Dj'ing with Ableton....

[Tarekith]

The new sample decks in S4 helps a lot with that too I ight add, lots more room to later and you can save your loops. I use Traktor with the sync function, so I still beat grid all my tracks. It's a few seconds faster than warping a track in Live, usually not too much so if you want things dead on. The flip side is that with Traktor if you're gridding is off, it's not hard to adjust it on the fly and keep going.

[stonee]

quick tip for those who are looking for a browser:

you can drag and drop from itunes, and have it save you're asd files.

set itunes to consolidate you're library, browse to you're library in abelton's browser and select anylize folder.

now, you can organize play lists, and sort through them by artist, genre, song name, plus you have the search function.

once you're quick enough at warping, you can warp on the fly. not quite the same as beat matching, but still gives you something to do between mixes. then once you launch the song, stick in in a playlist with you're other favorite warped tracks.

another nifty trick, is if you're using a soundcard that lets you, set your computer main outputs to your headphones, and you can preview tracks right from itunes before you drop it into you're set.

for me, this works better than any of the other browsers.

[toady]

Thanks a lot for your help.

[kunchok]

stonee when you say to have Ableton "Analyze folder" in itunes folder, do you mean Analyze all of your audio? And does this convert all of your itunes library to wav? I don't want to convert my entire itunes lib. to wav as that would be huge.

Thanks,
kunchok

[Khazul]

I use Traktor with the sync function, so I still beat grid all my tracks.

Ive actually mapped the beat grid nudge functions onto my X1, so now beatgrid sttuff on the fly - best of both worlds

[Khazul]

@tomf

Something to think about - instead of just switching wholesale over to ableton, with traktor and Live, audio 8 dj etc it is possible to go for a hybrid.

I have been experimenting with combining Live and Traktor on a single machine combined with an audio 8dj and a djm-800 mixer and end up with the following:
- Mix normally in traktor scrratch (with or without timecode)
- Mix between traktor and live on the DJM - Live feeds ch.5+6 out on the audio 8 dj which goes to line in ch.1 on the DJM (use switch to select CD/Live)
- Run clips in sync with traktor in live.
- Use live as a syncronised fx device for anything going through the DJM, so long as traktor is providing the midi sync. (ch.7+8 in and out are connected to the DJM send/return, so for example, I can a multi-fx rack, sends etc in live to beatmash+delays+whatever something playing in traktor, or even something playing off a CD or vinyl so long as I manually beatmatch traktor (which in turn beatmatches Live) via timecode. If feeling really adventurous, and combin my UM-880 midi router, then can even try slaving live to the DJM-800 midi clock out, but I never find this reliable enough for Live.
- Use ch.5+6 in to record anything coming out of the DJM-800 rec out.
- Use M4L in live to drive DMX lighting clips and even a video projector (going to try some of the vizzie stuff and see how this works out).
- Use Live to resample and loop anything coming out of the DJM - obvious subject to making sure Live is in sync with it, via Traktor - get some quite cool tuff if you resample something that will auto-warp correctly then use the tone/texture modes to mangle it in some way combined with other fx.

The biggest headache in all this is delay compensation due to the complex routings, but looking into making some M4L sample accurate delays for midi and audio to try and sort this out. Live stupidly seems to abandom all attempts at delay compensation and wont even let me change track delay when it on external sync. (Actually Ive been noticing so many delay comp issue recently that Im wonderng if ableton have recently broken something).

I use a virtual midi port currently to slave live to traktor via midi - after a few nigggles this seems to be working ok. Programme a bunch of extra controls on the midi mode of my X1 to control beatgrid, resync and sitch between timecode and internal clocks in traktor so i can easily transition between timecode and internal clock in traktor as and when needed. Live is controlled from an APC40.

Im not actually using this live yet - more a case of seeing what is possible, then figuring out what is actually useful and practical - aim being to get to the point of easy to run hydrid sets across traktor and live witth conventional track mixing in traktor and easy transitions to/from to my own stuff in live - ironicallyy after having got all this to work this way - Im not actually much of a fan of overly mashing things up and tend to want to shoot Djs who trash stuff in this way (unless they doing hip in which case it generally needs trashing as cant get any worse )

[nGen o.Hydra]

There is just one thing im gonna say :

Ableton is better than traktor! You can do everything u want to, better and more flexible. You just need to get into it. I assume that many people in this thread cant handle the program and have therefore not experienced how fucking creative you can be !

Ableton is = producing new awesome shit (not JUST Djing)

[lasersounds]

i started djing with live, but its just too much trouble and isnt spontaneous at all. Im a club dj(as in my job) and i dont play "shows" of my own stuff. i play to the crowd and play for about 3-4 hours at a time and simply cant warp 10000 f'in songs. and ableton doesnt like big sets, after a while they get bloated and slow and corrupt.

so now i use serato and turntables. i couldnt be happier and i guarantee i can do anything any of you can do in ableton, but i can do it cooler. i hate that you cant loop on the fly on ableton, it seriously puts a kink in djing! i know you can premake loops, but i dont always know a day in advance when i want to loop something and hype the crowd up.

but seriously, lets have a little fun! someone needs to make a 7-10 min vid with some hype ass ableton DJing and i will post a reply. im serious, not even as a real competition but i want to see what all you guys are doing, ive seen to many ableton DJs "deconstruct" a song with beat repeat and i want to see some good shit!!!

i might even throw in a lil bridge, theres not to many videos of that on youtube.

[Gregwaah]

Looping on the fly in Ableton is quite easy. Underneath the "Loop" button is something called position with a button called set. If you click on that whilst the track is playing it will set the loop point. You can then enter the length manually or hit the length set button whilst the track is playing when you feel the time is right.

[lasersounds]

Looping on the fly in Ableton is quite easy. Underneath the "Loop" button is something called position with a button called set. If you click on that whilst the track is playing it will set the loop point. You can then enter the length manually or hit the length set button whilst the track is playing when you feel the time is right.

Thats nowhere close to using loop on serato or traktor. all you do is hit 1/2/4/8/16 loop and then unclick when you are done. actually its even easier for me because i use dicers and all i have to do is hit on button at the place i want it to loop. what you are describing is not exactly what i would classify as looping on the fly. you cant just hit loop and be done with it, you can to type shit in and move the bracket around.

[S4racen]

Then you need max4live to do it...

I've created many devices that give the DJ community the features they are missing from Ableton from Smart Knobs to on the fly looping and follow actions at clip end...

With M4L there's not another piece of DJ software that can come close to what you can achieve with Ableton!

Cheers
D

[Herbal T]

ClyphX Remote Scripts will allow you to use dummy clips that control the selected track's loop details. You can turn on loops / set loop lengths / change the position of the loop etc on the fly. I don't have Max4Live so I don't have access to all the cool stuff, however I generally find I can use dummy clips that contain ClyphX commands to do the majority of stuff that I want.

Link to ClyphX Script
http://beatwise.proboards.com/index.cgi ... thread=716

[S4racen]

ClyphX Remote Scripts will allow you to use dummy clips that control the selected track's loop details. You can turn on loops / set loop lengths / change the position of the loop etc on the fly. I don't have Max4Live so I don't have access to all the cool stuff, however I generally find I can use dummy clips that contain ClyphX commands to do the majority of stuff that I want.

Link to ClyphX Script
http://beatwise.proboards.com/index.cgi ... thread=716

Agreed, everything is possible with ABleton where essentially everything else is a closed system!

Cheers
D

[Nick Shepherd]

In berlin it actually damages tje reputation of a dj when heshe is doing it with ablton live..

either its seen as a fake live set or as being to lame to even try to beatmatch or having a spontanius selection..

i lately tried to covince a dj to do it with live so we could enyoy the wobbely sync of ableton between our laptops.. but no way..

this is true for some parts... i caught myself thinking the same after seeing a guy play a 2 hour dj set with Ableton @ ://about blank last week - then again, i wanted to see his setup and went around the dj-desk to get a glimpse. The rest of the crowd propably didnt even notice he wasnt playing on vinyl and were having a good time - so dont forget that in the end, if you play a tight, groovy set that everyone enjoys - nobody gives a shit what the dj plays on, except the few chin stroking enthusiasts checking out the setup...granted there are quite a lot of them in this town

but yea, its a very rare thing to see people play dj-sets with Live here, its either Ableton for self-produced tracks or Traktor for djing here in berlin...do the math. I feel the same way about it, tried djing with live for some time - found it to be less intuitive and fun compared to Traktor or turntables/cd players - imho it doesnt really feel like djing at all.

but to be honest, just use what let´s you be the most creative and what you enjoy the most.