Cue Points in Ableton Live for DJing
Posted: Sat May 02, 2015 2:49 am
Hi All,
I use Ableton for recording, mostly, but have begun DJing with it in the past few years. I like using the APC40 MKII and believe I have a pretty good workflow/template out there for DJs. You can check that part of things out by clicking here .
My buddies who use more traditional routes (Traktor, Serato, VDJ, etc) have teased me about cue points from the beginning and it's been on the to-do list for a while. Things have slowed down work-wise for about 8 hours now so I had a minute to code something up. Right now it's not especially feature rich, but I'm not big on bells and whistles anyway.
It quantizes cue points to 1 bar, presently, but I will expand that to adjust quantize going forward. Additionally, when loading tracks the cue points seem to fill out the number fields based on the previously loaded presets. I don't know what the hell is going on but behavior appears to be unaffected, so I'll iron that one out as testing and work goes on. M4L is a funny strange approach to "programming" and while I don't quite approve of it entirely, for Ableton it's my only reasonable route at present.
Alright, a bit more about the device:
When you drop a clip into decks 1 through 4, the device pays attention. If you play a track you can begin to assign cue points. You use the individual number boxes (four of them) to select beat positions within a clip to launch from. Because of how counting works, in 4/4 time, bar 1 starts on beat 0, bar 2 on beat 4, bar 3 begins on beat 8, and so forth. Next to the cue point beat selector boxes is a button for each. These are midi-mappable and fire the cue points once they are determined/loaded. Most importantly, is the button next to the "TRACK X" header that allows you to save your settings.
It only lets you tweak playing tracks because I have no real intention of letting you navigate all clips in a track to edit cue points. Given how it's supposed to perform once you start setting up presets, I feel this is very reasonable. Agility is something I learn toward when designing this stuff. Similarly, back to my complaint about the weird population of the cue-point selectors, because I am saving presets, I don't really care much about how they display info once I've saved the cue points.
A companion file is written similar to the .ASD files used for analysis information in Live. The format is hyper-simple with it just being the four beat positions delimited by a space for each. Similar to the .ASD files mentioned before, you end up with an identically named .BLT file that contains the cue point information. Unlike .ASD files, if you rename a track in the Live explorer, you will have to rename the companion file similarly on your computer to retain presets. I have no plans on hijacking Ableton to monitor for these changes. I rarely ever rename files after I have them in my library so it didn't cross my mind to worry about it.
Oh, and there is an "On" button you have to push to fire the animal up.
I am going to keep testing and will probably make it part of the main template for the MKII when I find some more time. Hit me up with any questions, comments, etc.
Without further ado, download here: Download Cue Points Max For Live Device Here.
Thanks, y'all. My busy season just wound down but it's ramping up in the summer time. Lots of shows to be played both DJing as well as with the band. Hope everyone is doing well.
http://www.drewreges.com/BLTDownload/BLTTemplate.zip
http://www.drewreges.com/BLTDownload/CuePoints.zip
I use Ableton for recording, mostly, but have begun DJing with it in the past few years. I like using the APC40 MKII and believe I have a pretty good workflow/template out there for DJs. You can check that part of things out by clicking here .
My buddies who use more traditional routes (Traktor, Serato, VDJ, etc) have teased me about cue points from the beginning and it's been on the to-do list for a while. Things have slowed down work-wise for about 8 hours now so I had a minute to code something up. Right now it's not especially feature rich, but I'm not big on bells and whistles anyway.
It quantizes cue points to 1 bar, presently, but I will expand that to adjust quantize going forward. Additionally, when loading tracks the cue points seem to fill out the number fields based on the previously loaded presets. I don't know what the hell is going on but behavior appears to be unaffected, so I'll iron that one out as testing and work goes on. M4L is a funny strange approach to "programming" and while I don't quite approve of it entirely, for Ableton it's my only reasonable route at present.
Alright, a bit more about the device:
When you drop a clip into decks 1 through 4, the device pays attention. If you play a track you can begin to assign cue points. You use the individual number boxes (four of them) to select beat positions within a clip to launch from. Because of how counting works, in 4/4 time, bar 1 starts on beat 0, bar 2 on beat 4, bar 3 begins on beat 8, and so forth. Next to the cue point beat selector boxes is a button for each. These are midi-mappable and fire the cue points once they are determined/loaded. Most importantly, is the button next to the "TRACK X" header that allows you to save your settings.
It only lets you tweak playing tracks because I have no real intention of letting you navigate all clips in a track to edit cue points. Given how it's supposed to perform once you start setting up presets, I feel this is very reasonable. Agility is something I learn toward when designing this stuff. Similarly, back to my complaint about the weird population of the cue-point selectors, because I am saving presets, I don't really care much about how they display info once I've saved the cue points.
A companion file is written similar to the .ASD files used for analysis information in Live. The format is hyper-simple with it just being the four beat positions delimited by a space for each. Similar to the .ASD files mentioned before, you end up with an identically named .BLT file that contains the cue point information. Unlike .ASD files, if you rename a track in the Live explorer, you will have to rename the companion file similarly on your computer to retain presets. I have no plans on hijacking Ableton to monitor for these changes. I rarely ever rename files after I have them in my library so it didn't cross my mind to worry about it.
Oh, and there is an "On" button you have to push to fire the animal up.
I am going to keep testing and will probably make it part of the main template for the MKII when I find some more time. Hit me up with any questions, comments, etc.
Without further ado, download here: Download Cue Points Max For Live Device Here.
Thanks, y'all. My busy season just wound down but it's ramping up in the summer time. Lots of shows to be played both DJing as well as with the band. Hope everyone is doing well.
http://www.drewreges.com/BLTDownload/BLTTemplate.zip
http://www.drewreges.com/BLTDownload/CuePoints.zip