DJing & Improvising 2 Ableton Songs

[Syncretia]

When I do a search for Ableton DJing, I get loads of tutorials on how to take two pre-recorded songs and mix them together in the same way that Virtual DJ or Traktor would mix two songs together. But, this is just mixing MP3 files together.

E.g.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrulE3Lw ... ion_700498

I was under the impression that what Ableton was designed for was to be able to mix and match clips of your song with other parts of your song using the session screen. For example, I might take a drum loop, mix it with a melody, fade that melody out and mix in a bass line - all live. This is what I want to do. But, then, I would like to mix that track in to another Ableton track.

To sum up, I want to be able to mix my Ableton songs together, and also improvise mixes of my Ableton songs so that I can add and remove parts of a song live.

Are there any videos, tutorials or other information about doing this? Is this possible?

[sinesquaresaw]

I'm not sure if I'm catching the nuances of what you mean to do, but you should be able to do that quite easily through Live's clip view. Don't need a tutorial for that specifically, just learn the program.

[Syncretia]

Yeah, sorry. I haven't conveyed the nuances very well.

Let mas the question another way.

When I look at DJ tuts for Ableton, they are just mixing two MP3 together. They're just doing it in the same way that a DJ would mix two vinyl tracks together, or a digital DJ would mix two tracks in Traktor.

That's all good but I thought Ableton was a bit more sophisticated. I thought that rather than just mixing two tracks that have already been bounced together that I would be able to improvise clip playing on one track and then mix that Ableton track in to the next.

I know that this is possible but a) where do I fnid a tutorial on this? b) how can it be done without loading all the clips from all my Ableton projects in to one project?

[Syncretia]

Let me put it yet another way.

Let's say I have 10 songs. Most of them are properly arranged in the arrangment view. But all of them have at least a couple of clips (midi and audio) that I can throw in at different points of the song. I'd like to be able to start playing a song, perhaps mix in a clips or two, put some FX on etc. - all live. Then, I'd like to mix the current song in to another one of my Ableton songs.

As far as I understand, this is impossible because I'd need to stop after each song and load the other Ableton song separately.

I could theoretically load all the clips from all my projects, but this would get ridiculous.

[sequentek]

the solution is to put all tracks and clips into one live set with every rack on different scene.
my set consist of 8 tracks: kick, snare, hihats, perc, bassline, synth, chord, fx. so the kicks go to kick track, basslines to bassline track etc.
each track has its own scene or scenes.

with that setup i can play track totaly improvising with clip launching or just launch scenes to "play" the track like it was arranged or mix an mash all clips together.

[Syncretia]

Thats sounds like it is along the lines of what I am talking about. But, I can't say I understand it exactly.

What do you mean

every rack on different scene.

? What's a rack?

my set consist of 8 tracks: kick, snare, hihats, perc, bassline, synth, chord, fx. so the kicks go to kick track, basslines to bassline track etc.

So you're saying that across your entire set you are only using 8 tracks? But, each of my songs has about 8 tracks on average. If I perform 10 songs, that will be 80 tracks? Do you mean to say that there is a way I can make an individual trick switch between instrument setups? So I could have a kick track that has a kick drum from say Maschine, then I could switch it over to Battery and with a different set of FX on it? How would I do that?

with that setup i can play track totaly improvising with clip launching or just launch scenes to "play" the track like it was arranged or mix an mash all clips together.

Yes. That is what I want to do. Are you able to elaborate on how you achieved this?

[sequentek]

you should realy dig the manual and learn about racks and how to switch between different chains etc. this way you can have 16 kicks or instruments on one track and switch them using chain selector automation in clips. you can have different efx for each clip in each track etc.

and yes, i have only 8 tracks with clips all over it. so there is a matrix of 8 tracks x N number of scenes.

[ollyb303]

You need instrument racks and the chain selector.

[habeeb24]

I agree with sequentek he is exactly correct. That will surely help you.

[Wunjo]

You can watch Tom Cosm's videos on how to set up a set with all of your song's in one file with all of the different clips. It does include an extensive setup of scenes in the session view as everyone has mentioned here but I think once you see how he does it then you'll

[Syncretia]

Yep. It sounds like racks will take me one step closer to what I am talking about. However, it sounds like what I'm going to have to do is take apart all my current songs, save the instrument setups as presets (racks?) and then load them up in a new conslidated DJ project. Then perhaps I will have to export all my melodies, bass lines etc. out to midi files and then re-import them in to my DJ project. That's going to be crazy difficult and time consuming but may perhaps allow me to achieve what I want to achieve. Doesn't sound intuitive at all though.

But, I've just stumbled on this:
http://serato.com/thebridge

Is this the answer to what I've been tlaking about?

[Syncretia]

The Bridge looks like the answer.

A) Serato is a proper DJ'ing tool. It's not like Ableton where you're half-way between the worlds of songwriting and DJ'ing
B) The Bridge allows you to use Ableton with the proper APC controller and launch clips (I'm hoping midi or audio) without having to actually fiddle around inside Ableton.

At first glance, it looks like what I want. But, that's first glance. Lots of software looks good when you first look at it.

[oddstep]

The bridge is not the answer.
You need to consolidate all of your music into a single live set. Some people do this through the use of instrument racks and chain selector, some people convert the data into audio clips, some people just have massive sets where each track from a song is a track in the live perfromance live set.
Most people do this themselves, but there is nothing wrong with paying someone else to understand ableton live and make the liveset for you. I'll do it for $5000. Live has some excellent tutorials embedded in the software that will give you all the advice you need on getting the live liveset together. Check them out.

[Syncretia]

Bridge certainly LOOKED like the answer. Check out the first video on this page:

http://serato.com/thebridge/lesson

The guy is usaing an APC40, so I went out and bought an APC40. But, after reading the fine print on the Serato website, it seems that the software will only work if you have Rane hardware. They could have made that more clear.

So, now I'm back to square one.

You need to consolidate all of your music into a single live set

Holy #$@#!

[Syncretia]

Forget this crap. I'm never DJ'ing anything.