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.