My Music
Techno, loopy, melodic, dubby, aiming for hypnotic. The idea of this live setup is to be able to play with my songs like a dub mixer with my launch control XL (so mute tracks, play with levels, filters and effects sends), transition between tracks like with Ableton clips and all that while being able to change song by changing pattern.
This is intended to be a core setup that allows me to play released and unreleased songs I produced in the studio. Of course, involving more instruments and a mixer, more improvisation could be added to the mix, but that’s beyond what I’m explaining here.
My Gear
Octatrack, Launch Control XL, Model Samples, Boss RE-20, Boss RV-6, EHX Platform
My Octatrack Setup
T1-T6 – STATIC MACHINES, Loops and Stems from my tracks. Each has a filter and a reverb assigned to the relevant channel on the LCXL. Order is: Kick, Cymbals, Percs, Bass, Lead, Back
T7 – THRU Machines for the Model Samples where I have some drum machines samples to have fun with on top of my tracks. Same effects and mapping as track 1-6
T8 - MASTER with a filter and a reverb mapped to the 8th channel on my LCXL
RE-20 and RV-6 pedals are used as send effects using the cue output and the direct inputs A&B, and the level is mapped to a button on the LCLX
BANKS
4 Tracks per bank, I aim to organize banks by BPM but it’s not the case at the moment. My tracks are warped into Ableton to the closest BPM multiple of 5 so I can avoid weird glitches due to timestretching. And I only play the play the OT at those multiples of 5. Currently I have 120, 125 and 130 BPM tracks.
PARTS
One part per song, so four songs per bank. Each song only has one audio file per track, so six in total. Audio tracks are stitchings of loops and stems exported from Ableton and glued together using Octachainer, then imported and used as sliced in the OT. That way, if I want the first loop of percs, I launch the corresponding slice on the percs track, and if I want to launch the stem of the full track, I just need to change slice.
PATTERNS
I have 3 patterns per track:
- one intro pattern with armable trigs usually locked on the first slice of my audio tracks, except for the bass one that I usually don’t launch then. They all have start silent to no, this way I can have loops from the previous pattern continue looping while I take out parts, launch the new one by arming the trig and bring it in.
- one main pattern that launches stems for some tracks (usually not the kick as it is a loop that runs the whole song). Trigs have a “1st” condition so stems are triggered when I change pattern but the run free for the rest of the song.
- one outro pattern with outro loops that have “1st” conditions too so i can change to this pattern, let it start, and then change to the intro pattern of the following track right away and work on my transition. I tend to cut the bass at that moment by making it start silent and not putting a trigger.
SCENES
Not using scenes for the moment
LFOs
Not using LFOs either
How I prepare the set
So the longest part of the preparation is exporting loops and stems and stitching them together using Ableton and Octachainer. I do a first export of the six groups of tracks from the original Ableton projects, taking out fades, that way I get six nice stems at the correct tempo and overall volume. Then I import those stems in another Ableton project that I use to extract loops for my intros and outros and to prepare the main stems for each channel. I start all them at the same point of my track so the song plays well when moving to the main pattern. And then I loop the end a few times so I get a bit of security and time to move to the outro pattern when playing the main pattern.
Once I have all my loops and stems, I glue them together using Octachainer, ususally a few intro loops first, the main stem and then an outro loop. This way I know when I build my patterns on the OT that the intro pattern should launch the first slice, the main pattern while launch the next to last slice and the outro pattern while launch the last one. The chains are glued at the correct OT BPM, are all in loop mode and timestretch is either beats for drum parts or normal for melodic ones.
I then import everything into the OT and build my patterns as explained for every song.
This way of working allows me to only use six audio tracks per song, while still giving a lot of freedom by allowing to effect and mix each one of them individually. The only drawback is the samples list limit that only allows me a maximum of around 21 tracks (128/6 = 21,3333) which allows me to play a little more than two hours.
How I Play
In principle, I don’t need the M:S to play, everything can be done with just the OT.
I start by building my first track with the intro pattern, bringing loops in slowly, using multiple slices to add variation. When the track is full enough, I move to the main pattern which plays the main part of the song’s arrangement, giving freedom to play with levels, effects and filters, while adding some percussions with the model samples. When the arrangement comes to the ending loop I can then start my transition.
My Transitions
So once I reached the ending loop (or before depending on the “success” of the track 
) I move to the outro pattern which launches ending loops. I immediately move to the intro pattern of the next song and start working my transition buy fading out loops, sending parts to delays, and bringing in loops from the new track. Once everything is in, I can start the cycle again.
Some Examples
Here are two recording of rehearsals I did recently for an upcoming gig. You will hear that it is still a bit wonky because I have to get used to this way of playing (it is mostly theory for the moment) but still I think it can work really well and allow me to play my tracks with a lot of freedom and smoothness
I hope everything was it least understandable, if something isn’t clear please feel free to tell and I’ll edit the post for clarity, describing an OT live set is never an easy exercice!