FredMcKinnon.Com

with Ableton …. Live 6 that is.

I did it. After years of downloading the free trial of Ableton Live, messing around for a few minutes or hours, and then moving on and neglecting it .. I finally did it. I made the commitment. I took the plunge. I purchased Ableton Live 6.

I’ve been spending the latter part of this week checking it out, reading up, studying, practicing, looping, etc. (which is the main reason I’ve been blogless for a few days, among other reasons like fighting hackers again).

Well, I can truly say I now understand the hype and fuss over this software – especially as applied in live worship. While Shannon (our Associate Worship Director) leads the 3 worship services in our main auditorium over at St. Simons Community Church (eureka! did I actually LINK to my church … does that mean there is FINALLY a website up! .. yes .. although it still has quite a few bugs … we’ll have those worked out soon) … I’m going to be a guest WL in Dublin, GA at a couple of different churches.

First stop tomorrow morning is World Harvest Church in Dublin, GA … the entire worship team there is gone to Forward ‘07 so they asked me to come as a guest Worship Leader and minister. I’m excited, but with no band I wondered how it would go. I intended to just do some spontaneous “Worship Interludes” type ministry, but really wanted to break the ice and find common ground by singing some more well-known worship songs. Since I’ve been wanting to use some loops at my church (even in the smaller settings, like staff meeting worship) I’d already been thinking about investing some of my “CT-Creative Time” [see this post] in learning it .. then, when faced with a weekend of leading worship with no band .. .I decided it was time to make the plunge. Now, I’ll do a second PM service in the same town at The Sanctuary in Dublin, GA.

I’ve been practicing this weekend and I think I’m ready .. I’ll play my Yamaha keyboard and will have a fully interactive band with me in Ableton, sporting right out of my beloved Lappie (MacBook Pro).

Big kudos to Greg over at Digital Worship and Phillip, the owner of InteractiveWorshipLive.Com. Greg has a site dedicated to making loops and discussing the use of loops and Ableton, and he’s become a great resource and new friend over email, “IM”, and he’s going to help us with a dedicated forum on loops at TheWorshipCommunity. Phillip has a company where they produce full Ableton Live Sets which include all the multiple tracks to each song, professional recorded by studio musicians … and “covered” just like the album. The songs are very reasonably priced, and I bought 3 songs and cashed in on my 1 free song credit, so I got 4 fully produced songs in Ableton Live complete with click track, keys, bass, electric guitars, acoustic guitars, organs, drums (real, acoustic drums), drum loops, and more. I can mute what tracks I don’t need. I can loop the Chorus again if I need to – Live, on the fly. They even have BGV’s!

So, I have really tight, full sounding, complete interactive band arrangements loaded in Ableton to my first four songs in my setlist .. after those, I’ll break and move into a more intimate, piano/strings type worship, meditation, prayer, ministry.

Albeton Live Set:
1 – Everyday (Lincoln Brewter Arr)
2 – O Praise Him (David Crowder Band Arr)
3 – Everlasting God (Tomin Arr)
4 – Holy is the Lord (Tomlin Arr)

I’ll be blogging more on this resource shortly, but in the meantime, THANKS GUYS!

For the Kingdom,

Fred

Related posts:

1. Loop: A Mighty Fortress is Our God
2. Piano Concert
3. Loops – Hosanna by Paul Baloche
4. Adios – Staff Retreat
5. Off to Midland