Also get someone else to help you during gig if possible, get them to be your human limiter. If the monitoring ain’t great its essential. You can bet that once the gig is underway it will sound different to sound check, due to your Adrenalin and the crowds effect on the sound.
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@mzero: First of all, huge thanks to you Mark for all the advice and all the work you did on this post. The file is very helpful man, it’s really nice to have the chain itself 
I’m totally using these! will continue testing and see which sounds better on a PA system.
Cheers to you my man and much thanks 
@RhythmDroid: Well said 
@stutech, @mkdsl : What you say is true, I believe the best decisions will come after I gain some experience in a live setting and see how everything works. I guess yes it will all depend on finetuning things during the soundcheck, if everything is mixed well, without overdoing processing, it should come down to how the PA will respond, and how to deal with that and work with its advantages. @stutech It’s not a bit offensive haha, very informative actually, cheers 
@AAdra: I think I have to use some processing as I can’t guarantee the mixer nor the PA, also, all my drums are on one channel, and all synth tracks are one another, I only have 2 channels to work with. And regarding the sound, I have maybe 3-4 styles in the set, some tracks are mellow, spacey and quiet, and others are tight, sharp, and loud, that’s also one of the reasons why I want to do some processing in the box, as it gives me more control. Thanks
@immi: I’m actually a little worried about the adrenalin and the crowds response, not just the effect 
I hope it works out positively though
You all have been very generous, much thanks to you. 
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That’s some next-level helpfulness there @mzero…
More bonus points! 
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I mean its always a task constantly practicing and looking for anything to improve sound and smaller mixers!
I purchased the new Boss Tone Match mixer I will let you know how that works out once I get it in April have some shows right around then too solid feedback on it after… it’s digital has everything you are using without the computer
best of luck
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I looked at it, seems legit. Yes I’m definitely interested in knowing how that will work out. 
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This. And in any live situation you should trust the sound guy to filter out any unwanted frequencies from your instruments. The FOH hears (and often sees) what’s up and they will compensate if there’s something to compensate. Because every venue is different, sounds different, every venue will benefit from the local guy who knows how to make it sound good and what frequencies are to watch out for.
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You should see what sort of sound guys exist in this country 
Believe me I’m way more comfortable knowing I’m in control a lot of the time
I know what you mean. If you do EQ your set, do it on site before the show. Compression and other effects I would generally avoid - especially using software plugins. I would do everything on the boxes themselves and ditch having to take a laptop, audio interface and all that crap with me. Less moving parts FTW!
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That doesn’t make sense. It’s the laptop that allows you to have “less moving parts”. Hell, you can do everything on it an not have anything else at all on stage if you want to. If we wanted to perform live without a laptop, we’d need 10 times more gear than we use now. Even if we used a workstation synth for most of the heavy lifting, it would still be more hassle than a simple laptop plus MIDI controller. (Think flights and carry-on v checked baggage.)
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I think he meant metaphorically. There’s a lot more that can go wrong with all the different parts trying to work together on a laptop.
I’ve tried using an outboard compressor for live sets. I’m selling it, because while I could find settings that worked well for me at home, they never translated well in other settings – perhaps because the venues add their own comp/limiting to protect their speakers, and of course the shape of the room and other things. As said above, better to try and get a nice even mix out your box/es and hope that you have a competent sound engineer.
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Again, the opposite is true. Laptops are bulletproof. You don’t even need power for a laptop or anything you attach to it. e.g. My live set-up for the last few years has been a laptop plus a Novation Ultranova. The Ultranova plugs into the laptop’s USB, where it draws power, and that is literally my entire set-up. Two “boxes” and one cable. From there all I need is to get the output from the Ultranova to FoH and I’m ready to go. Absolutely nothing can go wrong because everything happens inside the laptop, where it can’t break or give me any of the myriad problems you get with hardware equipment.
And if you’re worried about your laptop blowing up during soundcheck or something, you have the peace of mind that you can grab another computer and load everything into that as a back-up/stand-by. That’s not something you can do with your hardware, unless you’ve got way too much money to burn. Since we switched from hardware to software, we’ve had only a tiny fraction of the number of problems we used to have in our hardware days.
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Hardware or Software, the main ingredient is people. If there is a FOH guy or girl, offer to buy them a drink, have a quick rave about what they do, and what sound you humbly hope to achieve.
Some clubs won’t have a FOH person though.
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I know it isn’t as much “fun,” but with sounds that need taming I typically use the filters in my AR and DT as EQs. If there are too many higher frequencies I use the low-pass, and the high-pass for too much rumble.
This will probably change for the DT when OB 1.2 comes out. I will be able to record the 8 tracks through Ableton and EQ appropriately. However, I will likely always use AR through OB from the master out for the compressor and the warmth the analog engines/16 bit-rate sampling impart through the effects chain.
The compressor on the AR can be used as an effective transient shaper by setting SEQ to HIT and adjusting the other parameters. RATio at maximum has the most dramatic results.
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It is a little different to have different instruments plugging into an audio interface that’s plugged into a laptop in a DAW and processing the incoming signal with a plugin chain. Then sending that processed audio back through the interface to the FOH. I think it adds complexity. But you know, whatever works for you. I’m not here to bash laptops, it was just my advice in this specific situation.
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But what’s the alternative? A hardware mixer and hardware effects create far greater complexity, longer signal paths, at least as many gain stages and all the rest of it. And unless you can afford really expensive hardware effects units, noise will quickly become an issue.
The alternative is to trust the sounds guy/girls. Leave all the mixing and EQ-ing and compressing to them.
Too true. My band has played with a lot of the big names in our scene (EBM) and almost all of them have everything pre-recorded. VNV Nation, for instance, just have a CD-R playing from FoH and they sing along. They have keyboards on stage but only use them on one song in the whole set. Even KMFDM have all their backing pre-recorded and being spat out of ProTools on stage. If both their guitarists stopped playing mid-song, I’m not sure the audience would notice the difference. What’s really annoying is that both those bands, and the others, put on great live shows. I think it’s you and I who are the mugs.
It comes down to where you want to draw the line. Having done each for around 20 years (nearly 40 years in total now), I see absolutely no difference between using a laptop and a bunch of hardware, except the former is much easier to set-up and break down, as well as being more reliable, more versatile and far more powerful. Where we draw the line is that the laptop needs to be generating the majority of the sound in realtime, which is no different to any digital hardware, and there need to be parts we play live on stage. Realistically, it’s just arbitrary (and more than a little bit vain) but it’s the line we decided not to cross. I’d shoot myself in the face before I’d go back to relying on hardware on stage. After all these years I am far too spoiled.
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Most of the time that is simply not an option for us. At best we’re likely to get four channels (mono) and at least half the time we don’t get to soundcheck at all. It’s nice if you’re headlining but when you’re just a support band or you’re doing a festival, it pays to be 100% self-reliant.
The other problem we encounter is that most of the venues we play are rock venues and the FoH guys have no idea what to do with our music.
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I’m going to go with @BONES on this one, I find myself buying new synths and drum machines when I have some money to spare, buying new equipment just to have a better sound is a little unaffordable on my end. Synths are very expensive as it is.
The laptop as a mixing board is not the ideal sound-wise, but I think it’s the best option given the price and size of the alternative, I can barely carry my A4, Digitakt, and huge soundcard to whichever gig I can land. And for travelling, it’s hard enough as it is with only these units.
Keep in mind that when you finalise tracks and mix/master, when you play them on PA systems they sound fine if it’s taken into account of course. So with the processing power current computers have, you can get kind of close to that on a live version.
I understand that it’s a world of difference when you’re playing live instruments (such as guitars, a piano or drums) versus a synthesizer, I think synths are much safer to process in the box than other instruments.
And if you can tweak your settings to suit PA systems in soundcheck, I’m sure with enough time, you can make the necessary tweaks to make everything sound as good as that PA can deliver.
@IVAN_B I understand what you’re saying, but in my case, I only have 2 instruments, the Analog four has 4 tracks playing on 1 output, and the Digitakt has 8 (So there’s not much to even play with). And to put your trust in someone to have full control over your sound (who in many cases here, can be unqualified, and the PA equipment is sometimes sub-par) is a huge risk to the performance IMO. If they have the necessary skills to be trustable, that’s fine, but otherwise, you need to have an alternative up your sleeve. And I think ITB processing is it. I actually know of a few performers who invested in very expensive soundcards to deliver the sound they needed in a live-show, and they actually play music instruments (guitars, percussions, vocals…etc), and it sounds pretty good.
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