Ableton Forum

Hey all,

I'm an amateur who has been using Ableton to record and produce. Recently, I decided that I wanted to just play around with some DJing with ableton. I've never DJed before in any format, and I'm not interested in learning to spin records or any of that. I want to learn this skill on Ableton, because that's what I have already been learning!

So, I warped up a bunch of songs. Now what? Where do I go from here? I've done some simple crossfades between tracks, but that is about it. What are some basic Djing-with-live things that I can try out and practice?

Thanks in advance for the wealth of information I hope you share!

Have you been using Arrangement View or Session View?? If you want to do on the fly improv, I'd recommend playing with Session View. There are a lot of things to look into. First thing is probably EQing.

If you are more planning to do a mix cd or something, that is a lot more planned out, you might consider using the Arrangement View so you can see where your tracks are blending.

There really is a lot lot lot you can teach yourself on djing.

you mix them however the fck you want!

thats the DJs job, thats what you do when you DJ!

from a DJing perspective concentrate on dropping in new tracks in 8, 16, and 32 bar cycles.

What kind of tunes did you warp? Different genres have different ways to be mixed. If you are going for a mash-up vibe, well, then it's all up to you on how it sounds. I recomend putting an EQ as well as a HP/LP filter combo on each channel. Think of it as pieces to a puzzle, when you are cutting the highs of track A start bringing in the highs of track B.

The real answer is there is no proper way, but EQing, where to drop the tracks, and filtering are basic things that must be done to accomplish a DJesque vibe.

For DJing performances - Session View is definitely the way to go. Some tips on clip use:

1. You can cut your songs into multiple clips with different starting points. Each clip then becomes a section you can jump to during your performance - like intros, main parts, break downs, etc. This way, each song is composed of a few clips - how many depends on the song and how many interesting parts there are or also how many parts you want to omit maybe. That way you are quite free to jump around the tracks' time lines whenever you want. For each of these clips I place a loop (8 or 16 bars or something else, depends) at the clips starting point. That way, when I jump to a section it will loop, but I can always turn that loop off and let the clip keep playing the rest of the song.

1b Don't forget that you can change the names and colours of the clips. I keep the same colour for clips of the same song, but I will change their names to describe the section they are meant to represent. For example, for the first clip of a song set I keep the name of the artist/song, but for the following ones I just replace this with names like Intro 1, Intro 2, Groove 1, Break 1, etc.

1b. Splitting songs into many clips may also lead you to think in layers for some parts of your performance. SO instead of playing one track after another, you can play various clips from different songs at the same time - like the intro clip from one song, the bass line clip from another, the vocal from a third, etc. This way you can create new grooves and textures, that each individual song didn't have.

Good mixing requires a lot of subtlety - even if its slamming music. It will make a big difference which song you play next - as you have to think of how the songs interact with each other in terms of mood and not whether the song is simply good on its own. Also, the way you bring in new tracks or sections into the ones already playing will have a huge impact - do you bring it in slowly, do a fast cut, start with the intro beats or maybe the break down, is there something that happens in the songs (fx, drops, etc) that will be a good place to mix in?

All this takes a lot of practice and also a good knowledge of your tracks. Also take the time to study your favourite DJs' mixes. Not to copy the tracks they play, but to study how they mix, why they choose that particular order for their tracks and why you like what they do.

All the best in your learning