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Tips and Tricks for Playback Techs, Music Directors, Musicians or anyone running tracks on stage.
If you wanna make sure that your tracks are always going to work on sage,
you need a redundant system. But is a redundant system worth it?
Is it worth the cost of implementing into your setup? And is it right for you?
On today's episode behind the Space Bar,
I'm gonna share some very simple questions you can ask yourself and answer to
decide if it's right and worth it for you.
Hey, everyone, welcome back to Behind the Space Bar. If this is your first time,
I'm so glad you're here.
This is a podcast that are released every single Monday,
and it's for folks like you that are performing on stage with Ableton Live
today. We're, we're talking shop, we're going deep. You know,
sometimes these are philosophical, sometimes they're fun. Uh, I mean,
they're always fun.
Sometimes they were kind of fun like they were a couple weeks ago when we
shared, uh, on stage fails and flops. But today's,
we are getting to something that's very, very hyper specific to using on stage,
and that's a whole idea of a redundant system. Uh, let me show you an example.
If you're listening on the Apple Podcast, uh,
I'm just gonna show this picture of the I connectivity play Audio 12.
This is my go-to interface when it comes to creating a redundant playback rig.
It's very, very simple, right? Two computers, we connect to our play Audio 12.
Uh, it's a simple thing to integrate into our setup,
but it's possible that you see this and you look at the price and you're
implement, wanting to implement, and it's incredibly, incredibly affordable.
But you're going, man, is it worth, I've got an audio interface.
Is it worth getting another computer, getting this new audio interface,
learning it, integrating it into my setup? Um, well, maybe, maybe not.
We're gonna talk about that on today's episode. Maybe you watch, uh,
this rig rundown that I, I did you watch this, this video,
you see all the gear that's in this particular rig rundown, and you go,
there's no hope. Like I just,
how am I ever gonna figure this out and make this happen? I,
I understand the feeling and I understand your concern,
and so it's easy to ask the question, is a redundant rig worth it?
So what I wanna do in this episode really quickly is give you a couple questions
to ask, kind of real simple criteria to go, uh,
this helps you decide if it's worth it or not. And then I want to end with, uh,
um,
two real simple approaches to implementing redundancy to your setup no matter
what you're doing. So here's, here's kind of, let's dive into today's content.
Number one, what's the cost of it going down? So, um,
here's kind of the questions to think if your track rig stops working,
if you've got Ableton on stage, you're running tracks. Uh,
if it were to go down and stop working, is it okay? And what I mean by that is,
if you're in the middle of the show, something happens with your computer,
there's a hiccup, Ableton has a crash,
and it's just continually looping and it's in an infinite crashing kind of loop,
uh, and you're not able to get it, uh, working and open. Is that okay?
Can you go on, can you keep, uh, you know, finishing the rest of the show?
Do you have, uh, some sort of backup plan to make it through? Um,
if you can go on the show without it, then it's potentially,
uh, okay, not having a redundant rig. Uh, if your keys rig stops functioning,
uh, you know, you're using Ableton for keys,
maybe you're using main stage for keys, say mains stage word to crash,
which would not be a, a long shot, but let's say mains stage word to crash, um,
and your keys rig went down. Is that okay? Like,
do you have a hardware keyboard you can pivot to?
Do you have some sort of other setup that you could potentially use? Well,
if so, then maybe not having redundancy is okay. Um,
if your vocal processing rig fails and goes down, um,
and suddenly what you are using,
you're using your UA interface to process vocals,
kind of like Willie's doing here in this video.
Like I teach on the site with two different courses,
we'll link in the show notes showing you how to do that.
Can the show still go on? So that question is,
what's the cost of things going down? Can you still operate?
Can the show still go on? Uh, if so,
then I would still highly encourage you in every scenario to go the path of
redundant rig. Uh, again,
we'll talk about how to do that kind of what I call this,
the three s's of redundancy. We'll talk about implementing that in a moment. Um,
uh, the, the, if the show could still go on and that's okay,
and maybe you don't have the budget for redundancy right now,
then you're probably okay,
but I would still encourage you ultimately to go down towards that path if
you're not okay with that. Let's say you're working with an artist where, uh,
there's like three people on stage and the rest of it is tracks and there's
vocal processing happening. And if that were to go down, then um,
things would be bad. Then you need a redundant system.
And I want to reframe what your thought of a redundant system.
And when you think of a redundant system, I wanna reframe what that is.
So again, just for folks watching on YouTube, bringing up this screenshot again,
uh, of, of Willie talking through, uh,
his setup with Post Malone and how they're using,
able to live and doing vocal processing and tuning.
If you look at that and you go, man, that's just too much gear. Like, I,
I can't make that happen again,
I go back to what I mentioned earlier in the episode, the Play Audio 12,
which is an interface that does audio and mid redundancy. One,
you still have to have two computers, so there's an extra cost there,
but that's an audio interface that costs, um,
less than most really good playback interfaces that you would just buy, uh,
you know, a single interface.
You get two interfaces in one with a play audio 12,
so it doesn't cost as much as it is. But even still,
maybe even look at the play audio 12 and you go, man, I,
I wish I could implement that, but, um, it just feels too complex.
I don't have the money right now. Here's my encouragement to you.
A redundant setup is just simply making a plan and answering the what if,
right? You're just simply making a plan for the what ifs.
What if my computer goes down, here's my plan.
What if my vocal processing rate goes down? Here's my plan.
Your redundant kind of setup may just simply be,
if our computer were to go down, then we are going to do an acoustic set.
So I'm gonna bring my acoustic guitar. That may be your redundancy,
your backup plan right now.
So run redundant setup is simply making a plan for the what if. That's,
that's all it is. I'm gonna encourage you though,
because hope is not a backup plan. Um,
hoping that Ableton is gonna work just fine. Uh,
and relying solely on Ableton for all the band on stage.
If you remember a couple weeks ago, uh,
I'm practicing to preaching to myself here a couple weeks ago, um,
I shared the story of stepping on stage, uh, and,
and having just a couple members on stage and having a laptop that was way
underpowered. This was years and years, probably 12 or so years ago. Um,
using just Ableton basically for tracks for the majority of the sounds for that
particular show. Pressing play, getting,
I think we got 30 seconds into the first saw,
and my computer just completely crashed when it turned back on,
basically was dead in the waters at that point. Um,
my backup plan was hope.
I was hoping that my computer that I knew was too slow to be doing this,
was gonna work. I was pushing it to the limits. I was pushing it too far.
Hope is not a backup plan. You've got to make a plan.
You absolutely have to make a redundancy plan, um,
some sort of backup to to, to solve for that. And I, how do you do it?
I'm gonna share just in just a moment exactly how to do that. But I,
I wanna let you know,
if you're brand new to this whole using Ableton live on stage for tracks, uh,
or you've been using tracks on Sage, but you felt limited, you felt restrictive.
Remember, you're a worship leader. You're trying to roll this out to, uh,
people on your team, um, and they're just struggling to understand it,
to get it. Uh,
maybe you're in a cover band and you want to implement and bring tracks to, uh,
what you're doing, but you just have no idea how to do this.
Because every tutorial you find on Ableton,
on YouTube is all about music production and edm. And you're going,
I wanna know how to use tracks on stage.
Then I wanna encourage you to go to from studio to stage.com/template.
When you go there,
you're gonna find my template that I'm giving away completely for free.
That's gonna get you headed in the right direction.
That's gonna lie to use tracks in a way that's stable, efficient, and flexible.
And this comes from years and years and years of testing and trying and
developing a method and a process that's used by thousands,
thousands upon thousands of musicians and performers all across the globe that
have implemented this and had tons and tons of success.
While you're there on the page, you'll see some testimonials,
some stories from folks that have implemented this,
but you're gonna download the free template, but that's not all.
You're also gonna get access to a free six day email course.
So I'll show you exactly how to set up that template and how to use it with your
setup. Uh, so there's no questions asked.
You're gonna exactly know how to implement this in your setup, again,
completely for free. So headed from studio to stage.com/template if that's you.
And, uh, you can get a leg up on your competition. And again,
if you're a cover band, if you're a band trying to book more gigs,
learning this key concept and learning how to understand and uh,
use Ableton live for backing checks is gonna allow you to book more shows and
create better shows ultimately.
So let's talk about how do we make redundancy happen?
I wanna start first with low budget redundancy. What do I mean by that?
If your computer goes down, what's your backup plan?
A low budget option is to completely render your Ableton live set, uh,
from Ableton with as a stereo track. On one side is click.
If you're using queues, slate tracks, guide tracks,
then add click and guide on one track on one side, on the other side,
it's gonna be all your stems mixed down. Play that from your phone,
load it into Apple Music,
load it into whatever your music player is on your phone and have,
play that from your phone. Yes,
there certainly are apps that you can load to use your backing tracks on your
phone, but I would not invest tons of time into this. I would literally say,
this is my worst case scenario. Ableton goes down, here's what we could do.
Render your entire set. I know some folks that render each individual song,
they could just access it from Apple Music if they need to.
Whatever you want to do. Low cost, low budget solution, load your songs,
load your set onto your phone. Uh, second option here is, uh, buy a hose,
CMP 1 53, 1 59. If you've been around the the site for a while, uh,
you know what this cable is?
It basically takes the headphone out of your computer splits to two separate
individual cables that's gonna allow you, again,
to split and separate your click and guide from your tracks. Now,
I often talk about this cable and people go, yeah, but that's gonna be mono.
Well, yeah,
mono tracks is way better than no tracks if you're relying on tracks,
and most of the setups and systems that you're using to perform live with are
mono anyway, so, you know, I'm just saying. Uh, so get a,
a CMP one fifty three, one fifty nine headphone cable. Uh,
if your interface were to go down, it's gonna take, you know,
one to two minutes to plug that cable in, uh,
to then get it connected to two direct boxes to then communicate to the sound
engineer, Hey,
we're gonna switch to that backup plan that we talked about before,
but it's better than having no backup plan, absolutely no backup plan.
Third thing I wanna share is a low budget redundancy option is have backup
cables, have spare cables. Uh, if you buy one USB cable,
then you have not bought enough anything. You go to buy, buy two of,
if you're buying a USB cable, buy two of 'em. If you're buying ethernet cables,
buy two of them. Or if you need four by eight, right? Or maybe go, okay,
most likely if two were to go down, we're probably, you know,
we need two backups or whatever.
You don't have to completely duplicate everything.
Your house is gonna be full of lots of crap and lots of cables if you do that.
But have a backup play. Have spare cables. Okay?
So low budget redundant options, load your set onto your phone. Number two,
use a hoses cmp, 1 53, 1 59 as a backup audio output device. Uh,
number three, uh, have spare cables to make that happen. Okay,
let's talk though. If you want to implement a redundant system,
I don't care if it's Dante, Mattie Analog, if you're doing it for keys,
for tracks, for vocal redundancy, vocal processing, whatever it is,
there's three s essays that have to happen, uh, for redundancy to happen.
Number one is split. You've gotta take your signal and you've gotta split it.
And maybe even before that should mention, you've gotta have two identical,
completely identical setups. Two different computers,
two different audio interfaces, uh, two different, um, uh,
audio interfaces to process vocals, whatever it is. Two keyboards.
You need two systems, right? Two identical systems.
And then we implement the three S's of redundancy. First one is split.
So it's the idea of, um,
if I'm using a play audio 12 and I plug a mini controller into the USB host port
of my play audio 12, what am I doing?
I'm splitting some sort of control signal to both of them so that both are
playing at the same time. Second, as of redundancy is sync.
Now I said both are playing at the same time. Uh,
that's the idea that both of those systems are perfectly in sync.
And what I mean by sync is not, uh, ltc, not mtc,
not in a time code or necessarily a playback position type thing.
I just mean it's the right preset, same exact preset at the same exact time. Um,
when it comes to playback position, I do mean if I'm on the verse here,
I need to be on the verse here. A lot of folks, this is kind of inside baseball,
but a lot of folks get into redundancy with Ableton Live and they go,
how can I send LTC MTC to both my computers to sync him at the same time? Well,
Ableton one doesn't accept LTC as a sync source. It does accept mtc, but it's a,
a incomplete solution.
So just one mini controller use our first s to split it to both computers,
uh, to keep both computers. Number two and sync.
And then the third s of redundancies, we have to deal with switching.
How do we take outputs from both machines, both keyboards, both, uh,
interfaces that we're using to process vocals?
And how do we make it to where we can only hear one output at a time?
And how do we switch? There's typically two types of switching.
Automatic and then manual. Automatic is some sort of test tone that keeps going.
And when the, the switcher detects that, that tone goes down,
it switches to the B system. Uh, there's, uh, quite a few folks. Um,
I would say we tend to be in the more old school camp of playback techs and
engineers that do not like manual switcher. And you prefer, uh,
automatic or do not like, like automatic switching,
but prefer manual switching. Uh, in a case like that,
you use some sort of foot switch, uh, maybe the front panel,
some sort of button that says, Hey,
switch from A to B to make the switching happen. So when it comes to redundancy,
the three S's, or we need to split either our mid signal or audio signal,
or perhaps both to two identical systems. Number two,
we need to keep those identical systems in sync.
Meaning the same thing is happening on both machines at the same time.
Same presets, uh, uh, on both machines at the same time. Same keyboard presets,
uh,
same vocal processing happening on computer A as as is happening on rig B at the
same time. And then number three,
finally we have to deal with the switching of outputs. Uh,
how do we make sure we only hear a system and then B system?
Do we either want automatic or manual switching?
Try manual if you can get by with it, cuz I think it's better in the end,
but that's just my opinion. So that's, uh,
I'll look at hopefully answering the question for you.
Is a redundant rig worth it? And again,
it all boils down and comes down to can the show go on without tracks? If so,
then, uh, you don't have to have it. Ultimately it's worth having, but you,
you don't have to have it.
But if the show's gonna completely come to a standstill,
if you were not to have tracks or were to not have vocal process processing or
were to not have, uh, your keys rig, then you need a backup plan.
You need redundancy.
So thanks so much for listening to today's episode behind the Space Bar.
We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. If you enjoyed this,
do me a favor. If you're watching on YouTube, then subscribe.
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Take care everybody. Bye.