Ableton Forum

Hi guys,

I want to put up some of new my mash up mixes and tracks on You tube,

Whats a easy Video software programme I could do it with quickly, is there one with a free trail ?

Cheers to anyone who can help.

Jonny B

Ableton Live! (check my sig for nice examples)

you made that music vid with ableton !!

sweet, although i have to have quicktime video correct??

Sony Vegas if PC (I like it's interface better than Adobe and Avid, super easy to use and very powerful, even the cut down budget Vegas Movie Studio is very powerful for the money). You can demo it for 30 days free.

Final Cut Express/Pro in Mac - although the older versions of Imovie could do a fair bit too. (they cut some stuff out of the recent versions.

Ableton Live isn't really a video editor, it allows you to place video and do some very rudimentary cuts and warping video clips is cool, but IMHO it works better if you already have a video shot and want to add music to it, rather than the other way around. You don't get the video FX and titling effects etc in Live and can only choose Quicktime format. Even the cut down Vegas gives you about a dozen file format options including mpeg 2 and 4, windows media, real, and quicktime with some different audio and video codecs.

Yes, those videos were made in ableton (rather sequenced in Ableton). Like leedsquietman says, there are no effects available in ableton, and not even any rudimentary video mixing (hopefully Max for Live will solve that), and yes you need to work with Quicktime (although there are CODECS available for transcoding to quicktime format).

However, as with music, for sequencing a bunch of clips together, rock solid in sync, without even thinking about it, nothing beats ableton live. If you already have ableton Live I suggest you fuck around with it before forking out any cash, as it may well suit your workflow, or what you are trying to achieve.

The videos in my signature link were bashed out in about 30 min maximum. To arrange such a sequence, so tightly in sync with music in Premier, or Final cut would have taken hours.

Although for effects, something like Vegas, premier, final cut, is pretty much essential ... my preferred choice for working with effects is After Effects.

Anyway, where in Scotland are you from ... I'm a Glasgow boy myself. Sunny Govan born and raised.

BTW, I am not knocking Live, I think it's great that it has some form of video support. It's support is similar to other DAWS in that it isn't designed for video editing per se, but it can be useful in some situations.

Agree with Blackbob

Ableton Live is awesome for editing video.
It's warping capabilites work with video.
You can edit in beats and bars, not timecode.

I have edited multiple video tracks in Live
It will play the "bottommost" video track 1st
then go up the chain.

Once I've got the multiple video tracks done.
Save As....as many times as you have video tracks.
For each live "video track" session....delete all other tracks.
Export each video seperately (I start them all at the same time)
Then if you need to layer/add FX you can take those all into a video editing program.
(I have heard Vegas is great for video editing but it is PC only and i'm a Mac guy)

I've been working on Live A/V performance and I send my multi-video tracks to
the VDMX visual program and then I can trigger, layer, position, turn on and off all
via MIDI commands sent from Live to VDMX.

I'm just converting my video performance of a show I did with Mike Relm and Addictive TV
for the Olympics here in Vancouver and you can see how awesome the power is.

For now here's a few videos I edited using Live:

Basic Video Mash:
Fort Knox 5 "Party Pushers" (Smalltown Romeo Krafty Kuts Re-rub mix) as main audio
Mashed with Cameo's "Word Up" (Acapella) Video
I created the Acapella video in a seperate session in Live
- Load original Word Up Video, load Word Up Acapella, warp, sync and edit

DVJ K-Tel "Party Pushers Word Up" Mash

other acapella Video Mashs:
using same technique as above:
DVJ K-Tel Video Mash - Knightlife "Discotirso" vs Chemical Brothers "Salmon Dance" Acapella
DVJ K-Tel Video Mash - Ali B "Beats on a String" vs Beastie Boys "Root Down"

Multi Video Edit:
Krafty Kuts and A-Skillz "Happiness" video
Loved the track, wanted to make a video for it.
Used Cab Calloway singing video, warped the clips and totally
cheated it to try to make it look like he was singing it...kinda worked
(there was no original video for the audio sample used).
Also used other video clips, warped in Live and sync'd to the main song.

DVJ K-Tel Edit - Krafty Kuts and A-Skillz "Happiness"

More Complex Multi Video Edit:
Gramophonedzie "Why Don't You"
I absolutely loved this track and it featured Peggy Lee's "Why Don't You Do Right" song.
I found the video...Loaded it into Live, warped it...sync'd it to the video, and then chopped it
where it need to be. Then used other bits of a different version of the video to add other elements
and also used so other video clips. Again warped and easily sync'd to the beat, sync points etc.

DVJ K-Tel Edit - Gramophonedzie "Why Don't You"

+1 for Sony Vegas, if you are on the Windows plattform.

Windows Movie Maker

+1 for vegas on windows, a really cool software, so pleasant to work with.
but hey I think I will go dig deeper into live video feature, it seems a good start.