Playing drums live with loops (hardware and software setup help needed)

[vii_haven]

Hi all

I've been playing drums for close to ten years already and play mainly in church and occasionally at gigs. My music pastor recently requested to play several songs with loops in them and tasked me to find out how to do so. I need some help in the following areas. I have listed my objectives of my rig, and the kind of help i need/the recommendations i need/the budget i have below. I have listed a possible rig that i would want to setup, please do give me comments and recommendations.

If someone who has been playing with loops before can help me with this, i would be very grateful!



Objectives
1. To be able to hear my metronome (Tama Rhythmwatch) through my IEMs
2. To be able to trigger on/off a loop (that is audible on IEMs and FOH)


Current Rig
Drums mic-ed, signal is sent to a Yamaha M7CL (FOH). Aviom is used for In-Ear Monitoring.

No electronics used for playing currently.



Hardware Setup

MacBook Pro (Loops played here) -> Loops output to FOH
Tama Rhythmwatch (Metronome) -> M-Audio Firewire Solo -> Headphone out (IEMs) (Loops, metronome and aviom monitor inputs)
Aviom monitor stereo inputs

Can it be configured that the FOH only receives the loop and not the signal input from the metronome?

Do i need a DI box after the Firewire Solo for the output to FOH?



Software Setup

I currently have Garageband and Ableton Live Lite 6. How can i use these two for loop playing? Are there tutorials online?

 

[turbochicken]

maybe i think small, i put all my loops in my ipod, di into system and back into my monitor (your IEM in this case)

but if you need a click along with your loops and be able to trigger on the fly perhaps an akai mpc might help. a notebook is troublesome, with the converters and latency issues, imo. plus they're not as sturdy as a dedicated machine like mpc.

 

[Freakae2]

Hey man. Dunno if mixing the loop and clicktrack together is what you want cos that would help prevent human error, especially if a video is involved. But if you have a personal mixer next to you would help. U can feed in the loop from fronthouse and plug the click into a separate channel. THe added bonuses is that you can get foh to feed in your kit and other instruments as well so you can adjust each individually intead of simply the volume iof a single mix.

 

[Freakae2]

Oh yar. if you want to trigger the loop from your side simply get the cables to feed into foh. but i guess your problem would be to hear the click at the same time through IEMs eh? get a personal mixer. i think a 6 channel Mackie will do great

 

[beboptang]

"Can it be configured that the FOH only receives the loop and not the signal input from the metronome?"

Hey dude, your question is helping me learn lots, cuz I checked the Aviom site and the M-Audio site to see how the connections are made. Maybe posting this question on the Sound Engineering Forum may also help.

I guess the basic thing is, that you can treat both your loop machine and your metronome as instruments to be hooked up to a mixer, so you'll need a DI box to operate them both where you are seated; and the DI box can boost the level of the metronome too. Your loops will be fed into the FOH and your Aviom's like other instruments.

But for your metronome, I have a few questions...

Why do you use a Firewire Solo for your metronome? Does your metronome signal go into your Aviom through the Firewire Solo?

Actually if you weren't on Avioms, I can advise how to isolate the signal from your metronome to only be in your IEM and not FOH -- just turn up your specific Aux channel for the metronome on the mixer, unmute and don't push up the level fader. But I don't really know how Aux's on FOH mixers work in relation to Avoim's. (Anyone with insight?)

Does your church have:
1) a separate mixer for monitoring that leads to the Aviom, or
2) does the Aviom take all signals from the FOH mixer? If so, are the signals pre-fader, or post-fader.

In scenario 1, the monitor mix won't go to FOH.

In scenario 2, it depends on whether the Aviom signal is taken from the FOH mixer pre- or post-fader. If it's pre-fader, then that means your Aviom will get a signal whether or not that signal goes out to the FOH speakers, so you'll just need to turn up the volume of that metronome channel on your Aviom Personal Mixer.

Hope I didn't cause more confusion. But your question is really interesting and I will check with my sound engineer friends about this. So I may come back with completely different info, haha!

Peace,
Beboptang

 

[beboptang]

Hey vii_haven,

I checked with my sound engineer friend regarding your question. I was right about having to use a DI for both loop & metronome. But in order not to feed the metronome into FOH and only in your Avioms, he needs to know how your FOH mixer and Aviom Input module are configured.

I've PM'd you his contact information, so please check your Private Messages.

Peace,
Beboptang