I created a forum account just to comment on this thread, i never use forums because someone always has a negative opinion on everything and throws their toys out the pram. If you dont like it, say what you would have liked to see added, stop bashing whats been done and maybe someone will read it and listen for future development.
I figured I throw in my opinions on this as im half way excited and half way wishing other things where added, and it will probably be long winded so be warned.
Firstly from the original press launches of the partnership its been made clear this product was for people who HAD BOTH ableton AND serato… OBVIOUSLY! They are both separate companies that need/want to make money, no one is going to give you anything for free so get over it.
I started Djing using CDJs then went over to ableton very early on but now as a club DJ I do find some things that ableton just cant do that you can with turntables or CDJs and wanted to go over to serato and have the option, bridge was the catalyst to buy serato for me.
Im assuming few of you have actually used serato because it is midi mapable in its current form, you dont need to buy 1210s or cdjs, when you have your serato soundcard you can use anything from a cheap midi keyboard to a pair of the new cdj2000s to control serato. saying that then it will im pretty certain be able to use your current midi controller to assign buttons to launch clips within the serato ableton... in fact the guy done it in the video as i think about it!
Also my big problem with most ableton DJs (and I am primarily an ableton DJ myself) is that the general conclusion is that it was technology holding DJing back that meant everyone was using turntables... 99.9% of your audience couldn't care less about effects, loops and whatever other fancy ideas you have, in fact people in a nightclub HATE that. they want to hear a song, have a smooth mix into another song and repeat the process, people hate the DJ messing with their favourite song! Ive seen it many times, someone mess around with what is essentially a well thought out ableton DJ set while people sit and chat among themselves and the next guy comes up with a couple of records, a beer in his hand & blows the roof off with just selecting the right songs!
The idea of having the session view inside serato is excellent! you should be able to just drag loops or songs or whatever from the serato search straight into live within serato, my problem is the apparent lack of ableton wave forms, ive always added extra beat markers as mixing points (intros and outros etc) within ableton and cant see how ill mix two songs ableton to ableton within the session view in serato without it!
Also in the real world of Djing outside of trying to impress other DJs or your mates, its not all about the mix and you often will play two songs that arent the same tempo back to back if people request it (which doesn’t work in ableton easily with the master tempo) and beat warping songs with a natural groove can ruin them, also a song such as ‘dizzee rascal – holiday’ for example (and its just an example no bashing the song choice its the first that came to mind as its quite new) is about 119bpm until the ravey bit at the end (where u’d likely be mixing out) which is 130bpm… ableton cant handle that properly, having the partnership will remove or provide a way around these problems. often none electronic songs have different tempos in the chorus and verses also which ableton isnt good at handling. having bothh will allow you to chose the best plan of action for each song or what mood your in, could i be bothered beat matching at 9pm when there is all of 5 people in the club, ehhh no, no i couldnt! but do i want to show off to the pretty girls in the front row at midnight twisting buttons and spinning records instead of what looks like watching youtube videos, yes... yes i do!
I have to admit though its not all roses, there are things I am disapointed about with this partnership and unlike most other complainers im going to outline them and I know this is THE FIRST PART so I assume its only a matter of time before these are addressed.
It would have been nice to have vinyl control over each ableton channel (or atleast 2 ableton channels) instead of what seems in essence to be a master output into just one serato deck. This would be great from an ableton DJ point of view but I do see the good bits about the master output however the option would be nice. This way it would be possible to have beat warped tracks in serato without having to resave as mp3s... speaking of which its been well documented (by ableton/serato themselves) that its possible to straighten out music in ableton and save it to use in serato, i would of thought serato reading .asd files would be step one, and i hope that is included! As it stands all I can see is an easy/good way to go from ableton to serato (which has been a matter of great discussion) and back again but no way to truly integrate the two other than playing samples over serato sets. the main thing you cant do being playing two ableton songs mixed together within the serato window, which would essentially provide the exact same set up as ableton DJs often use now only with the option to switch to serato whenever they want &&&&& at long last to use the serato soundcard as a soundcard for ableton (even if only inside serato window, but hopefully in normal ableton window too!)
These are minor things though and it always takes much more time to get the foundations worked out, these features will all hopefully filter through & with free software updates you cant complain. However i can complain that ableton are having a bit of a laugh only allowing this to work with ableton live 8... considering you can use a serato sl1 box which has been out longer than ableton 7! seems ableton added a wee money making curve ball into that where serato stayed true to its customer base instead of making them update to an sl3 if they didnt want to!
ableton to serato was always going to be about DJing live you cant do anything else with serato and i think with a few of the things ive mentioed and other people have mentioned you cant really ask for anything else from ableton/serato from a DJing point of view.
Realistically serato cant really offer ableton much with respect to production other than possibly being able to launch little sound loops on the fly rather than beat locked... especially handy with accapellas as they can be a nightmare to line up properly using warp markers as vocals dont always start on beat 1. serato within ableton would of been nice from a production aspect though, if anyone has downloaded serato or opened it up it just has a standard media player type thing going on and then when you plug your serato box in your turntables etc all show up... having that within ableton is surely not beyong the realms of possibility? it is very one sided towards the serato user but realistically what could serato give ableton to make it a better production tool? it does pretty good on its own and as ableton users i'd of thought that would of been a point to be proud of...
I do some production myself within ableton, remixes etc mainly & cant really see what else id want from ableton that serato could give it :S
rant over
