how to dj with ableton live-a tutorial and mix

pjl2000xlpjl2000xl 1,795 Posts
edited December 2006 in Strut Central
I spent all day rigging this shit up like i want it. check it outfirst thing you have to do is go from seratos line outs to your soundcards in. Then you have your interface go out back to the mixer. There is only one set of rca outs on my interface so i had to buy a Y stereo rca mono female pieces that go to 1 mono rca male piece so i could plug one into the left side and one into the right to have 4 mono tracks go back into the dj mixer to fake stereo for the channels. like so once you have all your shit rigged up, you need to setup ableton for djing. What i did was layed a few audio tracks down, hard panned them as stereo pairs, and made the inputs come from 1 for track 1 and 2 for track 2 respectably. i had a set of Microwave ins, set of line ins, and a set of cue tracks that i muted. Once you do that turn the master off, and have all your left channels send A turned up and all your right channels turned to B. Then on the return tracks have the 1st one going out to ext out 1 and have the second return going to ext out 2(i just noticed in the pic i have the 2nd returned panned to the right, i think it should be centered). Now your setup. I also threw down a filter, a delay, and an eq on each track all set to 0%dry and flattened out freq wise and turned off. So i can turn them on smoothly. This is what you should have. download the pic too to see it betterhttp://download.yousendit.com/195421995317B95CNow right click on the directory where you have your music that you want to use in abletons browser and do "analyze all tracks". It takes a while and makes analysis files for you. Now when that is done, you wont have to do it again, take like 10 to 20 tracks or whatever and put them in the cue tracks. I also threw down some drum breaks to play with. And then i used the keyboard assign to have q assigned to triggering clip left side and p to trigger clip right side. And thats about it. You have to work on the fly and i did get some drop outs, but i think if i get a better soundcard that shouldnt be an issue. this tascam thing is buggy as shit and sucks balls. Here is a quick 10 mb mix i did to show you guys. All the beats are mine. For the first track i loaded a breakbeat into the left side and when the other track was coming in i turned on the delay and brang up the wet then killed the clip and it rang out with the echo trail. I also do some filter sweeps during another drum loop part. Its my first day doing this though and i think it came out decent. there is some problems but i gotta just practice using this shit. here is the mix AbletonDJset

  Comments


  • pjl2000xlpjl2000xl 1,795 Posts
    anyone ever mess with this?
    http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FastTrackPro-main.html
    i think this would be perfect for this ableton and djing.

  • Thanks for posting this. This should save me some time once I decide to sit down and figure it all out. How would you do this set up without a microwave?

  • bthavbthav 1,538 Posts
    lowendtheory: isnt your mix in mono? thats

    plus the Y cable thing might fuck with your impedence giving you a lower output and lesser fidelity going into your mixer. spring for a 4 output interface (that is not m-audio).

  • pjl2000xlpjl2000xl 1,795 Posts
    lowendtheory: isnt your mix in mono? thats

    plus the Y cable thing might fuck with your impedence giving you a lower output and lesser fidelity going into your mixer. spring for a 4 output interface (that is not m-audio).
    yeah i think it did come out into mono. Like i said i need to work on the kinks of it in the next few weeks before i even considered playing out with it. i will look into better soundcards though any suggestions under 300?

  • bthavbthav 1,538 Posts
    not sure about these, but for under 3 bills, you might not get much:

    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controll...egoryNavigation

    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controll...egoryNavigation

    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controll...egoryNavigation

    ive hurd some good things about the focusrite, but id do some research... or save up and spring for:

    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controll...egoryNavigation

    this is solid, and will be crucial if you wanna do multitracking later on.

  • pjl2000xlpjl2000xl 1,795 Posts
    i actually was looking at this last night.http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=12224&A=details&Q=&sku=458812&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation I would love to have 6/8 i/o to work with on my laptop for when i goto works studio, recording for radio broadcasts, or my schools studio. I might have to spring for this one.

  • Thanks for posting this. This should save me some time once I decide to sit down and figure it all out. How would you do this set up without a microwave?

    That's what I'm going to try and figure out myself when I get home from school. God I can't wait.

  • RustyBRustyB 223 Posts
    djing with ableton =

    Dude, using something pre-beat matched and all that seems real weak.

  • bthavbthav 1,538 Posts
    djing with ableton =

    Dude, using something pre-beat matched and all that seems real weak.

    republican

  • RustyBRustyB 223 Posts
    Independent Thinker...

    Nah, mang I saw this cat using it and it just seemed silly, I mean are u just lining up pre-beatmatched jawns to mix.. whats the point? I guess your adding effects real time and what not, but whats really live and whats memorex when using this software to dj out..

  • bthavbthav 1,538 Posts
    wow... ive posted 5 times to this thread and didnt even read the title properly. im down with using it in tandem with records (i use it real minimally, more like a loopstation) and wax as the base.

    i hear what your saying, it is kinda eeh if its so damn simple. and your right, but it does level the playing field. and thus increases the amount of garbage djs out there.

    real schitt: fuck beat matching. good djs string moody moments.

  • pjl2000xlpjl2000xl 1,795 Posts
    im using it in tandem with Microwave and vinyl. See im a producer mainly and i would like to bring some of that knowledge and techniques to my dj set and integrate my own stuff. I wouldnt just use it to play mp3s all beat matched, and it is kind of hard to get that shit to work right anyways, but think of the possibilities of being able to quickly record maybe 2 bars of a record, loop that, drop a break on it and keep adding layers to it and basically do live production in a set. All in the matter of seconds while in headphone cue in your mixer. I think that is fascinating. It brings that producer touch to them music. Ive been spinning just records for about 5 years till i got into Microwave. I think with that and ableton, the ideas and creativity become endless. i would never just bring out abelton and a dj mixer without turns. I love vinyl and have to incorporate it into any performance i do, but i love making beats and using loops in sets. This just makes everything flow smoother. But yeah just using ableton to dj would be mad corny and but using it in conjunction with a dj rig it can be rugged. Its all music at the end of the day and the crowd dont give a fuck what format your playing as long as the music is tight. It could be an 8 track and a mini disk but if you got your programming down then fuck it.

  • bozakbozak 334 Posts
    get that native instruments kontrol 1 jumpoff. 4 outs plus a nice volume dial and three buttons up top you can midi program. its 250

  • im using it in tandem with Microwave and vinyl. See im a producer mainly and i would like to bring some of that knowledge and techniques to my dj set and integrate my own stuff. I wouldnt just use it to play mp3s all beat matched, and it is kind of hard to get that shit to work right anyways, but think of the possibilities of being able to quickly record maybe 2 bars of a record, loop that, drop a break on it and keep adding layers to it and basically do live production in a set. All in the matter of seconds while in headphone cue in your mixer. I think that is fascinating. It brings that producer touch to them music. Ive been spinning just records for about 5 years till i got into Microwave. I think with that and ableton, the ideas and creativity become endless. i would never just bring out abelton and a dj mixer without turns. I love vinyl and have to incorporate it into any performance i do, but i love making beats and using loops in sets. This just makes everything flow smoother. But yeah just using ableton to dj would be mad corny and but using it in conjunction with a dj rig it can be rugged. Its all music at the end of the day and the crowd dont give a fuck what format your playing as long as the music is tight. It could be an 8 track and a mini disk but if you got your programming down then fuck it.

    i definitely feel that. i'm annoyed by DJs who use software to get around an inability to beatmatch, but i'm sure using ableton in conjunction with existing DJ skills, one can do a lot of innovative shit.

    given that ableton supports many many tracks, is there a way to use it in conjunction with Microwave and a two-channel mixer that would give you the option of mixing more than two tracks at a time?
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