Ableton Forum

haha, I just looked at this thread and thought "hey, how did my thread lose several pages?"

good stuff

as a long time traktor user, i can say (with some hesitancy) that i won't be going back to vinyl anytime soon. more to do w/ issues with my shoulder, but lugging around a 4 lb. laptop compared to 30-40 lbs. of vinyl made me make the switch. i do miss the tactile-ness, but for what it's worth, traktor lets me mix a lot more creatively than i ever could with records.

Patch wrote:

smutek wrote:I'm also interested to hear how people are using serato and ableton together. I know people are for a fact, and I've found discussions about how they have it set up. What I'd really like to see is a discussion, step by step, of what people are actually doing with the two.

Join the queue, son!!! I'm holding off buying Serato until I can determine if I can use it on the same laptop, at the same time as Ableton...

Search through some of these if you haven't already:

http://www.scratchlive.net/forum/search/?q=ableton

There is some interesting discussion. A lot to pick through, but I do remember finding a thread that discussed set up and how to make it work, but still no discussion of specific application and technique.

I know for sure people are using the two of them on one computer as well as two computers. Obviously processor speed is going to be a determining factor. That guy Dj Enferno is using the two of them together, and doing it well. He posts on Serato and I have seen him post here as well. In all of his vids it looks like he's using two comps, but it may be worth while to try and pick his brains a bit.

Hey, smutek...
Thanks for the link. I've been on the Serato forum, but was not satisfied from the information there that I could run both apps on my machine (Pentium 4 HT 3.2Ghz/1Gb Ram/80Gb HDD 5400RPM/XP Pro). I was under the impression that Enferno used 2 laptops - but I'll look into it further... Good luck!!!

np. If you find any more info let me know as well. Here is an interesting quote from one of the mods at the serato forums:

Matt G, Serato, Serato Moderator wrote: Key lock and auto BPM detection will be arriving for free in 1.7 early next year. Midi is working in the labs and will hopefully arrive in 1.8. There are other 1.7 features either finished or nearing completion, but I'm uncertain of which have been already announced.

http://www.scratchlive.net/forum/discus ... 022#264806

Second post down.

sweetjesus wrote:(rant)
anyways.. everyone i know can use records and cdj's but me... my good mate who is a longtime professional dj and resident at some bigname club keeps telling me i should learn to use decks and mix that with Live...

Forget it. Why follow the crowd? If you're the only one who doesn't use records, then it seems you've found your niche.

Your DJ friends are just jealous of your Live skillz and want you to dumb it down so you don't embarass them anymore. Fuck 'em all, I say.

I made the mistake of buying final scratch 1.5 thinking it could suffice for vinyl. silly me. those guys at stanton and native instruments are the worst. they are just so bad, it infuriates me. the whole time i had the thing, i never got it to work solidly, and i used it on 4 different computers, macs and pcs. they replaced boards and did all sorts of shit, but i am convinced that it is just a bad product, and they dont care because they've already got your cash.

$1000Au completely down the toilet. I mostly blame the software, and will never pay for an ni product again. unless they help me out, i will bad mouth them to every dj/producer i know, as i am now i guess.

since i've been producing for a bit i haven't touched the turntables, but i miss them. and my record collection is so out of date now. its all back in the days when i was only into trance. pretty much all of it i put on now and cringe.

I'm currently living in the dessert in the middle east. they dont know what records are here. I've heard some good things about serrato, but i am treading very very carefully.

That sucks man. I'm sorry that happened. After owning Traktor and spending some time on the NI Traktor/Final Scratch forums I knew there was no way I would ever buy final scratch - or anything else from NI for that matter - so I feel pretty much the same as you regarding NI.

I understand you are pretty wary after being burned on such a large purchase, but I will tell you that I just bought Serato and it works absolutely perfectly on my system. I was sure I was going to have some problems because my turntables are so damn old, but I tell you it works exactly as advertised. I couldn't be happier with it. Maybe you can sell your final scratch system on ebay or something.

smutek - have you tried to route audio from Serato into Live? That is all I really want to be able to do. Scratch digital audio in Serato, and record/loop it in live...

What Audio Interface are you using? I'm looking to get Serato and an MOTU Ultralite to use with Live...

I am REALLY excited about the possibilities! I'm just terrified that I can't run both at the same time...

Patch wrote:smutek - have you tried to route audio from Serato into Live? That is all I really want to be able to do. Scratch digital audio in Serato, and record/loop it in live...

What Audio Interface are you using? I'm looking to get Serato and an MOTU Ultralite to use with Live...

I am REALLY excited about the possibilities! I'm just terrified that I can't run both at the same time...

No, I haven't tried it yet.

In addition to the scratch amp I have an maudio quattro 4x4. The scratch amp has to be hooked up in order to run serato, I know that for sure. So, I think what I would have to do would be to run the outputs of the scratch amp into the inputs of the quattro, then the outputs of the quattro into my mixer.

To run on one computer I would need the scratch amp and the quattro both running, with the scratch amp driving serato and the quattro being used for ableton.

So, I am not sure if I would need to set up an aggregate device in osX to use both sound-cards at the same time. I'll have to fiddle with that, and read through some of the threads I found at serato about how people have this set up.

Trying to work it out in my head, but it seems the signal flow would go

turntable 1 -----> scratch amp input
scratch amp output -----> quattro 1/2 input
quattro 1/2 output ----> mixer channel

Then set an audio channel in ableton to receive the output from quattro 1/2

Alternately, my mixer (pioneer 500) has rca, 1/4 inch, and xlr outputs. So, I could have serato and turntables on channels 1 and 2, and outputs from the quattro feeding channels 3 and 4 on the mixer. I also have 1/4 inch send/recieve so this may be an option as well?

I can route the 1/4 inch master outputs on the mixer into the quattro's 1/2 inputs. Then, set an audio channel in ableton to receive this input and feed it back out, through the quattro, into another mixer channel. Now, if Abletons tempo is synced to that of the track in serato, I should be able to scratch with serato, record it in ableton and have it immediately available for looping playback and manipulation.

The trick is the sync, which in my case will have to be done manually. I'm definitely looking forward to midi in future versions of serato. It seems it could work perfectly with ableton slaved to serato.

At the moment I'm at my Mom's house in Rehobath Delaware, so it's hard for me to picture the setup now but I will see what I can whip up when I get home.

Patch wrote:The combination of Live + Decks fookin' rules, man! When you come out of the decks and into Live you have SO much scope for live performance it's rediculous.

And scratchin' is the most fun you can have with your clothes on!!!

I am desperately trying to figure out a way of running Serato and Live together (I haven't bought Serato yet because I don't want to use it unless I canincorperate the digital scratching into my Livesets, live) but am unable to determine if both can run at the same time on the same machine...

I think if you are going to learn to DJ with Live, you should at least have an understanding of the limitations of DJ'ing with CDs/Vinyl. By understanding the limitations, the amount you can actually DO with Live becomes much more apparent.

rbmonosylabik wrote:I have an urge to learn how to scratch. I´ve been thinking of getting Ms. Pinky, a Numark TT200 and a mixer
Good idea? Bad idea? Suggestions for mixer or better but not too expensive turntable?

The TT200 is pretty good value for money TT - for scratching you've GOT TO go Direct Drive. Certainly good enough to learn to scratch on. I would suggest NOT going the Ms. Pinky route for learning. One of the main points of scratching i it's simplicity - just throw on a record and go! Buy the TT, a half decent scratch mixer (you shouldn't need to pay more that £150 for the mixer) and record the output in your Laptop/PC/Mac. Stanton have a couple of good value scratch/battle mixers. And don't forget to switch your turntables battle style!

Phew.

Right now I'm thinking of the TT200 with a Stanton SA3. I still have to look for Stanton STR8-100 prices, and I think that the 1210 is out of my budget, though I still have to look for good deals.

I think it is a great skill to be able to beatmatch and very useful to you as a performer with ableton. i am currently djing with records/cds and performing live with ableton, the amount of possibilities are pretty much endless just keep experimenting with everything. here is one of my mixes using both ableton and traditional analogue and cds. trick is to beat match your ableton with your records hehe. some controler manipulation 8o)

http://www.mattlwilcox.com/podcasts/Technocast006.mp3

Hope this helps
-Wilcox

Dirty technocast - http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZSt ... =183309314