Controlling Lights with Ableton: What’s the Best Approach? [Resource Guide]
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- čas přidán 5. 08. 2024
- If you want to control lights with Ableton Live, learn how to choose the right method for your context.
There are 2 methods for controlling lights: internally and externally. In this video, I’ll teach you how to determine which method is best for you and everything you need to make it happen.
Resources for programming lights internally (or directly) in Ableton:
beam.showsync.com/
www.dmxis.com/show-buddy-active/
www.db-audioware.com/dmxis-li...
Resources for externally controlling lights (using Ableton to control something else):
lightkeyapp.com/en
www.vistabychromaq.com/
luminair.app/
www.malighting.com/
www.sweetwater.com/store/deta...
www.etcconnect.com/Products/H...
Other resources:
Free Timecode/LTC Template for Ableton Live:
fromstudiotostage.com/timecode
LiveMTC from Showsync:
www.showsync.com/tools
MIDI-MSC Template to control your console via MTC:
fromstudiotostage.com/product...
How to Automate Lights with Automation Lanes in Ableton Live and DMX-IS:
DMX-IS Course:
fromstudiotostage.com/courses...
Controlling Luminair with Ableton Live Course:
fromstudiotostage.com/courses...
Now how do you make this happen?
Check out my masterclass to see how to connect to your gear and learn more!
• Ableton Live & The Con...
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0:00 - Intro
0:22 - Internal Controlling to Control Lights with Ableton Live
0:40 - External Controlling to Control Lights with Ableton Live
1:08 - Internal Approaches
2:24 - Controlling DMXis with Ableton Live Tutorial
2:37 - When & Why should you Choose Internal Control?
3:29 - Adding MIDI Notes to Ableton Live
3:59 - External Approaches
6:06 - When should you Choose External Control?
6:34 - How to do External Control?
8:05 - Uses of Live MTC
8:37 - MIDI to MIDI Show Control Template
9:10 - Subscribe to the Channel for More Free Amazing Tutorials
9:51 - Outro
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Super useful guide! Small note- PLEASE zoom out your A roll shots- on my 32 inch monitor the super tight pull is deeply unsettling
Super useful, really, but I swear I can almost feel his breath on my face XD
Ha! glad I found you, your podcast with Micheal was excellent. Thanks for all the advice!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Our show is fully automated with our own lights. Is there a solution for when we take our show on the road to integrate with another venues light setup? Looking to not loose our lighting impact when a venue provides lights. We currently use EMU with Abe, but most likely moving on from it. Any tips would be helpful!
THANK YOU! I'm a drummer who is planning to use click tracks mostly to control lights and sync them up to the live performance and according to my research Ableton Live 11 on a PC will allow me to use the original song to sync the click and then mute the track so I can have it handy during rehearsal, but also add in any missing parts that can't be performed live.... THEN sync the whole thing up within Ableton so the lights will track with the song.
I'll be keeping an eye out for more information..... Or I might pose a question. A sound engineer friend suggest the Behringer X32 compact and Behringer SD16 stage box. Of course I'm going to use an IEM and set this all up on a rack. I believe this set up with be small enough and easy to use from behind the kit. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
All The Best!!
I'm looking to run a Mono track (not stems) and programmed lights. Can I do this with Ableton Intro? I am new to the software so any help would be great!! Thank you
we are using avolites for lighting and ableton for PA system, now we are thinking to merge them together, any advice?
The linked video outlining Luminair control is dead. Is there somewhere else to find it? Thanks for the great content.
Thank you! 🌈
You’re welcome 😊
We use a Grand MA at our FOH. Have an LD who controls all the lights and we dont use timecode. Will THANK YOU for all your tutorials!
You’re welcome! Thank you for watching!
We are currently thinking about getting into automating lights for our show, so this couldn't have been timed more perfect! :-)
We would be working with an external LD, so I guess we are looking at an external solution.
At the moment we are using a Cymatic LP-16 solution to play our tracks (basically a multitrack player) to avoid laptops on stage. This can also send out MIDI, so I wonder if we could make it work using this solution or if this would mean we HAVE to move to a DAW on stage...
Go ALL in with Ableton. You’ll never look back and wonder why it took so long :) It’ll be worth it, deff. As you get into automation
We have been using a combo of BandHelper (setlist app), Ableton Live Standard 11 and LightKey. I was intrigued by the thought of using Beam as a way to directly be able to edit lighting within Ableton. My ONLY concern is support and development. It doesn't seem like there is enough revenue (since it's relatively niche) for them to be able to keep this app going compared to LightKey. My worry would be to change over and then not be supported in a couple years. Even their main video on the website has them using Ableton Live 10 instead of 11. Any thoughts?
Beam seems to be a great solution. I don’t think Show Sync is going anywhere anytime soon.
They made the product when 10 was released which is why those videos are in 10
Lightkey App is super easy to control with Ableton. I had been using it for the past 3 years+.
Awesome!
1:43 I just ran my band’s show with EMU from Enntec which seems to be the next generation from DMXis. Went from never knowing a thing about DMX to programming an entire show with the synth track in ableton. It was easy but tedious.
What would the benefit be to trying Beam over EMU? Just curious.
One “bad” thing about EMU (could be my own user error) is that the programming is all in the automation tracks which is not copy/paste friendly if I want to juggle song order to make different sets. It’s linear to the “full” set, but there’s no way to copy/paste a song because there’s like 100 automation tracks (each light may have between 2 and 40 automation tracks) all residing in one midi track. The automation does not follow with the midi track if you chop up the midi track. If that makes sense. Or maybe I did it all the hard way? 😂
Hi Dave! You basically answered your own question; wouldn't it be convenient to use Live's own automation system to handle your lights instead? That's exactly what Beam's strength is; you set up your patch and fixture profiles in Beam, and from that point it's only Live you'll be using to program your show. And since you are already familiar with Live's user interface and workflow, it makes for a shallow learning curve for Beam.
Hi I have 4 panther 25 beems: 2 mini movers: 6 Beamz BT280: 4Chauvet BT Slim 12: 3 Other generic pars leds: and 1 Event light mover. I have a Strand Light Desk 200
Really new to lights. Dong small house concerts. Really needs some helop with where to go from here?
Anyone know how to set this up with Obsidian Onyx?
Nice video as always!
question: what about redundancy using two laptops and dmxis or some kind of other usb to dmx interface - can this work?
thanks for watching! Yes, I've made this work with a simple USB/KVM switch to switch from A-B computer
Recently learned how to automate Lightkey from ProPresenter (via midi).
Currently learning how to use Ableton Live for tracks & midi to control Pro7.
If I already have Pro7 controlling Lightkey, and then adding Ableton for tracks… is this daisy chain approach solid? Meaning:
Comp 1 - Ableton (controlling)
Comp 2 - ProPresenter 7 (controlling)
Comp 3 - Lightkey
Love it! Keep up the good work John!
What if I am running my show in Session view (in ableton) - song by song - is there a way to do specific midi control of lights in session view?
you can create a MIDI clip, but as soon as you move into automation, you'll 100% want to move to arrangement view.
Lightkey controled by midi from Bbleton here. Stable and powerful.
Awesome!
Question, my set never touches the arrangement view. Sometimes I add different times and space between tracks. How would I go about running timecode if I don't touch arrangement view?
It’s an audio file so you can drag it into a scene
@@fromstudiotostage but If I start and stop clips won’t the time code stop? Won’t the lights all stop as well?
Should I kind of make it so song 1 starts at 1 hour, song 2 at 2 hours and so on. With each one having its own clip? The time code wouldn’t run all the way through that way continuously It would specifically just play until I hit the next scene and then skip forward 50 minutes or so depending on song length
I’ve been looking at solutions to run tracks, lighting cues, midi CC’s, and video. Stability and cost are my two limitations. Ive been using a Cymatic LP-16 for hardware playback of tracks and midi changes with a Decabox midi to DMX bridge. This is super stable and cost effective, but it won’t run video.
I’ve priced out components for a rack mounted redundant Ableton rack and $6k seems like overkill. I’m now looking at Livetracker, which looks like a decent solution, but I’m still not certain I want to get into laptops due to the potential for stutters and crashes. I’m curious about your thoughts
I’d go Ableton all the way. You’ll never look back.
Seems like we are heading the same route as you are! We are using the Cymatic LP-16 as well but no lights yet. Are you happy with the setup? I'll have to look into that decabox bridge thing, might exactly be what we need at this time.
We are also very hesitant in using laptops in our production...
@@Stefvlaere Stef, out of curiosity, what’s your hesitations on computers on stage? (I won’t try to convince you, just generally interested)
@@fromstudiotostage I can’t answer for him…but for me, I’m worried about an audio “stutter” or other such anomaly during playback. I’ve got a pretty juiced machine (8 core, 16GB RAM, graphics card, etc) and I’ve had that thing stutter just while working in reaper on a backing track. I need 100% reliability.
@@fromstudiotostage generally it's a case of "the more things to break" - type of fear + more to manage, I guess. I'm sure I could make a stable system, even have a backup one and as we grow our show we'll probably move to it anyway, but the fear doesn't go away for now.
I'm the keyboard player in the band and I've been debating playing with a VST setup for years now instead of my trusty motif XS and I can't seem to bite the bullet and move away from dedicated machines even though I know it's basically a computer too. 😁
Maybe could be an idea to make a video on that subject to debunk some myths? I think a lot of people are still hesitant using laptops on stage.
whats the best approuch to preprogram a show on a music track (that also outputs video through hdmi on a beamer, all in sync)
arrangement view
Hello ! Thank you for your precious advices ! I have one question : why Ableton doesn’t handle dmx directly ? If we decide to work with Beam, shall we fear in the coming months/years that Ableton integrate Beam’s fonctions in a new version and that would mean the death of Beam and loss of all the work already done… thanks for your help !
I don't forsee Ableton ever integrating DMX personally, but that would be a question for them.
@@fromstudiotostage thanks for your answer !
sorry but what does timecode actually do?
Camera 2
Nice!
PLEASE NEVER do this multicam thing again
Soundswitch.
Awesome!
Our show is fully automated with our own lights. Is there a solution for when we take our show on the road to integrate with another venues light setup? Looking to not loose our lighting impact when a venue provides lights. We currently use EMU with Abe, but most likely moving on from it. Any tips would be helpful!
any USB to DMX box will do. the Biggest pain will be re-patching lights at each venue and having a consistent show since each plot will be different.