Allow FOH engineer to control Ableton playback

M32 and X32 Digital Consoles
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manoaratefy
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Allow FOH engineer to control Ableton playback

Post by manoaratefy »

Good morning,

Our band live configuration is composed both live musicians and singers on stage, but also some pre-recorded sound FX, instruments and vocals. To achieve this, we are using Ableton Live 11 and a U-Phoria UMC202HD audio interface routed as following : left output contains everything which should go on FOH, and right output contains everything which should go only in monitors (in-ears).

This setup works fine but sometimes, we need to adjust during the show individual tracks volume on Ableton. Then problem comes because the Ableton PC is on stage, so the FOH engineer can't access it.

So, our priority is to provide to the FOH engineer the ability to control individually each Ableton track on his X32/M32 console. Before looking for a hardware upgrade, can you tell me if there are software solutions to remote control Ableton with X32/M32?
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pmaillot
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Re: Allow FOH engineer to control Ableton playback

Post by pmaillot »

Ableton can talk OSC and there's a connection kit available at ableton.com for providing suppory on OSC. Therefore it's certainly possible but most likely not stright forward, i.e. you'll have to do some programming, and depending on what you want to achiece, it may be a lot of programming.
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MJKlein
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Re: Allow FOH engineer to control Ableton playback

Post by MJKlein »

If the DAW doesn't have to be Abelton and can be Reaper, that's doable right now over Ethernet.
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pvannatto
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Re: Allow FOH engineer to control Ableton playback

Post by pvannatto »

Is there a particular reason why the Ableton PC has to be on stage?
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manoaratefy
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Re: Allow FOH engineer to control Ableton playback

Post by manoaratefy »

Hello,

I'm using Ableton because I'm comfortable only with Ableton in a live environment. I already tried to use Cubase (which I use in studio session) and StudioOne but I think they are not enough ergonomic and flexible for live environment. I might try Reaper one day, but I'm not confident using something I don't know for live usage. This leads to my second argument.

I'm running it on stage because we usually don't have any playback engineer, so I'm both keyboardist and playback engineer. Not sure anyone else in our team have enough knowledge to run playback, and fix it (or fix computers issues) on the way when needed.
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pmaillot
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Re: Allow FOH engineer to control Ableton playback

Post by pmaillot »

Something I tried today for a Studio guy in France who wanted to drive (both directions) his X32 to and from FLStudio...

Everyone knows Mixing Station (and should buy a copy if you have a mixing desk).

Launch Mixing Station and add two midi devices to have Mixing Station create a proxy between X32 (as seen by Mixing Station) and a MIDI support for Ableton (Mackie for ex.). Then modifications made to Ableton faders would translate to MIDI commands received by Mixing Station, controlling Mixing Station Faders and as a consequence sending OSC to the connected X32 to update the X32 faders. In return, moving an X32 fader would update the respective Mixing Station fader therefore sending the appropriate MIDI/Mackie command to the connected device.. Ableton.

Tested today on a WING logically splitted between standard part on the left and Mackie DAW control on right, for verification. Works like a charm.

-Patrick
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