What’s Wrong With Using Ableton to Run In-Ear Monitors?

If you want to use in-ears and set up monitoring for your band, you should not use your computer interface and Ableton Live to do that. And today's episode of behind the space bar. I'm going to explain exactly why not. Hey everyone, and welcome back to behind the spacebar. This is the podcast that helps you learn how to perform like a pro with able to live and you're going well. We normally talk about able to live and backing tracks and keys in my living all the fun stuff. Why are we talking about in years? What the heck? Does that have to do with using packing tracks? Well, it's it's crucial. It's part of what I call the 3T transition timeline really cheesy name. I know but number one we have to transition to using in here's number two transition to be able to play with a click so that number three we can transition to playing with tracks notice how I didn't say play two tracks or play too playing with is different than playing too another podcast conversation for another day, but crucial to the part of using backing tracks is using any ears. Now. I have tons and tons of content which I cannot cover all of it in today's episode about in years how to transition your team. If you're worship leader how to convince your band. If you are the one person in your band that wants to use any ears and the others don't to use their ears how to set up an inexpensive Vineyard system even to a really old webinar probably about four years old. Talk about creating a great in your mix. I've thrown all that together in a playlist for free that you can watch on YouTube. But let's just start at the beginning. Let's agree. We all should use any ears if you're not on the fence or if you're on the fence, you're not in agreement about that check out some of the content in that playlist, but now we're on to the point of how to set this up how to make this happen for me is I think it's maybe important for you to know a bit of my background most of my performance scenarios and performance background is with a band on stage. I've done some solo performance like done a live looping thing in a coffee shop once with my guitar done some solo guitar things done some playing keys and guitar and my wife singing kind of stuff, but the majority of it is me in a band and in most of those scenarios, I walk into a situation a venue whether it's a church whether it's a club whether it's a theater whether it's an arena where someone has brought in sound equipment and has already set up in here for me now. I Been in some situations where I was in charge of figuring out. Okay. What did we buy? How do we set up in ears? But the majority of my situations is I walk into something. Sorry been set up. So I was kind of shocked and surprised the first couple times someone reached out to me and said, hey, I'm trying to set up in years for me. I'm the drummer. How can I use able to live for tracks and do all my inner monitoring and I thought well, that's silly. Why would you want to do that? You've got in years there at the venue and then I've had solo artists and live looping artist reach out and go. Hey, so I've got this interface. How do I set up monitors in any years using my interface and still process vocals and do all that? And I thought we have a monitor console. This is weird. So I've had to step out of my context my scenario a little bit to realize and consider. There are a lot of different contexts a lot of different people watching this listening that have different backgrounds if you're background is primarily a band playing on Sage walking into videos that are already set up today's content probably is not gonna be for you if you are a solo live looping Someone who's looking to be on stage and perform at some point or to take your music from the studio to the stage and you go I know I need to have any ears. How can I do this today's content is all for you now. Context is everything. I want to say. If you are a solo artist meaning you're just literally one person on stage. It is possible that you could use your interface in able to live for monitors and for in-ears as well, too. But you should still listen to today's episode because I want to share the reasons why you should not 100% If you're in a band you should not use able to live in your interface for monitors. We'll get into that. But if you're a solo artist, there's scenarios where you could but we'll talk about that in future videos. I still would suggest starting with the assumption that you could okay. I've made way too many caveats and way too many backstores and context let's get to it. Okay. Number one. Number one reason why you should not use your computer interface and able to live for in years and for monitoring is latency when you Plug a microphone set a couple different mics up against a drum set. I take those microphones. I plug those into my interface. I then convert that analog signal into a digital signal through my interface go through the USB cable into Ableton Live, I you know create effects add effects and able to live send those back out of able to live through the headphone output of my interface plug my headphones in I have introduced massive likely massive amounts of latency into my signal. What is latency. It's a delay between when you perform an action and when you actually hear it, so for me the most common way to experience this is plug-in mini controller into Ableton Live increase your buffer size super high the highest it could possibly go load in a mini sound into able to live and press play. What you're going to hear is you're going to hit it and then it's it's gonna kind of feel like there's a delay on it. Like you hear the sound after you play it you can 100% here. If you plug a microphone into your interface again increase that buffer aside buffer size Sky High monitor through your interface actually. Being ableton's output and talk and you'll hear sometimes I mean, it feels like seconds worth of delay. It just feels so delayed latency is is the I think one of the things that people that are not used to performing live on stage aren't familiar with that's holding them back and keeping them from having a great performance particularly great in-ears. Let's talk about if we're doing this for a full band on stage. Let's forget the solo artist for a second. I'm drum set bass guitar player vocals. I've got mics to connect all of those to my audio interface. To process all that. We'll talk about that in a moment. But I need a computer that's strong enough to handle all that to keep my buffer size as low as possible so that I have the least amount of latency possible in my computer to hear all those things in real time. And when you use a audio interface to create your your monitoring setup and you're using a doll to do your processing and to create your mixes to then send back out of that audio interface you are introducing undo unneeded latency, maybe the best way to experience. This is It's almost like, you know search on the app store for one of those apps that ads latency And Delay, it's like a drunk app to make it sound like you're drunk and you're slurring your words because not many of us can you know record here ourselves back and not have that effect us. It's really hard to keep talking and to talk through it. I see a lot of folks that create in your setups that are very latent because they're using their interface and able to live because they haven't heard that they shouldn't and they end up creating a sound that maybe Best be described as mushy it's not tight. It's really hard for the basis to lock in with the drummer not because they're bad musician. But because they're hearing a signal that's so far behind. What's actually happening in the moment. It's it's like they're in a different zip code. It's just so hard to lock in and play together. So latency is the number one culprit and number one reason why you should not use your audio interface and your doll for years. Number two again, let's talk full band is you've got to get every input of your band to your interface because what you do not want to do is say And again, I have people reach out all the time that say Hey, I'm a drummer. I need to create an inner mix for me. And I'm gonna I need to use my interface and my computer because I can't carry around extra gear I get that. I understand that but what they're talking about doing is getting their drum mics to their interface, but not getting the basis not getting the lead vocalists not getting the guitar player or worse yet, maybe getting the basis and guitar player and the vocalist from like a monitor console plugging that in their interface and then getting the drum mics. It's just becomes a mess. When you have in years. You want to hear everything on stage. Now you want to adjust it with varying levels and we'll talk about some other things you can do to improve your inner mix here in a second, but you want to have every single one of those inputs so that you don't feel isolated and alone using in ears doesn't have to be a bad experience. If you have a bad mix it's gonna feel restrictive. It's gonna feel like you can't lock in like you can't Groove but if you have a great in your mix, it's gonna be one of the best experiences you'll ever have on stage because you're gonna have a mix that's exactly You need to hear just enough of the band to stay locked in and to play tight and just enough of yourself to you know, play with everyone else and be in the moment and have this kind of perfect mix for you perfect mix for every individual on stage. But in order to do that, you've got to get all those inputs. And if you're using your interface in able to live to do this that's gonna be a lot of inputs. If you're a full band on stage, even if you're a solo artists, let's imagine. We've got a mic we've got maybe a guitar maybe a couple cents. You could maybe get by with a eight channel input interface. And again, there are scenarios where live looping artists could do this, but the majority of the time we're not gonna want to use our audio interface and we're not going to want to use able to live for that number three. Again, let's say we we were able to get all this things to our interface. Let's say we were able to get our latency down low enough number three, we want to use EQ and effects for our in-ears that are going to make the experience of using and ears great. So for vocalist, I want to want to put I'm going to want to put Reverb on my vocals so that when I sing I feel like it's not this bare experience, right? But if I just put vocals in a doll one that's gonna increase the latency adding that EQ is going to increase the latency of what's getting back to me again go back and see Point number one, which is our most important point. But number two you want Reverb in your ears that's different than Reverb at front of house because most of the time you're gonna want more Reverb in your ears than you want at front of house right in front of houses the soundboard that's mixing for everyone in the audience. If you're using your doll for this again, the more eq's the more effects you add the more latency. You're gonna add see Point number one The more stress. Going to put on your computer. We'll talk about that in just a moment, but it just becomes a tangled mess to try to to try to manage to try to keep up with particularly if you're also using that computer for tracks and you know, maybe you're using it for automation as well too and just doing a lot of stuff. You're it's just gonna be a mess. Okay. Number four. This is a very of number one again. Number one is the most important. So when in doubt seat number one number four, we need to make sure our computer has a buffer size high enough to avoid audio dropouts. And here's what I mean when we're using a computer on stage. There's kind of this balance of giving enough power to our CPU to avoid audio dropouts, but at the same time I've given enough power to processing things in real times to to avoid latency this starts a really become a problem when we for instance have virtual key sounds on the same computer where we're running tracks. We're processing vocals on the same computer where we're running tracks because often times will bring our buffer size down low enough to reduce the latency. See, but then we'll start to get audio dropouts and we add more effects to our vocals and we get even more audio dropouts and we go what in the world is happening. Well, if we can separate those things, we'll talk about that in just a moment. Actually our very next thing we'll talk about that in a moment why that's important. But if I am using tracks if I'm using my computer for things other than creating in ears, I'm gonna need my buffer size high enough to process and handle all that audio. But the higher I raise my buffer size, the the more latency is introduced into my signals. So like we said at the beginning we want our latency as low as possible which happens only lower our buffer size, but we want audio dropouts and as much power dedicated to our CPU as possible. So we're going to raise our buffer size and therein lies the problem as you can see right number one, we need low latency, but we need enough computer power to avoid audio dropouts and we start to get in this kind of delicate balance number five and to me this is one of the most important things. Is this concept of division of labor? This is something I did a couple episodes ago where I talked about something that solo artists and live looping artists could learn from traditional performers and I just say traditional meaning a band on stage even a solo artist on stage walking into a venue is this concept a division of labor and a typical live sound situation performance venue situation you walk in and there is a audio console at front of house. That's for to control what the audience hears. They're most likely maybe is that audio console side of stage to control what the band hears on Sage and in some scenarios. There's even a maybe a third console to control what the online audience here is if you're doing like a broadcast type thing. What's nice about that is that gives us a separate mix we talked about different eq's different effects or each of those scenarios. So broadcast online mix is gonna have way more Reverb. Probably way more effects on vocals than front of house wood. Again, the mix that the people in the audience here, the monitor console is gonna have different effects. It's gonna be mixed differently than what the front of house console has when I just use one computer for all of that. I'm putting all that stress all those different tasks on one machine division of labor says, let's Let each individual piece do its own separate task. So let's let front of house focus on audio for the people. Let's let monitor focus on audio for the band and let's let broadcast focus on audio for the online people when we bring everything to on computer and I had someone reach out. I wish I can remember their name that said hey, I'd love to see you are Ableton set because we're running tracks. We're running keys or processing live vocals. We're recording and we're doing monitor for the band all in one Ableton session and I wanted to reply back and say this is amazing. I you know reach out to me the first time it goes down and you lose all of that because there's the key to division of labor is if you separate those tasks out if my tracks computer goes out of this. Area that we're talking about if I'm running tracks from Ableton if I'm processing virtual keys from Ableton if I'm processing my vocals enableton and I'm doing my inner mix and Ableton if my computer goes down guess what goes down tracks vocal processing my inner rig all the monitor stuff, you know, whatever else I said virtual Keys all of that goes down if I separate that and I use a monitor console a digital console for my monitors for in years and my tracks computer goes down. Well kind of stinks because we lost click we lost tracks the least we could still hear each other, right we have little to no latency. It's just a way better situation than putting all that stress on your computer. So again that if your computer goes down everything else goes down with it. So those are five things five reasons why you should not use your computer for in here. So again, yes, there's a context there's a scenario where one individual could show up with the universal audio interface and have next to zero latency monitoring, but just know the professional A most traditional performers do this is apply the concept of division of labor and hand that off to someone else now. I want to end really quickly two minutes. I went through all this and said you should not do this. Well, what should you do instead one check out that playlist that content that I suggested that I've recorded before because I talked a little bit about this but what you should do instead is again apply that concept of division of labor. I want you to devote a console. Or a digital console that it's so goal is just to mix in-ears for your band. Now, you may go. Well, we don't have the money to do that. Well, then I would encourage you to purchase a digital console like a Persona Studio live Barringer X32 minus M32. There's Alan and Heath consoles a digital console that would allow you to one mix front of house create a mix for the audience create a separate mix for your band that's going to be latency free there's latency there but it's it's so minut and it's so small that you're not gonna be able to hear you could control that from your phones from your iPad from your computer. Whatever you want to do. You can even automate that with Ableton Live. In fact on the site. I have courses to show you how to automate the Barringer p16 the Barringer X32 also M32 works the same way with able to live if you're interested in that have a full template showing you how to do that the Behringer Wing three courses, I forgot about the wing I'll link to those in the show notes to show you how to do that. But if you separate that from the computer that's running tracks even as a solo artist. I did a coaching session. With Vinny the other day and Vinnie was reaching out. He's about to go on the road and do kind of a solo we artist thing with some tracks. He's done some DJing and producing a music but it's gonna go perform his music and he wanted to know how to set up Ableton and in years kind of some of what we talked about and this Infinity if you're okay with it, I'm gonna take you down a completely different path and I suggest that he purchase a digital console and set up in ears for himself in the guests that will be coming on Sage to sing as opposed to trying to do all this in the Box in able to live so I know that's a real quick two to three minute wrap up there. But I hope you get the point that there's a better way to do in ears and monitors than your computer. And again, I understand there's context and scenarios where you could get by with it. If you're a full band definitely do not because if you use your computer and do that and you try that and then go to you know, a digital console actually mixing your ears You're Gonna Play so much better together as a band you'll be able to lock in just a better experience and that's the whole goal of in years and monitors. To make what's happening on stage make you feel more comfortable more confident which in turn creates a better performance for people in the audience. So if you want to learn how to do all this and more and have a encouraging coachable Community to help you along the way head to from csh.com/subscribe and becoming from Studio to Stage student. I already mentioned some of the benefits early on but you can handle that page and see all the benefits available, and if you're not ready for that quite yet, consider subscribing on YouTube, you can hit the Subscribe button and enable the Bell icon. So you see exactly when I post new content, and if you are listening on Apple podcasts on Spotify then consider following or subscribing and you can also leave a rating or review on the show. I know this was me just talking to a camera, but I do a lot of tutorial content. So if you're brand new to the channel again, make sure you had to YouTube to subscribe to see those tutorials as opposed to just listening to the podcast. Thanks so much for watching and listening and thank you so much for being a part of the community. Thanks for continually asking great questions for encouragement and we'll see on the next one. Take care everybody.