Tips on performing live with the Alesis Fusion

[amosdef]

Creating "set lists" before the show:

One of my most frequently used features on the Fusion is the Item Explorer. This function can be accessed by holding down the "Locate" and the "Inc" simultaneously (you can also use Locate+Dec, which I find easier to do during a show). I create a master bank of all the mixes I use for live shows and move them around using the Arrange function to match the proposed set for the show. I find that having a mix for each song is necessary for my purposes, since I have very few mixes that are identical. For the few that are, I create a duplicate mixes to avoid switching back and forth during the set.

After creating the set list order, pre-load as many mixes as you can for each set. If you can't hold a full set's worth of mixes in memory, you have two choices: 1) install the memory upgrade. 2) simplify your mixes. If you choose the second choice, you may be able to get away with using a sample with a smaller memory footprint. For example, if a mix has the Holy Grail Piano loaded, and the piano sound is not prominent in the mix, do you really need that huge sample or can you get away with one of the smaller options?

If you still find that you need to switch to a mix out of order and you have some time during the song, you can line that sound up to be loaded and still play if you're careful. Bringing up the Item Explorer (Locate+Inc) when you are NOT pressing a note on the keyboard. You can dial up your mix and when the song ends, hit OPEN. Hopefully it's been preloaded and there's no delay. Why do you not want to press a note while doing this? Because you could activate another Fusion shortcut, the Transpose fiction. Definitely not a good thing to mistakenly activate in the middle of playing. You can however, sustain notes with the sustain pedal and let go of the keys, then use the Locate+Inc shortcut to bring up the Item Explorer. Using these techniques, you can avoid, or at least minimize the load times of your mixes while playing.

Programing Tips and Strategies:

Choose the best sound engine or for the application. Whenever dealing with large mixes you need to keep an eye on your memory usage. Try to minimize your reliance on the sample engine when another engine can be used. If you have a sound that can be easily recreated in another engine, go for it!

Always look for samples with smaller sizes before using the bigger ones. Check out the sound in the mix and if you can get away with the smaller one, you just saved some precious memory.

When creating splits, there's a nice shortcut to setting the Low/High Range setting. Go into edit mode on a mix, then select the Part option on the left and Range on the right. Then scroll down to Low Key or High Key setting and hold down the Locate button and a note on the keyboard to set the Low or High point of the part's range. This only works on the Fusion's keyboard, not an external midi controller.

For those using an external midi controller in addition to the Fusion, you'll want to make sure to set the options in the Controller screen to reflect which keyboard the part will respond to. By default it has both the Keyboard and External MIDI Control options selected. If you want the sound to be on the external midi controller only, you'll need to uncheck Keyboard for that part. Similarly, uncheck the External MIDI Controller option for parts that are only to be played on the local keyboard. Sounds simple enough, but I still find myself not checking those off when adding parts.

The easiest way to enable/disable parts in a mix is to use the alternate range option. This is also in the Range screen of the Part section. For example: You can use a controller, such as the modulation wheel to add strings to a piano. This can be useful in giving you more options when you find yourself running out of keys or hands.

To set up this example, you would create a mix with two parts, a piano on part 1 and strings on part 2. Select Part on the left and bring up part 2 by changing the EDIT Part setting. Change the Alt Range Type setting to Mod Wheel and the Alternate Low setting to 100. I use this value rather than 127 in case I don't turn the mod wheel all the way up it will still work. You can mess around with the value to see what you prefer. You will now have a mix that has piano only when the mod wheel is down and piano with strings when it's up. If you wanted to replace the piano with the strings, you would set up part 1's Alternate Range similar to part 2, except set the Alternate Low to 0 and the Alternate High to 99. This will play the piano sound when the mod wheel is set from 0-99 and the string from 100-127.


Setup and settings:

Keep things simple and only use the Mix or Song mode. If you only use one mode, you can go into the Global screen and select Settings and set the option that says Load programs on power up to: Last mode only. This will save you some startup time in the event you have to reboot. Speaking of reboots, a UPS is probably a good idea to avoid any temporary power outages (like your guitar player unplugging your power cord during sound check after you've already preloaded all your sounds).

Another possible setting to look into is found under the Global screen. Select System on the left and CPU % on the right. You can mess with the Optimization settings, but I leave mine set to Optimize for polyphony since I pre-load my sounds.

When powering up, be sure to have the sustain pedal plugged in, or it will not work properly. It's not fun to start playing and realizing your sustain pedal is working backwards. The only way to fix that at that point is to restart the unit.

The most important key on the unit is the stop key. This acts as an "all notes off" or panic button. It also fixes the problem cause by a bug that still exists where changed in the filter does not reset from program to program.

Be sure to backup frequently to your computer, and even backup your backups from your computer to CD or whatever your archival media of choice is. You can never have enough backups. You may even want to save your programs and samples to a CF card to have on hand in case of a HD failure. You must make sure that the programs are referencing the samples on the CF card and not the HD or you will run into errors when trying to load them. This will most likely take a lot of time since you have to edit the individual programs on the CF card to change the sample reference, so it's up to you if you want to have that level of protection.

Just a few things I've managed to learn while using my Fusion in a live setting. I plan on keeping this post updated as I learn more tricks. Feel free to let me know if there's any parts of this document that are confusing and I'll try to make them more clear.

[Luc Henrion]

Now, THIS is a great post ! Thank you Amos
And, as a "live" player myself, I must add that you're 100% right on everything you mentioned

[amosdef]

Thanks Luc! Glad to be of help. I'm glad that it not only made sense, but that you also agree with it I'll try to keep this post updated whenever I learn a new trick. Feel free to add any of your tips to this thread and I'll add them to my post to help keep them in one spot.

[Luc Henrion]

Well the only thing I could add is that I would suggest to always choose the "song" mode instead of "mix". As far as I know, there is nothing you can do in "mix" mode that you can't do in "song" mode too, but obviously, you have a lot more features in "song" mode (32 tracks + 8 audio tracks >< 16 parts).
One "caveat" though: if you copy a song into another location to use it for another song, (or for the "encore" ) everything is really duplicated on your HD, including all the files used by the audio multitrack. If you use it a lot, this could fill your HD with unnecessary audio files. Just don't forget to delete them after you did a back-up, of course.

[amosdef]

Thanks. I was going to touch on that, but I didn't have enough info on the benefits of Song mode vs. Mix mode, so I just went with what I know. Is the main (only?) difference the 16 extra midi channels and the 8 audio channels? I thought I remember reading something about effects being handled different in Song mode, but I could be mistaken.

[dfahrner]

One difference between Song and Mix modes: in Mix mode, settings made in Mix/Part/Controls for Fusion controllers like the mod wheel will be active for all parts as soon as the Mix is selected. Settings made for these controllers in Song/Track/Controls will only be active for the currently selected track (the first track when the song is selected). If you use Mix/Utility/To Song, then control parameters for all tracks will be active when the song is selected, just like in Mix mode.

df

[GuyDenruyter]

Thanks Amos!

[LZ]

FYI - I think I posted thiis a long time ago, but...

I put EVERYTHING in song mode. Why?

We move very quickly song to song. B4 each show, I get the setlist and spend a few minutes in Global>Item Explorer arranging the songs in order of the setlist. Not all are sequences. Some are mixes. Some are just patch changes sent to my Pod for my guitar (I also play rhythem Guitar). But that way, all I have to do is it INC, "no" (because the stinking thing thinks there's been a change to the sequence if there's a program change in there and asks me if I want to save changes), "Play" and I'm up and running for the next song. No hunting and pecking for patches. By keeping it ALL in song mode, I don't have to change modes. I just increment throught the setlist.

We move pretty quickly, and even doing it this way, sometimes the few seconds it takes to load are too much. The next step we are exploring is to splice multiple sequences together. The only problem I found is that sometimes if I'm using all the inserts for one song, and different FX for the next... Does anybody know if/how to change Insert/Master FX TYPES in the middle of a sequence?

Thx

[Petrovi4]

Another useful tip for playing live.
( the way to enable/disable tracks in a song).
In each track (synth) of a song you can insert an event (controller-track enable - 0/127) that will turn that track on/off at specified time.
So you can use various keysplits during a song play.
A little bit tricky but it works fine.

[brianos]

Thanks for the tips, Amos (et.al.) - just had my first live gig with my Fusion last night, and the set-list trick made for very smooth transitions - as did quickly inc-ing through all the mixes before the show to preload all the samples.

[amosdef]

You're welcome. Glad they worked out for you. I use the pre-loaded setlists and the Locate-Inc shortcut every night and it's made a huge difference in the speed I can switch from song to song

[godyn]

Very useful tips, also from Luc !
Thanks guys.
I'm going live this weekend with my Fusion and attached midi setup, so I'm a bit nervous.

[electRiq]

If you wanted to replace the piano with the strings, you would set up part 1's Alternate Range similar to part 2, except set the Alternate Low to 0 and the Alternate High to 99. This will play the piano sound when the mod wheel is set from 0-99 and the string from 100-127.

Thx amos for that great desciption (at all)! Maybe it's useful to say you can use every controller of the Fusion for that feature, e.g. the S1/2 switches, expression or switch pedal, aftertouch (while holding some notes) velocity (pre set) or whatever you like to use...
And sorry for pushing this ol' thread

[electRiq]

I'm sorry if I irritated any person...like I found out yesterday evening, you sadly cannot use the S1/2 switches...instead of these I now have to use the modulation wheel, which I can't use while playing the several parts (because I need 2 hands)...