Paul van Dyk's Ableton Techniques

mike holiday · Post by **mike holiday** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 4:37 pm

live is fun isn't it!!

teqneek · Post by **teqneek** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 12:00 am

From the posts here, a good majority of you need to use live more, study it and actually understand it.

Those who use live to mix one record to the next and tweak with some effects are simply making a mockery of DJing and its art form.

Some of us on the otherhand, spend weeks setting up cut sections, specific loops, creating our own samples and midi patches.

Most of my sets, involve about 8 channels within Ableton, with their outputs going to Channel 1 and 2 on my Rane.

I sort of set it up in a somewhat wierd way but it works for me:

Deck 1, Deck 1 Aux (for layering), Deck 2 SFX (To trigger samples, drum rolls, vocal cuts).. this then repeats for a Deck 2.. Deck 1 going to channel 1 on the mixer, and Deck 2 going to channel 2.

I also then have 2 midi channels and 2 extra audio channels. One for my MC 909 and one for my KORG Triton. During a set, if the mood calls for it, I will call up a midi or group of midi patches and bring them in with a particular sound ive selected on my outboard gear.

From here you can manipulate the midi sequence live, reloop a specific part of the track and then add onto it with the 909 and TRiton.

That my friends is what I see in Ableton, and what it is ment to be used for as far as DJing goes. This is also a perfect example of why the user who said they dont see how one can be creative with Trance live is just silly.

Seriously, this program is so powerful, some creative thinking and a little mickey mousing rigging and setup of your own can bring many new ideas and methods of expressing your music.

electrosonus · Post by **electrosonus** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 1:30 am

Words..words..its all hidden in the words..

First, a short history of mine: I am 27, MUSICIAN since age 8, i played classical piano and guitar for about 8 years, after i crossgraded to keyboards and electric guitar...For the last 7-8 year i have been PRODUCING my own stuff..I don't do DJING though...I prefer playing my tunes LIVE if i am going to perform anything..

Okay...now lets explain the above terms...

MUSICIAN: Someone who plays an instrument..
PRODUCER: Someone who puts all necessary effort to produce something(music in this case)
DJING: Playing some sort of music with whatever equipment or technique required at that time and opportunities or technology advancements can handle at that specific time of histroy!
LIVE: Some sort of performance which doesn't include a dominantly large amount of prerecorded/preprogrammed material but rather rely on human input in an effort of producing the artistic material on the fly!

These are my opinions on the whole subject...

electrosonus · Post by **electrosonus** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 1:35 am

by the way in my opinion the word "LIVE" should be changed with "ON THE FLY" in regard with the usage in dance music, and djing industry...

mike holiday · Post by **mike holiday** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:42 am

electrosonus wrote: MUSICIAN: Someone who plays an instrument..
PRODUCER: Someone who puts all necessary effort to produce something(music in this case)
DJING: Playing some sort of music with whatever equipment or technique required at that time and opportunities or technology advancements can handle at that specific time of histroy!
LIVE: Some sort of performance which doesn't include a dominantly large amount of prerecorded/preprogrammed material but rather rely on human input in an effort of producing the artistic material on the fly!

These are my opinions on the whole subject...

word
well said!

dzonithebatee · Post by **dzonithebatee** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 12:11 pm

DJ's are not just warping or just playing with ableton. Did your computer crash when you just were playing music. I think not. Paul van Dyk's laptop crashed in New York during his session.
When you overload Ableton, usually that happens. Like electrosonus said, they are mixing it on the fly NOT producing it. U just can't achieve that. U can't produce bass,beats,rhythm and put some effects in just 5 minutes. It's impossible!!! He is remixing it for the crowd. And that makes difference. If he was just DJ-ing his set, then everyone could be a great DJ, everyone who knows trance,dance,techno etc. and who has gear.
Imagine that crowd likes one drum loop. But they like it in that moment. You must feel the vibe and from that drum loop make the music evolve. How you do it is a matter of feel, years of practice and understanding it.

electrosonus · Post by **electrosonus** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 12:40 pm

GOOD DJ vs BAD DJ

You can dj with or without Ableton, or reason or whatever..You can use vinyl or cd or harddisk or whatever doesn't matter..If one's intention is to be a GOOD DJ.

The only measure for me is whether the crownd liked the night or not.

Using ableton is no mystery. Okay bitmaching is a child's play with it. That might be true. But beatmatching with CD or Vinyl is not like learning how to play a violin either man!

Technology advances, and no one - in my opinion - if beatmathching or alike techniques are obsolete now, then THERE WILL BE new techniques or qualities that MORE emphasis will be put on.

EX: If you don't need to beatmatch anything, or u don't care about different levels etc, because the computer takes care of everything, or i am taking it to extreme but imagine after 5 years you will just literally tell the computer which song to play and it will do some cool fx tricks etc and jump on to the next one...When that day come, then WHICH SONG you are selecting at that specific moment will be MORE important..

Everyone got my point?

trajan · Post by **trajan** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 1:40 am

Like others have said here, a DJ plays records or music for people. The DJ does not necessarily create that music. I think the problem many musicians are concerned about is that most DJs dont make the music any better by mangling it in apps like Ableton. What they seem to be doing is taking the creator out of the whole process and replacing themselves in the eyes of the audience(clubgoer).

For example if I produce great track and then go to a club to hear it. many times the song when played that night sounds a lot worse than when I recorded it. So my artistic vision is not necessarily getting across to the audience but rather the ideas of some DJ who cares more about his own hype than that of the artists that provides him with the material(his bread & butter.) Many DJs mix songs off beat or lose the vibe by playing around too much with tools like Ableton. The audience most likely doesnt know what the original sounds like so they dont know what they are missing.

I guess it all boils down to a good DJ versus a bad DJ. Yet in todays music climate you got a lot of bad DJs getting good hype.

It reminds me of the time when there was an uproar over the colorization of black & white movies or when film directors started to strike when their films were chopped up for TV. Electronic Musicians/Producers(especially those using powerful tools like Ableton) need to start paying more attention to how their music is represented. Less they become even more marginalized in the future by overhyped DJs using the latest technology.

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 2:14 am

"A DJ who thinks he's a musician is like a milkman who thinks he's a cow."

:::ducks head:::

Patch · Post by **Patch** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 6:56 am

dzonithebatee · Post by **dzonithebatee** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 3:13 pm

Pitch Black wrote:"A DJ who thinks he's a musician is like a milkman who thinks he's a cow."

:::ducks head:::

When you're playing one song from Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa... with your bass guitar, guitar or whatever you're doing is almost the same job that DJ is doing on his live set. If you know latin that doesn't mean that you're a pope. Just because you CAN play guitar, that DOESN'T mean necessarily that you ARE a musician!!! Or just because you have gear that DOESN'T mean that you are a DJ!!!

electrosonus · Post by **electrosonus** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 7:41 pm

yep..everyone has his/her points..So in short

Paul van dyke= A very successful DJ and music producer, and a very kind person as far as i know.

Promoters or djs or whoever who put "DJ blah blah.... LIVE SET" on their promotional flyers or e-flyers = &£&£^£$^'s who doesnt even know the "m" of music or musicianship or "l" of "live"

&£&£^£$^'s= this means they should think little bit more, and really try to undesrtand what they write on flyers..its not anything arrogant

Dosadi · Post by **Dosadi** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 12:29 am

Lots of good points in this thread. So many in fact that it moved me to chime in with a first post.

Having started my musical career as a Live act (Sampler, Keyboard, Synth, etc) then moving to strictly Production and DJing (Vinyl BTW) and now to an Ableton Live act I might have an interesting take on the subject.

In any medium as soon as the tools become so easy that the initial bar to a decent output is set low, all the veterans complain. But what is really going on is that there are less roadblocks to creativity. So much so that the premium will now be on the more esoteric aspects of the form. In this case the creativity and true "talent" of the performer. Or "moving the crowd" as someone said before. Its similar to what happened to the art world after photography was invented. An explosion of abstract creativity.

If anything, I think that the overall quality of output will greatly increase now that production techniques have evolved. Competetion will be a bit more rough. But the stars will always shine and the chaff will be seperated from the wheat.

As far as DJing goes it has always come down to quality tune selection. You can get away with poor turntable skills (90% of party-goers couldn't recognize a shite mix if they caught it raping their mom) as long as you play the right song at the right time. If Live takes over the DJ world then I for one wont shed a tear for all the lost trainwecks and poor beat matching.

Funkstar De Luxe · Post by **Funkstar De Luxe** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 12:14 pm

mike holiday wrote:
PVD wrote:It’s much more actually like playing live then rather DJ-ing in a normal way of how some people understand it.

i don't understand when people call djing with ableton playing live

Yeah, that pisses me off too.

Patch · Post by **Patch** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 3:48 pm

Welcome, Dosadi -some good points there.

I can definitely see where the upset comes from when people put out flyers with "Live Set" plastered all over them. I always wonder if it's a guy using live on stage, or if he's got a whole performance rig on stage...

Blame the Abe's for naming the software "Live"!!!

Paul van Dyk's Ableton Techniques

Re: Paul van Dyk's Ableton Techniques