I’m currently using Cubasis on an iPad as the centerpiece of our live show. It runs our audio, MIDI, lights and video, but it took a lot of cobbling together of various software and various external gear to make that work.
VST Live does all the things we need, but the fact that it only runs on laptops is a dealbreaker for us. We don’t want to look like we’re doing our taxes when we’re on stage by needing having a laptop be with us up there.
Even a stripped-down “player only” version of VST Live on iOS would be awesome - I’d be happy to edit our sets on my computer, I just need them to run on an iPad.
Ah, I wasn’t aware of VST Live Mods, so I’m going to look into that. Thank you!
A couple of off-the-cuff thoughts on this:
(1) Having to carry a laptop in addition to the iPad is yet another piece of (expensive!) gear that I have to buy and that can be forgotten, stolen, get fried by accidentally having beer poured over it, etc. I’d like to minimize the number of things I need to worry about when I’m already worrying about a million other things that it takes to pull off a show.
(2) Laptops have gotten more reliable over the years, but I still run into enough issues with them that I prefer the rock-solid reliability (and ruggedness!) of an iPad vs. a laptop.
(3) I need the ability to do some basic things like adjust track volume levels of a live mix that has, say, eight audio tracks, mute tracks, etc. right there from the stage and in the moment. Perhaps Live Mods will let me do that, so I’m excited to look into that.
(4) The remote control cannot ever fail. I’ve tried a variety of wireless transmission protocols over the years, and none of them have been reliable enough for live performances. Keep in mind that we’re dealing with a lot of preexisting gear (wireless DMX, wireless in-ear monitors, wireless microphones, wireless-controlled mixers) that are all using RF spectrum, and that’s just our gear. So multiply that by three for a typical three-band lineup, and even more when playing a festival. So the RF landscape is just not something we have control over when we arrive at a venue, and I just can’t have stuff happen like tracks not triggering, unpredictable latency when triggering things, etc. that I’ve encountered with wireless protocols in the past.
In order. Btw I don’t mean to be short with you, I just believe in minimum number of words…
Damage can happen to any equipment. IMHO a pad is easier to steal than a laptop. Most laptops have a Kensington security fixing so you can nail them down.
Better reliability of iOS (or rather program on it) is debatable - if you lean towards Apple use a MacBook. Any fails I’ve had have been user error or other equipment.
Why are you adjusting volumes? Automate!
You worry about failure yet you use wireless devices for most of your kit. If it’s that much of a worry, use a cable. Plenty of people here use a laptop (Mac and Windows) without issue. Are your devices all 2.4GHz? - Switch your mics and IEM to UHF. If a laptop is offstage you can hardwire the DMX, reducing your wireless footprint.
Maybe you should consider Windows handheld consoles, like Lenovo Legion Go or OneXPlayer X1 Pro. My setup is based on the latter and it’s very discreet. Both the console and the mixer are attached to a speaker stand.
That’s actually a good idea, thank you for the suggestion!
One of the things that gives me pause is that Windows-based touchscreen devices tend to be fiddly, since the touch experience is often an afterthought. Like, looking at your screen, the icons are way too small to hit the correct one with a finger tap when I’m moving around on stage (we’re a very kinetic band). As a matter of fact, even Cubasis, with its touch-first design on iOS, is too fiddly, and I’ve hit the wrong button during a show which is … not ideal to say the least. I’ve got a thread over in the Cubasis forum asking for a live UI skin with just a handful but BIG buttons that you can’t miss or click the wrong one by accident.
But yeah, if VST Live has such a UI skin, running that on a Windows touchscreen device might be an option!
Short is good, and I really appreciate the feedback!
(1) Theft is a secondary concern and yes, any piece of gear can grow legs. Primary concern is ruggedness, for example, a computer keyboard is a no-go because there are always fluids spraying around live (drinks, sweat, hazer juice, you name it).
(2) You’ve been luckier than me - I’ve got a computer science degree and take great care of my Windows PCs, and yet they still crash more frequently than my iOS devices.
(3) Oh, I’ve got plenty of automation baked in, but the volume adjustments are to deal with the sound systems in situ in different venues. The FOH mixer will do some of that, but I remember playing a show at a festival with a row subwoofers taller than me, so I had to turn down the bass track during soundcheck quite a bit to get the balance right.
(4) I can’t control what the other bands of a lineup and the venue are using. But it’s always a combination of all sorts of fixed-function wireless gear that others have dialed in just so, and I can’t go around telling them to change RF frequencies during a rushed soundcheck. So a polluted and unknown RF environment is just a given. Luckily, after years of trial and error (and gear purchases), we’ve got a set of kit that’s super reliable, even in the most dirty RF environments.
This is a 11.8" screen but I’ve been using hands-free setups for over 20 years now. Thanks to Actions, I entirely control VST Live from Midi controllers, and the most important of which is a tweaked Behringer FCB1010.
In my picture, you can see a Behringer Flow8 mixer that I use as an audio interface and a main volume control. The entire mix is done with VST Live.
I also have a bluetooth mouse with me, just in case!
Hi Michael, thank you for asking! I’ll try to keep my answer short to give you a general sketch of my needs, but I’d be more than happy to do a more detailed PRD style writeup if that’s called for. I’d need an iOS app to do the following:
Ability to play back multiple audio and MIDI tracks RELIABLY. We trigger DMX via a MIDI-to-DMX converter hardware box, so just raw MIDI playback is fine for that. We’d need up to 10 audio tracks or so.
Ability to play back video with frame-accurate sync to the audio. We pre-render the MP4s.
A mixer for the audio that can not only do the basics (volume adjustments, mute/solo, channel-strip stuff like EQ/compression etc), but also has sophisticated routing/bussing so we can do things like create multiple IEM mixes along with a FOH mix.
Setlist creation so I can take projects and queue them up. Ideally with two parallel tracks, since we have transition loops that play between songs, and that I need to trigger manually to deal with things like audience reactions. So these things need to start playing while another track is ending, and keep playing when I kick off a new track.
A UI I can use live. That means a skin that’s just the basics - show me the setlist and allow me to start/stop/next projects and adjust their volume. BIG buttons. And a second UI mode that’s for editing projects, where I can do the mixing/bussing etc.
As a bonus: The ability to insert 3rd party plugins so I can construct a vocal chain. Since this would be live, latency needs to be less than, say, 20 msec. for all that processing. Or at least a couple of basic but high quality built in plugins like a great EQ and compressor for the vocals. And maybe even delay and reverb, with automatable parameters, so I can do live delay throws instead of having to pre-render them as audio.
And most importantly, this needs to be rock-solid. This just cannot ever crash or be buggy/glitchy in some way when it comes to live playback.
Nice to know VST Live can be fully operated via MIDI controllers. As I’m currently thinking about the next generation of our live setup, having an external MIDI controller be part of it is an option I will certainly think through, so thank you for your comment!
