LAPTOPS: What Do You Use?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Gray on January 4, 2010 at 4:26pm

I've been thinking about trying this for worship, and for teaching new music to the worship team. The only program I currently have is BIAB - it seems like it would be pretty easy to use in a live setting. For worship, what I need is percussion (we don't currently have a drummer). I checked out your video and music at wadesteele.com - great piano! So I saw how you set up Ableton, but still not really sure how you are using it. So what instruments are you playing from the laptop? Bless y'all!

Permalink Reply by Wade Steele on February 2, 2010 at 4:58pm

Hi John, sorry for not getting back to you sooner. Thank you for your kind words. I use Ableton to run mostly click and percussion that runs along side our drummers. On occasion I have run added synth parts or guitar parts to thicken up the sound with our guitarist. It gets a bit more complicated to program and operate during a live service but it does add to the overall sound. I play keys and have Ableton connected to my M-Audio Trigger Finger pad controller with various loops controlled from a specific pad - I will post a video of my specific set up if you would like. Have a blessed day and thank you for all that you do for God's Kingdom!

Permalink Reply by john smith on January 25, 2010 at 9:56pm

Hello from The Warehouse Church/Vineyard of Leesburg, Florida
We used a Toshiba, 1.4 w/ 1gb ram, 60g HD.
Edirol 2x4 card..ASIO drivers.
Sonar 8
Plugins: TruePianos, Symphobia, Addictive Drums, All the latest Cakewalk Native plugs, Native Instruments B4 and other synth stuff.
(more dang plugs than I could ever use)
Yamaha 88 weighted key controller
I had access to the plugs, LIVE from the keyboard...awesome indeed!
Yamaha midi module (used to create a click back for the band IEMs)
I would lay down parts, bounce down to a 2 channel track for live playback.
Click was sync'd from a BPM MIDI track to the Yamaha module (another channel to the desk/auxxes)
I play guitar and keys, and the obvious is....can't do them both.
Where there were solos, I could lay down guitar backing to accompany.
It took quite awhile for most to figure out we weren't playing it all live, some never knew!
Yep..all good things must come to an end....tis' all gone now.
Best sounding band I have played in in 30 years!..I loved it!.........too much..... (aha,..a clue)
Never replaced any players, just added what we couldn't cover live. If a train wreck arrived, we could continue.
Believe me, YOU WILL have train wrecks..I don't care how good you are. ;)
Only used tracks on the "power covers"...total live for intimate tunes.

Permalink Reply by Wade Steele on February 2, 2010 at 5:01pm

What a great set up! Have you ever had any of your set up crash? I have not but was curious about yours because it seems like an extremely detailed set up with all the virtual synths. I really like that you primarily use the tracks for the more upbeat songs and completely live band for the intimate tunes as I have found the same to be true for what we do here in Seattle at The City Church. Thank you for sharing and may God richly bless you!

Permalink Reply by john smith on February 4, 2010 at 1:22pm

Hi Wade,
Never a hard crash. Some "pilot error". Practicing with it 1st works out the bugs.
The tracks always start the song, even if it meant duplicating the starting instrument for a few bars.
It's easy to make mistakes if trying to do too much at one time, that's primarily why I laid down the work at home, and bounced it to stereo tracks.

Permalink Reply by john smith on February 4, 2010 at 4:33pm

Wade,
How many on your team? What pieces?
Are / were they apprehensive about tracking?
The drummer was a little taken back at first, then he found he had more freedom by not having others "pushing" him through a section or a riff.
It as tuff at first....then we all got hooked on it. I do miss the fullness of the sound, and the accuracy.

Permalink Reply by Peter Graham on April 30, 2010 at 10:30pm

Myself and the DJ in our band run linux Ubuntu Studio edition .. it takes some getting used to .. but its open source and its free!

Permalink Reply by Wade Steele on May 1, 2010 at 1:54am

That is great Peter. I took a look at what you are doing with Digital Prayers and I like what I hear. How have churches and youth groups responded to electronica music? Are there other gigs that you play outside of churches? I will be keeping up on what you are doing, I enjoy listening to electronica and have considered that as well but here in the states churches like their Hillsong United and PlanetShaker (all good but I like my synth music personally). Blessings!

Wade

Permalink Reply by Peter Graham on May 1, 2010 at 2:05am

We are still in the writing faze .. havent gigged yet at all. But we have some sick tracks that will be up on the myspace .. the stuff thats up there now is pretty basic compared to what we have now.

Permalink Reply by Jon Wolske on November 6, 2010 at 8:49pm

I use my laptop (older Compaq V5000 - not sure what the processor is, but it's not great....) with AMPLITUBE 2 for my guitar sounds.

I don't have anything sample or sequence-wise that I do on the computer, but I really enjoy the sounds and variety I can get by having a nice program I can use!!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1335638560361&set=a.1237...