Djing in Ableton Live Noob. Please Help.

[chelemasty]

I've been producing in Live a long time ago already. But never tried DJing on it. I tried mixing my stuff a while a go and I wanna know how to CUE songs that I'm about to insert in the mix. I've heard that you should put your Cue Out on 3/4 but when I tried to change it, all I saw was 1/2, 1, &, 2. I don't see 3/4. Also I cant switch to Cue mode, it is stuck at Solo mode. I have a Steinberg MI4 external audio interface in case you wanna ask. Thanks in advance.


EDIT: I already added the 3/4 Out and activated Cue Mode. Now my only problem is how to Cue it properly. What is the setup or the process on how you guys cue your songs so that you could use your headphone for cuing without affecting the mix for listeners.

[Lord Kahn]

Can you assign 3/4 to the headphone out of the interface?

[chelemasty]

Can you assign 3/4 to the headphone out of the interface?

I wanna know that too.lol

[inakiesarte]

you need a sound card with 4 outputs...

[chelemasty]

I did managed to set 4 outputs on my soundcards control panel. I could make the Cue Output to 3/4 already with my soundcard. My question now is, how would I monitor that signal coming from 3/4. My soundcards output at the back has two pairs, one for my speaker monitor and one is a SPDIF output. oh and I also have a headphone jack on the front. So would I these outputs to hear my cue?

[keyboardcowb0y]

Hey,

First off, you shouldn't need 4 output to cue. You can cue with only 2 channels. 1 Channel master out and the other for cueing, but anyways, the main point about cueing. In Live you don't cue the same way that you would DJing with turntables. Do some research on Warping in Ableton Live. Basically the idea here is that you map out the tracks before hand, and the software takes care of playing the tracks on beat (to a point). Seems a little weird at first if your are used to manually cueing tracks, but you will get the hang of it and be able to warp tracks in 20 seconds.

The good thing about using Live is that you dont waste any time beatmatching your tracks. This gives you more time to be creative with your tracks, adding effects and other samples in easily.

[chelemasty]

Hey,

First off, you shouldn't need 4 output to cue. You can cue with only 2 channels. 1 Channel master out and the other for cueing, but anyways, the main point about cueing. In Live you don't cue the same way that you would DJing with turntables. Do some research on Warping in Ableton Live. Basically the idea here is that you map out the tracks before hand, and the software takes care of playing the tracks on beat (to a point). Seems a little weird at first if your are used to manually cueing tracks, but you will get the hang of it and be able to warp tracks in 20 seconds.

The good thing about using Live is that you dont waste any time beatmatching your tracks. This gives you more time to be creative with your tracks, adding effects and other samples in easily.

Oh yeah, that makes sense. Since you warped all of your songs already, all you just need to do is remember it and trigger those tracks at the right time. Am I right? Thanks.

Also I have 2 outputs at the back, 1 for each KRK monitor. So what you're trying to say that I would attach my headphone there, and only use 1 monitor? No, coz I don't have to?

[inakiesarte]

Hey,

First off, you shouldn't need 4 output to cue. You can cue with only 2 channels. 1 Channel master out and the other for cueing, but anyways, the main point about cueing. In Live you don't cue the same way that you would DJing with turntables. Do some research on Warping in Ableton Live. Basically the idea here is that you map out the tracks before hand, and the software takes care of playing the tracks on beat (to a point). Seems a little weird at first if your are used to manually cueing tracks, but you will get the hang of it and be able to warp tracks in 20 seconds.

The good thing about using Live is that you dont waste any time beatmatching your tracks. This gives you more time to be creative with your tracks, adding effects and other samples in easily.

Well, with two outputs... both will be mono wouldnt they?

I think for stereo output on your soundcard and cueing you will definetlly need four output( meaning two stereo outputs)

[keyboardcowb0y]

Sorry, you are right, I did mean to be more clear and say you only need to have 2 STEREO outputs (unless you are fine using mono).

[tmcmahon2]

Hey,

First off, you shouldn't need 4 output to cue. You can cue with only 2 channels. 1 Channel master out and the other for cueing, but anyways, the main point about cueing. In Live you don't cue the same way that you would DJing with turntables. Do some research on Warping in Ableton Live. Basically the idea here is that you map out the tracks before hand, and the software takes care of playing the tracks on beat (to a point). Seems a little weird at first if your are used to manually cueing tracks, but you will get the hang of it and be able to warp tracks in 20 seconds.

The good thing about using Live is that you dont waste any time beatmatching your tracks. This gives you more time to be creative with your tracks, adding effects and other samples in easily.

Well...that's one way to do it. If you know exactly where your different tracks come in, you know exactly what each track is in relation to the others, and you have planned just about everything out in advance.....but I'm not sure you'd be DJing compared to just "playing a mix".

You need the cue for a few reasons. First, a lot of times you want to make sure the track you have loaded into the clip is the one in question. Second, you might want to start the clip somewhere in the middle as opposed to the 1.1.1 point and the cue lets you hunt around. (Until Live lets you set cue points in the clip you need this which probably will never happen) Third, most DJs don't plan out their mixes to the point they can just click from one clip to the next. They might plan things out a little or even a lot but you're still going to want to know exactly what you have coming next and what it's going to mix into.