How to play many different projects live

I'm using Maschine Jam with Maschine 2 software. I prepared many projects for playing live but then realised that you can’t have a continuous mix of different projects because only one project loads at a time. I then thought well I’ll make one project by saving all my projects as individual groups with different scenes so I can mix between them, but after loading more than 3 groups in the one project my CPU went crazy, so that wasn’t possible. What I would like to know is how I can play and mix my many different projects in a live setting.
Many thanks for any advice.

 

You can use reaper or any daw and load 2 instances of maschine and that way blend between them. I tried it myself long time ago and it worked but never needed it again. Now I use Traktor with a dj controller for the first two decks and maschine for two sample decks.

Uwe

 

D-One plays live with Maschine. He should be able to reply.

 

Thanks mate. I'll look into it..

Thanks mate. Hopefully I'll get some ideas..

 

Hello @D-One can you help?

 

3 groups and your CPU maxes out? That's not normal, something is wrong. Most likely you are using "heavy" VSTs and processing.
Are you part of a group or is it solo performance? Solo performances are much harder to prepare because of the transitions.

People usually make music with no other purpose other than it sounding good but when it comes the time to perform it's advised that the project is adapted with a special "live version". It's the same if your a guitar player, for example, you might have a bunch of guitar layers on studio but in a performance usually, things get simplified for practical reasons.

You need to strip the project out of anything that is not 100% needed in order to simplify and make the project's as lightweight as possible, for example, if you have constant dynamic processors, distortion, EQ's, etc, then resample the source so you don't waste resources on effects that will not be tweaked live, this includes any master effects, this is key IMHO. Let's say you have a big Kontakt Piano Instrument on a project, resample it, chop it up and use it as a sample, this frees RAM & CPU.

 

But do you load projects between tracks, live? Or do you setup one big live project with all the (simplified) groups, scenes etc of all the tracks for the live set/show?

 

Yes. But I'm not a great example, i only use Maschine for really simple stuff and I am not a solo act, there is someone else with me using Ableton and sometimes a full band. For most songs, I use the same project with a bunch of groups, usually one group per song. Some songs require a full exclusive project but since i don't have any Kontakt libs they load fast enough between a song ending, people cheering and the next song.
If I were to use something that takes longer to load I would suggest for that song to be after "talk time", the time on the show that vocalist usually talkes a bit more between two songs (to introduce the band, say thanks, talk about the album etc..) of course if one is a solo act then you have to do this yourself. Loading times are not a big deal even in big bands sometimes someone needs to switch guitars, adjust gear, etc... A few moments of silence is ok too.

Jeremy Ellis does a one hour show with 2 Maschine's alone, only loads new projects every 20min or so and when he does he grabs the Mic and communicates with the crowd while projects are loading.

 

I agree, 3 groups isn't many for the CPU to max out, especially as my groups only contain samples and no VST's. I really don't know why this is, but many thanks for your advice.

My problem is I'm playing continuous tracks for a couple of hours, no talking between.. The only way I can do this is to load one group at a time..

 

Thanks for the insight, much appreciated. Previous band I played in, was a dance/disco act, and it took tons of work and thinking to convert the productions into a single stripped down Ableton Live project for the rest of the band to play together with. But with Maschine, different beast. Thanks for sharing.

 

Oh... If its just samples than something is definitely wrong. Im guessing you have a decent computer, could your audio buffer be too short for your processing power? Try increasing it and find a balance between buffer and latency. Does the CPU immediately spike when a new group is loaded?

No prob. Ableton seems to handle big complicated projects a lot better than Maschine, still... its a tedious process to convert studio production to a live performance set, figuring stuff out takes quite some time especially if theres no pauses between songs.