If you is ableton live for tracks on stage then you need to be using sense
and returns to route your audio. Hey this is Will Doggett. Today I want to
show you why you shouldn't be routing audio directly from tracks or using
groups to rally your audio but why you should be using sense and return.
So let's get started.
Typically I've always thought of sins and returns from the perspective
of the studio. Right I have a vocal and I want to use parallel processing
to add a revert to my vocal but keep the vocal clean. Right. So I'll add
a reverb to the return track and I'll turn up my sin knob to send a little
bit of the vocal to their turn track to hear reverb on my vocal
About a year and a half ago I was teaching and it's kind of suddenly dawned on
me why since the returns I think are the perfect solution for live performance.
So I want to try to show you why that is now the reason I've been using
since returns for audio routing is because I have five primary goals when
it comes to routing audio LIVE for live performance
1 1 I need to be able to send multiple outputs out of my Ableton Live set
from my interface so for instance I want to separate my bass from the pad
sounds and my percussion from the pad sound so when the sound engineer
she goes to turn up pad suddenly you don't get Shaker blaring through the
house so I need the ability to have multiple outputs from my interface
to even though I'm doing multiple outputs and using my interface I need
it so that when I don't have my interface connected and I open my file
up I can still hear audio and I don't have to go back through each of those
individual tracks and reroute my audio.
That's an absolute bummer. When that happens 3 I want to make sure that
I can set my routing per track per song and do it one time and I never
have to do it again so that I can take that song drag it into my set and
my routing is already done for I want a way to easily control the volume
of my song. Now one of the things I hear from people all the time is I
build my set. How do I get my volumes where they're similar or the same.
I really quickly adjust the volume I need a way to quickly reach up grab
a fader and pull the volume my song done.
I personally don't like using clip volume to adjust that selecting clips
and adjusted so I always want a fader and then five I want a way that so
if I want to suddenly add a new bass track to my song or I want to add
a couple more guitar tracks to my song I could just quickly drag those
in and I don't have to expand a group and try to drag those into that specific group.
So with those five needs for audio routing for live performance I found
that sends the returns are the best way to make that happen. So let me
show you how to setup your files for sensor returns and show you how you
can accomplish those five things.
So the first thing I'm going to do here is I have my file open up and the
very first thing you need to do to format your file to use sends all returns
is add enough return tracks for your audio interface. Now think of the
outputs at your audio interface has an add a return track for those output.
So in this case if you look at my return tracks here I have 12 return tracks
setup for my play audio 12. Now you could do this too as one you could
create a return track for each of your outputs just as if their mono outputs
or if you're going to send some audio in stereo group stereo pairs then
maybe you just create enough for Syria pairs or a couple months.
So for instance instead of maybe 12 return checks if I'm going to do six
stereo pairs I would just create six return tracks. If you're going to
do things in Syria pairs I would suggest doing it that way. For the sake
of this though I just have 12 separate return checks. So if you don't see
your return checks make sure you click the are down here in the bottom
right hand corner of your screen and to add a return track to able to live.
You could go up to the create menu and do insert return track or do all
option command T.
And that's going to add a return track to your set. So now with enough
return tracks to equal outputs on our interface again considering and thinking
of stereo pairs I mean actually press the R button again to close down
my returns and I'm gonna press s to show my sins. So what I'm going to
do I have all my stems all my groups all my tracks grouped into one group
and what you can see I've already done is I've gone through and I've turned
up a sin knob based on what output I want to send that track to. So for
instance I have this one going to track a or return track a rather.
This one's going to return Track B This one's going to C D so on and so forth.
Now you can see four tracks 12 and 13 here I have them both going to g.
So I don't have to have these separate it out for instance. Your guitars
should probably be in one guitar group instead of sending lead down a separate
output rhythm down a separate out but I could group those together and
the way that I do that is just turn up the send synoptic to send them both
to the same return check. Hopefully that makes sense for you. So now that
I've done this I've basically made the decision beforehand what output
do I want my I return tracks to go to and I'm good there.
Now I have all my stems group. That's one of my favorite things to do so
that whether my song has 18 stems or 24 stems. It's just gonna live there
at the bottom of my track. The way it's formatted so it ends up just looking
like this. Right I don't need to see those individual files I just want
one group chat on the group though. Here's one of the things I do so that
I can accomplish two things One if I unplug my audio interface I can still
hear my audio output and to so that I have control over the individual
song volumes.
When I group my songs together what I'm going to do is in the audio output
side of this instead of this going by default to external out wanted to
or going to master I change this so that it goes to since only what that
means is it's going to take the audio from those tracks and send those
to the return tracks but the extra added benefit here is this volume Fader
here controls the overall volume of every single one of those tracks in
that group. Let me show you what this looks like now if I press play and
let's open our return tracks here so you can see the individual parts going
to each individual return track right. So
So I have that separation so that I could get those two multiple outputs
but now and you could see this is the signal is pretty hot here so let's
close our turn tracks down and if I pull this volume down and let's pull
out click down which is separate over here let's pull our volume down for
this song and let's open our turn tracks again and you'll see that volume
is decreased. Now if I go over here again and turn it up you'll see our
volume increases and then you can hear that go down and decrease. So what
this gives me again is those multiple outputs.
It gives me control over my song volume and allows me to create my routing
once so it's saved and if I unplug my audio interface all of these outputs
that are routed here audio to right now there to master I'll show in a
second how to send them to separate outputs all of those would disappear
and I wouldn't be able to see them but in order to hear them again all
I would do is go to this audio to section here and do external out or change
this to master so that I can hear really quickly. Now with our return tracks
loaded in I'm actually not going to root my returns to outputs here in
this file.
And the reason is I have a template that I've premade and in that template
let's open it up so we can take a look in that template I've created the
same amount of return tracks and I pre those return tracks to outputs on
my interface. So for instance if I hit R here you could see my routing
is already done so I plugged in my play audio twelve before I started programming
this session. These songs in the set and I went ahead and rounded each
one of my return tracks to outputs on my interface. So that's done and
that's good to go.
Now in order to do that I do as to audio to the external out and then select
the output on your interface to make that happen. Now here's kind of a protest.
This was what. Don't tell anybody this this is one of my favorite tricks.
If you don't have your interface connected to your computer to do this
here's how you could do this really quickly. You can go and install the
free utility sound flower. There's also it's kind of hard to find sound
Flora sometimes and download if you can't find that I'll paste a link to
that below in the description to grab it. If you can't find that you can
use the plug in loop back from rogue amoeba which is a great plug and I
use it for webinars all the time that it's kind of like the icy driver
but for audio you can route audio from one program to another program on
your computer you can download the free demo you don't need to buy it to
do this.
What I'm gonna do is go into preferences command karma I'm going to go
to audio output device here. I'm going to select. Let's go ahead and do
sound Flora. I've got this installed and I'm going to choose the 64 output
option here. Now with this selected an output config I'm going to go ahead
and just enable up to my 12 outputs and I'm gonna hit. Okay. And now when
I go back into my life set and do external out you see twelve output options
are available to me even without my interface connected.
I have this 12 output options available so I can sit in my office I can
sit my studio without my play audio twelve connected and get my routing
done in my template beforehand. Now when I'm ready to listen to it again
I'll go back to built in output and the way able to live works. It doesn't
say you root it to output seven on play audio twelve. It just says you've
routed to output seven on your external output device. It doesn't matter
what interface it is. So that's how we use that sound Flora. Now let me
show you again one of my favorite reasons for using sense and returns.
It's because I previously in that single song file I did all my routing
so that now when I dragon into my template everything automatically is
going to out to outputs something to go over here to my browser. And I
found this song and I'm just going to drag this live set directly into
this set here and you see that group track comes along with it. And if
I expand that group let's hide our return checks here for a moment
You'll see there's all our files Shah since all those sins all those routines
that I made previously are automatically set to go to the return checks
that we did earlier and he said this is in my template.
So I don't have to redo my audio routing each time I build a set no matter
where my songs are coming from because I format in my songs the same because
I use sends and returns when I drop that file in that routing carries over
with it. So now again one of my favorite things about this is the ability
to reach over and have a actual Fader that adjusts the entire volume of
that song. And as I have multiple songs in my set I get a fader for each
of those songs. So it's easy for me in line check or soundcheck to press
play listen to each song really quickly and just adjust the volume based
on that song without having to go in and adjust volume based on clips or
go through each individual group and adjust the volume for that.
So if you are using tracks on stage and Yunus accomplish the same five
goals I have to use an audio interface for multiple outputs to be able
to hear your audio even when you disconnect your interface to route your
audio one time and have it carry over with your set to have a volume for
each one of your songs. Each one of your songs when you build a set you
can really quickly reach up and grab to adjust and then finally to be able
to add a new STEM in and just quickly get that routed to the same output again.
That's why I would encourage you to go and use sense of returns the same way.
I have shifted to using now. If you're watching all this you're great.
This is great but what audio interface should I use. How many outputs Should
I get from my audio interface. I put together a free gear guide that I
love to share with you. You can get it for free by heading to from Studio
Stage dot com slash gear. I'll talk about audio interfaces I suggest mini
controllers what computer what the version of able to live
Everything you need to perform on stage with it. So again if you're interested in
an upgrade or getting started completely from scratch head to from Studio
Stage dot com slash gear to check that.
Thanks so much for watching guys. See you next week. Take care. Bye.