Ableton Forum

Hey People!

I want to have some hardware controls when i will dj with ableton.
I have got a Push, but i'm looking for something (affordable) that has at least 2 (to faders en eq rotary knobs..
Until now i came up with a Traktor Z1, or the new Novation Launch control XL


Or am i missing something in Push?
when i dj i can't change the eq of my A and B track at the same time....

Let me hear what you guys think.

I use a Behringer BCR2000, but I'm not that serious of a DJ. Seriously, though;

56 Encoders
52 Buttons
32 Presets

That's

1792 Assignable encoders
1664 Assignable buttons
3456 Total assignable controls

If you count both notes and CCs x 16 channels x 128 values there's only 4096 controls you can map in live.

I've got a lot of redundancy across presets in my config but if you can live without faders it is wide open.

remcol34 wrote:Hey People!

I want to have some hardware controls when i will dj with ableton.
I have got a Push, but i'm looking for something (affordable) that has at least 2 (to faders en eq rotary knobs..
Until now i came up with a Traktor Z1, or the new Novation Launch control XL


Or am i missing something in Push?
when i dj i can't change the eq of my A and B track at the same time....

Let me hear what you guys think.

Push isn't the greatest for a traditional DJ set up, i'm rocking the LaunchControl XL synced to the red box of the Push at the moment and it works well!

Cheers
D

S4racen wrote:

remcol34 wrote:Hey People!

I want to have some hardware controls when i will dj with ableton.
I have got a Push, but i'm looking for something (affordable) that has at least 2 (to faders en eq rotary knobs..
Until now i came up with a Traktor Z1, or the new Novation Launch control XL


Or am i missing something in Push?
when i dj i can't change the eq of my A and B track at the same time....

Let me hear what you guys think.

Push isn't the greatest for a traditional DJ set up, i'm rocking the LaunchControl XL synced to the red box of the Push at the moment and it works well!

Cheers
D

Can you tell me what you like about the control XL ? (still has to come out in my country)

Well i'm not looking for a traditional setup.. but still need to make myself as easy as possible when i will use it with djing/ live performing because also with live performing i still want to have control over my volume faders and EQ's off several tracks at the same time..

It's not out in any country yet, i've got one as i'm working on max4live devices for it...

I love that it's a mirror of my launchpad or push grid and that i can assign it in MIDI to whatever i want, with a little M4L trickery i can also make it follow automatically the Push so that i get all the faders and encoders that i need!

Cheers
D

If you don't already own Traktor, a bonus of the Z1 is that NI offers Traktor for free with the purchase of the Z1. Only for this month though. It also has a built in soundcard. But the outputs are only 2 on back, 2 on front.

yur2die4 wrote:If you don't already own Traktor, a bonus of the Z1 is that NI offers Traktor for free with the purchase of the Z1. Only for this month though. It also has a built in soundcard. But the outputs are only 2 on back, 2 on front.

I already own Traktor,
i would considering a Z1 because i would like te map the faders and crossfader to Ableton so it will make the dj'ing a bit more easy.
Also and actuallu Specially i want to map the 3band EQ to ableton so i have total control over the first 2 rows in Ableton.

The push let me only control EQ's over one row at a time right?

so i could but a Z1 for 189euro (new) and have total control over 2 decks including Cue (for headphones)
Or wait for the Launch control XL 199euro and have total control over 8 decks (if i map everything my wasy) only not the headphones

If you explicitly intend to dj with Live, I second the Launchcontrol .

Yeah probably i will do that.
Then i have more control options then with a z1

Akai AMX & AFX...

remcol34 wrote: Also and actuallu Specially i want to map the 3band EQ to ableton so i have total control over the first 2 rows in Ableton.

The push let me only control EQ's over one row at a time right?

There are free workarounds to do this. Not that getting the controllers is a bad idea, just saying, so you don't do it for the wrong reasons.

If you have clyphx installed (free), it does include Macrobat.

Macrobat has something called Receiver Racks. This allows you to control any macro on any rack wherever in the set it is.

So in this case you could rename an empty rack on Track 1: NK Receiver
And then name the macros (*ID1*), (*ID2*) etc. (ID would in this case be what you want to call it, HP1 or LP1 or whatever.
Then you give the respective macros on your EQ racks the exact same names (*ID1*), (*ID2*).

Now the NK Receiver rack will control all these Macros across tracks.
And that Rack can be controlled from Push of course!

I don't know if you have max4live, but also, it has the feature of letting you have knobs on a channel which might be assignable to damn near anything in the set.

So you'd maybe have an 8 knob assignable device on the Master, 4 of those are tied to EQ on deck a, four on deck b, and then you just make sure 'select channel on clip launch' is deactivated.

But really, for djing, Push alone is not ideal. The relative aspect of the knobs is terrible for djing. The default of those jumping from channel to channel, the lack of any faders, and the reliance in its default state of jumping and hurdling your way through screens to control, volumes of several tracks at once, sends, channel parameters/knobs/EQ.

Push's grid plus that Novation controller would be heaven. Although I still wouldn't entirely rule out the Traktor Z1. The Z1 has one more bonus in cool-factor. It can also be used to control Traktor on iphone/iPad. I'd only recommend that if you Have an iphone or iPad (Traktor on iOS is beautiful!!). And then if you happen to have an iphone or iPad, you can also consider one of the many apps available for controlling Live (although not as much tactility as would be preferred for djing, yet still doable).