My church is already using Ableton Live for our Live Keys setup. For us, the greater flexibility just made sense, as well as the ability to expand and have tracks and automation be handled by the same system running our live keys. However, the problem we're currently running into is keeping our "master setlist" organized as we put together the weekly set but it doesn't necessarily get cleaned up by the keyboardist once we're done with service on Sunday. With that being the current downside of our setup, I've been looking into what our keys setup would look like in something like Kontakt instead. Since we're firmly on a windows machine for our live keys setup, Mainstage is not really a reasonable option for us.
Thanks for this David. I've been a user of Sunday Keys for some time (with the latest 2021 template too) on Mainstage. This is we've been using at my church. About 5 months ago, when we got shutdown cos of Covid, I started personally dabbling with Ableton Lite and even got the Sunday Keys for Ableton. Now, I'm on the 90 day trial version of Ableton and I must say it's starting to grow on me. You're right, you either love it or don't. And I'm starting to love it. My 90 days are almost up and these are some of my thoughts about it (while I try to decide if I should go with Ableton or not): 1. I love the potential of what I will be able to do with Ableton; song arrangements, session views, improvisations etc 2. I love that Mainstage is simple to use and easy to learn - as you say - volunteer friendly 3. I love that once you know something about Ableton; how easy and intuitive it can really be - though the learning process may be steeper (than Mainstage) 4. I love the parameterization capabilities of Ableton and how easy it is to assign a plugin's parameters to a hardware device (I use Omnisphere, Keyscape, Valhalla Shimmer) 5. Stability - definitely Ableton. I run a high-ish end Mac Pro (Intel i7, 16Gb RAM, big SSD) and Mainstage has crashed on me several times during LIVE. I never have that peace of mind during live performance. 6. Ableton is definitely Future Proofing myself and probably the church In short, it's a matter of whether or not the money is well spent; so I'd say that whoever is thinking of making a leap for Ableton, has to definitely be in it for the long term and is willing to invest the time and energy learning it up. Again, thank you for your insight. It's assisted me in making a decision to go WITH Ableton. Besides, I can still run Mainstage if I want to.
You can use Ableton Live Lite just in case If Your 90 Days Of Ableton Free Trial Are over,You Can type Ableton Live Lite on google or safari, then just click download .Ableton Live Lite Does Not Have 90 Days So You Should be good with Ableton Live Lite but it only has 8 instruments for tracks or recording.
David, well done on a balanced explanation of Ableton Live for playing worship keyboard. I have one disagreement with you regarding the difficulty of bringing in different songs from worship service to service, which I'm guessing arrives from seeing several Ableton Live "templates" that have complex appearing methods loading patches/sounds into a song setlist. I'll concede that Ableton Live probably has a harder learning curve than Main Stage. Although I don't use Main Stage, I'm considering getting it for educational purposes (if I can overcome the $$$ of getting a MacBook Pro). Nevertheless that steeper learning curve can be readily overcome by watching several of the multiple UA-cam Ableton Live tutorials available, including yours from Sunday Sounds. But returning to my disagreement on more difficulty loading songs. What I do is keep my songs (Name_Key_BPM) in a separate "Songs" folder as ".als" files, and then select/load the three to four songs for any Sunday's service and then save that "Live Set". Loading three to four songs does take a couple minutes, the reason for the loading time being that each song is relatively complex with different instrument racks for each of the song's sections (intro, verse, chorus etc.) and each rack with multiple sounds/instruments or layers, midi effects etc.. However, all of the real work is done up front in programing or setting up each song. Once done making a song, you're done; just simply select and load for a given service. The numerous instrument racks don't overload the CPU, because only one song's section is active at a time (using the chain selector). I did have a separate question for Sunday Sounds. How many layers or different sounds/instruments can be used per song patch in a Main Stage concert, if that's the correct terminology. From watching your videos on song specific patches the highest number I've seen there was seven layers so far. Thank you in advance for your response.
I've been looking at automating some of our Sunday service, along with running click track for our musicians. I've looked at Studio One 5 and was able to do a proof of concept with it. It works great on a song by song basis, but the live performance workflow is less than ideal. I've heard of several people using Ableton Live, so I downloaded the trial and moved what I had in Studio One into it. I keep thinking that there must be some kind of feature in Ableton Live that makes it particularly useful, because I can't imagine people subjecting themselves to that user interface if it didn't, but it isn't obvious.
what exactly is the difference between sunday keys abelton and abelton live itself as a daw? is sunday keys like an app thats made based off abelton ( or mainstage depending on what one you choose i guess ). is the whole point of it to make it like cheaper and easier to use? thank you. apppreciate if you could help
Ok - what about running tracks in something like Logic, if you're already an MS/SK diehard? Or if you're in love with MS, look at Playback or something else for track? This is your fault, by the way - you've got me so hooked on MS that I can't anything else. (Oh - that's right. There's a SK opfion that does tracks from Logic, right? :-D :-D :-D
I recently took the plunge into Abelton on Windows (with sunday keys!) and its been really great except for one thing. Drivers! I haven't really seen it mentioned much. I have struggled a bit trying to get a good driver setup with minimal latnecy. Abelton only comes with MME/Direct X and Wave driver. The Wave one is garbage and the MME one we can only get to about 30ms of latnency. This is useable but not ideal. The ASIO4all drivers doesn't work at all on our laptop and atleast on reddit the consensus seems to be its garbage. Our church provides a Radial pro USB DI box which prides itself on being driverless but thats no help to me. Using an Komplete Audio 1 audio interface and its ASIO driver I can get latency to 5ms but now I have to work with weird outputs and would have to buy my own DI that can convert RCA to XRL. In the end its not a deal breaker and I'm still happy with my choice. Flipping between the 5ms and 30ms drivers I don't even know if I can forsure tell the difference but its something I didnt ever see mentioned while I was researching using Abelton on our exsiting laptop or getting a mac with mainstage. So just a heads up to anyone looking into this solution. Also if you are a student you can get 40% discount on Ableton!
I hooked up Ableton with Windows to a Scarlett 4i4 and honestly it works fine. Once you get the sweet spot of the sample rates and everything done it will be a very nice experience! But yes it does require a bit of tweaking. I wouldn't use any keyboard rig like this without a proper audio interface however, ASIO drives are hit and miss. Had a laptop that it worked fine on.. but then had one where it was artifacting while artifacting... it was a nightmare!
Hi, I got novation mk2, is it possible to map my faders to Sunday keys ableton plug in, and is it unnecessary to download another plug in when I purchase Sundays keys for ableton? (like omnisphere or keyscape) Thanks
Hi, yes you can map your hardware controls to control the Ableton template, we have a tutorial here: support.sundaysounds.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047690934-How-do-you-map-a-control-in-Ableton-Live-Midi-Map- The Sunday Keys Template does not need any other 3rd party software. All the instruments and Sounds are included in the Template.
Best way to have control and apply effects on everything.
My church is already using Ableton Live for our Live Keys setup. For us, the greater flexibility just made sense, as well as the ability to expand and have tracks and automation be handled by the same system running our live keys. However, the problem we're currently running into is keeping our "master setlist" organized as we put together the weekly set but it doesn't necessarily get cleaned up by the keyboardist once we're done with service on Sunday.
With that being the current downside of our setup, I've been looking into what our keys setup would look like in something like Kontakt instead. Since we're firmly on a windows machine for our live keys setup, Mainstage is not really a reasonable option for us.
I like how David said it feels "Abletoney"?! That's definitely the feeling. I left Mainstage a long time ago. :)
Thanks for this David. I've been a user of Sunday Keys for some time (with the latest 2021 template too) on Mainstage. This is we've been using at my church. About 5 months ago, when we got shutdown cos of Covid, I started personally dabbling with Ableton Lite and even got the Sunday Keys for Ableton. Now, I'm on the 90 day trial version of Ableton and I must say it's starting to grow on me. You're right, you either love it or don't. And I'm starting to love it. My 90 days are almost up and these are some of my thoughts about it (while I try to decide if I should go with Ableton or not):
1. I love the potential of what I will be able to do with Ableton; song arrangements, session views, improvisations etc
2. I love that Mainstage is simple to use and easy to learn - as you say - volunteer friendly
3. I love that once you know something about Ableton; how easy and intuitive it can really be - though the learning process may be steeper (than Mainstage)
4. I love the parameterization capabilities of Ableton and how easy it is to assign a plugin's parameters to a hardware device (I use Omnisphere, Keyscape, Valhalla Shimmer)
5. Stability - definitely Ableton. I run a high-ish end Mac Pro (Intel i7, 16Gb RAM, big SSD) and Mainstage has crashed on me several times during LIVE. I never have that peace of mind during live performance.
6. Ableton is definitely Future Proofing myself and probably the church
In short, it's a matter of whether or not the money is well spent; so I'd say that whoever is thinking of making a leap for Ableton, has to definitely be in it for the long term and is willing to invest the time and energy learning it up.
Again, thank you for your insight. It's assisted me in making a decision to go WITH Ableton. Besides, I can still run Mainstage if I want to.
You can use Ableton Live Lite just in case If Your 90 Days Of Ableton Free Trial Are over,You Can type Ableton Live Lite on google or safari, then just click download .Ableton Live Lite Does Not Have 90 Days So You Should be good with Ableton Live Lite but it only has 8 instruments for tracks or recording.
cool! hey david. i just bought SK for main stage and i'm loving it! keep up the good work.
There are some great points made in this video! Great to see you guys took time into giving a bit of info regarding the matter! Great video!
Great bro ! I am also using Ableton live 10 suite 2020 !
I am playing keys in our church !
City church Dhaka !
Greetings from Bangladesh !
David, well done on a balanced explanation of Ableton Live for playing worship keyboard. I have one disagreement with you regarding the difficulty of bringing in different songs from worship service to service, which I'm guessing arrives from seeing several Ableton Live "templates" that have complex appearing methods loading patches/sounds into a song setlist. I'll concede that Ableton Live probably has a harder learning curve than Main Stage. Although I don't use Main Stage, I'm considering getting it for educational purposes (if I can overcome the $$$ of getting a MacBook Pro). Nevertheless that steeper learning curve can be readily overcome by watching several of the multiple UA-cam Ableton Live tutorials available, including yours from Sunday Sounds. But returning to my disagreement on more difficulty loading songs. What I do is keep my songs (Name_Key_BPM) in a separate "Songs" folder as ".als" files, and then select/load the three to four songs for any Sunday's service and then save that "Live Set". Loading three to four songs does take a couple minutes, the reason for the loading time being that each song is relatively complex with different instrument racks for each of the song's sections (intro, verse, chorus etc.) and each rack with multiple sounds/instruments or layers, midi effects etc.. However, all of the real work is done up front in programing or setting up each song. Once done making a song, you're done; just simply select and load for a given service. The numerous instrument racks don't overload the CPU, because only one song's section is active at a time (using the chain selector).
I did have a separate question for Sunday Sounds. How many layers or different sounds/instruments can be used per song patch in a Main Stage concert, if that's the correct terminology. From watching your videos on song specific patches the highest number I've seen there was seven layers so far. Thank you in advance for your response.
In our Song Specific Patches we use up to 15 channel strips since they have the Easy Transpose function.
I've been looking at automating some of our Sunday service, along with running click track for our musicians. I've looked at Studio One 5 and was able to do a proof of concept with it. It works great on a song by song basis, but the live performance workflow is less than ideal. I've heard of several people using Ableton Live, so I downloaded the trial and moved what I had in Studio One into it. I keep thinking that there must be some kind of feature in Ableton Live that makes it particularly useful, because I can't imagine people subjecting themselves to that user interface if it didn't, but it isn't obvious.
How useful it Ableton Lite ? I got it as a bundle from my focusrite 2i2. Is it useful or I'll still need live and not lite ??
what exactly is the difference between sunday keys abelton and abelton live itself as a daw? is sunday keys like an app thats made based off abelton ( or mainstage depending on what one you choose i guess ). is the whole point of it to make it like cheaper and easier to use? thank you. apppreciate if you could help
Ok - what about running tracks in something like Logic, if you're already an MS/SK diehard? Or if you're in love with MS, look at Playback or something else for track? This is your fault, by the way - you've got me so hooked on MS that I can't anything else. (Oh - that's right. There's a SK opfion that does tracks from Logic, right? :-D :-D :-D
I recently took the plunge into Abelton on Windows (with sunday keys!) and its been really great except for one thing. Drivers! I haven't really seen it mentioned much. I have struggled a bit trying to get a good driver setup with minimal latnecy. Abelton only comes with MME/Direct X and Wave driver. The Wave one is garbage and the MME one we can only get to about 30ms of latnency. This is useable but not ideal. The ASIO4all drivers doesn't work at all on our laptop and atleast on reddit the consensus seems to be its garbage.
Our church provides a Radial pro USB DI box which prides itself on being driverless but thats no help to me. Using an Komplete Audio 1 audio interface and its ASIO driver I can get latency to 5ms but now I have to work with weird outputs and would have to buy my own DI that can convert RCA to XRL.
In the end its not a deal breaker and I'm still happy with my choice. Flipping between the 5ms and 30ms drivers I don't even know if I can forsure tell the difference but its something I didnt ever see mentioned while I was researching using Abelton on our exsiting laptop or getting a mac with mainstage. So just a heads up to anyone looking into this solution.
Also if you are a student you can get 40% discount on Ableton!
I hooked up Ableton with Windows to a Scarlett 4i4 and honestly it works fine. Once you get the sweet spot of the sample rates and everything done it will be a very nice experience! But yes it does require a bit of tweaking. I wouldn't use any keyboard rig like this without a proper audio interface however, ASIO drives are hit and miss. Had a laptop that it worked fine on.. but then had one where it was artifacting while artifacting... it was a nightmare!
Hey David, could I run Sunday keys on Ableton Live , run tracks , and also connect to the console and multitrack record ? All on ableton ?
Which is easiest to plug and play keys on church abelton or Mainstage? And hopefully use with worship essential? Please help.. god bless
Hi, I got novation mk2, is it possible to map my faders to Sunday keys ableton plug in, and is it unnecessary to download another plug in when I purchase Sundays keys for ableton? (like omnisphere or keyscape)
Thanks
Hi, yes you can map your hardware controls to control the Ableton template, we have a tutorial here: support.sundaysounds.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047690934-How-do-you-map-a-control-in-Ableton-Live-Midi-Map-
The Sunday Keys Template does not need any other 3rd party software. All the instruments and Sounds are included in the Template.
Will Sunday keys work on Ableton Live Lite?
Intro is the most basic it can run. :)