Ableton Forum

Hello,

As someone who in the past used to waste hours mixing records and producing mix tapes (with a view to either impressing mates or women) I absolutey love the control/enjoyment Ableton Live gives me and yes I have tried all sorts of programs. I'm now older,have a job and responsibilities but for an hour in the evening with my laptop I can pretend I'm Sasha without taking up a whole room with viynl, spending weekends trecking round record shops or generally just pissing off my neighbours. I do have apirations of being a pop star but for the time being I'm happy using Live as a mixing tool rather than a sequencer.

Sorry waffling...

Anyway, I've heard mixes by the Soulwax Brothers (Hang the DJ - Radio Soulwax - see link at bottom) and I'm covinced that they use Live to mix and produce bootlegs because they sound way too slick for decks. One thing they use to cut from one track another is a deckstop (like hitting the stop button on a SL-1200). So - does anyone know of a VST (preferably free and for OSX) that can produce this sound. I have seen "DFX Scrubby" but it's not quite what I'm after.

Alternativley - if any of you have any tasty tricks and tips for mixing tracks I'd love to hear them - in the meantime have a listen to Soulwax thing below. Cheers...

http://dewaeles.soulwax.com/new/html/hangthedj.html

my position is... mixing 'tracks' with live...i didn't try that yet
???? almost impossible.
it's for mixing cuts and loops. no?

the soulwax yos work with a combination of vinyl and some gimmicks.

soulwax use a protools mix system on a mac g3

It's for what you want it to be for...


my position is... mixing 'tracks' with live...i didn't try that yet
???? almost impossible.
it's for mixing cuts and loops. no?

ok guess post-edit dj mix?

there was a discussion in here about the beat recognition turn off / on in live.

now you got a 6min track at 120bpm and a 4min track at 130 bpm,, what's your approach to mix it down ..

Anonymous wrote:It's for what you want it to be for...?

simply not true.
the software is excellent but not almighty. of cource you can do 'dj mixes' - but not from scratch

To be able to do this sort of DJing work with LIVE requires that MIDI automation be implememented with the track loop, start etc positions.

So that you can fine tune things as you go along, much like a deck ( im not a dj)

Being able to nudge things with a little twist of a midi knob would be great.

Also the auto beat detection needs to improve a little, allowing for tracks which do not start on the beginning of the audio file, and much tighter beat mapping.

But basically, simply to continue the LIVE aspect of this software, allowing to 'correct' yourself for instance if you bring in a clip 1/16th (a semi-quaver for us brittish-origin countries) too late.

Currently you cant fix it until the next opotunity to bring the loop in, rather then being to quickly nudge it in time.

I was checking the DJ ing wuth Live manual here on the site... very cool , lots of nice tips , but I am having a hard time trying to have a perfect beatmatching using the techniques described in this manual.
When i trouw a complete track into Live ... it is very tricky to beatmatch it to a correct beat and requires lots of fine tuning almost in every bar.. takes lots of time to move all the warp points to the right places.
It's not just a first and the second warp points that you have to move in order for a song/track to match the lets say 120BPM...
Maybe there is a better technique to quickly beatmatch the track to enother track or loop.... eny ideas?

jazze

It's for what you want it to be for...?

simply not true.

WHY NOT? I could remix the queens speach if I wanted to....

the software is excellent but not almighty. of cource you can do 'dj mixes' - but not from scratch[/quote]

My audience is very forgiving - the missus doesn't walk out of the living room when I muck up a mix - especially if I'm wearing headphones and she's watching eastenders....

but you CAN'T do a 'dj mix' in the way we used to know it, WITHOUT manually preparing warps every single track.





ps. the soulwax link is very cool. i love it.

I think people may have misunderstood the manner in which I use the software - there is no audience for me to worry about. I appreciate that all these things are would help benefit "The Mix" but I can simply stop what I'm doing and start again. I do remember years ago just mixing two records over and over again until i found the best possible way of combining them. I can do this sort of thing with live and because it's non destructive I can rework a mix over and over again until I'm happy with it. The end results goes on a CD and I listen to it in the car on the way to the supermarket. I was trying to highlight another way in which the software could be used. I've seen other bits of so called DJ software and I think they completely miss the point by trying to emulate what you would do with decks. The important thing is how it sounds not how it was done and the Soulwax illustrates this - ie. purists say "It's not mixed using decks" - i say "Who cares - it sounds great"

I'm glad you like it - you can buy the CD - which is called "2 Many DJ's - As heard on Radio Soulwax Pt.2" - doesn't take itself too seriously but sounds great....


ps. the soulwax link is very cool. i love it.[/quote]

I did a gig - mixing loops and full tracks - thats NO problem with Live - you just need to use the Warp markers....... its takes time to do this for each track but once you've done it a few times its easy.....

the quickest way...(during and after step 2 you should have a short loop running in the background to make sure the you are putting the markers on your full length track in the correct places....)...

1. find the very first beat and stick the first marker to it (double click - will go green)
2. move and assign marker 2 and 3 so that they are correctly beatmatched
3. go up in 8/16 bar steps from here on - eg. marker 9 - 17 etc.... and place and assign them correctly by zooming right in and finding the start of the kick sample for example
4. a tip - zoom all the way out and then for each marker you want to fix, zoom in with the mouse cursor over that marker - slowly...... you will see the bar/time steps become visible in steps of 64/32/16/8......this makes it very easy to see where you next have to place a warp marker...once it becomes visible - place cursor directly over it and zoom right in....
5. make sure you have a total number of bars as a multiple of 8/16 ... ie. move the loop marker (blue line) from marker1 to marker 129 for example (1-129 = 128, which is 8* 16)
6. make sure you go from left to right as explained - right to left won't work as the fixed warp markers mean you cannot move any other points....
7. it takes me less than a minute to correctly mark up a 6 minute techno track, placing a warp marker every 16 bars......with a loop and the track running it is possible to fix the markers correctly before the track is finished....

..et used to zooming in and out with the mouse (click and move up/down)....move left to right in consistent steps (be it 1/2/4/8/16/32 ...)

8. at the end set the range for the while track (blue line)

hope this helps and isn't too complicated....

...obviously this is alot easier with 4/4 type music - house/techno/electro - with clear beats..... - doing it with beatless music or tracks with fxcked up rythmns will take a bit longer..



P.S. I hope this is what people were talking about!

[quote="logos"]but you CAN'T do a 'dj mix' in the way we used to know it, WITHOUT manually preparing warps every single track.

But you have get the Tracks into the computer in the first place either from CD or from vinyl - so preparing the warps isn't a major hassle - they only have to be accurate at the beginning and at the end where the mixes occur and you can usually see the beats visually. Once the tracks are warped defined you can easily try out mixes on the fly without having to worry about beat matching. I find playing a drum loop along side a track is the best way of checking your warp markers.

ever tried traktor by native instruments?