Thread: Sequencing for the Stage

it all depends on what kind of sequencing you are going/want to be doing. If you want pads, synths, some analog sounds that are most likely going to be packaged in the core sounds of a workstation, it is a piece of cake.

if you to use samples you create, as well as live voices, harmonies, and more custom sounds, its a little extra.

for instance, i use a Motif workstation. its my band's 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th through 16th member. simple, and I route a click to my drummer and a mix of he wants, and we just play along. you have to be well rehearsed, mind you, since if you "fall off" the sequence, chances are your song is poo from that point on.

sampling your own sounds can also be done in these keyboard workstaions, but they are not nearly as easy as software synths.
I imagine one day soon ill be hauling my Powerbook on stage with an external mixer and routing an entire orchestra of sequence from abelton or something, or using it to drive the motif......which is also hooked up to my micro Korg..............which is driving a Dr. Sample..................................

man. it will drive you nuts having so many options. but, its a GOOD nuts.

Cool thanks for the reply. I think I want prerecorded wav files from my cubase recordings to be played. I want it to be a process where a drummer can press go, count off a song and play through, then it pauses loads next song and he clicks it again. How does it work if its a guitar intro song, can he click it in when he needs to, or does he always have to cue me? I don't want to have to have a guy run it full time. (have a hard enough time finding serious musicians with time to play that aren't jobless bums). Kind of a catch 22 isn't it? We all want dedication, but the people with dedication tend to have plenty of dedication elsewhere, and maybe a direction in life, so we seem to have a bucket of bums to sift through. Hopefully we all can find that diamond in the rough, but its been a rough road for me. I think if C3PO or R2D2 can strum some chords, I'll be a lot happier! :D

Thanks
Justin Berry

I've worked with a couple of bands and always kept backups available (as in everything but drums just in case something failed). Both of these bands were great musicians and what we did was route the click track to each of their IEM's for an 8 beat count off and on from there. They played so well with it that twice with one of the bands I had to switch from the live bass to the pre-recorded bass because the cable shorted. All it took was the loud pop from the cable and I was already making use of the "flip" switch. With the other band, they had been playing shows for 3 weeks straight with 5 or 6 days off total and the vocalist was losing his voice. He thought he could go on for the rest of the show, but after the first of 12 songs he gave me a cue we had worked out earlier and I flipped the pre-recorded vocals up over his.

All that said, I like to keep recordings available of the band with everything in time not only for adding players 5 through 16 but also in case there is a problem during the performance. It's okay to lip sync if you HAVE to. I still don't see why they gave Ashlee Simpson a hard time about it; it was her first time to lip sync. Anyway, sequencing follows the same principles. Just as long as your band can play in time you can perform well with something thats prerecorded.

I want to start picking out the gear... please give me a run down of what you used. Did you do the work on the computer then dump it over to something. I'm real new at this and it's like this is the secret only the pros know, I just can't find a solid answer. Also what do they call this? is it called live sequencing? All I get on the net is recording sequencing. Thanks a bunch ahead of time.

I actually use ADAT's. But that can get a little (okay, a LOT) expensive starting out. If you have a way to do it, you need to send your click out one channel and then all the other instruments in submixes (at least) or maybe their own channels too. Some instruments sound stronger in different rooms than others, that's why I prefer to give everything its own channel. Keep in mind that I am working with a 24 channel console or greater that also has tape returns on each channel. I doubt this is feasible in your situation.

However, if you can get a good digital recorder and put your tracks in that then just send the LR buss to the FOH console, you can get a decent mix of your recorded instruments from there. Most of these digital recorders (like the Yamaha AW16G or Boss BR-1600) will let you decide to play a click track before the start of the song. You can set that to route to an AUX out that can be sent throught the FOH console (or monitor console on bigger gigs) to your monitor foldback.

If IEM's are out of the question, then you can just run the click on a pair of headphones to the drummer. On a song that starts with another instrument such as guitar, just have him click his sticks for you for the last 4 beats of the click. That's a very popular method both for lack of IEM's and show. It can make a lot of bands that aren't totally together look extremely together.

so basically, its just like working in the studio, you're just mixing it all back. In theory I could just use my laptop and cubase and run it live out of my firepod? Put them in submixes and send EM to the board as live instruments. I will probably have to have a guy run these and cue us. IEMs are on the list to purchase. Big purchase that I've been putting off till we are ready for shows. But for now, I'll just work on this with my firepod routed to my drummer. Adat's are sweet, but very costly. I've used a Boss BR-1100cd before, and it has great sound for what it was. I'll look into that. I'm just hoping to get a more produced professional sound live. If this makes my band appear tighter, then it made us tighter. We've only got what? 45 min's? tops to win people over, I hope this will just work a lot of the bugs out.

Thanks
Justin

We've only got what? 45 min's? tops to win people over, I hope this will just work a lot of the bugs out.

Actually, you really only have the first 30 seconds if any more than 15 seconds. Thats why bands typically start off with their best song, go down from there, then come back up at the end with a finale.

And you've got it right on it being like a studio. You're just turning the house PA into the control room monitors.

Also, if you ever used something hard disk based, make sure you ALWAYS have a responsible person handling it. That's why I use the old ADATs (S-VHS based). I've had too many problems with roadies and other people just tossing the bins that happened to have the hard disks in them. The heads and platters (and even the motors) are too fragile. Think about it: you have 4 or 5 platters with 16 heads on them all controlled by different very small motors. Laptops are more rugged with 1 or 2 platters and 4 or 8 heads (thus less disk space). I've lost too much data traveling with hard disks which is why I revert back to the tapes. CD's are a different story though.

Thanks for tip bud. I'm gonna try just doing it on a pc at a few gigs and practice and see how it goes. Now I gotta find a guy to run the thing. all will pay off with time.

Thanks
Justin