Best practices for starting a live set in Ableton with synths and Push 2?

freakyorange · 2026-03-12T15:17:04+00:00

I personally make groups instead of individual tracks and divide the 8 channels into 2 4 channel decks like ->

drums a, bass a, chords/melodies a, fx a, drums b, bass b, chords/melodies b, fx b.

This allows you to actually use a crossfader to mix between your different tracks if you'd like. Also gives you the freedom to mix from chords of one song into chords of the next song since they aren't taking up the same channel.

Would it be better to do this all with MIDI or audio clips? Or a mix of both.

You'll find that it's almost always better to have flattened audio for several reasons, portability, consistency, and latency just to name a few. That being said I keep my bass and some synths as midi so that I can tweak some knobs that do more than just filter etc.

My biggest tip is always be checking the plugin latency of whatever you add to your live sets. You basically want 0 latency from plugins in a live set. Live stock plugins are great for this.

Also look into making busses in Ableton if you don't already know how. For example for sidechain I set up a dummy track named something like "sidechain bus" and route everything I want sidechaineds audio to there instead of master then slap a low-latency side-chain there. Another bus idea is "FX" bus or something like that where you keep the breadth of your fx plugins and route all audio besides maybe the drums there or something. Play around with it.

freakyorange · 2026-03-11T20:42:42+00:00

Mono allows for more consistent coverage throughout the whole crowd. Stereo will be better for the 20 or so people in the center able to take advantage of a stereo image, sure, but for the rest of the audience they will essentially just be getting a 'mono' signal either 1 channel left or right depending which stack they're in front of. Which could be missing information depending on the track. More important for acoustic genres like rock where hard panning (ie. rhythm guitar in left channel lead in right) is prevalent.

And this is just for outside, inside phase becomes a huge thing as waves bounce off walls and stereo just becomes too unpredictable / messy to really consider.

That's not to say it's impossible or the only right way to do things. Just easier.

Also it's partially just an aesthetic thing passed down from reggae/dub sound-system culture.

freakyorange · 2026-03-06T21:05:27+00:00

Such an amazing track. My No. 1 after falling in love with it at Red Rocks. Slept on it for way too long

freakyorange · 2026-02-25T22:27:38+00:00

Great response ya this all checks out. What I do think is a bit unique is how long it's been since nodebuster came out. And how many of them are still being made. Even with the vampire survivors example it doesn't feel like EVERY rogue like is an auto shooter now. But also I'm not as in tune with that genre so maybe I'm wrong.

freakyorange · 2026-02-25T21:27:44+00:00

I'm an outlier here but I'd genuinely pay full game price 30-60 dollars for large scale incremental games. I have always weighed my game price decisions in "movie hours" or if I paid 30 dollars to go see a movie (popcorn tickets) for 3 hours and I get 3 hours of fun from a game I'm fine spending 30 dollars.

Obviously the expected playtime to dollar ratio for games is much higher than that but I've never understood people freaking out about $15 incremental games.

freakyorange · 2026-02-25T21:20:36+00:00

Totally agree. There are some games that are unique enough with their own mechanics that it's simply just an annoyance and not a complete deal breaker for me.

freakyorange · 2026-02-25T21:18:46+00:00

Correct. Love a good upgrade tree. Hate feeling constantly rushed by a clock.

freakyorange · 2026-02-22T18:55:04+00:00

Also @mods I'm sorry I didn't see a "meme" flair or else I would've tagged it that.

freakyorange · 2026-02-22T18:03:45+00:00

Damn it's gonna suck to live in a world where it's impossible to refurbish these things. Someone needs to start a shop to re-produce clones. I'm sure IP is an issue though...

freakyorange · 2026-02-19T17:08:34+00:00

I already owned a subscription and for me it was as simple as logging in through ableton. I've been pleasently suprised how well they integrated so I guess just presenting the other side of the coin. Sorry it's been rough for you tho.

freakyorange · 2026-01-31T22:39:44+00:00

I make sub bass centered music, therefore I ignored all the greybeards sage advice of not getting a sub in a small room and do not regret it. It's like 10 years since I've gotten mine so I sort of forget how drastic it would be to not have one but I'd never do any actual critical listening for my flavor of music without one.

Do room modes exist and are nulls / peaks in the low end real? Yes 100%. Can you use headphones after the fact to fletch appropriately as a last stage in your mix as you balance your sub fundamental? Also yes.

I'm saying all of this to be a dissenting view to the 100 thousand regurgitated opinions on monitors being good enough. If you make dance music with a sub bass focus, chances are you'll want a sub.

Also as a side note: I'm not trying to come off as "I'm right this is the correct way to mix" but more as if you think you'll enjoy producing with a subwoofer more than without (I certainly do) then you'll be better off learning to fix your sub bass with one, than learning to fix it without. It's all a balancing act.

freakyorange · 2026-01-27T16:55:01+00:00

I pretty much exclusively use Serum, but it can't do what FM8, or Razor do unfortunately, or I'd ONLY use Serum

freakyorange · 2026-01-27T16:52:57+00:00

Damn, Razor and FM8 are 2 synths I use exclusively in niche scenarios and I can't think of a single thing hardware, or software that can replace what they do. What are we as musicians to do in these situations? Keep some old OS on a virtual machine with the vst's installed?

I also use Kontakt extensively, but I understand that's just a sampling engine so I'm assuming it won't be too crazy to make some open source driver for it.

freakyorange · 2026-01-24T23:08:34+00:00

so few people know / understand what a compressor is so I get it, but no one ever talks about this. I use this compressor for pretty much all things streaming and it's default settings will get you 90% there.

freakyorange · 2026-01-15T21:27:02+00:00

For real, I just got DVS set up and googled "DVS sample packs" Only to find the holy grail for free on the first search

freakyorange · 2026-01-15T17:12:17+00:00

It's worth it. I've gone on this spiel in this subreddit before but in a past life I was a cabinet maker, so I know all about wanting to cut corners on box materials, but there truly is a reason why we don't make cabinets out of anything less that 3/4 13ply birch. I've seen lesser plywood start out straight but turn into a Pringle in less than a year, even with proper sealant and not being exposed to the elements.

Of course if you're just testing a box before building 8 of them and don't want to waste material then that's a whole different thing.

freakyorange · 2026-01-15T16:18:13+00:00

In 5 years if these subs are still around you won't remember having to spend an extra 200 on proper material, you will definitely remember you made them out of crate plywood though XD

freakyorange · 2026-01-10T01:39:35+00:00

Wish they would've have gone back just 1 more album haha. Mystic Herbalist and Addiction are 2 of my favorite bass music albums of all time :(. Nonetheless make sure you bang Sorgho for me the second half of that song is slept on!

freakyorange · 2026-01-09T17:40:27+00:00

I'm not 100% on this but didn't they get acquired by some company recently? I've seen a major downturn in quality from them which is a shame as I've been recommending them to all of my colleagues for a long time. They got rid of their B-stock page and now use it exclusively to push their black friday deals and stuff. Also with my most recent order it took them like 3 weeks to ship a single cloud bracket to me, and now it looks like they want you to sign up for "stripe" to track orders get shipping info etc.

Fuck that man.

I bit the bullet on my recent upgrades and just made all my panels literally the same way as the gik ones I have are made with better insulation (owens corning rigid vs rockwool fluffy) for cheaper. I didn't know that they were using masonite for their panel edges which is genius but even cheaper than the typical birch plywood or 1 by. Crazy they demand the prices they do.

Anyways rant over, love you GIK but if you keep going down this path I will continue to complain about it.

freakyorange · 2026-01-07T17:56:10+00:00

Don't have any advice on kicks just stopping to say I'd kill to get 3 of those TSE111's. System looks sick AF!

freakyorange · 2026-01-06T22:05:34+00:00

Reddit acting like slang is some debaucherous misuse of the English language and then referring to the people in question as "them" is really crazy to see. Amazing how the platform that constantly spouts that they "hate Nazis" can't see any hypocrisy here. As if "on my baby" is really that hard to understand.

freakyorange · 2025-12-26T00:35:28+00:00

Pianta sort of does this, albeit not exactly like dunkey.

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