Hello guys,
new to the board. i work with a partner under the name 'innerstate'
(check hernan's new renaissance cd). been making serious considerations
to switching from the turntables and cd's to the ableton approach.
saw sasha play a wicked set with ableton last nite and seemed to learn a little about how he approached it, very inspiring. obviously he has a wicked custom controller. it appears that when he brings in a new track to the session, he has multiple cuts as well as the full track. for example intro beats, bass drop, body of track, breakdown.. etc.. also appears that he is able to get that allen and heath tone to his filtering, eq's and delays.
(he actually does run the mix through an allen and heath but doesnt use it for eq'ing). he's definitely able to create tension at any point in his set as well. does anyone care to share a bit about how someone might go about setting ableton up for proper dj'ing use?
also, are you able to create 'on the fly' loop points or 'hot cues' as you would on let's say a CDJ unit? secondly, Is there a basic master setting(fx and processors) or template that you guys(and girls) like to run your whole dj mix through that brings out the best in your mixes?
this is probably alot to cover, but i'm sure will be helpful for anyone considering making the switch to ableton and weighing any of the pros and cons to traditional dj'ing. cheers,
jason timothy
the Deeper side of DJ'ing with Ableton
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innerstatejt
- Posts: 219
- Joined: Sun Feb 27, 2005 10:43 pm
- Location: Denver, Co
- Contact:
........
I have only used Live very briefly so far to do 1 live dj mix, and it was quite good fun. I don't know the intricate ins and outs so I'm not sure I was getting the best out of it.
You definitely have to approach it differently to a Cdj, as it's not obviously set up to be able to loop and reloop in the same way.
However, providing you have warped the tracks correctly it's very easy to look at the waveform and pick out 4/8/16 bar loops and use them.
The way I did it was very simple - I had 2 audio tracks routed straight out of my 1820 soundcard into my 2 channel Ecler mixer. So all fading and eq'ing was done on the traditional mixer, with the record output of the mixer feeding back into an empty audio track in Ableton to record the mix.
Obviously you could do the mixing within Ableton but that seemed like a pain.
I didn't have my tracklist worked out or anything, I just looked through my tracks and picked them as I saw fit. Then, if I thought they had good bits to loop I would just quickly set up a loop and drop it over the mix. When I wanted to mix the track properly I just deleted the whole loop clip and dragged the track back in again. I found this easier than sorting out the clip again.
Add a few effects (I stuck to presets!) and it was quite good because there is enough to be gettin on with and having a bit of pressure when trying to sort loops and effects out is quite fun really.
I think taking lots of loops and stuff and rendering them as new clips beforehand is quite sensible, but I haven't done that yet.
I'm also a bit restricted as I only have a 2-channel mixer.
You definitely have to approach it differently to a Cdj, as it's not obviously set up to be able to loop and reloop in the same way.
However, providing you have warped the tracks correctly it's very easy to look at the waveform and pick out 4/8/16 bar loops and use them.
The way I did it was very simple - I had 2 audio tracks routed straight out of my 1820 soundcard into my 2 channel Ecler mixer. So all fading and eq'ing was done on the traditional mixer, with the record output of the mixer feeding back into an empty audio track in Ableton to record the mix.
Obviously you could do the mixing within Ableton but that seemed like a pain.
I didn't have my tracklist worked out or anything, I just looked through my tracks and picked them as I saw fit. Then, if I thought they had good bits to loop I would just quickly set up a loop and drop it over the mix. When I wanted to mix the track properly I just deleted the whole loop clip and dragged the track back in again. I found this easier than sorting out the clip again.
Add a few effects (I stuck to presets!) and it was quite good because there is enough to be gettin on with and having a bit of pressure when trying to sort loops and effects out is quite fun really.
I think taking lots of loops and stuff and rendering them as new clips beforehand is quite sensible, but I haven't done that yet.
I'm also a bit restricted as I only have a 2-channel mixer.
yeah, sasha's controller (maven) is a gorgeous piece of gear. recently I had a chance to see him using it from very close up for a couple of hours
he has his own unique way of using Live however .. which happens to be very cool, but controversial here on this geek forum - where how finely you chop up your samples, and how many tracks you have going at once = cocksize..
but whatever ...
yes he has each of his tracks in a folder, pre-cut into sections and loops of varying legths. when he's ready, he drags in the entire folder full of track clips into an ablton channel.
he has some favorite fx in his sends (filters .. something which sounds alot like supatrigga .. reaktor fast fx)?, and during transitions he will send the entire channel ('track") right over to the sends .. among other things
at times he has three or more channels going at once - lots of using loops continuoius transitions between two other tracks.
he has his own unique way of using Live however .. which happens to be very cool, but controversial here on this geek forum - where how finely you chop up your samples, and how many tracks you have going at once = cocksize..
but whatever ... yes he has each of his tracks in a folder, pre-cut into sections and loops of varying legths. when he's ready, he drags in the entire folder full of track clips into an ablton channel.
he has some favorite fx in his sends (filters .. something which sounds alot like supatrigga .. reaktor fast fx)?, and during transitions he will send the entire channel ('track") right over to the sends .. among other things
at times he has three or more channels going at once - lots of using loops continuoius transitions between two other tracks.
--
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josh 'vonster' von; tracks and sets
http://www.joshvon.com
NEW SPECS: Athlon 4200+ dual; A8N-SLI m/b; Win XP Home SP2; 1 GB RAM; 2x 7200 RPM HDD: 1 internal, 1 Firewire 800 (Firewire is project data drive); M-Audio Triggerfinger
josh 'vonster' von; tracks and sets
http://www.joshvon.com
Re: the Deeper side of DJ'ing with Ableton
hi, try this for live sampling and looping:innerstatejt wrote:
also, are you able to create 'on the fly' loop points or 'hot cues' as you would on let's say a CDJ unit? secondly, Is there a basic master setting(fx and processors) or template that you guys(and girls) like to run your whole dj mix through that brings out the best in your mixes?
...
http://plasq.com/
i use live also for deejaying. my basic setup has 4 tracks, in each track a dj eq and a autofilter. and a delay in one send channel. but its the basic setup. all is controlled by an external midicontroller. my next setup will have on each track also the musolomo, because it's the only way to loop things in realtime. als pitching and reversing the loops is possible
cheers
martin
.::.::..::.:::.:.vandeloow.net.:.:::.:..::.:::::.::..:
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drag a folder into a track is not possible, i checked in live 4.1 os x.supster wrote:...
yes he has each of his tracks in a folder, pre-cut into sections and loops of varying legths. when he's ready, he drags in the entire folder full of track clips into an ablton channel.
...
does this works under windows ? or has he first selected all clips in a folder and drag them into a track ?
Sorry i dont understand.supster wrote: he has some favorite fx in his sends (filters .. something which sounds alot like supatrigga .. reaktor fast fx)?, and during transitions he will send the entire channel ('track") right over to the sends .. among other things.
how do you mean send the entire track to the sends... surly he just has to turn that channel up... what and wheres it getting sent to or am i picking htis up worng?
Probably means he has his SEND busses set to PRE so you can bring down the tracks volume fader while simultaneously bringing up the SEND level. Finally, you have the track's fader all the way down and the SEND up most of the way so that the whole track is now in a deep reverb cloud (i.e. no dry signal anymore) - which i've noticed is a crossfade technique he has used in the past. I'm sure one of you smart peoples can probably program Bidule to take a single controller stream and create two controller streams, one of them inverse to the other. That is- turn the controller up and the Bidule-created "shadow" controller goes down, both of these are sent to Live and assigned to track Level/Send. That way, you can use one know to cross-fade to SEND (and back).jeskola wrote:Sorry i dont understand.supster wrote: he has some favorite fx in his sends (filters .. something which sounds alot like supatrigga .. reaktor fast fx)?, and during transitions he will send the entire channel ('track") right over to the sends .. among other things.
how do you mean send the entire track to the sends... surly he just has to turn that channel up... what and wheres it getting sent to or am i picking htis up worng?
I like taking percussion loops, with their channel fader down, and cranking a bit of it into a PRE-FADER SEND channel with delay effects, just for a beat or two, viola! instant percussive accent. Easy...with one knob.
-dz