Bandstand Live?

Hi I just received Bandstand today. I have to be honest I was a little dissapointed with it. I play in a duo and was hoping to replace my Roland SC-880 this week. I guess it will happen but not this week . Anyone else using it live? I will continue to support it as I love the concept.

Colin
Australia

 

Same here!

This will not work live, it takes to long to load up the midi files. I was looking to replace my Edirol VSC. I wonder if Native look at their softsynth.

 

Hi all,

yup, we are aware that loading sounds takes too long for live performances in version 1.0. we are actively working on a plan to improve this.


Best,
Markus

 

Thanks Markus, as soon as that happens I'll be using Bandstand live. Any plans to add GS equivalent sound banks?

Colin

 

Hi all,

currently, I believe it is more important to optimize the existing GM bank before adding new sounds.

the drum sets are already GS compatible and could probably quite easily extended to XG mappings.


Best,
Markus

 

Understand, can't wait till this is ready for live.

Colin

 

I would be eternally grateful if you included the XG Drum mapping in your next update. I would like to use Bandstand for my auto accompaniment and kontakt for my lead or melody voices. I plan on using this for live performances. If you made the enhancements your are talking about Bandstand would become the best sound module for these purposes.

Thank you

Frank L. Rosenthal

 

Hi Frank,

glad to have you here! I have been watching your postings in other forums with great interest. this is also where I noticed that we are lacking XG drum mappings.

I am thinking about adding NKI import into Bandstand as well. that way you only need to fire up one instance of Kontakt. would be curious how you would are working exactly.

e.g. would you load in all your Kontakt sounds at the beginning. do you replace GM sounds on the go after loading each song?

I am wondering if we should allow you to replace Bandstand library sounds with your own sounds so that they load automatically with each new song.

or if we should give you an import option with which you can load your own sounds into any channel after you loaded the standard sounds.

or if we should give you a way to load your sounds into memory at startup and switch between them and the standard sounds during the song. e.g. it would be very easy to load your sounds into slots 17 to 32 and assign them to another MIDI port for play via your keyboard while slots 1 - 16 always use Bandstand sounds and play back the song data. you can then mute channels that you don't need.

let us know!


Best,
Markus

 

Markus, I appreciate your quick and kind response to my request concerning the XG Drum Mapping.

The following is a general description of my live performance setup:

I use a 3.02 GHz 2 GB Pentium 4 computer with 2 HDs (7200 rpm 8 mb Cache) and 2 sound cards (Audigy Platium 2 for midi in and out only and Steinberg's VSL 2020 for Audio and midi in).

Host Software is forte Ensemble with audio in.
Kontakt for my melody and lead instruments (highest quality).
Bandstand for my Auto Accompaniment (Yamaha Styles)
Live - Syler for the Yamaha Style Player.
Antares for my vocal harmonizer.
Cakewalk Sonitus Effects (reverb, chorus, equalizer).

Even with some of the concerns with the software I use this as my live performance with very few issues (no crashes) and the CPU running at around 45 to 55%.

For a particular genre of music I load up 8 or so large virtual acoustic instruments in kontakt on separate channels and switch channels on my Roland A-37 Controller Keyboard to call up quickly different instruments:

Channel 1 Organ including NI B4
Channel 2 Flute
Channel 3 Trumpet
Channel 4 Sax
Channel 5 Strings
Channel 6 Piano
Channel 7 Vibes
Channel 8 Guitar

If I next want to play some country music, I would load up 8 or so instruments suitable for this genre of music.

Now if there is a faster, better mouse trap without compromising quality please let me know.

Now the style player works like a midi player in that you load a style, say Swing 1 and it calls up the all the correct voices (drums, bass, piano, guitar, and so on). Also there could be voice changes as you ar playing. This is were there are some issues with Bandstand. It would be nice if Bandstand would repond instantly to these changes including changes in effects. It would be nice if this could be done without to much reduction in the quality of the instruments (smaller instruments could mean lower quality).

For studio work it would be nice to be able to load high quality instruments of your chosing into Bandstand. In a studio one can wait a little for instruments to load.

Also there are occasions where high quality instruments could be used with some slower loading times to ensure the highest quality performance, e.g., high end bookstores with coffee shops, high quality night clubs and so on. In these examples Bandstand works quite ok but it would be nice to load up with say very high quality pianos, jazz guitars, etc. Alternatively, if kontakt could be made to repond to program changes then it to could be used for this purpose. It would need to respond to program changes with repect to drums as well.

With repect to drums not only would it be nice to have XG Drum Compatibility it would also be nice to be able to load up on drums on any channel, e.g., 2, 8, 9 and 10. This would save me a great deal of work converting styles to the strick GM standard.

If you implemented the above I would say NI has no competition when it comes to providing excellent software for use in the studio and live performances.

Others who may read this I have no connection with NI except as a satisfied customer.....for many years.

NI keep up the good work.

Thank you

Frank L. Rosenthal
flr@mts.net

 

Hi Frank,

lot's of great info and ideas in your post below!

I think there is a lot we can take from this over the next updates.


Best,
Markus

 

Markus, can Vokator be used as a vocal harmonizer in a live performance situation? In other words, I would like to send chords via my controller keyboard which plays my singing in the harmonies of the chords I send at the same time (low latency) with my singing.

Looking forward for your advice.

Thank you

Frank L. Rosenthal

 

Hi Frank,

two minds thinking alike ;-)

let me see if I can find out this week - otherwise I am back at work next week and can ask the right product manager.


Best,
Markus

 

Hallo Frank,
I got a look at livestyler ..... But I'm a little bit puzlled about the possibilities to use them when not using Yamaha gear .......
Kind
Luc
BE

 

snyer, welcome to your new world of setting up a software based arranger system.....we should call it snyer2006. You will never be happier once you are fully setup.....that is if you want to operate as a one man band.

To use Yamaha Styles you need to tweak the styles so they fit the wavetable you are using. In the past I used a soundfont wavetable which had XG compatible drums and allowed drums to be used on any channel. I then modified many of the acoustic type instruments (pianos, strings and so on) with higher quality instruments converted from the GiGa GM500. Now I am setting up to use Bandstand and am already using it and kontakt for live performances. Works real good.

The required tweaking if you are going to use Yamaha Styles with Bandstand (GM Standard) is as follows:

Effects and Volumes need to be adjusted.
Suitable instruments need to be selected.
All other Drum tracks need to be merged with Channel 10.

I do most of this with M. Bedesem's MidiPlayer II. Not every style will be good sounding but I have so many styles this has just never been an issue. Now to keep this in perspective I play mostly music which requires virtual acoustic instruments (pianos, strings, trumpets, sax and so on). Using this software the job is done relatively quickly. The only thing is it would be nice if Bandstand could do the drum remapping and allow for drums to be loaded on any channel. This gives you more flexibility and better sounding styles.

I hope this helps.

Have a new musical journey.

Frank L. Rosenthal

 

Hello Frank

Many thanks for your xtended explanations ... But I think it will rather be the snyer 2007 arranger system if (if!) I succeeed the master all those possibilities .... Midi is so easy but also so complex due to his wide range of possibilities ...

Kind regards,

Luc
BE