Dj ing with Abelton

jeskola · Post by **jeskola** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 1:12 pm

Heh - i've just started out with ableton - and ive got my head around the basics...

I want to start using abelton out and bout instead of using my reocrds - basically by having all my tracks tunes on my laptop and then imporitng them in, warping them then triggering them and mixing them in... howvere i cant get my head around a couple of things - any advice would be very appreciated!!

1) how can you que up what your doing - i mean, with a set of decks i can beat match on my headphones, wait fro a drop in point and mix in - but with abelton how can i listen to the track i want to drop in, beat match etc away from what's playing live?

2) last night i had a track, i tapped in a BPM, warped it etc etc - now half way through i tirggered the same tune, at the same bpm, but the beat was out - how can this be??

3) Is there any good tutorials on how to mix tracks together "live" or for the purposes of making a mix cd - i.e warpind several records so they all Beat matched , so ican then trigger them at eh rigth point and using th enevlopes bring em in. I'm finding this warping thing frustrating as i cant "line up" kicks, i have to go by what the programme or metranome is telling me - which realy is too much hassle when i'm playing live!!

thanks very much!
really appreciated !!

robert_philp · Post by **robert_philp** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:03 pm

Hey Jeskola, you might know me as Quincy from KVR

Check this thread - http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14035

Which shows the best and quickest way to warp whole tracks correctly. Very easy to use method. You do this trick once only with each record then any 2 records will beat-match perfectly (99% anyway i reckon)

As regards cueing up, what you basically need to do is drag a copy of a whole track clip to a new slot. Then you can adjust the start point in the edit boxes or with the little arrow in the waveform disply etc. Also set up loop if necessary and do any other warping stuff you require.

The DJ preview bit requires multi-out soundcard or a second soundcard for preview. You basically configure your 2 sets of outs in the audio setup, then the master section in session view will have an option which enables you to use the "cue" btton on each track hitting this will pipe out the track to you headphones(secondary audio output).

By the way, you might be confused about multiple soundcards. Live deoesn't support them, but the freeware ASIO4ALL drivers do. You can install these and then utilise outs form any soundcard that works. www.asio4all.com

In real terms this means you can quite often get an ASIO main card and a crappy onboard motherboard sound to work together well at low latency, and thus make exactly what you're after possible! I am experimenting with it myself at the moment. Its top fun

Djing is moving forward with this digital stuff, its brilliant i think

jeskola · Post by **jeskola** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:17 pm

excellent.
thanks for your help...

only one thing...
I have an apple powerbook and a UC33 controller.
will this still work?

i couldnt get http://www.asio4all.com/ to work

would you really need to que stufff up if you were djing live - i mean i know most of my tunes inside out - so i know where the drop out points are - so in essence all i need to do is trust ableton witht beatmatching (and myself that ive wared the tracks properly ) and spend my time with the cross fadder, EQ and efx, plus chucking in other little bleeps and hits or vocals..??!

yeah - your right - very exciting times for the DJ, having a blast with the live concept

zeropoint · Post by **zeropoint** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 6:32 pm

[quote="jeskola"]excellent.

would you really need to que stufff up if you were djing live - i mean i know most of my tunes inside out - so i know where the drop out points are - so in essence all i need to do is trust ableton witht beatmatching (and myself that ive wared the tracks properly ) and spend my time with the cross fadder, EQ and efx, plus chucking in other little bleeps and hits or vocals..??!

Most of the time with a well prepared set you'd be ok.....but I think you still want to check that your incoming clip has been triggered correctly to save you the humiliation of smoothly mixing in a bucket of spanners on horseback.......

Deft · Post by **Deft** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 6:37 pm

My experience with my vinyl I have ripped to .wav is that the wow and flutter of the decks means I am setting warp markers every 16 bars to keep things together nicely.

sickpuppy · Post by **sickpuppy** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 11:17 am

preperation, that's the key....

you need to convert your tracks to wav if required, top and tail and maybe normalise in audio editor, load them into Live and setup your warp markers ensuring the whole track stays in time start to finish, save the track via the save button on the clip settings at bottom of screen.

Personally I would then add the bpm to the beginning of the name of each file plus I would add the key of the tune if possible.

This should mean everything is nicely ready when you come to doing your set.

jeskola · Post by **jeskola** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 11:19 am

nice work guys - some good tips in there... cheers

karlos · Post by **karlos** » Thu Dec 02, 2004 9:18 pm

welcome 2 the future..........