Question for Ableton & External Consoles/Mixers

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 4:26 am

rengel, once you become more familiar with the material you are playing. pre-listening or "cueing" isn't that much of a necessity per se.
its still very handy to have and when i have a really heavy mix going, i like to double check in the headphones the clip i'm bringing in to make sure its not going to totally sour up the mix, and if it is, i can make key corrections in Live.

anyways, thats all advanced stuff.... get that book, and dive into the manual and just have a go at the software. that is the best way to learn

supster · Post by **supster** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 5:30 am

drush wrote: sure it is. but when you can plug in 1 midi controller and take a line directly out of your powerbook...

well yeah, i could drive an 02 Firebird or a Ferrarri .. what do you think im going to drive?

ok if you feel better drooling over ritchie hawtin's gadget, im down for that too
.

.

rengel · Post by **rengel** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 5:38 am

AdamJay wrote:rengel, once you become more familiar with the material you are playing. pre-listening or "cueing" isn't that much of a necessity per se.
its still very handy to have and when i have a really heavy mix going, i like to double check in the headphones the clip i'm bringing in to make sure its not going to totally sour up the mix, and if it is, i can make key corrections in Live.

anyways, thats all advanced stuff.... get that book, and dive into the manual and just have a go at the software. that is the best way to learn

AdamJay,

So in a typical scenario, if I were to purchase an external sound card, in order to assist me cueing tracks (traditional turntable/mixer setup), I would get either:

a) M-Audio Firewire Audiophile (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_gb/F ... -main.html) or;

b) Echo AudioFire 8 (http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/FireW ... /index.php)

This setup would be connected..

CDJ1000's -[into]--> Maudio/Echo
PowerBook -[into]--> Maudio/Echo
Maudio/Echo connected into my headphones.
I can toggle between channels on the Maudio, which reflects what track is being played on Live (or the CDJ should I choose)

AND then if I chose to go down this path.... it would be..

CDJ1000's -[into]--> Maudio/Echo
PowerBook -[into]--> Maudio/Echo
Evolution Xsession -[into]--> Maudio/Echo
UC33E -[into]--> Maudio/Echo
Maudio/Echo connected into my headphones.

Sort of getting there????

rengel · Post by **rengel** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 5:50 am

rengel, once you become more familiar with the material you are playing. pre-listening or "cueing" isn't that much of a necessity per se.
its still very handy to have and when i have a really heavy mix going, i like to double check in the headphones the clip i'm bringing in to make sure its not going to totally sour up the mix, and if it is, i can make key corrections in Live.

anyways, thats all advanced stuff....

AdamJay wrote: get that book,

and dive into the manual and just have a go at the software. that is the best way to learn

DONE! Picking it up tonight... very much looking forward to it.

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 6:41 am

um, well you will soon learn that with Ableton, there is absolutely no need for CDJ's.

dCross · Post by **dCross** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 6:47 am

drush wrote:just for the sake of... i dunno, something... i'm probably a producer first but i'm certainly a dj, or someone who has been playing techno forever. my issue with sasha isn't "dance music", it's that i don't like what he does. and the fact that due so heavily to the aforementioned Marketing, so many people equate Sasha with Dance Music, and vice versa. so i'm light years from thinking that djs are idiots or even that sasha is a hack really.. it's just that he plays crap music (to me).

I actually don't know anything about this Sasha marketing hype you're talking about (I'm in the states). Is he known for trying to overhype himself the same way Oakenfold did here in the late 90s?

I'm also not saying that all hardcore music producers think this way, but there definitely is a different mindset and approach to music when producing as opposed to DJing, and overall, it doesn't always lend itself to appreciate the finer aspects of DJing.

drush wrote: i really have to disagree. no, it's not easy. or for purposes of this conversation, it's not traktor. but live is infinitely easier to learn than logic or cubase. and the resources available to learn it are also infinitely better.

Yeah I agree (just didn't want to get into those differences). You still have to wrap your head around the whole virtual studio paradigm, though. I was essentially saying that you must take off your DJ "hat," and put on your producer's "hat."

rengel · Post by **rengel** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 6:51 am

I just watched Bruce's "how to warp" flash movie, FANTASTIC.
Love it.
Only thing is, it's all done with the mouse...

Can it be done without the mouse?

(i.e - using a mixer/console)

dCross · Post by **dCross** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 6:53 am

AdamJay wrote:um, well you will soon learn that with Ableton, there is absolutely no need for CDJ's.

Actually, I've thought about this before: if you got a multi-input audio interface with low latency, and plugged your TTs/CDJs (phono preamps as necessary) into it, couldn't you turn Live + a basic MIDI controller (read: UC33) into a DJ mixer? That'd be a pretty flexible way to run both a traditional and Live-based DJing setup at once, no? In addition, run some EQ4s and auto-filter's into each channel insert, and you've got a Xone 92....

Rengel - re: the warping tracks - that's ALL done ahead of time - lots of pre-planning going on here.

rengel · Post by **rengel** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 7:14 am

drc24 - what do you mean ahead of time?
So if you're in a club type situation, playing a live performance..
Would you already have your entire set worked out in ableton, and just mess with the levels? or would you do it on the fly?
I thought I understood.. now I'm confused again

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 7:17 am

Rengel think of it this way, using this analogy.

You have lots of Records right...
but lets say you are playing at a club that only has CDJ's
well to play those tracks on CD players, you have to burn encode/burn them "ahead of time", you have to convert them to CD Audio format.

Well with live, you have to warp your tracks Ahead of time, if you want to use them in Live and have them all match up to whatever tempo you want.

rengel · Post by **rengel** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 7:23 am

Light goes on.
THANKYOU!

I gotta get busy 'warping' all my tracks then....

I understand now how you would warp the tracks, etc now...
but I'm still puzzled about how you'd mix/cue them, etc.
Ah bugger, I'm going to pick up that book now and play with Live, see where that takes me

This is going to be a fun and long weekend heheh..

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 7:29 am

Okay, here goes... i just can't resist helping people.
and i can use the practice for the warping tutorial i'm giving at the indy user group meeting tuesday.

Live has a global clock
you can define the tempo. whatever tempo you want.
Once you have warp marked your tracks, and they match a metronome - then when you change the global tempo IN LIVE, the tracks will follow that tempo. don't think of it like 1 track matches it tempo to another.
Think of it that ALL tracks match the GLOBAL tempo clock transmitted by Live.

So you can have a mix of 4+ songs going... and if they are all warp marked, and Live's BPM tempo is 135bpm, they are all playing at 135bpm. now any adjustments you make to that Global Tempo, the warped tracks will follow. You could go from 135bpm to 100bpm in 8 measures... and ALL the warped tracks will slow down TOGETHER. (could you imagine doing a tempo change of 4 tracks "in the mix" on CDJ's or Technics? nah, didn't think so

)

make sense?

drush · Post by **drush** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 6:46 pm

AdamJay wrote:Okay, here goes...
make sense?

yes

drush · Post by **drush** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 6:58 pm

supster wrote:
drush wrote: sure it is. but when you can plug in 1 midi controller and take a line directly out of your powerbook...

well yeah, i could drive an 02 Firebird or a Ferrarri .. what do you think im going to drive?

ok if you feel better drooling over ritchie hawtin's gadget, im down for that too
.

.

let's say you really don't trust the powerbook soundcard. so ok, you get something more pro. if you're only using ableton then all your going to send out of it is a stereo signal. i don't get "Firebird" out of using a midi controller. or it doesn't say "Ferrari" to me to use a bunch of hardware to get a bunch of audio signals out of the computer and into a hardware mixer. it just says "unnecessary".

so i'm not really sure what you're saying.. i've used richie's mixer. it's a helluva lotta fun. but he has a reason to need to integrate all that stuff.. he's still playing records (so to speak). but if all i'm doing is playing a live set from my computer all i need is a midi controller. using a multi-out soundcard into a mixer is maybe sorta sexy, but really it's just a channel-limiting pain in the butt. see: surgeon, regis, ruskin, monolake, many others...

supster · Post by **supster** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 7:17 pm

drush wrote:
supster wrote:
drush wrote: sure it is. but when you can plug in 1 midi controller and take a line directly out of your powerbook...

well yeah, i could drive an 02 Firebird or a Ferrarri .. what do you think im going to drive?

ok if you feel better drooling over ritchie hawtin's gadget, im down for that too
.

.
i don't get "Firebird" out of using a midi controller. or it doesn't say "Ferrari" to me to use a bunch of hardware to get a bunch of audio signals out of the computer and into a hardware mixer. it just says "unnecessary".

so i'm not really sure what you're saying.. .

i'm saying, sure you can do amazing things with basic gear

you can also do amazing things with amazing gear

maven is definitely an amazing piece of gear, i've seen it up close, seen how precision it is, seen what a quality instrument it is, seen how nicely it integrates so many functions in one place so well,

seen how it allows you to stick two hands on the thing and practically play a whole set for 2 hours without taking your hands off it, not worrying about 5 box and cables running everywhere and reaching for a mouse etc etc

who designed it and uses it almost has no bearing on it, whether i liked what the guy does musically doesnt even matter. OK i personally could do without the space age flourishes on the side but thats just style he liked it so he had it made that way. who cares

.