Using Cakewalk When Playing Live?

I'm starting a new band to play live. I've been creating in the studio for years, and this will be an all original performance unit to play the music I created using Cakewalk.

Since some of the voices employed include SI electronic keyboards (and other plug ins), the thought occurred to me to use CW X1 (expanded) as sort of a live performance library that could call up a multiple keyboard configurations to be played live -- routing voices and plugins via midi (and distinctive audio outputs via the MAudio sound card) to four separate keyboard controllers at the click of a button on a per song basis -- each change of configuration from song to song to be played live by loading the CW project and having all the voices set up accordingly.

It was as I was going about trying to make this happen that I hit the wall I didn't anticipate. In CW, the only keyboard that comes through live appears to occur only on the highlighted channel. I'm not sure if CW, then, can be used in this fashion.

Is anyone using it as I want to? Is there a way to make CW do what I desire?





 

i've played live using cake several times now.  my approach is a combination of the matrix view and vst instruments and pre-recorded audio tracks.  basically i set up vsts on a per channel midi basis. i'll usually be running a combination of about 3 nstances of rapture, 3 of dim pro, 3 of z3ta+2 and 3 miscs of either aria engine or massive/kontakt rigs.  i have fx that i control via midi as well.  so, with each synth on a separate channel (or same for multis) i choose the channel output via my keyboard (m-audio oxygen 49) which effectively acts as a bank/program change.  i've recently started using the nanopad2 to have a dedicated controller to trigger cells and columns in the matrix.  i have backing tracks running in audio tracks so the only thing i control there is fx.  i've also started building sfz files to work in rapture and dim pro that include keyswitching parameters so i don't have to change channels as much.  i've had as many as 24 tracks going at the same time.
it works like a charm and my system is pretty mediocre.  i've never had a crash in an hour long performance.  i did test the hell out of it beforehand to see if it would hold up, and i would recommend you do that as well. 

cheers!

You're the person, ST, I need to chat with. I'm a CW user back to "Pro Audio 5" ... but I've NEVER used it for this purpose. You apparently have figured out what I need to know. I hope you don't mind my questions as I attempt to gain your knowledge as I try to make, what you suggest, actually work.

right, so my oxy 49 has 16 channels.  say i route chan 1 to dimpro channel 1 input chan 2 to rap channel 2 input... and so on down the line.  i usually leave matrix view to be triggered by channel 16. on the oxy 49 there are 8 buttons. i'll map those to columns / cells to trigger.  the thing that takes the most time is STANDARDIZING everything.  work out what the common denominator between all the songs are and build all your midi programming around that.  i also find clear markings on the keyboard help.  i use colored construction paper (lol) and tape them down on the keys.  so blue maps to, say, chords and red maps to sample triggers, and yellow maps to arpeggiations etc.  for the sliders i standardize everything so one will control volume lfos and one will control cutoff etc.  it's all about planning, finding the common denominator and setting that to a fixed set of controls and then the ancillary, song dependent, controls get mapped last.  send me a pm and i'd be happy to convo.

I'm not that afraid of crashes, and I'll have the whole rig on a power conditioner/battery backup.

Sonar isn't really "working" that hard by running two or three plugs at once ... and primarily is acting as an automated midi setup on a per song basis. It's not "running" and trying to play/record.

Conceptually, it's faster (I'm hoping) to have a centralized "library" system rather than having to change things manually between songs on the fly. 

All you have to do is have your set list with the individual voicing for each song stored in a project file. Then when opening the project, have the individual keyboards assigned to consistent midi channels (i.e. keyboard one is always on midi channel one etc...), and once the project opens, it automatically sets each individual keyboard to its appropriate settings by loading the voice and assigning the routing.

What I was uncertain of was whether multiple keyboards could be played at once ... or whether you'd only hear the one where the midi channel was highlighted. We're going to have 4 separate keyboards with multiple people playing multiple parts at various times, so the ability to have Sonar play multiple plugs by multiple people inputting at once is critical.

I know that it's going to take some trial and error to figure out exactly how to make things work, but I'm glad to know that if I invest the time doing so, that it is possible. 

K dub


All you have to do is have your set list with the individual voicing for each song stored in a project file. Then when opening the project, have the individual keyboards assigned to consistent midi channels (i.e. keyboard one is always on midi channel one etc...), and once the project opens, it automatically sets each individual keyboard to its appropriate settings by loading the voice and assigning the routing.

What I was uncertain of was whether multiple keyboards could be played at once ... or whether you'd only hear the one where the midi channel was highlighted. We're going to have 4 separate keyboards with multiple people playing multiple parts at various times, so the ability to have Sonar play multiple plugs by multiple people inputting at once is critical. 

Oh you can totally do that!!  the one thing i would recommend though is have an audio interface unit that's capable of multiple outputs so the output of each synth can go to separate physical outs.  that way mixing and leveling for the engineer will be a bit easier and you don't have to worry about levels and mixing so much in sonar - just do from a console. it'll minimize the clipping you might get.  i use a m-audio fast track ultra 8x8.  http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may08/articles/fasttrackultra.htm


another thing i would do though - because you might run into midi latency - is, if possible, use usb outs from the keyboards to separate usb ports on the computer you'll be using. 

wow thats a lot of money for a bitt of software. not even an established company.

Hi Kevin,

It is totally possible to do what you're talking about with Sonar, but Brainspawn's Forte is built exactly for this kind of scenario. My project, Kicksville, has 8 different computers on stage, and we depend heavily on Forte. We also use Sonar, but its role is as the master source for audio playback, patch change info to the Forte rigs, and feeding timecode/controller info to video and lighting. All our keyboard sounds, guitar/bass FX, drum kit processing, etc., are handled by Forte. And it rocks....In 5 years of playing live, we've never had a system go down (knock on wood...). We did use Sonar for a little while in the way you're talking about, but it was kind of clumsy. Forte is a much better solution. Hope this was helpful!

@f@ker - the worst was having a guitarist show up with a tube amp... ten seconds in a tube blew and he hadnt brought extras. or an acoustic. weak.

And I forgot to add that due to the instant switching and the chord-holding during switch that I talked about in my last post, I can also switch presets multiple times within 1 song, so that using the same midi controllers (I use 2), I can be triggering a sequence for an intro, then playing brass on the first note of the verse, then switching to strings for some guitar solo, then back to something else, without having to leave playing on the same controller.

Being able to also do all of the above with the 2nd controller gives me unparalleled combinations of playing configurations, and it is all instant.

Forte has another feature that you can choose whether or not, on a preset by preset basis, you want any samples to be reloaded when switching presets where a sample-based sound is loaded.  This means that if I tell it NOT to reload samples unless there is an explicit instruction to load a different set of samples, that even though I switch presets from say a sample-based piano to a minimoog patch, then come back 10 minutes later, it is STILL an instant switch back to the sample-based piano sound, because it left those samples loaded.

Switching from project to project in Sonar has to load up samples EVERY time.

Download Forte's 30-day trial and play with it.  You'll see.

Send me a PM and I will continue anybody's discussion on Forte use.

Bob Bone 

 do either of these work well for patch changes using dim pro and rapture?

vanblah


Although I use Sonar for recording and I can't reccomend it enough, I use Cantabile (http://www.cantabilesoftware.com/) for live.  I have four keyboards connected to the computer.  There was a small learning curve for routing (and it still confuses me a little bit when I create new sessions) but I can switch between song set ups very quickly.  Once you figure it out it's so much easier.  I have a "set list" that includes every song I'm going to play and then I can just switch around song-by-song.  Since the synths are already loaded the only thing it's doing is changing patches so there is no waiting for a synth to load when I change songs.

+1 for Cantabile!
 
Does all you asked for, and then some!!
 
You can take the "lite" version for a free test spin, but keep in mind that the "pro" version has a VERY full feature list...

Great info here! Thanks to all for the suggestions and sharing the challenges -- terrific to know what the problems may be with what I'm trying to do before I have to experience them first hand!

Kev-

the thought occurred to me to use CW X1 (expanded)

The program is called Sonar X1, not Cakewalk X1. 

I am using Sonar 8.3 as a VST/VSTi host (I know I need to upgrade :)). In the past I did not run many VSTs, so switching presets was not an issue. Now I am using many more VSTi's and need to create setups for different songs and I want to be able to switch quickly from one preset to another. An added bonus would be to have easy setlist management. My band typical setlist is typically 40/45 songs per night and although the songs do not change that often, the order might change.  My current setup is: 1) triton 88 keys (both internal sound engine and controller for VSTi's) 2) CX3 (controller only) 3) pcr-800 (controller only).  I do not need to run sequences. Just generate/process sounds. I run a lot of VSTi's (more than 70 for all the songs)
I briefly tried the songlist feature in Sonar and it did not work well for me, too much time loading some projects, especially if they had large sample sets.  The current way that I am implementing this to quickly switch from one song to another is to create a marker for one particular song, add the VSTi's and tracks that I need and mute (using envelopes) all tracks except the ones that I need for the song. Once I have this, I can go through markers (or the go to time option) from one setup to another.  As far as switching and setlist management, I am writing a simple program that creates and manages the setlist and sends keystrokes ("F5" + the time) to Sonar, so that I can go from one marker to another with a single click or key press.  Is there any easier/more intuitive way to achieve what I need?   Thanks  -Marco  PS: CPU power, so far, has not been an issue, I have a rackmounted 2600k