Excellent Question.

We’ve got a few suggestions but it really depends on your particular needs and capabilities. So let’s first determine what resources might be helpful by breaking down different kinds of uses for tech in live performance.

Different Methods for Live Performance

1. Using Metronome, Click & Cue Tracks

You may just need a metronome, click track, percussion loop & or cue tracks to help keep your band in time and cue them into the upcoming song sections. All live instrumentation will be played by musicians.

2. Using Stems & Backing Tracks

This method would be utilising the original tracks (or a remake of the track) in your live performance. Rather than using the Master track, every instrument and vocal track has its own separate audio channel and can be manipulated at will. (E.g. you can adjust the volume or mute the channel completely). This allows you to only use the parts that you need for your performance. So let’s say your percussionist calls in sick and one of your pianists keyboards that has the perfect synth sound didn’t make it on the to tour bus, provided you have the relevant tracks, you can turn on the ‘percussion’ and ’synth’ tracks so those two elements aren’t missing. It can also be assumed that if you’re using stems, you’ll have metronome, click and cue tracks. This would be a mixture of live and produced instrumentation being used together.

3. Live Looping

This would be where a short musical phrase is performed, simultaneously recorded and then continuously looped. This process is then repeated with other elements in order to build up ’stems’ that the performer can sing and/or solo over. So for example, a guitarist can play a back beat on the body of the guitar, record it then loop it, then play the bassline using the low notes on the guitar, record it then loop it and then play the chords and record it and loop it. If done correctly and the different elements are recorded in time they’ll have 3 ‘stems’ (drums, bass, chords) that can be played along to and manipulated on the fly. This is similar to using stems but the stems are created there and then by the performer(s).

Software Solutions

Hopefully these explanations have been helpful. Now let’s move on to some solutions

1. Any Music Player App (e.g. iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc.)

It’s possible to use basic music players to accomplish 2 of the 3 live performance needs that I presented earlier. This can be really useful as these are apps that are already owned or can be downloaded for free.

1. You can use a WAV (or other audio file types) to play a metronome or percussion loop, etc. Provided the file length is longer than the length of the song, you’re good to go.

2. If you wanted to play backing tracks using a standard media/music player, it is possible but it’s quite limited. Going back to the example of the sick percussionist and the missing keyboard, it’s possible to add them back into the mix using just a phone and an AUX cable, however, you’ll need some sort of DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) to make it happen. All you have to do is create a stereo track and pan your click and cue tracks to the left and then pan your percussion and synth tracks to the right. The sound engineer will be able to send both the left and right sides to your IEMs (In-Ear Monitors) and the right side to the main speakers. This process would have to be repeated for every variation. So if the following night another band member isn’t available but their part is necessary for the performance, you’ll have to repeat this process and add that additional instrument to the right channel along with the percussion and synth.

2. DAW – Digital Audio Workstation (Logic Pro X, ProTools, etc.)

Most musicians and singers probably already have some DAW. The good news is a DAW can be used to accomplish all 3, however they are more catered towards production rather than performance. Despite this, they can be used in a live performance, but I’d strongly recommend not doing this!

I’ll go into more depth but if you’re in a pinch and need to get ready for a performance, you can use your DAW to help you out. I’ll assume you have a basic understanding of your DAW of choice and just say that you’ll have to import your stems into your project and put them all on individual tracks. You can then mute the appropriate tracks. One last thing is to make sure you have your audio routing set up correctly, you can either pan the click and cues left and pan vocals and instruments right with an AUX, but I’d advise using an audio interface. (Depending on the amount of ins and outs on your audio interface, you’ll be able to be more creative with your audio routing).

3. Loop by Loop Community (Playback, etc)

Similar to the first solution, this method can only accomplish 2 of the options from earlier. ‘Loop’ is a freemium software that allows you to upload stems/backing tracks for songs and it’s similar to a DAW in that the separated musical elements can be put onto different audio channels and can be manipulated individually.

The way it works is, you upload a ZIP file with all of your stems for a song, you’ll be prompted to name the song, assign the key and time signature and then name the audio tracks to the corresponding stems. You can also add markers to determine song sections. This process must be repeated for every song. Once this is done, you can create setlists and add songs to those setlists. So in our example, you would upload the songs you need for your set and then make sure the percussion and synth tracks are turned on.

Just to add, Loop is a freemium app, in that it’s free to download and use but, even though it can be used with laptops, phones and tablets, it’s primarily an online app that syncs across devices. This requires storage which you will need to pay for. The initial 5GB is free but depending on the amount of songs in your repertoire, you may find yourself having to pay for more storage, which I should add, is paid on a monthly basis. That being said though, a few things that are really helpful with Loop are; you can easily create and reorder setlists, create custom arrangements, loop sections during a set, change the key, assign custom audio routings, automate what happens when songs end and many other things.

4. Ableton Live

Ableton Live is a DAW, but unlike others, it’s designed for live performances. One of the reasons for this is, rather than copying audio files into an Ableton file (.als), the files are read from the disk, working similarly to how video editing software works.

You can use the exact same steps from the DAW section but just to note that Ableton has 2 ‘views’, arrangement view and Session view. Arrangement View will be familiar to DAW users but Session View is somewhat reminiscent of an Excel spreadsheet with the columns being your audio tracks and the rows being a ‘scene’ that triggers all audio files in that row. This probably requires visual representation in order to better explain, but we promise, we’ll get there.

Lastly, what makes Ableton so powerful is that it offers custom automation options, the ability to warp audio files and easily change their tempo and/or key, sync those audio files to the global tempo and much more that we’ll be exploring in this blog.

Closing Thoughts

There are probably more methods out there but these are the ones that I am familiar with. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments or send an email to hello@renderthemusic.com and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. This post was just an overview but we will be diving deeper into each of these methods and offer some additional tips.

Thanks for reading!