PURELY DJing - Tips, Tricks, Tutorials

[darkroomrobot]

one thing i keep meaning to look at is a global control of track loops - it would be great to coontrol start, end point and switch loops on and off, with some midi controls.

has anyone done any thign like this?

I'm jus getting back into live stuff, havent done performances since i was using live 6 and that was early days.

for the record im using uc-33e and launchpad to control ableton 8

[fl1p]

you could assign the loop-set and loop-length buttons in the clip-view.
once you hit the loop set it will loop from the next global quantization point to the end of the track.
if u hit loop-length after loop-start it will loop the quantized amount of time...

[transology]

Hi WFTD,
Congrat for having write this post. It just feels like the sticker post (.. RACKS for Live 6) cover it up already. I think that's the reason this thread is not as hot as you would. Continue to update it !!! And you'll get it !

Thank

Hey all....doesnt seem like many of you want to share your input....

But here is something I found yesterday...Computer Music Magazine has and ABLETON special addition out on sale now with CD with samples.....you may want to get it for £6!! Some handy tips in there and Ableton 8!!

[Grandmasterbird]

I dont think I will ever use Live for DJ'ing (never say never!) but I've been looking into ways of incorporating it into my sets.

I sometimes DJ in a partnership so I'm thinking I could hook up my laptop and trigger samples or fire off acapellas whilst my partner in crime spins the tunes.

Threads like this are of great interest to me as it's always good to share knowledge and pick up knowledge along the way so fair play to the OP.

I've always used Live in a studio environment as opposed to a 'live' situation so when and if I figure anything interesting out I'll post my findings!

[WFTD]

I dont think I will ever use Live for DJ'ing (never say never!) but I've been looking into ways of incorporating it into my sets.

I sometimes DJ in a partnership so I'm thinking I could hook up my laptop and trigger samples or fire off acapellas whilst my partner in crime spins the tunes.

Threads like this are of great interest to me as it's always good to share knowledge and pick up knowledge along the way so fair play to the OP.

I've always used Live in a studio environment as opposed to a 'live' situation so when and if I figure anything interesting out I'll post my findings!

Hey man, cheers for the post!! What you mention above is what we both do. We actually have 2 laptops (pc and Mac)m running ableton 8, and then we sync them. So we both generally do tracks, accapellas, drum racks etc...it really adds to your set and make you different to the norm! If you do want to try it for DJing I would suggest getting some midi controllers though so you hardly ever touch the computer.....as I know that is the gripe of most DJ's who see laptop dj's...

Peace and Merry Xmas!!

[WFTD]

Sorry guys but not been on here for a while! I will update evryones input shortly....anyone got any more nuggets of knowledge??

[willrjmarshall]

In a similar vein to Tom Cosm's, I maintain a DJing template you can download for free.

Url is http://marshall-law.co.nz/dj-template/

[Herbal T]

What I love about your setup Will is your design to apply effects only on the freq range that you want it to.

Hence, keeping your bass and kick without any effects. This has been a brilliant edition to my Live DJ setup.

I have mapped my freq splitters to USER 2 on the Novation Launchpad, with the dummy clips controlled via the standard SESSION mode.

Thanks Will for all of your work.

[BentoSan]

Nice work on this amd thanks again for adding my smartmixer to the list.

We also have a ton of extra info here on djing, for beginners intermediate and advanced users - http://www.djtechtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3545

Its pretty broad and doesnt cover just Ableton but there is some great gems of info in the list.

[WFTD]

Cheers all for your input so far.....anymore takers?

[doubleeast]

great post lots of good info here. thank you for your work...

for more accapellas check out www.crazypellas.net

[Joe Moriarty]

I absolutely love Ableton Live. I mean, I dream in warp markers occasionally. Once it all clicked, I sold my CDJs, mixer, etc - no hesitation, just jumped straight to digital DJing. I'm also getting into production in a big way. I'm still working between Live 5, and reason.

At the end of August last year, I treated myself to an APC40 since it was my brithday and the shop I'd asked to reserve me one called and said they just had more in. Due to the order of this, I decided to jump at the APC40 first and then get Suite 8 afterwards once I had a bit more cash built up.

Then all the horror stories started about Live 8's performance...

I'm glad I held back. My unhappy friend had just parted with his cash for Suite 8 for his Macbook, and with the spare secondary installation he agreed to let me 'try before I buy', with a temporary install on my laptop - 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB RAM, loads of HD. I have my laptop calibrated so that all unnecessary processes and programmes are not running/installed.

The performance, and mainly CPU hit from Suite 8, was worrysome to say the least! Although there are about 5-12% difference between Suite 8's CPU meter and that on task manager - it was at LEAST 17% CPU hit from 2 audio channels simultaneous playing a warped mp3 track, with no effects, EQ, send/return or master effects/processors. Add an EQ to the 2 audio channels, and the CPU hit is 27%-36%; master limiter with CPU hit 43-49%... Simple and standard stuff, heading into panic territory. And yeah, I had enabled the preference to allow multi-core processor support.

Despite ongoing, updated versions my friend is still having similar probs.

I'm now in the less-than-perfect situation where I'm having to use my APC40 with Traktor Pro for live DJing (which is second place to Live IMO, due to beat markers not being as tight as I want/inability to integrate VSTs/drumracks). I'm just not prepared to take the step in jumping on Suite 8 when I have serious doubts about it's reliability, compared to previous versions. I know a few people on here have mentioned upgrading RAM, however my laptop and Live are both 32-Bit. So even if I were to upgrade my RAM, anything above the 4GB would be pretty much redudant, as this is the max for 32-Bit.


I know how great Live is, I'm one of it's biggest advocates. I believe both in the program itself and the team behind it. I've just lost my faith a little recently, due to these reliability issues. I want it to work!



Is there anything I can do differently, that I haven't tried already?



I'm absolutely itching to buy Live Suite along with MAX. I want to use my APC40 for the dedicated program it is intended for.

Hopefully Live 9 will have many of these issues sorted, and perhaps allow us to choose between the old and new methods for warping - my suspicions are still that this is a main culprit for the perfromance issues.



Sorry if I've slightly hi-jacked this post, however I thought perhaps others with Live 8 DJ hints may be able to suggest something I'm perhaps missing in all of this?!

If not, please Ableton - please resolve this for v9!

[WFTD]

I absolutely love Ableton Live. I mean, I dream in warp markers occasionally. Once it all clicked, I sold my CDJs, mixer, etc - no hesitation, just jumped straight to digital DJing. I'm also getting into production in a big way. I'm still working between Live 5, and reason.

At the end of August last year, I treated myself to an APC40 since it was my brithday and the shop I'd asked to reserve me one called and said they just had more in. Due to the order of this, I decided to jump at the APC40 first and then get Suite 8 afterwards once I had a bit more cash built up.

Then all the horror stories started about Live 8's performance...

I'm glad I held back. My unhappy friend had just parted with his cash for Suite 8 for his Macbook, and with the spare secondary installation he agreed to let me 'try before I buy', with a temporary install on my laptop - 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB RAM, loads of HD. I have my laptop calibrated so that all unnecessary processes and programmes are not running/installed.

The performance, and mainly CPU hit from Suite 8, was worrysome to say the least! Although there are about 5-12% difference between Suite 8's CPU meter and that on task manager - it was at LEAST 17% CPU hit from 2 audio channels simultaneous playing a warped mp3 track, with no effects, EQ, send/return or master effects/processors. Add an EQ to the 2 audio channels, and the CPU hit is 27%-36%; master limiter with CPU hit 43-49%... Simple and standard stuff, heading into panic territory. And yeah, I had enabled the preference to allow multi-core processor support.

Despite ongoing, updated versions my friend is still having similar probs.

I'm now in the less-than-perfect situation where I'm having to use my APC40 with Traktor Pro for live DJing (which is second place to Live IMO, due to beat markers not being as tight as I want/inability to integrate VSTs/drumracks). I'm just not prepared to take the step in jumping on Suite 8 when I have serious doubts about it's reliability, compared to previous versions. I know a few people on here have mentioned upgrading RAM, however my laptop and Live are both 32-Bit. So even if I were to upgrade my RAM, anything above the 4GB would be pretty much redudant, as this is the max for 32-Bit.


I know how great Live is, I'm one of it's biggest advocates. I believe both in the program itself and the team behind it. I've just lost my faith a little recently, due to these reliability issues. I want it to work!



Is there anything I can do differently, that I haven't tried already?



I'm absolutely itching to buy Live Suite along with MAX. I want to use my APC40 for the dedicated program it is intended for.

Hopefully Live 9 will have many of these issues sorted, and perhaps allow us to choose between the old and new methods for warping - my suspicions are still that this is a main culprit for the perfromance issues.



Sorry if I've slightly hi-jacked this post, however I thought perhaps others with Live 8 DJ hints may be able to suggest something I'm perhaps missing in all of this?!

If not, please Ableton - please resolve this for v9!

Hey Mate, Im going to post your concerns across onto a different thread which may get looked at....someone may come back to you on here, but I guess we wait and see.

[S4racen]

If it's djing you do i'd go with Max first before suite....

Whilst the control_surfaces part of M4L is undocumented currently there's been a wealth of information available from gys like Hanz Petrov that will allow you to customize how your APC behaves.....

For me Live comes to life when you cut every track into sections, loops and all and also have a range of one shot samples, acapellas, drum loops even famous sounding audio loops like the old House of God donk loop....

You can weave in so many moments of magic to a set.... You just have to think about it before hand to have the clips available and then let everything flow on the fly!!

Cheers
D

[roothewhirl]

Here is a screencast I made on DJing in Ableton Live. Hopefully this can help!

How To DJ In Ableton Live Part 1: Setting Up Ableton And Preparing The Songs

Part 2 is up as well!

Enjoy!