Hi everyone,
My name is Andrey, Im composer and sound producer from Russia. For many years I use Cubase in my studio workflow and I always been satisfied by it. Besides my studio projects I
m interested in live performance software. I always felt that there are simply no smart solution on a market for a great live performance.
Programs like Ableton are focused on loop-based music. MainStage is great, but still lacks one very important feature: interactive programming of live show. Performer have to change instruments for himself in real time or rely on pre-programmed stuff with click track. I perform music that requires rapid instrument changes, which leads to multiple midi keyboards and a lot of headache with switching them to different patches and modes.
This problem actually exists for centuries. Organ players often need an assistant to operate stop knobs.
Maybe its possible to make a software that vanish all these problems at once?
Ill try to explain what I mean and I
m very sorry for my bad English
Imagine a program that is somewhat between Dorico and Cubase. We have an interface based on score, like any notation software. But goal is not to notate something, but to import a score into software and assign notes to different MIDI events to assist performer during live performance, changing parameters of the instrument and to select required instrument patch for performer. But how to make software aware when it should change from one instrument to another without user pressing any keyswitches or buttons?
Its going to read the score.It will read pre-written notes, compare it to notes played by user in realtime and execute commands assigned to these notes. For example, let
s assume I wish to play a few rapid passages using both of my hands on keyboard and each of them should be played by different instrument or combination of instruments. Doing that with software like MainStage is not easy at all - Ill have to switch between 2 different patches by pressing some midi button or note using foot controller every time between passages. And if the tempo is fast, making it right in time between last note of first passage and first note of second passage requires some really mad timing skills. Another way is to use 2 keyboards and jump from one to another - which will also require doing some circus tricks with your hands. Now, if we have a software that can read notes and compare it to what I play, this becomes really simple. All I have to do is notate these passages into score and assign instrument patches to every group of notes. So when I play first passage, program follows me, already knowing that when I finish playing this particular group of notes it
ll have to change what I want it to change. So it waits until I play last note of the passage and instantly switches to another VST instrument – so when I play next note on the same keyboard, MIDI signals already been routed to another VST.
Here is very simple Paint mockup of what it may look like:
Actually I believe this idea to be so simple that I guess Im missing something – why nobody still did it? It would be a huge leap for everyone who perform sophisticated music which requires something more than just loop-based stuff or just a few patches for a whole performance. With soft like that, you can assign every note to sound different, every note you play can be assigned to one or few different VSTs, so you can play whole orchestra with just 2 hands. And the greatest thing is that you still keep complete freedom of performance – no click tracks in your ears, you can slow down or go faster any time – program will just read the score and won
t make any changes before you play right note.
This opens a whole new world for piano accompanists who would be able to perform complicated orchestral pieces using single MIDI keyboard and foot controller. Maybe not the whole orchestral part of Rachmaninoffs concertos in original orchestration- but a high quality illustration at least. If its not just a dream and its possible to make such program – it would be a reasonable thing for Steinberg to do because it seamlessly combines features of both Cubase and Dorico so it won
t be too hard to produce, and it will encourage more people who do both studio work and live performance start using these products.
So, is it real or am I missing something?