[KC Kelly]

Hey Tom,

When I'm in songwriter/producer mode I start with Live and a drum loop. I have it set to open up with a basic drum loop loaded that runs about 4 mins. Guitar is my primary instrument, so I play along with the loop adjust the speed to what I have in mind for the song. Then I track the basic idea for the songon guitar to the loop. Then I put together a more complete exact drum track with loops that fits the song. I use loops from Drums on Demand or Discreet drums or whatever I have that will fit the song. then I save and close Live.

Then I open PT name track the same as the idea I just did in Live. Then I open Live rewired and open the song idea. Put markers in PT intro, ver 1, ch 1, bridge ETC.... Then I retrack guitar, track bass, any midi parts I might want. A scratch vocal and sometimes I play real bass a Fender P bass or if it's midi bass I use Trilogy. For keys and synths I use Sampletank or Reason or Access Virus.

The thing that is great about using Live is you can change the tempo of the drums no problem along with the midi parts. I have also at times tracked all the guitars, bass and vox in Live so I could change the tempo later if needed. The problem with that is that it so much more time consuming to comp tracks in Live. I have also taken the finished tracks out of PT and put them into the Live session resaved it and then reopened the PT session, have PT play all the midi parts and live all the audio and loops and then I can change the tempo + about 10bpm - about 5bpm before it starts to get squirrelly.

I might use Battery 2 if I want midi drums instead of loops. It just depends

I suppose you could do almost everything in Live 4 but it doesn't have makers that are stationary and it’s a pain to comp and multi track in. At least in my experience with Live 3.0

That keeps it pretty much in 2 programs. I recently upgraded my Acid to 5.0 in hopes that it would do the job that Live was doing. But it just doesn't works as well for me. I'll have to give it another try.

I don't know if this really gives you anymore ideas, but I hope it helps. If you have any question about my setup or methods or anything else just let me know. I'll try to help.

KC


HD3 - PT 6.7cs8 Apogee Rosetta 800 with X-HD Card
Windows XP Home Edition
Dell DIM4400 1.8 Mhz
1 GIG RAM