Training
What you need to know before signing up.
For two reasons: 1) To run tracks your drummer and the person running the tracks both need to hear the click in their monitor to hear the count in and to keep time with the tracks. 2) If you have a floor monitor for the drummer, it has to be loud enough to match the volume of a drum kit, if not louder. From a sound standpoint, this can cause all the monitors to be louder than they need to be and create issues for your front-of-house sound person. These days, with in-ear monitoring so common and affordable, we recommend an Aviom system as a long-term solution for your stage monitoring.
Short Term Solution: For an in-expensive way to make the transition right away, you can hard wire the drummer’s mix by skipping the power amp and going direct into a headphone amp like a Presonus HP-4 and using a set of studio grade headphones like the Sennheiser HD 280 Studio Headphones and your drummer will be set with his direct mix from the sound board. The bass player could share a mix and come off the same headphone amp if he/she was willing to do so. Lastly, if your guitarist, keyboard player, or singer is running the tracks from their laptop they can do a wired mix with a headphone amp as well. For more discrete looking in-ear’s with great bass response, check out Westone’s UM2’s.
Overall Configuration: We recommend running from the stage. We see IWL almost like another instrument that someone on stage is triggering like a DJ. This can be done by anyone and midi interfaces can help you do this without looking like you’re checking your email. We recommend this is run by the person who can function as a music director or someone who can communicate well on stage with the music director.
For Keys: We recommend using a two-tier keyboard stand and building a stable platform for the top tier where you can place your laptop. You can look at your computer and use the computer keys on your laptop to trigger your session because it’s right in front of you. If you prefer to use a midi controller or another keyboard to trigger this, you can do so as well.
For Guitar or Bass: We recommend the Ability controller which is built to work with Ableton. You can find out more details on http://younfx.com. If you need a volume pedal with your midi controller, check out the Roland FC-300.
For Drummers: Any midi unit with big pads that you can use to trigger from behind the drums.
For Singers: The Ability Controller http://younfx.com or the Roland FC-300 are great Midi-foot controllers if you want to cue sections from a foot controller on the stage more discretely.
Ableton is Mac and PC compatible. If you or your church is buying a dedicated computer for this purpose we recommend that you buy a Mac with a firewire 400 connection. We won’t debate you on which is better if you like PC’s because both will work, but Mac are often preferred by audio engineers. We recommend the same Firewire 400 connection for your hard drives if you use them. PC's can usually have this firewire feature added with a PCI card.
Our friends at Open Labs www.openlabs.com have many windows based platforms that are great for running tracks live.
For Hardware Minimum requirements, go to http://www.ableton.com/pages/faq/general_questions
We have detailed instructions for how to unzip and utilize your IWL tracks. Please click here to view our tutorial.
Short answer--the faster the better. Here are a couple general ideas to help you make that decision.
1. Drives (internal and external) that run 7200 rpm are faster than 5400. Faster = better.
2. You can run IWL on a drive with 5400 rpm, but it will help to use an external drive with firewire 400 6 pin connection.
3. RAM is pretty inexpensive and we'd recommend you max out your computer.
4. Keep other programs closed when running audio software to maximize performance.
5. The faster your computer, the more tracks and videos you can run in one session.
