How To With INKJD - ICE NINE KILLS Live Reaper Sessions (overview)

[@TheAceOfOnes]

Makes you really appreciate how much goes into a show like yours thanks for sharing!

[@Fmoelix]

Great Video! Was really interesting to see that your Live Session is even more complex than I thought it was! I‘d love to see videos about the whole Orchestration and Arranging you‘re doing! In-depth walkthroughs of individual songs and tutorials on how you orchestrate and mix your arrangements would be great!

[@atticmichael]

God damn, now I kinda need an orchestral version of Every Trick in the Book in its entirety!! Great video :)

[@inkjd]

DUDE! I tried to pitch a deluxe edition with a full version of all the orchestra tracks. Didnt get approved :/ Ill release it on my own at some point.

[@atticmichael]

Holy shit!! I want it haha xD Why wasn't it approved? :(

[@dariuswilson5911]

HOLY SHIT! PLEASE DO!

[@FateofTheFallenOFCL]

That would be amazing! especially learning from the one guy who does the orchestrations from Flesh god apocalypse.

[@slavestonothing]

We love everything you make, trying to take our live shows to the next levels, this video helps so much, thank you JD :)

[@IwasHere967]

I’ve seen you guys 4 times, your live set is next level! The amount of work you’ve put into this comes alive in your shows!

[@DarioDrums95]

I can't tell you how big of a help this video was for me as I'm building the live-session for my band. Also I could spend days in this particular session just listening to the backings aka earcandy. 25:11 gets me every time. Incredibly fun to listen to!

[@KyleKinniburghmusic]

It would be awesome af! If you could do like a tutorial on how to just mix and master, and make tracks and songs sound professional! It would be a life saver man lol

[@dallonillicitut]

One tip I’d recommend for back tracks on songs, get the mixed files for the special effects/back tracks from your producer when he sends the finals! If that makes sense

[@lassikriikkula9610]

It would be cool to know a little bit of how you did the orchestrations to the songs. It's something that I would love to learn to do.

[@inkjd]

Will do! Def something ive been wanting to share.

[@TxH666]

Wow, man. I thought you were crazy talented before but after watching this, I have even more respect and appreciation for what you do! Thank you so much for sharing your craft with us! \m/

[@Forbidden-po8ey]

This is amazing, i've learned sooooo much from watching this. Very inspirational. And a great insight into the backtrack world of live music. Thank you!

[@B0NESAWlSREADY]

I'd love to see a more in depth video on how you mix for the live performance as well as the DMXIX setup. I run a similar session but on Logic for my kempers patch changes and a DMXIS live as well and its confusing for sure but I've only used LED light bars very minimal light work so id love to see more on that for sure! Loved this video!

[@thorntoneaudio5939]

Incredible dude! thanks so much for this breakdown of how your tracks work. My band opened for you guys back in november and I was hoping to catch you to ask some of these questions!

[@inkjd]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. Feel free to ask away anytime :)

[@jonathanguilmo448]

Hey, I'm Brazilian, and a fan of the band, I really enjoyed this overview and I'm waiting for you to come to Brazil.

[@ChristopherRoupp]

Hey JD late to the party but I wanted to swing by & tell you how CLUTCH this video was for my band & I. it really helped us organize our Reaper Sessions & become a more professional band! Could you touch up more on that X32 Midi track you have going on? I would love to know the signal flow & connection process cause we have the same X32 rack & would love to have the ability to turn the delay on & off on my vocals & our Main vocalist during out set. Thanks again for all the wonderful knowledge!!!

[@ventoPS]

Wow I am laying in bed like going through YT and somehow stumble upon this video and it's exactly what I always wanted to now, how a professional band manages their live performances. I need to show this to our drummer since he is in control of our backing tracks on his iPad (he needs to get a MacBook at some point). Do you have a video where you show all of the routing with like racks and stuff? I would find that very interesting as well. Thank you Justin!

[@inkjd]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/emOoZ4OFlMqCbs0

[@leihnusz2455]

Hey Justin, I just rewatched some of your old playthroughs and was blown away by the tone! I hope you don't mind me asking a quick question as I'm trying to breathe some life back into my old Axe Fx 2. Do you recall what you used cabinet ir wise? I tried playing around with the FAS Modern and the 5150 Block Letter with some Bogren and Jeff Dunne Irs but something always seems to be missing. Especially the FAS Modern always ends up way to thin and bright compared to your live tones. I appreciate any advice and hope you have a great rest of the week! Best regards from Hamburg Germany, Linus 😊

[@xBuuurn]

Very cool stuff! Bought your guys's tabs for Every Trick In The Book and loved it, will you guys make tabs for your previous albums too?

[@BrianTWW111]

Great video! My only concern is about the midi mapping. Being you set the tempos in a different session, do you also set the midi in those sessions as well? I find it would be difficult snapping midi to a tempo that doesn't match the project files tempo. Also, what I do is I split certain signals before they go to the x32 (or in my case, the DL16S), do you do this also this way the FoH guy has control over vox, guitar, bass and drum triggers? Or do you send everything to the x32 and THEN split out to FoH?

[@inkjd]

Most importantly, everything on the stage like instruments and vocals get split before going to the x32. That's a must for the reason you mentioned. FOH needs control of source signals because of the variables that exist in every venue. You don't want to send a compressed and EQed vocal to FOH. Those settings might not work for that room, the compressor could cause feedback, or the FOH guy could just forget completely that you told them all these things and end up double compressing, EQing or effecting the vocal causing potential other problems. Secondly, I used a separate session to do the light programming. That's because I grid lock the midi for the lights in sessions with the right tempos. That's super important so that everything lines up right. The great thing about Reaper is that it allows you to choose whether or not the midi track, when moved from one session to another, uses the tempo of the new session or a pre set tempo that you can assign in the menu of that track. I made another video on that here. kzbin.info/www/bejne/anuulXtpZbmGrtU The patch changing midi I would do by hand in the master template because it just has to be close enough. Doing it right on the grid doesn't really make a difference most of the time. Like the scene changes on Axe FX are pretty seamless but when you do program changes like one channel to another there's typically a dropout of sound. So the way around that can be to trigger it early when there's a break in performance if applicable. Have to be creative sometimes to figure the best way. The patch changes are also so minimal in comparison to programming midi lights.

[@S0Amped2Shred]

you guys been working on a new album? these videos kick ass.

[@kaitoasaharo1801]

Saw you in cologne 2 days ago! You did an awesome show! This video is fucking amazing. When our album is finished I will try to create a project like yours! It's the best setup I have seen so far! Just asking out of curiosity, how did you connect the Axe to the DAW to switch through Midi in real time? I am using a Kemper and I am always getting a delay between the switches which make playing with it a bit uncomfortable :) Can't to get our X32! I need to look into that stuff! It's amazing! Keep going and hope to see you soon again on a headliner show in germany!

[@brucecrouch802]

Hi, great video very helpful thanks…..why do you put every song on the one tab in Reaper versus having one song per tab? I am new to Realer but intend to use it for backing tracks for live performance incorporating Audio / Lights and Video…..

[@inkjd]

Main reason is so that it can be a hands free live show. Having everything in one place makes it easier to organize a setlist for a live show. What you're looking at here is a master template of all the songs. For a live tour I would save a copy of this and remove all the songs we wouldn't have been playing and leave the rest in the session. I would then reorder them to be in the order of performance. I would then butt the songs up to each other that I would want connected and I would add transitions or interludes if necessary. That way I would be able to start at the beginning of the timeline and hit the space bar and let it ride. We typically would play 3-5 songs without stopping. sometimes we had breaks or guitar changes. Sometimes we did them during pre programmed interludes. We would have to be efficient with our time. So having them on different tabs would have meant that after every song I would have to stop playback. click on a tab. start playback and repeat that for every song. Not to mention that having them all on one tab/timeline in the master template allows me to make global changes to every song at once rather than changing the overall volume of a track across 30 songs individually on tabs.

[@zachlillemoen3729]

Hey, huge INK fan (also ik this is very late) BUT, im in a band, and were going to be preforming in my garage on July 4th. I remember that in one vid you said you use your laptop to control your lights. How do i do that? Thanks, also cant wait to see you guys at the Forum in LA!

[@inkjd]

I know that this is super late to respond. I hope your show went well! There's a handful of options to do this type of thing for those still interested. I used DMXis to do this. Lots of tutorials out there. I did one on how I used it in Reaper here. kzbin.info/www/bejne/anuulXtpZbmGrtU

[@Wadeforce]

neat

[@HiPass24]

cool video, nice and tidy session you got there! I have a question after watching your DTB video: what audio interface are you using in this setup? I noticed on the other video that you have both Ethernet and USB connected, how does that work?

[@stevemayvisuals]

Behringer X32

[@inkjd]

The Ethernet connections for used for the Wireless sennheiser gear. It was used to link them together to use the scanning software. Super fast way to scan for available frequencies. I also use Ethernet to connect the X32 to the laptop to control the X32 on the laptop. It was called X32 Edit. Which basically is a digital interface of the X32 on the laptop. Like a controller. Ethernet also connected to a wireless router so the same type of control could be done from an iPad from across the room.

[@williamwelch1513]

I just recently got turned on to Ice Nine Kills and was amazed at how all the tracks fit in perfectly. I’m assuming you guys have to play to a click in your ears for the entire show in order for all this to work?

[@tylersaltmarsh9025]

William Welch 99.9% of bands play with clicks in their in ears...

[@williamwelch1513]

Tyler Saltmarsh must be bands on smaller levels. The Metallica’s and Slipknots of the world surely don’t use clicks in their ears being how fast they play sometimes and how erratic their timing can be...

[@tylersaltmarsh9025]

William Welch my next paycheck says otherwise

[@shaunp2265]

Would a similar system like this work with Logic? My band uses alot of background synths and instrumentation like yall do and we are trying to figure out how to execute those sounds live. So would running those backing tracks on logic through the house PA work like this? Thanks so much.

[@inkjd]

ShaunP22 yes. Although logic is a much heavier program on the CPU.

[@rdmakarim]

a very well versed overview! However, I'm quite confused on the method to connect the live session to mixer board (laptop->audio interface->what else?). Could you please explain more on that? Or if it'll take too much time, can you give me suggestions on where I can learn about the whole hardware setup thing? Thanks a lot, best of luck JD!

[@inkjd]

The X32 rack by Behringer is a mixer/interface. So the laptop will be ab;e to route the tracks out of the laptop to the interface like you normally would in a session. On the X32 you would then route those to a hardware output. Then you use that XLR or 1/4" output to send it wherever you want it to go. Like FOH.

[@cutnbass2166]

Thanks alot...quick question. How do you que the next song once a song is over? Do you use a footswitch?

[@inkjd]

i just put markers on each song. unfortunately it only goes up to 10 (as far as i know) so ill just hit the number on the keyboard and it jumps to the marker thats set by that number. super easy. (to create a marker drop the cursor and press M)

[@AlexRDL88]

Following watching this series I have started programming my lights using Reaper and I am going to move all of our backing tracks across to this also. So far I have created each track as individual projects, however for live use I guess I want to have all the songs in one project? Is there a simple way of just copy pasting an entire project from one to another without having to do it track by track? I seem to be able to do it foe the instruments but moving over the lighting stuff it won't move all the envelopes in one hit?!

[@inkjd]

Not that i know of. You just have to build it in one. Multiple tabs and sessions is messy. Best to do it in one.

[@FateofTheFallenOFCL]

I have a big question, I'm currently making backing tracks for my band and we do orchestral stuff and post production stuff, especially leads and partial rhythms for live use Typically how loud do you set everything so they aren't so over powering live? i don't want to screw up and end up blowing PA speakers and what not soon. also the way i did it is i just jumbled everything together, I might go back and export them all out in sections (Like orchestra and leads) and balance them that way like you have done. One last question do you do your leads left and right or just straight Center mono?

[@FateofTheFallenOFCL]

one LAST question In your session are your tracks routed to your behringer X32 All I have is a behringer Xenyx 502 which I can take the left to the band and the right to FOH So I think i wouldn’t be able to do what you do yet and just do Left and right unfortunately

[@quashadbackus1666]

What's your favorite song that your band has recorded?

[@danielmaguire7130]

I see DMXis automation lanes!! Does that software work as a Vst plug in with Reaper?!?!

[@inkjd]

Yup. It's a plugin.

[@michaelborrow9237]

Do you know if INK is still doing this type of live set up now that you have departed the band?

[@inkjd]

They were using this setup I built for i believe 2 or 3 years, maybe more, after I left. Their FOH guy told me that they tried to get away from it many times and nothing else ever lived up to it. So That was cool to hear that It was as bulletproof as it was. I'm sure they are on a totally different type of system now because they have more crew members to do all these things manually. Like a monitor guy, lighting guy, FOH guy etc. I used software and tech to get it done from 2 rack cases side of stage because that's what we needed. But the show being put on now is much more extravagant and massive so it requires a different level of management. As far as the tracks go? Yea, they are DEF there and DEF far more prominent. So I'm guessing there's a similar setup whether it was built off of mine or rebuilt from scratch.

[@wyatt.traxler]

How do you route your sends for the tracks that don't go to the mains? I have an XR18 with 6 aux outs, main L and R, and headphone out. Not sure how that differs from the X32, but I'm a bit lost with it.

[@inkjd]

I assume you're talking about things like 808s, harmonies etc. You would route them out of reaper on available outputs. You can do that in the routing menu as long as you have the X32 connected and setup to give you the appropriate amount of USB I/O. I vaguely remember something about having options for 4,6,8 or so outputs in one of the options menus. You have to set that up first before trying to route them to the X32. Once routed you than have to set you outputs of those tracks to the X32 to go out specific hardware outs.

[@BrandonofRedemption]

Awesome stuff. A more detailed video would be much appreciated.

[@evanleifman535]

What plugin(s) do you use for orchestral stuff?

[@inkjd]

i mostly only use kontakt as a host with various libraries and east west play as a host for their libraries.

[@kaitlynpatricia8300]

Your a genius because I just got pro tools a few months ago and I can't even figure out how to get 2 tracks or even the metronome to play

[@inkjd]

Forgotten by Destiny don't give up. It takes time.

[@kaitlynpatricia8300]

inkjd thank you as a guitarist myself your how to videos really help

[@inkjd]

Dont be afraid to reach out for private lessons. Theres always an opportunity to learn. check the info section of this video for my email if youre interested.