Ableton vs Serato Scratch Live

[TheFunkyBunch]

There are a few features I've really grown to love about using SL. Primarily in regards to how I can view my music library. So with this thread I wanted to get some dialogue going about what's good and what's limiting about each platform. Obviously there are huge differences between the two. But as a DJ I see benefits to both platforms. With that said I see this discussion being relevant to DJ's but all are welcome!

here's what I like about SL

I'm adding ID3 tags to all of my music. In Scratch Live (SL), these show up in different columns I can click on to arrange by. For example the key tag is added to the "Comment" ID Tag, I can click the Comment coloumn and filter the results alphabetically. The same can be done for artist, song name, bpm and so on.

It's really nice to able to arrange my library in so many different ways. Based on what I'm looking for at the moment. In Ableton, I'd have to store all that info in the Clip Name. so browsing songs looked something like "10A - 115 - Good Song - Band"

Now I have that info when I need and and can ignore it (as in remove it from my screen) when I don't.

--

It also seems like you can have more music available with Scratch live. But I'm not sure on this.. Anyone had any problems dragging new clips (entire songs) into an active Ableton set while performing live?

-

Another thing is how in SL you can organize your music in Crates. think of them as a crate of records. However, you can have the same song in multiple crates w/o actually creating a duplicate file.

Very handy for those in-between songs. Like the band BT Express a lot of their material is between disco and funk. So I add it to both my disco and funk crates.

----

[contakt321]

The differences are like Apples & Puppies

I agree the Serato file management is much more effective for DJing, but the true differences between platforms are profound (control vinyl vs warped/locked tracks, amongst many other differences)