Ableton Forum

Hi there --

I have solely used ACID, Sound Forge, and FruityLoops for my entire electronic music career (probably 4-5 years now) but -- after a few of my remixes have gained some attention here in Pittsbugh -- people have just started asking me to play out live for the first time...

...I have no idea what this entails, but I do know that the software I use currently is incapable of it. It's also all unavailable for Mac, which is what my laptop is. Ableton Live seems like the best and, really, only solution!

So, my question is this: How possible would it be for me to remix "on-the-fly," i.e. take acapella tracks that have already been "warped" so that they are on beat and mix them, LIVE, with whatever instrumental tracks I choose -- possibly cross-fading the instrumentals under the vocals and/or switching up vocals in mid-song? Furthmore, what sort of hardware would I need for this?

I'm sorry if this is a topic that has already been extensively covered. Any help would be very greatly appreciated.
-matt

I didn't intend to post this is this forum.

Hi johndoe99,

I will move this topic into the 'Generals' forum.

regards,
Alex

John, every thing you mentioned in your post and much more is possible in Live. Not only is it possible but this is the type of stuff that Live excells at.

The only hardware you will “need” will be your mac and a mini jack to quarter inch or rca adapter to get the sound out to the venues system.

However, a decent usb or firewire soundcard (with multiple stereo outs preferably) is desireable. Also, some sort of midi controller for triggering clips and tweaking parameters in live is nice as well. Again, this stuff is not necessary but will make things a bit more enjoyable.
Choose a midi controller based on your tastes and needs.

I prefer to use a dj mixer with my Live set up. I use an maudio Quattro usb soundcard which has two stereo outs allowing me to run audio to separate channels on the mixer.

Again, not necessary. You could concievably show up with your mac only and blow the roof off the place.

I strongly suggest you take some time to play with the demo.

Best of luck!
smutek

Hey man,
Welcome to Live!
Check out the demo online for now. It's great, you just won't be able to save anything.
Feel free to PM me. I'm a very big fan of live, and I'm your neighbor

LIve is the shit.

I downloaded the demo and checked out all of the lessons -- within just a few hours I'm almost entirely capable of doing everything in Live that I would have in Acid!

I have just a few questions, then:

1) Is it possible -- and I am fairly certain that it is -- that you can play an entire 30-60 minute DJ set from within one Live set? I don't actually want to do this, but I want to do something LIKE this: if I were to load say 15 songs into Live, warp the beats correctly for each, and then just crossfade from one to the next, that would be possible?
2) I will almost certainly need a MIDI controller for all of the things that I'd like to do -- as I may have said, I work primarily with remixing rap vocals and all sorts of different instrumentals. Ultimately, I'd like to, for example, be playing a disco song under a 50 Cent rhyme, switch to a television theme song under the same rhyme, then change the vocals to, say, Jay-Z while retaining the same theme...and then start twiddling around with effects on the Jay-Z vocals.

I know that this is all possible in Live, but are there any suggestions as to what MIDI controller(s) would be best for this -- that is, for cross-fading, triggering of many, many samples (more, probably, than the # of keys the MIDI keyboard has), and tweaking all sorts of different effects, both on a single track and all tracks simultaneously?

Thank you so much,
-matt

Also, I would like to go as cheap as possible while still retaining the largest number of options (i.e. crossfading, knobs, kill switches and keys if all possible)...I'm going to be getting a lot of cash for graduating from college, but not so much that I can just blow it all on sound stuff.

And: Along those lines, what would you all suggest as the best reasonably-priced MIDI-compatible soundcard for a G4 laptop?

Thanks again!
-matt