live samples with laptop

[punkrockacademyfightsong]

With my band we're fooling around with using some samples live. The samples are timed to the music.
We practiced today with my laptop with reaper. I made the sessions that the click is now routed to the left output and the samples to the right. Left goes to a headphone amp, right to the PA. So the songs with samples the drummer plays to the click, all works well, but it would be great to have the samples in stereo so I'm thinking:

Our guitar player has a 2 channel USB soundcard with MIDI connection. Would it be possible to connect the MIDI to a simple metronome unit and have the MIDI trigger the metronome so that the L+R output can be used for the samples? Sounds really easy in theory and I guess it should work. The only thing I'm concerned about is how to route the click in reaper to MIDI, or should I bounce the click to audio, strap drumagog over the audio track and make it trigger MIDI notes for the metronome?
If anyone has experience with this, all suggestions are welcome
Also if anyone knows a decent metronome unit that is affordable, has a good click sound (COWBELL!) and a headphone out that provides enough volume for live use, suggestions are welcome.

thanks

 

[xFkx]

a.) You're overthinking it with the midi metronome and shit, a laptop and ableton LIVE will do wonder... oh and...

b.) Invest in a quality firewire audio inferface. It's not only about the number of outputs, but also you want something reliable (which USB is not) so it will not crap out during a gig.

 

[punkrockacademyfightsong]

At the moment I'm just using my onboard soundcard, wich is really reliable, the thing is if we want to output the samples in stereo I'm going to need to use either a 4 channel audio interface or a 2 channel interface with MIDI. Of course a 4 channel firewire card would be best for this. I'm just checking if there are cheaper solutions. Thanks though!

 

[punkrockacademyfightsong]

hmm, yeah, when I think about it again I guess I was overthinking it with the MIDI stuff. A metronome device would cost about half as much as a 4 channel firewire soundcard and would probably be a lot more work getting to work well and be less stable and versatile.
so, anyone have experience with any of these cards? (I'm looking into the cheaper 4+ output units)

http://www.thomann.de/nl/terratec_phase_x_24_fwxtended.htm
http://www.thomann.de/nl/esi_duafire.htm
http://www.thomann.de/nl/echo_audiofire_4.htm
http://www.thomann.de/nl/presonus_firebox.htm

 

[if6was9]

if I were you I'd leave the samples in mono, stereo imaging isn't a major concern of live crowds and live engineers. Think about a fan at the very left of the stage- obviously their not gonna hear all the shit on the other side

 

[punkrockacademyfightsong]

thanks for your reply, we'll see how it works out this weekend, got 3 shows we're doing with the samples in mono. 1 sample is a war sample and I can really imagine it sounds a lot bigger with the shooting and shouting in stereo...

 

[xFkx]

if I were you I'd leave the samples in mono, stereo imaging isn't a major concern of live crowds and live engineers. Think about a fan at the very left of the stage- obviously their not gonna hear all the shit on the other side

Well, depends how you program your synth/electronica but i'd say you're loosing much impect neglecting stereo.

 

[Executioner213]

As far as what I've run into, a lot of live sound engineers are running thier system in mono so they can have more power (and I hate it). If thats what they all do where you are, stick with click on one and sample on the other for now until you can get an interface that gives multiple outputs.

 

[if6was9]

Thats my point- even if have your samples in stereo, then alot of venues will just take both channels and pan them centre anyways. I can see the benifits of running in both mono and stereo with live stuff.

 

[smy1]

thanks for your reply, we'll see how it works out this weekend, got 3 shows we're doing with the samples in mono. 1 sample is a war sample and I can really imagine it sounds a lot bigger with the shooting and shouting in stereo...

Question is if you WANT the samples to be big. Most of the time samples are "down-points" before the music kicks in.

100% of the audience won't know how the samples are SUPPOSED to sound in stereo. So they won't know if they are bigger or not in stereo ...