man, im so grateful and thankful that you put an effort to make this video. You don't know how many times I've watched this video and fully understand it. Man you make impossible become possible, you don't know how many people tell me to use Ableton if I want to do Live performance, Logic is not for that. Well, without this video I will think they are right haha thanks man, bless you!
THANK YOU SO MUCH, I'm preparing a pretty complex live show and you just saved my a huge amount of time teaching all these super hints. Thank you thank you thank you
I just found you, and I super appreciate the way you dig right in and meet me at my level. I consider myself extremely beginner. If anyone has issues with taking this in I’d say you still need to get your hands dirty on your own and get oriented.
Just an additional note on performing live with Ultrabeat - I learned the other day that it has a voice mute mode that allows you to mute individual drum voices on the fly with midi commands. Pretty cool little bonus thing
Thank you for this informative video. I have been contemplating to switch from Cakewalk Sonar to Logic ProX for my gigs but so confused on how to get the click track to my drummer the simplest way. Would appreciate if you can do a tutorial focusing specifically on how to do this. Thank you very much.
hi stephen, thanks for the video in my live setup - which has a lot of live mixing - I have a mixture of audio files/backing tracks and MIDI instruments (that I play live) on each track. As this video shows, I made changes in the MIDI Environment window and routed my Novation Launch key MIDI keyboard to> input notes to> input view > and then directly to each track. This way I can control and mix each track using the faders on my keyboard instead of having to use the track pad. So I set up the tracks in the order I want them, say Organ on track one, drum loop on track 2 and then when I'm linking the cables from input view to the tracks themselves I do that in order as well. so the first cable I make goes to the organ track one. Then when I quit the session (song) I just save it and open it again when I want to perform using that session/song and the settings have been the same. But lately when I go back to the same session I had saved, it seems that some settings have changed. Where each fader was corresponding to the correct track - 1st fader controlling organ track 1 etc- these settings are just inexplicably different, like when I move the 1st fader it suddenly controls track 4. And the cabling in the MIDI environment looks exactly the same. I don't know if I'm saving these sessions incorrectly. Would saving these sessions as a template ensure that the settings wouldn't change for some reason? Performing live it's very frustrating to open a session/song and realize that all the faders are corresponding to the wrong tracks and that some of the live instruments won't make sound (because I would assume that they too are being oddly routed). Anyhow, any insight at all would be very helpful! I feel like I'm flying blind out here and that's never good in a live situation. I feel like my problem might be a simple misunderstanding or a fault in the way I'm saving/storing the session? Thanks again for the vids! Any help would be greatly appreciated! jen
It looks like Novation Launch Key has a HUI function called InControl. Many controllers have something similar for an "auto mapping" type feature. Usually, what this does is change the type of CC data that the controllers send. You need to look at the actually MIDI channel and CC number that the controller is sending when it's set correctly, and then look at the number again when it messes up. If they are different, then it's most likely that the Novation has different operating modes or patch numbers. You'll have to make sure the controller is always in the correct mode for the way that you mapped the controls in the environment.
Hi Stephen Thanks, first of all, for putting this together. I have been struggling to figure out how best to use Logic in a live situation for some time now. I bought Mainstage, but the workflow is quite foreign to me, and it doesn't seem to cater well for MIDI tracks. I'm probably not quite familiar enough with Logic X to follow everything you're covering here, but I think I'll come back to this video and try to take it all in in small doses. Much appreciated.
Hey Simon. Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, the reason that I do so many things in this method is to try to really make Logic's interface be useful for live performance by using screensets. If you don't really need to see anything on screen, you can do less than what I've done here, as long as the core functions are built into the project. Let me know if you have any questions about a particular portion.
Hello thanks for your tutorial, it's fantastic! I have a question about what you explain at 12:10. If I hold down the note during the track change, the selected sound on the first track does not remain. I would like the sound change to work like on Mainstage that remains as long as I do not change the note. How can I do? TKS ciao
When you set your microphone up, what buffer size and recording delay ms are you at? I notice latency when playing live , I am using 1 waves plug in and bussing reverb for two vocals. It's not terrible, but I would prefer a tighter vocal. Thanks for your video and info.
Hi. I just came from watching your video on automating using both logic and MainStage. Great info! Have you had any issues with your computer after moving to this method? What is the computer you are using? This will give me a good point to figure out what computer I should buy (used) and not worry too much about issues. I will have three audio inputs and play along to a backing track. I still have a long way to learning everything on MainStage but I may not use automation for now and just get familiar with it. Maybe apple will come out with an automation option with backing track for MainStage...
Hi Stephen I just discover your amazing tutorial 2 years after.... Hope you answer always. Something i don't understand. Do you have 2 midi keys ? One for piano and one for alchemy ? If not i didn't understood how do you switch ? What's your physical hardware setup ? cause it's seems u have a lot of input/output Thanks a lot
Do you think it'd be possible to send a tom pad (piezo) into my sustain pedal in of my midi contrôler (Alesis Vi25) and then assign that pad to the play button in Logic so that the drummer can trigger the play button from the pad without needing a drum module
Thank you. One thing though you did not state why you feel this is better than using Mainstage. Also, so now you are successful just using your Macbook Pro for live performance with no issues?
Great video! Thanks. Any clues how to control plugin parameters on multiple channel strips / tracks simultaneously for live purposes? I have my controller assignments set up and input monitoring active on all tracks but can't seem to implement changes to plugins that are instantiated on different tracks with my Nano kontrol 2. When an individual track is selected, I am able to manipulate plugin parameters with the controller, but this temporarily deactivates the assignments on all other channel strips. Selecting multiple tracks at once doesn't seem to work either This is for a live processing situation where I'm looking to have control of processing multiple instrument inputs, whilst affecting parameters of completely different plugins on the respective channel strips Let's say I have 6 channel strips, each with a different mic input and each channel has a different plugin inserted > then I want to map each dial of my midi controller to a single parameter on each plug-in - 1 dial per plugin per track (6x dials in total controlling 6x different plugins on 6x channel strips). Is some MIDI environment wizardry needed? Any advice much appreciated!
Hey nice video. I've got two tips for ya. The audio quality diminishes the whole experience of the video. Keep it closer so we don't hear the room. It would also be great if you start the video by showing the end product. Took me scrolling back and forth to understand that this wasn't the kind of live set I've was looking for. Keep it up!
Hello, nice video. I have a question: upon hitting the start button (transport/spacebar...whatever), do you have a slight moment's delay to when the sequencer starts? I have asked this question to Logic Users Group and have gotten the answer to check that plug-in delay compensation is activated for everything. it has always been this way in my settings. So, for instance, if I use Ableton Live and hit the start button, it starts immediately...so I can start instantaneously and perfectly in sync with something else already running, say electribe or circuit or whatever. Can't do the same with Logic. I can't remember if Logic was able to do this prior to version 8 (when they took away slave capabilities). Any insight would be helpful please. Thanks in advance- Angelo
Great question. What I ended up doing was I mapped my MIDI controller's play command to both applications. That way, when I press it, essentially, both programs start simultaneously from the MIDI play command, instead of waiting to receive from the other application.
is there any way that I can trigger patch changes from my midi keyboard? I am currently doing this with Mainstage (through program change) but I cannot find the same function in Logic? I just need when I change the patch (from my keyboard) the corresponding channel strip is select and triggered on Loigc
Hi Stephen and thanks for the video. I had a question about this that I am hoping you could answer. How does one map MIDI to individual MIDI stack tracks in order Record Enable them so I can play them live? My entire live show is in one Logic project and I want to be able to record enable my MIDI stacks using MIDI as I go from song to song in that one project. Is there a better solution to this? I want to avoid manually clicking on tracks during a show. Also my live audio tracks need to be software monitored in order to use their effects live? I am using one for vocals, another for guitar. thanks!
Thanks for watching! If you look on my channel at the "Tutorials by Stephen Froeber" Playlist, I have a video entitled "Always On Practice Instruments using Logic Pro X." That should get you started on having tracks always armed. If that doesn't solve it, let me know and I can go into more detail.
This is super-cool, thank you so much! One thing I am trying to wrap my head around is, how do I take this to a live venue, where they are mic-ing our drums and guitar/bass cabinets and running it through their own existing mixer? Do I need to have a 16-track or more interface/mixer of my own to pull in the live mics, and then send out all the individual tracks to the main house mixer? What is that "Physical Input" device you show? I'm not quite sure how that routing looks... what mixer/interface are you using with your laptop to do this? We typically get about 10-15 minutes for band switch-overs, and I'm trying to see how much work this is for the house mixing engineer.
I’m using this technique for my band when we play live and everything goes through logic (mics, bass, guitar) with effects, amps plugins, except the drums, we leave the drums management to the venue. All in all it works pretty well, but you need to send separate outputs to the FOH, especially tor the vocals, send them dry, or they will create feedback
Hey Stephen, great tutorial, thank you so much for sharing knowledge! I have a question and you seem like the person who might know the answer. Is there to switch between active tracks using the numbers 1-9 on the keyboard?
Yes...but not in the way you may be thinking. It would involve using some environment objects that you could then select with key commands. I have a video tutorial that shows the basics of one way to approach this problem. It's not exactly what you describe, but it's got the building blocks of what you would need to do. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mdjEp9PiCww.html
Thanks Stephen for these vids. I really appreciate this information. I have some questions maybe others have wondered about: Do all the songs have to be laid out sequentially in one master song, or is there a way individual songs can be 'called up' from inside the master song? Can the end of one song trigger the load of the next? How processor intensive are audio tracks? Is it best to bounce them down to a minimal amount of audio tracks? Should the low latency monitor mode ever be used in live performance? Thanks again!
If you are trying to stay native in Logic, then I'd recommend keeping them all in one project. That said, since making this video, Logic has had numerous features that could now make this much simpler, such as using Live Loops to trigger songs/song parts. If you do want to stick with the method I've shown here, but using separate projects, then you should check out the 3rd party tool OnStageX by Fluqe. Audio tracks, by themselves, aren't processor intensive at all. They're disk "intensive", depending on how many are playing at once. Plugins are processor intensive, so the more plugins you add to an audio track to process in real time, the more processor you use. Low latency mode disables any plugins that induce significant latency. The mode shows you which plugins are being disabled, so you can test to see if your particular signal chain will work. If you're using minimal stock plugins, it could work...otherwise, it's just going to disable additional plugins that induce significant latency.
I’ve reduced my latency to 6ms roundtrip for live performance by setting the recording kbps to 92kbps, and buffer at 128. More intense on the drive, less on the CPU
Yeah, that's totally doable. You just do the same thing, but with an extra software instrument track that has the MIDI performance. Or, to save on system resources, bounce the MIDI performance to an audio file and just use it as a "backing track."
Hi there! Really liked the vid. I'm new to this and I have a few questions. I play in 4 people band and we're going to run in-ears soon along with backing tracks, click and automated master keyboards. We'd like to control our in ear mix oursleves via the Logic X app on our phones. I wonder how I could set this up. We have two master keyboards (that I'll automate like you showed in this vid) a violin, drums, an electric guitar, bass and two vocals. I run a Focusrite 18i20 (20 outputs).
Wouldn't triggering multiple midi instruments simultaneously be super CPU intensive? What if you have 30 different virtual instruments you want to use in a set? Am I missing something?
My two cents: you have to make some informed choices about what you *actually* do in your performance, vs. what you'd *like* to be able to do in theory. For myself, when I first started building my show, I wanted total flexibility. Remixing on the fly. Cutting. Chopping. Looping. instrument changes, Etc. Once I took it out and performed more, what I realized is that it's actually easier (and more effective) for me to just plan out all of the changes that I wanted to do. I kept some elements of flexibility/improvisation, but I really parsed down my initial, ambitious list to only what I would actually use all the time. What that meant is that many of the things I thought I wanted to do with virtual instruments, I could just bounce to a backing track. So, if I wanted a part to come in, live, and I needed a backing track to go away...I would just build that into the actual backing track. Etc. So, if you *truly* need 30 different instruments, all going at once, then yes, it will be CPU intensive...which means that you're going to need VEP, an on stage LAN, and multiple machines to really do your performance right. That's for you to decide in a cost benefit analysis. Hope that helps.
