Mixing songs with different bpm in Live

[Madureira]

Hi everyone,

OK quick question about dj'ing with Live.

I'll be making a wedding party in a couple of months, and I was wondering if there's an "easy" way of mixing songs with different bpm within Live.

My dj template is very basic, I have two library tracks (Library 1 and Library 2) then, Deck A and Deck B for the actual mix.

I know how to warp the tracks, and make a pretty good mix with cool sound fx and all when the songs have the same bpm (+/- 5 bpm)

Now the issue is, If I want to go from an African tribal dance song (say, 140bpm) to a downtempo balad (80bpm), how do I do?

I know I can define different bpm for different scenes, but that causes some problems...In such case I would need several scenes to play different bpm songs....Which I want to avoid.

Any suggestions?

The thing is that I really like ableton's interface, and I'd like to avoid having to switch softwares... Maybe I should stick with VirtualDJ from the Apple App store (free)?

Thanks for your input.

[eddiex]

that is the only way i know how to do it....redefine the scene bpm....and cross fade into it....i dont know how you are going to go from 140bpm down to 80bpm without having another scene.

[Cezband]

If the bpms and style are so different, not sure how effective it would be to crossfade or mix them together. But if that's what you're aiming to do, I can only think of a few workarounds:

If you just want to make it more interesting than just stopping the tribal track and starting the ballad track, use an interesting effect at the end of the tribal one, like a tape-stop or similar. Dblue Glitch has got a decent one

chop some very short but identifiable samples from the ballad and drop them in in time with the end of the tribal song, before switching completely from one to the other to make the change less sudden

Put something non-tempo based between the songs to bridge between them, like some ambient pads or interesting dialogue or sound effects. So fade out of the tribal stuff into the sound effects, then fade out of the effects to the ballad.

These don't really answer the tempo issue, but they're maybe an alternative way of doing it.

[djerikschouten]

I think the solution is to put the tracks you want to mix in simpler. One simpler on track 1 with a complete track as a sample, other simpler on track 2 with the other track as sample. This way the tracks can play with the original tempo in ableton, doesn't matter wich bpm your sequencer is playing.

Hope this helps

[Warrior Bob]

1. Warp all your tracks. Complex pro is a pretty great general-purpose warping algorithm although try them all out to get a feel for how they work on different songs.
2. Put them in clip slots anywhere. You'll need at least two audio tracks (so you can have two playing concurrently).
3. Play one song at whatever tempo. When you're ready, trigger the next song and crossfade as you see fit.
4. Adjust the global tempo as you want to. All tracks play at global tempo speed, so you can subtly change the speed that everything's going in order to get ready for a new song.

That takes care of the technical angle of it, but now it's up to what I think really makes a good DJ: knowing which songs are going to be good when, and choosing the right time to drop them. 140bpm African tribal to an 80bpm ballad is not a common thing because it feels really weird and can clear a dancefloor if the crowd doesn't like it. That said, if you can find a way - power to you :)

In my little hobbyist bedroom-DJ experiments I've discovered that changing the tempo between songs during vocal-only parts (where there's no beat) works surprisingly well, and a casual listener might not pick up on the change. I don't know if this'd work for you or not.

Keep in mind that you don't need to use scenes to change the tempo - although you can if you want. You can just click and drag the global tempo in the upper-left corner and the currently-playing songs will change speed to match (assuming it's warped). Scenes are cool for making sudden big changes in tempo but it's quite abrupt.

I think the solution is to put the tracks you want to mix in simpler. One simpler on track 1 with a complete track as a sample, other simpler on track 2 with the other track as sample. This way the tracks can play with the original tempo in ableton, doesn't matter wich bpm your sequencer is playing.

There's actually an even easier way to make songs play without locking to the sequencer's tempo - turn warping off for that clip! It's in the clip view, big yellow "warp" button. If warping is disabled then the tracks play at their original speed regardless of Ableton's global tempo.

I hope this is helpful - best of luck with your gig!

[Madureira]

Thanks for all the advice, fellow Abletoners (??)

The 140bpm to 80 bpm is actually a pretty bad example...lol I know, that would make some serious dead air on the dance floor...

I guess i'm gonna try Bob's advice. I have a few midi controllers that I can easily midi map the tempo.

The tape stop effect is actually a cool suggestion as well...didn't thought about that.

I'll definitely have to spend some time with the song ID. There's a video from Ableton life blog on youtube, that uses the CamelotSound easy mix approach that I'll try to use as well.

http://xone.mixedinkey.com/images/harmo ... gImage.jpg

For fairly large sets I need to have an imediate visual reference for the bpm and key that a given song is in.

How do you guys do it in regards to knowing the songs? Do you take notes on wich section to use, or you just cue the next song and trigger it when you feel is right?

The question comes to mind due to the fact that last weekend I saw a DJ working with no headphones or sound monitors...guess what? Ableton user! You gotta know your songs pretty well, right?

Unless there's some hidden ancient knowledge that unlocks itself after many hours of inhaling vynil fumes, while you do some wicked scratch. lol bad joke....