Live Samples and the Like

[poppinsmac]

Hey Justin,

I just finished up my first album with a new band, and am looking for a bit of advice.

We are a four piece band - singer/guitarist, drummer, me on bass and a key player - but we went a bit big on the production side, with a bunch of layered drums, keys and guitars.

We want to do the songs justice when we perform them live and will have to use some samples which is a really foreign idea to me. I've always disliked the idea of bands using samples live because I've seen it done so poorly many times but NIN was a great example of the opposite.
Your guys shows always sounded/looked/felt organic and natural, even with lots of use of samples.

How did you guys approach that and do you have any advice on the subject?

 

[jmjbassplayer]

Samples, as in samples that you trigger?

Or tracks in a sequence that you play to?

 

[poppinsmac]

Triggered stuff, I would think.
I've never played anything live at all where we've thought about using samples at all so I'm a bit lost where to start

 

[Dan Bozek]

Well, at least for my experiences, using a sequenced “backing track” has worked best for bands that I’ve been a part of. In a nutshell, you have a click track (metronome) running for the song and have the parts from your recording that you don’t have enough hands to play playing at the correct time in the arrangement. I suppose it would be preferable to have everyone in the band using in-ears, but I’ve definitely had success with only the drummer having the click in his ears or headphones if the band listens to him to stay together with the sequence.

A very easy to learn and elegant way of doing this is with the computer program Ableton Live, especially if you have a computer audio interface with multiple outputs. You can send loops out of one channel and keys out of another to your monitor and front of house guys so they can mix those extra elements like extra instruments in the band. Another way I’ve done it is to make an MP3 that has click on the L and the sequence on the R and start them off from a computer or iPod back by the drummer.

When I hear “sample,” I immediately think of “one hit” drum sounds triggered by a MIDI pad. Although I can only speculate, I assume that NIN incorporated a click and sequence (i.g. the warbly synth part through the whole song Closer) AND samples, since Josh and Ilan definitely had some MIDI pads in the kit that I can remember. I was also REALLY impressed by how on the Wave Goodbye tour NIN seemed to actually use very little extra sequencing for most of the show since, well, everyone was playing something on a keyboard at some point along with their guitars/drums. I think Ilan had a MIDI marimba back there too!!

I haven’t really gotten too crazy with it, but I know that using Ableton you can incorporate samples and software instruments along with your sequence. I haven’t tried to do that live yet, but given my current musical aesthetic, as soon as someone is willing to pay me to perform my own ideas I’m gonna have to give it a go!! Ha ha ha.

 

[jmjbassplayer]

Thank you, Dan. Yes to all that.

Micah, it's way way too involved to break down on here, but this is what I did for the M83 tour: Two computers with an A/B switch (for redundancy) running tracks on Ableton Live that also hosts one shot samples, and another two computers with an A/B switch doing synth hosting. Suffice to say, the instructions as far as setting that sort of thing up would take far too long to break down here. I suggest spending a lot of time on YouTube, or finding a consultant to build it up for you. Especially if you've never done anything like it before.

JMJ

 

[Dan Bozek]

+1 to YouTube or a friend. I had the "lite" version of Ableton for a long time and didn't do anything with it until a touring drummer friend showed me how he was using it and how it was set up. Once I did the same thing that he was doing, I sort of ran with it form there. Once you learn how it works (which initially seems a little strange) it becomes a very fun and easy to customize music tool.

 

[Dan Bozek]

Invalid Link Removed

There is a 30-day trial download on that link. That and some of the vast amounts of YouTube videos should get you started, and it is pretty accessibly priced if you decided that it'll work for what you want to do.

I'm using version 7 myself, but I don't think that the nuts and bolts of what it does has changed drastically from version to version. I wouldn't worry too much if some of the tutorials online are screenshots of older versions.