gear I had back then. Every song on the Atari pulled up the lyrics, set my Alesis Reverb, messed with the Yorkville lights and played live our Roland MT 32 , Juno,  505 , Yamaha FB01 and a Korg Poly 800.  
A local Jeff Kofftinoff wrote the Software we used called Performer, and we together made a foot switch out of a joy stick.  Most important button was the Panic button to clear stuck notes. 
Later as a single it was too much gear to hook up and I went with mastering the backing tracks in stereo to Sony Mini Disks. Sounded great but I lost the foot switch, midi control of stuff and no lyrics. 
Since around 2004 I have used a laptop running WinAmp and a USB foot switch. 
I tried the playlist getting all excited about regaining midi control but it had 2 major faults for me.  It was too slow between songs and I need flexibility of song order on the fly. 
The slowness was probably due to the vintage of the laptop at the time     . But flexibility is important to me as I’ve always worked with very loose set lists Win amp allows me to look out at a crowd and go, oh oh. Lots of Grey hair, better start wit Elvis and Buddy. And quickly drag a few songs around. 
I guess the solution in Playlist is create a LOT of different sets. 

thanks for sharing your set up I enjoyed reading that. 

[Lombardi]

7 hours ago, Harddrive said:

My rig is a fairly decent Windows laptop with a fast setup (it never breaks a sweat to be honest) which I got custom built by Novatech in Portsmouth UK. On it I have BLS which is connected by a single into three USB splitter. The songtracks are all individually track recorded mixes of 'my version' of songs, mixed and mastered as best on phones then better optimised in the rehearsal studio with the PA we use and so that it sounds okay on the IEMs we use. All the mixes have VST plug ins such as compression and EQ (the presets shipped with BLS are pretty good, TBH, just need a few tweaks to sweeten in places on either individual tracks or on busses) My buddy has a Mac running Reason and three controllers and has his sound arsenal split and spread across them.

The USBs connect to firstly my Roland FA06 (which is stuffed with the Axial updates), to the footswitch (which, thanks to the kind folk on here is programmed to send a 'spacebar' command for my buddy to start the songfile) and to my 'desk', where it splits further to control my Voicelive, Lexicon MX200 and a DMXIS lighting 'dongle' which has it's own VST plugin in BLS.

The songs are as said, all multitrack audio. I have MIDI tracks sewn in which control the effects (PrCh, CC for on/off), my FA06 (PrCh), and the notes in the DMXIS assigned VST Plugin which changes pre programmed scenes (strobes, lasers, hazer, moving heads, washes)

Songs are stacked in different Play Lists as sets. Load a song, the next one loads behind it ready for a spacebar from the footswitch. The mixes we have are engineered to drop out the synth sounds my buddy is playing and that usually is basslines and obviously drums. I play the odd song on my Roland AX Synth. Unfortunately, because the MIDI on the AX Synth is via Bluetooth I am currently and sadly not using the synth engine in it (the radio TX/RX is pretty shit also) so I am thru-ing a track to play my FA06 which gives me 15 layered patches on Ch1 anyway. I link this via a PandaMIDI remote.

It sounds complex - it is. But the effect is good and  although it's fun setting it all up, the audience love it. The only snags we have had recently are drunk customers and people wanting selfies, mid song. A while ago the firmware in the DMXIS dongle threw a six but that was fixed the next day with a clean out and reinstall

Any other Qs, please fire away

HARDDRIVE

 

Very nice and well thought out.  I also have been using backing tracks and live midi, etc.. for years and like John Vere mentioned, the Play List's quirkiness and lack of flexibility to load different songs easily have made me shy away from using CbB live.  For about the last 20 years I have been mixing down my multitrack studio audio to a stereo mix in whatever version of Cakewalk (Sonar) I had at the time, and then inserting that file in a new song on my gig computer running Cakewalk 9.  I make whatever level adjustments necessary at rehearsal, add whatever midi patch changes and controller info to the appropriate midi ports on my midi interface to run external hardware and then open up those files in Virtual Jukebox, and old add-on utility in Cakewalk, and set up a playlist.  It's pretty utilitarian, but efficient and uses up very little screen real estate.  You can pretty easily jump around the set list if need be.  Amazingly, I get it to run nicely on a 64bit Win10 laptop.  However, it is very limited in that, everything needs to be pre-adjusted, and of course using any vst fx or instruments live is a no go.  I have been toying with switching over to something like Cantabile or Gig Performer so I can trim down on outboard gear and enter the 21st century.  Studio One 5 has the ability now to transfer tracks to a "Stage" page and incorporate live inputs (voices, guitars, etc..) along with Vsti  to a set list type page.  Nice idea, works pretty well except that midi routing and implementation is so limited that it makes things like sending patch changes during a song, or lighting controller info next to impossible from what I can see.  I wish that Cakewalk would take a step in that direction, not only because I have been a loyal user since the 80's, but because their audio and midi routing and implementation is the best.  At least take a good hard look at the Play List and make it more functional with performing live in mind. 

[John Vere]

I think performing musicians have become such a small market nobody is making software or hardware for us anymore. It’s all DJ equipment now. Cakewalks focus seems to be on new users who for the most part aren’t musicians. Just gluing loops together with on board audio as the # 1 system used now. The “Recording Studio “ aspect has taken a back seat to “Bedroom Producers “.  So I wouldn’t think they would have much time to think much about the handful of us dreaming of a Live Show Cakewalk. 

[Matthew Carr]

I use CbB in a live setting, but over time I've moved away from using it for everything.  The thing that hindered me most was the midi; inputs and outputs were forever being mapped to the wrong midi port at startup (because I'd move the file between my studio PC and performance PC, where slightly different things were plugged into different USB ports)  - and then VSTs would start acting on CC / PC changes from the wrong source. That wouldn't become apparent until you played a song that used the VST, so it made for a nervous live performance.

My best investment was Gigperformer, when on sale at Plugin Alliance. It hosts all my VSTs, has a rig manager for different PC setups, and just works. CbB plays back the backing track, shows notation, and sends out MIDI DMX (to QLC) and program changes (to Gigperformer) via loopmidi - virtualising the midi routes helps when moving  project to a different PC.

I use the arranger view as a setlist - each section in the arranger view is a song, so I can name them and jump around at will, or just play the set end to end. Each of the cover bands I play in has a limited number of songs (30 or so), so I can easily put all potential songs in one project.

[John Vere]

And that. I have a 124 songs in my basic set list. over 200 if I count a different act I play in. These days i actually only need around 30 songs to kill off a night. The events are often dinner and dance so the dance part is only 2 sets. 
 

Ive looked into the other options for live performance but none have everything on my checklist 

Playback 4 Audio tracks

Play midi just for equipment control and lights 

display the lyrics on a second screen 

fast set list editing drag and drop 

Control playlist and start stop with foot switch 

Funny thing is my Atari system did all this other than the audio tracks. But then I used midi sound modules anyway. 
I always meant to contact Jeff Koftinoff and ask if it was possible to port his software to PC. I can run it in STeam on Windows XP 

http://atari-music.fddvoron.name/promid.htm

 

Check out all this now free midi software for Atari most was written in the late 80,s. Notice the original Cubase. As I said if you have XP you can run the Atari emulation STEam and all this stuff still runs.  
http://atari-music.fddvoron.name/timidi.htm

Edited November 7, 2021 by John Vere

[Lombardi]

On 11/7/2021 at 9:16 AM, Matthew Carr said:

I use CbB in a live setting, but over time I've moved away from using it for everything.  The thing that hindered me most was the midi; inputs and outputs were forever being mapped to the wrong midi port at startup (because I'd move the file between my studio PC and performance PC, where slightly different things were plugged into different USB ports)  - and then VSTs would start acting on CC / PC changes from the wrong source. That wouldn't become apparent until you played a song that used the VST, so it made for a nervous live performance.

My best investment was Gigperformer, when on sale at Plugin Alliance. It hosts all my VSTs, has a rig manager for different PC setups, and just works. CbB plays back the backing track, shows notation, and sends out MIDI DMX (to QLC) and program changes (to Gigperformer) via loopmidi - virtualising the midi routes helps when moving  project to a different PC.

I use the arranger view as a setlist - each section in the arranger view is a song, so I can name them and jump around at will, or just play the set end to end. Each of the cover bands I play in has a limited number of songs (30 or so), so I can easily put all potential songs in one project.

Interesting!  Can I ask why you choose to use CbB to playback your backing tracks and not Gig Performer?

[Harddrive]

Brilliant to see everyone using different methods of work. Unless you possess a blisteringly fast Mac-based rack system running Protools with a confident spod on the controls I think we are muckling by as best can be. 

Our rig takes an hour or so to set up and about 45 minutes to 'ready to ship' out into the car park. I find myself looking out into the punters dancing and singing along and saying to myself 'if only you knew what is actually going on to make this stuff!

And still venue proprietors and landlords pull a face when you tell them your going rate!

HARDDRIVE

[Harddrive]

Just realised - in my description above I omitted to say that the mixes in BLS are put into individual busses then into a Master (with a mastering compression across it) and to another bus.  Both stereo mixes are sent to a 4 in 4 out Behringer interface to two separate stereo channels on my desk. Some mixes have more than one harmony than my mate can join  in with so he takes one, whilst I have mixed the others down in the track. All of this goes to one of two busses on the desk (vocals and music) then to the master. The vocals send and return my outboard (PCs and CCs controlled by aforementioned MIDI tracks in BLS) and out to the speakers from the desk. The desk also sends to our IEMs too.

HARDDRIVE

[Matthew Carr]

 

On 11/8/2021 at 11:04 PM, Lombardi said:

Interesting!  Can I ask why you choose to use CbB to playback your backing tracks and not Gig Performer?

Gigperformer can play back audio, and now midi, but it's easier for me to use CbB as I can align any PC messages and DMX with the backing track easily on the timeline.

In Gigperformer, I often select a different rack (collection of VSTs) for a different part of song.. there might be a way, but couldn't see a simple way of keeping the same backing track playing when moving to a different rack.

Gigperformer is pretty awesome, and I'd highly recommend it - it is a bit pricey though. If you have Studio One then the Show Page could be worth investigating;  it looks interesting, but don't think it's quite there yet feature wise - hopefully they continue to develop it.

Sadly I think John is right, Live performance is a very small niche, in a very small market! So although CbB has the potential to be an amazing live performance tool, I doubt it will be developed in that direction - hence always good to hear other peoples solutions!