Ableton Forum

How do you DJ with Live?
Do you load up all the tracks you are going to play, as mp3s / wavs, in Live on seperate tracks and then go from there? so that there is one file in every track? and then you assign A/B on each on the fly?
or load up tracks on the fly?

I load tracks on the fly and have channel 7 as my list of stuff I deffo want to play

On the fly. I have everything categorised according to genre/sub-genre, key and tempo sorted too, so it's really quite flexible and there's very little pre-planning as to what's going to be played on the night.

I typically only pre-plana a few select tracks I think I want to play that night. But if I get there and the crowd is dictating otherwise, I have no issues not playing those tunes.

For those of you who said they play on the fly - Do you go through your tracks prior to a gig and set up all of the warp markers so your tracks will be on time?

-Even with vinyl I found that sometimes I was so undecisive on what i would want to play next, I wouldn't leave enough time to beat match.

If you don't any before-hand work on the tracks - how do you adjust the warp markers quick enough to continue playing a seamless mix?

Warp markers set up before, DEFINATELY! You want to be able to just drag and go pretty much. While auto-warp is fine, there is still sometimes adjusting to do, and anyway, it's nice to know that you've tried out the track and warped it accurately prior to playing it out.

Well, it's not a hard and fast rule, but, warping before you play it out gives you (well me anyways) a chance to get a bit more familiar with the track too.

I like to place warp markers in places where I feel are important points in the track, or leadups to important points that you can't necessarily visibly see from the waveform. That helps heaps with loading up a track where you know a certain fill would be perfect to slam in, and the way i've got 5's real-time looping buttons assigned on the bcf makes it such that I just hit setpoint in and out, do a quick edit of the numbers if need be on the good old keypad, and away we go!

oops, i went off topic again.

My last set the tracklist and order were completely worked out before hand, for my New Years gig I will probably work out the first 3-4 tracks and the last 2-3 and freestyle it in between. I runs three "decks" with EQ four in a low/hipass configuration, EQ3 and beatrepeat on each channel (bypass mapped to UC-33) I also have sends to two different delays, an outboard reverb and a flanger. On a fourth track I have all of the songs I might want to play during the night cued to my headphones. All track are definitly pre-warped.
I am also playing with the idea of running each "deck" on seperate channels out of my MOTU into the DJ mixer, so I can get rid of EQ3 and use the Dj mixer for levels.

hi,
i think it's wise to prepare your tracks:
set warpmarkers>save , in clip enveloppe
if you wanna do this in a real time djset, you'll no time to decide wich track yo play next, if not pre-warped :it takes a few seconds before the track is loaded in the session view, only the first time put it there.
this should be commun knowledge. ..

I will listen to music before a gig, and drag songs I like into a session. I don't plan out my mixes, per se.... but I do select out music I think will work, and get it into the session and save the session.

I think of this as the same thing as filling up a record box before a gig. You would listen to records, and pack the ones you like... but not necessarily be planning out your set at all.


Then, when I get to the show... I just open the set, and my tracks are on the screen. I just drag them where I want and go. I also prefer this, because the Preview feature in Ableton is useless for DJs who use whole tracks.... because in order to really know what a song sounds like, you need to skip ahead a couple of minutes... and the Preview feature doesn't allow for that. It just starts at the beginning, so all you hear is a kick drum, normally. So I would always have to drag songs into my session to preview them since I can scrub in the session. So saving a set ahead of time helps this way, too.

i think preview is well suited to like, kicks when you're producing

it's not like a dj selects his songs by looking at the grooves in the record

i keep a filter in each track all the way open, and often to switch out or switch in i'll draw in an envelope for the filter... that way i can focus on the other song while the envelope deals with itself. anyone else utilizing nonlinear editing for djing?

hehe, I've got my first ever big warping load to do tomorrow. ~10 hours of music, heehee.

Machinate wrote:hehe, I've got my first ever big warping load to do tomorrow. ~10 hours of music, heehee.

good luck man , you will need some coffee , i am updating my set for the few parties coming , i bought a shit load of tracks & loops , everytime i start warping , after a few track i end up loosing my mind & forget i still have 50 files to warp .... oh yeah it's good sometimes to warp .....
& then when i come down from the trip , to relax i have to end up on this forum to waist more time .

I hate warping large numbers of tracks in a single sitting....

That's why I download music every day... and warp is ASAP. That way it's just a few at a time, which is more managable.

I remember when I first got Live, though... and had hundreds of songs I recorded from vinyl. Man, that month was a bitch... sitting in front of the computer warping for hours on end.

NEVER again. I will never allow myself to get that backed up again.

How about in terms of actual set up?

two tracks, A + B, and drop in the next track your going to play into the appropriate side?

subterFUSE wrote:
I remember when I first got Live, though... and had hundreds of songs I recorded from vinyl. Man, that month was a bitch... sitting in front of the computer warping for hours on end.

i know exactly what you are talking about , at least it's done now .