Setup
The system is made up of seven interlinked components:
1.) Wireless Microphone Sennheiser XSW2 e865 (x 2) and receivers
2.) Wireless Sennheiser guitar transmitter EW 100 and receiver
3.) Focusrite Clarett 4 Pre audio interface
4.) Macbook pro
5.) Ableton Live 9
6.) Mobius 2
7.) Effects Pedals:
Vocal Harmoniser (VE-2)
Tuner (TU-3)
Bass Pedal (OC-3)
Boost Pedal (GE-7)
8.) Sonnit midi footswitch
The main vocal is sent from the receiver to Ableton Live 9 and sent through various plugins (EQ’s, compressors, auto faders, etc), and after processing is then sent to the mixing desk on a 1/4 inch jack and a second signal is sent to the vocal harmoniser pedal onstage. The vocal harmoniser then sends a harmonised vocal back to Ableton Live for final processing before being sent to the mixing desk.
The guitar is sent to the receiver and out to the pedal chain onstage. It goes through a tuner pedal, a bass pedal (for turning the guitar into a bass guitar), a boost pedal (for quiet guitar picking or solos), and finally through the vocal harmoniser to allow it to shape the vocal into the correct harmony. It’s then sent back to Ableton Live for processing.
In Ableton Live, the signal has various plugins applied to it (EQ’s, compressors, etc) and then is sent to a plug in called Mobius 2.
This plugin is a software looper that loops all incoming audio sent to it in real time. The software runs on custom coded scripts that tell it how to behave and what to do when it receives a midi note from the Sonnit pedal. This could be something simple like record or overdub, or something complex like multiply the loop length by 3, and the insert 1 loop length of silence.
This allows the Mobius looper to be much more customisable than stock hardware loopers from Boss or Digitech, although with a lot more time invested towards it!
The audio is then sent back into Ableton and out to the mixing desk.
The loop vocal audio goes straight into Ableton and also goes through plugins, including a noise gate to limit stage noise leakage. This then gets sent to Mobius to be looped and is routed back into Ableton to be sent out to the desk.
The processed main vocal harmonies are received back in on the final channel from the floor pedal, sent through a final few plugins and sent on their way to the mixing desk.
From here, its the job of the mixing engineer to mix the loop guitar, loop vocals, main vocals and harmony vocals to create a balanced sound.