mp3 player for live use

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i want to include pre-recorded audio into live performances. i need something that will play prerecorded stuff (ie, mp3's), can be operated with just a footswitch, and doesn't delay the start of playback like most music players do (so i can start it mid-song without burps).

any suggestions?

I have some sound engineering training, and I would do this using a computer / laptop (you could wire up a switch to it that you can operate with your foot) but if you have good software and a good sound card and a good speed of computer there should me little if any aurally detectable delay and the better your equipment, the less risk there is of latency of any kind.

If you don't have access to the relevant equipment, some recording studios let you hire things out and you can even 'hire' a sound engineer from the studio, or at least have them give you some tips and instructions.

There are other items of studio equipment that you could use for the same thing, but a laptop is probably the most 'user friendly' and flexible if you are not familiar with sound engineering equipment (although you might be, I don't know!)

that works... how do i go about hooking up a foot switch to my computer?

MIDI would be your best bet I think. There are a number of guitar pedals with MIDI Out that would do it. Since you just want to start/stop playback then you don't need anything fancy, anything that sends a MIDI signal should be enough. Then you just need to run that into the MIDI In on your sound card and set up the software.

There are sound cards that come with a footswitch input. I use a Tascam FW-1084 which will take a jack input for a footswitch. It then sends that to the pc as a MIDI signal which you can then configure to do whatever you need it to do (I use it for looping in Ableton Live - means I don't need to stop playing ). Unless you're in the market for a new sound card anyway tho, it would be a bit silly to go to those lengths. That said, if it were just for a one-off show / run of shows you could probably hire something.

Also have you looked at standalone samplers? I wouldn't be surprised if some of those took a jack input for a footswitch

bc, you could always try just downloading a freeware sequencer, bumping an original track to wav, and then recording various takes side by side with it. The nice thing is too you can use something like Goldwave to edit and chop the playing, rearrange it to where you feel its balanced exactly the way you like throughout the track.

BTW, sorry if I've been kinda lagging on our project - I've been pretty worn out the past few weeks, I've gotta wait for my motivation to catch back up to me.

midi's no good for this. if i were working with drums sounds, or with organ or piano or something like that, midi would be fine, but mixing live horns with fake ones just sounds awful.

basically, i want a choir of bass clarinets, with me either playing the top part or singing over it. currently, i do that by assembling karaoke-style tracks, plugging my cd player into a guitar amp, and playing either bass clarinet or piano or sing over the top of that. it sounds fine, but its is somewhat limiting- i'm originally a jazz guy, and i want the ability to change things spontaneously. also, i want it to sound as organic as possible (like these guys, basically) rather then something assembled on a computer (not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, just not what i hear in my head currently).

i plan on transitioning to using a looper pedal and some pre-recorded audio to make it possible to spontaneously change the arrangement (mainly for the purpose of long jams). the reason i'm including the looper is so that as much of the music as possible can be newly recorded, making it subtly different every time (plus then i don't have to re-record EVERYTHING when i decide to change reed brands or mouthpieces!). so far, just using a regular realplayer-type computer program seems to be the best bet for what i'm looking for, if i can just figure out how to operate it with both hands occupied.


there's probably a computer program out there somewhere that does all this, but i haven't been able to find it.... and my POS laptop probably couldn't handle it anyway.

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i've got no problem waiting on the project- just let me know when you're ready for the .wav files and how to get 'em to you.

Sorry, I don't think I explained myself too well before. I would agree that a mixture of synth horns and live would sound pretty terrible (in fact in my opinion synth horns are best avoided all together - I've only ever heard a couple of people make them sound any good and I'm not one of them!). But MIDI is a lot more flexible than its generally given credit for. Perhaps by describing a couple of ways I've used it to do similar things to what you're after I'll be able to clarify myself.

The setup that sounds closest to what you're after is the one I mentioned before, using Ableton Live and a MIDI footswitch. I don't know if you're familiar with Live but one of the main uses of the software is to create songs on the fly by layering up various loops. You have a number of channels (similar to Cubase etc) and these are all split into banks. The banks allow you to change a whole set of loops simultaneously (obvious example being switching from a verse to a chorus). I can configure the footswitch so that it allows me to select a bank to record into, arm a channel, begin recording, end recording and start looping all without having to stop playing. So typically I'll start by beatboxing a beat and getting that looped up. Then its usually the bass line followed by whatever other toys I have to hand All the sounds are actual instruments tho, I rarely use any synth sounds at all. Coming from a jazz and blues background myself, I also tend to have a couple of spare channels set up to monitor each of the instruments so I can solo or just add some little bits of lead to whatever is going on at the time.

Whilst the footswitch isn't essential for this to work, it means that I can keep playing the whole time without having to stop and fiddle with the computer. Otherwise the tracks tend to get very long-winded and drawn out. Its very similar to using one of the Line 6 loop boxes however its a lot more flexible as you still have control over each of the individual loops at all times. As mentioned before, you can also switch between whole sets of loops simultaneously. I tend to also use MIDI to map my control surface to the Ableton controls so I can do hip-hop style drop-outs (mute everything apart from one or two instruments for a couple of beats then drop it all back in together) and also have hands on control for effects such as filters or delays.

Another side benefit of using Ableton and the PC is that once you're done playing you have the option to save everything so if you only want to re-record some of the loops live, you can start from a track you've already configured. Very useful if you want to start a track with multiple instruments rather than having to build everything up layer by layer each time.

The obvious disadvantage of all this tho is that you'd need to take almost an entire studio to each gig! As a result, I've only ever used the full setup in the studio although we also use a similar set up in one of my bands to play pre-recorded samples over the top of everything else, again with Ableton Live as the software.


Another simpler alternative that has just occurred to me, again using MIDI and a footswitch, would be to use some software that will map MIDI commands to PC Keyboard commands. You mention that something like RealPlayer would suffice. If I remember correctly, pressing the space bar in RealPlayer will start / stop playback. So you can setup up the software so that whenever it receives the MIDI signal from the footswitch, it sends a message to RealPlayer simulating the space bar being pressed. Thus you can start and stop RealPlayer using the footswitch. I used to have some really good software that did just what you need (I remember being mildly amused for a while by controlling windows using my control surface!) but I can't remember the name of it. Having just spent a little while google searching the best I can find is called GlovePIE which is available at http://carl.kenner.googlepages.com/glovepie . It looks a bit trickier to configure than what I had before but I think it can do what you need

I hope all this is of some use and I haven't completely missed the point of what you're trying to do!!

no, you've nailed it perfectly... thanks for taking the time to type all that out... i think it will be useful.

phew! *breathes big sigh of relief* .

I'd like to hear what you come up with if you get chance to record any of it. I don't think I've ever heard a choir of bass clarinets before - sounds interesting

referance points for bass clarinet choir:


www.myspace.com/toastbassclarinet

www.myspace.com/edmundwelles

www.earspasm.com

hmm, how about buying one of those numeric keyboards under $20, and assign a hotkey in Winamp?

like these:
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-PA1390U-1 ... 461&sr=8-1

bc, you know what kind of sound your instrument would be beautiful for? You familiar with the Arabian Waltz? That kind of ambiance would be classic, I'd imagine you could give people mad chills if you spit out your own tune on the same dynamics.

who wrote/performed it?

I just got curious enough to look it up - just to be sure. It's Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, its actually on nutcracker and I didn't even realize it.

bc - cheers for the links. Very cool indeed. I'm a big fan of New Orleans jazz and a lot of the wandering clarinet lines reminded of that. I also liked the way some of the songs had a kind of accapella feel to them (may sound a little strange i know but makes sense to me!)

Are you involved in any of these projects? I can see now why you want to get some live looping going with the bass clarinet. It would be a lot of fun and sound very very cool. Good luck with that. It makes me want to try something similar with the harmonica. I don't think there's really enough range on a single harp though so I might have to mix several keys which will take a little thought.

On a side note, the web geek in me really liked the earspasm site. I had a lot of fun with those bouncing menus!

the toast is my on again/off again project that made me want to go solo . the music on our page is crap- one song recorded when we'd been together a month and hadn't written anything, the other three from a video camera from a live show done after a three week hiatus. we have a full demo album on four-track cassette tape that is much better but we can't find a way to get it onto a computer!

the other two groups are big heroes/influences of mine... someday i hope to study with one or both of them.

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it's arabian dance, actually... i wondered if that's what you meant. i agree, the quasi-middle eastern feel sounds great on bc!