Started to re-think the live rig set-up yesterday, particularly with the forthcoming release of Ableton Push. What I like about Abletons new controller is that it allows you to do alot without having to look at the computer screen (something I’m loath to have to do on stage). I considered selling my APC40 and ordering a Push controller once they become available but after running thru the demo video’s I reckon I’ll stick with the APC40. Push is more suited to MIDI composition, its very intuitive and responsive but as I’ll mostly be dealing with audio clips and sequences, and with the amount of additional customizing available for the APC via the Native Kontrol apC series the benefits of switching are pretty much marginal.
That said it got me thinking as to how I could improve my current set-up and I decided to ditch the mini-PC and 10″ touch screen monitor I had fixed into the two flightcases and just use my 15″ Vaio laptop (with its keyboard underneath APC40 and its screen set at an angle behind it). There’s two benefits to this; one – its more screen real estate for me to monitor the changes I make in Ableton, set right behind the APC and not to the right of it as the touch screen was before (this also packs the whole live set-up neatly into just one flightcase). And two, I get the performance and reliability of the Vaio laptop itself, which running off a solid state drive with 8gigs of Ram is more suited to a live situation. It’ll take alittle carpentry to make sure it all fits together but I think it’ll be well worth it.
Elsewhere’s in the studio this week I started on this book. It was hard to get my head around the lessons at the start but once I ran thru them a few times it starts to make sense and I can see how much difference it could make to my songs if I stick at it for a year or so. Half an hour to forty minutes a day should do the trick. I haven’t yet got back to any music production work in the new year but I did flesh out the music video plan for Enter the Dragon some more.
