Anatomy of a Playback Session

[@leolabs_org]

Thanks for the AbleSet shout-out, I’m glad you’re enjoying the app! 😊

[@eldowns]

Let me know if there’s any other ways I can help support!

[@TinoSchulz1990]

Awesome work. Could you show us how you would create Program Changes and Control Changes for Kemper inside Ableton?

[@thegreateskate]

Thanks for fulfilling the request man!

[@eldowns]

Hopefully it was helpful.

[@TSTBand]

Thank you very much for your vídeo Eric!, it's really helpful each one of the features you use in your Ableton Live set! i just subscribed and liked your vídeo :) By the way, i'm currently planning to create a redundant rig and i have a question to ask you if you don't mind: I want to run Backing Tracks + VST'i and VST Plugins for a Keyboard Midi Controller + Vocal FX's (preamps, compressors, auto-tune, reverbs, delays, etc) for a live performance, do you recommend to control all of it from 1 single computer? or it's better to have a division of labor (one computer to run Backing Tracks, another to run VSTi plugins, and another for vocal fx's), i ask this because i'm debating between buying just two powerful macbook pro's to make it all (one as the main and second as a backup), or six mac minis not as much powerful to make each one of the task i mentioned (3 mains and 3 more as backups for each), I will appreciate any advice you can give me from your experience. Thank you!

[@eldowns]

First off, thanks for the kind words. Second off - holy shit. Okay, so the answer to this is complex but mainly depends on your budget. If budget weren’t an issue, you’d need 2 computers for playback, 2 for VSTs, and 2 for Vocal FX. Some additional notes: Mac Minis don’t have a battery like laptops, so if something happens to their power cable, you’re toast. You also have to buy a bunch of peripherals to use them. Also, this setup may require a bunch of switchers and possible MIDI interfaces to talk to each other. It’s a mess and you’ll need a separate person just to manage it all. Now, here’s my personal take: For the Vocal FX, it is generally not advised to do any spatial/time effects like verb/delay in the box and to rather leave that for your engineer. However, if you decide you want to do this, 1) you need to spend a massive amount of time testing, checking, and testing, preferably in a simulated live environment and on a PA, 2) split your vocal into a wet and a dry so the engineer can control the effects, 3) be prepared for engineers to hate you. Now, concerning your laptops: one computer for VSTs should be fine. Making this redundant is overkill. For playback, I’d only go redundant if the stakes are high. Personally, I’ve never had a playback session fail in my life. Not saying it can’t happen, but a well-built session should be low risk. Laptops these days are insanely powerful, but we continue to use them essentially as digital tape machines. Regarding your vocal FX, that’s a very difficult subject. It sounds like you want to use a studio vocal chain live. Keep in mind, the studio is an immensely different environment than live. In studio, you’re probably on an expensive condenser going into a nice preamp, etc. with unlimited takes. Live, you’re more likely to be on a handheld dynamic, moving around, and in a room that is far from perfect and may even have other noise being generated in it if you have a band. While putting together a studio-level vocal chain is possible, you must do this with an experienced FOH engineer who can factor these variables into the chain. Just copying and pasting a studio chain in there will absolutely end in failure, I guarantee it.

[@TSTBand]

@@eldowns thank you very much for taking your time to answer my question!! i appreciate that, i will see if i can downgrade the amount of equipments then and save some money in the process

[@garyluong6532]

This has been an absolute godsend Eric! Thank you so much for putting this together, can’t wait for the stem mastering video!

[@eldowns]

Thanks, Gary. I’ve tried the stem mastering video like 3 times and I can’t get it the way I’m like it, but it’ll be out soon and it’s going to be HUGE. What’s bg3?

[@garyluong6532]

oh man- this is embarrassing 🙈 so my youtube bugged out and added a bunch of chapters named after magic items for a popular video game all throughout your video, sorry for all the confusion haha but yes!! really looking forward to the next video 🫡 hope everything works out!

[@eldowns]

@@garyluong6532 looooool

[@eldowns]

Stem mastering video is up!

[@GarrettSchwenk]

dope video dude, thanks for sharing! looking forward to the stems mastering vid

[@jorgeduplex]

Greetings from Lima Peru, I really admire your work and the information you provide, very good research. I have 3 questions. Please help 1.- What format do you use the ableton sessions in? in 48khz 24 bits or 44khz 16 bits?? I understand that recording them in the studio has to maintain all the quality in some cases 96khz 24 bits, but what is the configuration of the ableton session that you use for the live show? your mac is i7 or m2 or m3 Please help, the one you normally use your mac, how many GB 2.- An ableton session like the one in this video or the normal one you create, in terms of weight and space on the hard drive, how many GB of storage does it consume? 3.- The audio clips that you use as stems or multitrack for the show are already official in the live console recording or the originals are replaced in post production, For example, if you want to make a video clip of the live show, you use the ones recorded by the official multitrack console or then replace them with the original in post production.

[@eldowns]

1. 48khz, 24 or 16, but typically I use 24. 2. It really varies on how many songs and versions there are. Could be as little as 8-10GB or up to 60-80GB. Use an external SSD to keep read speeds as high as possible. 3. For a video, I typically grab a multitrack from the FOH board and mix it myself. There are other ways to do it, but I don’t ever replace the recorded stems with the original ones - it doesn’t achieve anything.

[@jorgeduplex]

@@eldowns Wow!! THANKS FOR THE INFORMATION, For future concerts, on a Mac computer, what would be your recommendation? i7 16 ram? 1tb m3 1Tb mac mini? mac pro? m2 1Tb? macbook pro max etc etc 1.- what is your configuration? 2.- What would be your recommendation?

[@beeola7645]

Lovely video Eric. I wanted you to talk about timecode in your Ableton session.

[@eldowns]

What's your question?

[@sarinsahil]

Thank you for making this video. I was waiting for it. A quick question about looping certain sections to keep the set dynamic let's say for audience interaction. Is it possible to automate going into predefined loops within the set, which one can get out of at just a click say from a MIDI controller. Thank you!

[@eldowns]

I’ll have a new video coming out shortly where I can cover that.

[@davidgreer9827]

Dude great video…thanks so much! As a part of your rig, what files are you storing on that external drive? Also I wonder how many songs you could have in one show without bogging down the computer. Thanks again!

[@eldowns]

I prefer to keep all files on the internal - just make sure the internal has enough free space on it! I don’t like keeping files on externals because you’re dealing with a potential failure or limitation point. My sets tend to not exceed ~20-30 songs, but I’ve seen sets upwards of 50+ that run fine. If you use AbleSet, it supports multi session switching, so you can segment your sets and keep them light (if that’s a concern!).

[@alaskajuless]

yoo! been looking for a vid like this! you smashed it! had a few questions: currently about to build a new session, very basic no playaudio or click yet(for experimental electronic solo project) i was planning on using session view in order to have clips triggered differently and ability to add/remix songs over eachother. in arrangement/or session how do you change the arrangement so quickly w/out messing up the session?assuming everything is locked on to the master tempo automation? i also run a master group for stems that has an fx rack that i can control via midi fighter but it has to be locked into tempo to trigger in time. (FX RACK - vocoder, delay, reverb, eq(high,mid, lows, filters) very Fourtet/Fred again adjacent. thanks for the help!!

[@eldowns]

Yeah, everything is tempo automated, so it’s just basic copying, pasting, duplicating. Nice and easy.

[@LaimisMatas]

Eric, no pressure, but we're REALLY looking forward to the stems mastering video.. 🤭😝

[@eldowns]

Agh, I know. I’ve shot it 3 times and haven’t gotten it the way I like it. It’s going to be super helpful though. Trying to put it out in the next month or so.

[@cc11studio]

I've been using more of the "waterfall" method to give me individual control over the track level in each song. How would you increase the volume of the "bass" track for one song without effecting the entire set with your routing? Super curious because I like this layout way better.

[@eldowns]

I’ve used the waterfall method before, but it turns into an organization mess for me. In this setup, if you wanted to turn the bass down on one song, you’d just go to that song’s bass stem and clip gain it down. However, if you mastered your stems properly (*wink* check out my stem mastering video *wink*), this shouldn’t be an issue in the first place.

[@cristianrincon2801]

Dope video! Been following you from the playback rig series. Question here. How do you automate the BPM? Is not a headache whenever you change the setlist order?

[@eldowns]

Good question. The tempo is automated via the Tempo automation lane on the Master channel. It’s actually not a pain in the ass when you re-order things - you just click on the Song title marker and hit Cmd+Shft+X, which cuts time, then Cmd+Shft+V to paste it elsewhere. Everything include automation comes with it.

[@cristianrincon2801]

@@eldowns Thanks a lot! I'll try.

[@sebastianastacio4403]

Super useful, thanks!

[@Anatolia909tv]

ON POINT!!! THANK YOU

[@GarrettSchwenk]

Are you not using a master/leader tempo track to change BPM between songs? If not, why do you prefer to click in/type in your BPM automation?

[@eldowns]

Correct, I’m not using a Master tempo track. Just keeps the session one layer cleaner and IMO, makes tempo ramping easier.

[@GarrettSchwenk]

For sure dude! Also, curious as to why you group the song stems by instrument and not by song? (a top down approach) You placed every stem in their respective instrument group and didn't just drag and drop the songs and leave them in their groups by song name? Is this also something you found to be easier from a routing perspective or are there other advantages of organizing this way? @@eldowns

[@eldowns]

@GarrettSchwenk Yes, this is definitely a big advantage mainly due to output routing. Otherwise, you have to change the routing settings for each individual stem of each song, which is a) a pain in the ass, b) slower to alter and troubleshoot, and c) less organized.

[@GarrettSchwenk]

Totally agree! Thanks for sharing all this, looking forward to seeing more of your content. Killin it dude!@@eldowns

[@KitoRodriguez]

That background track playing is loud and distracting. Otherwise, well done! Thanks for this!

[@eldowns]

Yeah I didn’t really nail the balance on this one, but lesson learned for the future.

[@LaimisMatas]

Eric, really dope (while niche, lol!) stuff right there you're sharing, thank you. Could you elaborate where you're getting your slate samples from? I'm printing mine on an online voice generator..

[@eldowns]

I do the same thing I’ve been using a free Text to MP3 generator, though sometimes I’ll just record them myself.

[@camshash]

Hi Eric, sort of a general playback question, are there any scenario's where you would sum all the tracks down to a stereo out (maybe with a 3rd for sub) instead of separating the stems out into individual channels? Doing shows without a dedicated FOH I find that the house guy rightfully doesn't know how the mix should sound, and songs where certain stems are quieter get turned up and such.

[@eldowns]

Absolutely 100%. So long as you take an appropriate amount of time to properly master your tracks (video coming soon!), I think LRS is a great way to ensure a reliable mix.

[@eldowns]

After re-reading your comment, I would just amend to say a stereo LR out would be best. I wouldn’t necessarily offer a Sub as well (thought you were referring to an entire band mix). Leave that part to the engineer.

[@RauliV]

Would you consider sharing your template for this?

[@eldowns]

Here you go: eldowns.gumroad.com/l/the-ultimate-playback-template

[@germancastilloChocodrumz]

Do u have a template of ur playback session

[@eldowns]

No, because it’s so easy to build. But I guess I could?

[@germancastilloChocodrumz]

@@eldowns that would be dope , and u make a profit out of it

[@eldowns]

@@germancastilloChocodrumz You've inspired me. eldowns.gumroad.com/l/the-ultimate-playback-template

[@germancastilloChocodrumz]

@@eldowns brother I just purchased It 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🧨🧨🧨🧨

[@eldowns]

@@germancastilloChocodrumz Ah amazing! Thank you! Let me know what you think!