I have been asking around the various DAW communities, but since my solution is nearly certainly going to be MIDI based I thought I'd go to the source 🙂

My electronic-based project is opening up for the Counting Crows all summer and I need to integrate a lot of the vocal effects from my forthcoming album into the live show. There are a lot of specifically programmed Reason vocoders and various VST effects that come in and out of the arrangement specific to each song.

I don't want to have the automation of the vocals be controlled by the same computer that's playing the live tracks in an effort to reduce the likelihood of a crash.

Here are the tools at my disposal, I'm hoping we can find a simple solution with what we have, but I'm willing to invest if we need something more.

1. SPDsx
2. SP404sx
3. Apple Laptop with Ableton and Reason
4. Apple Laptop with Ableton and Reason

My initial thought is playing the tracks from a pad on the SPDsx (or 404sx) that sends a specific midi note to launch a specific song's worth of effects/automations in Reason, or in Ableton getting rewired to Reason.

Another potential solution I could think of would be linking the laptops via a midi network and finding a solution that way.

Any thoughts or insight would help.