ableton live as effect generator in a dj set

kelx · Post by **kelx** » Sun Aug 19, 2007 3:58 pm

hi guys

i have got an allen heath xone 92, 2 turntables, uc33e and a laptop with ableton live and asio soundcard.

now i want to use live as an effect unit to manipulate the sound live with the uc33e while djing...
i have seen many djs like troy pierce or richie hawtin doing this.

y problem is the latency.
i go from main out to line in of the soundcard. then line out directly into the amp. i also tried it via send/return but with this little delay its almost impossible to dj.

anyone knows how the "pros" do it?
is there a high class soundcard which has no latency? or another type of setup?

please give me some advise guys....

p.s. sorry for my bad english

som[e] · Post by **som[e]** » Sun Aug 19, 2007 8:35 pm

i wanted to do something very similar to this but using Live as a guitar effect, but I was told it's not possible to get rid of the delay.

further · Post by **further** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:27 am

on 44.1 i can use a 96 sample delay. that is an overall latency of 7.87ms. Imperceivable to me when playing bass guitar.

Tone Deft · Post by **Tone Deft** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:47 am

1mS latency = standing 1 foot from a speaker. under 20mS is good, under 10mS is workable for people who play real instruments (guitar, bass, piano, cow bell...) high latency is impossible to play along with. when I'm in a setup where I can't get a low latency I use direct monitoring to hear the sound going into the sound card and I mute the track in Live so I don't hear it.

higher sample rates make for lower latencies but need more CPU, RAM might also help with that.

for DJing w/FX check out the 'dummy clips' tips here
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27120
download the example, they're VERY usable.

also know that sound cards and Live can report inaccurate latencies, send a clip out of Live, back into your sound card and record the loop, that way you can see the total latency at the very bottom of clip view. post if that doesn't make sense.

ASIO4ALL (pc) dropped my latency from 35mS to 8ms, going from 48kHz sample rate to 192kHz sample rate dropped it even lower. my sound card is an Edirol UA101. pretty much the more expensive the card, the lower the latency.

a sound card latency thread could be informative.