using PT live....suggestions please.

[vudoo]

i 'm doing a few live gigs where i will be running a small rig with sequenced tracks.
Is there a way to make a set list in PT and be able to recall it instantly ??? The tricky part is that I need each song to remain in the original seperate session so that i can make quick changes during rehearsals and sound check.

[Andre Knecht]

The fastest way to open sessions found in separate folders would be by using a keyboard shortcut. You create the latter with OSX and/or with dedicated (and more powerful) utilities such as QuicKeys, etc. (You can find multiple discussions about the above in the archive.)

Having said that, if you’re even modestly proficient with navigating Apple’s “Open…” (et al) dialog boxes, you’d only be saving a handful of seconds each time — at the most.

IHTH.

[kelsey]

Just a suggestion, but make a master session for your live gig, import all the tracks you want to use from all the songs, group each song as one group, then you should be able to deactivate one songs tracks, hide them, unhide the next song and activate the tracks fairly quickly. Keeping seperate sessions will take to long to load, so you'll have to combine them for live performance. Let me know how this works, as I've never used PT in a live performance, but might be someday, I would love to know your experience.
Peace
Kelsey

[vudoo]

well, the problem i found is the time it takes for a session to open so quick keys are irrelevant here..i mean, live, this won't cut it. The only solution i find so far is to put all the different sessions in one big session and use markers...but this way will only work if you have a small show...imagine a 2 hr show where each song has an average of 24-32 back tracks..this definitely won't cut it.... you'll end up with a session with over 200 tracks..i don't know any portable that can run this reliably . Also i'm the drummer in the show and the one operating the rig.
Unfortunately, i don't see how PT can pull this off. I'm checking out Digital Performer for this purpose and it seems very promising. It has a feature call chunks where you can have as many sequence your system memory can handle and it opens fairly complex sequences ( midi and audio ) instanly...quite impressive.
Anyways, any other suggestions people. Thanks.

[Andre Knecht]

Why on earth will you end up with 200+ tracks?
Why can’t your PT session’s channel share tracks?

Furthermore, in conjunction with the above, if you’re trying to keep things “clean,” you could use the Playlist feature, thereby having the entire show open in a session, with only the needed tracks showing (and playing) — on a song by song basis. A quick selection of a new playlist (while the tracks are grouped or selected) will provide you with an instant change. In this way you could also have all songs start at the top of the session.

IHTH.

[Howardk]

We use a Digi-002R with G4 Powerbook for live backing tracks. The master sessions are in an HD system with many many tracks of audio, midi, instrument tracks, etc. . . These are bussed down to and recorded on to 8 audio tracks (one track is count / click). These resulting audio tracks from each of the master sessions/songs have all been imported into one Session. There is a memory location marker for the start of each song for quick locate to start the song. We have been doing it for a year and have had a couple of crashes. Since that time I have made the session file read only, turned off the autobackup in ProTools and we run the repair permissions on the Powerbook before each show and have not had a crash since.

[vudoo]

Howardk,

My work flow is similar to yours. I'm using a HD rig at my studio. The problem i find is that, during rehearsals and epecially while touring, they would change arrangement of the songs and sometimes i also need to change specific tracks within the session so having to go back to my original session and bounce is a real PITA.

[Nutsville Noise Lab]

Although I'm really into PT, you might wanna consider using Digital Performer in a live environment, works fantastic! They've got this really great thing called 'chunks'...

http://www.motu.com/products/software/dp/live.html/en

[vudoo]

Hey Nutsvill,

Actually, i've been checking out DP for a couple weeks now and i was hoping that PT has something similar to the chunks feature...i guess not....In Pt you have no choice but to bounce or use some sort of playlist.
DP lets you have as many sequences as your computer memory can load, all in the same session. That way, you can change anything within each sequence. You can also assign midi to any functions of DP...still testing but it looks REAL promising.