djing with ableton

[adam]

Why would you play whole tracks? Break 'em down, get gritty and break all your tracks into as many loops and elements as possible. Put them together again when you play, in order if you must but if you are using a technology like that, why would you just play 'em the same boring old way?

Have some fun with them. I've fantisized about using ableton to "dj" for awhile, just haven't had time to do the work. Maybe it's just personal preference but I certainly wouldn't want to just "play" tracks..

Yeah, I've had the same idea, but I think it's too time consuming...

tried that during the day,but i end up with a zillion loops,which is a bit of an pain in the ass.

That's what it's all about... shouldn't be a pain in the ass... build a library over time and eventually you can have the pieces to create amazing and unique dj sets all the time!

[adam]

for some reason i discount a person that is doing a dj set from abelton as much of a performance, i know some people will disagree but if you are playing other ppl's music as a dj shouldn't beat matching be invovled, not by a computer but by the dj. i don't know why but if you aren't doing extensive editing to turn it into something of your own, to me you might as well just have someone else do your mix. i think abelton is one of the most powerful tools in my studio but i would never use it to play other ppl's music.

consider the fact that beatmatching was a skill born out of necessity.

also, what does "performance" here have to do with price of tea in china? isn't it about what you hear, regardless of how they got there?

all that said, if it's not for you, fair enough.

however the comment about might as well have someone else do your mix is really strange to me. taking surgeon for example since he's sorta the topic, some of my favorite sets of his before he went ableton, even before he went final scratch, were sets that were predominately made up of custom edit acetates of his own material.

beatmatching is a basic, basic skill.... yes, difficult to "master" but it is only the first step to DJing... in fact, if there are tools that allow you to not worry about it available, i'd say the skill is nice to have but redundant. All the better DJs I have ever seen were incredible not for their beatmatching skills, but for their ability to know when/where to put tracks and how they played the elements of those tracks off each other... specifically choosing when to drop certain hooks and have them fit what's being played already perfectly. There is SOOO much more to DJing than beatmatching. This is something I can say to both people asking the question about beatmatching as well as wanting to play tracks in ableton. If all you want to do is sync some tracks, use anything. If you want to use ableton, at least take advantage of the neat stuff you can do with that kind of triggering power!

[leecurtiss]

that's more or less the point i'm trying to get across. i just don't understand the creativity in using ableton to load tracks in thier entirety.

[rkampschoer]

Interesting...

I know that you can real time manipulate your sounds in a lot of ways in Ableton, so maybe that's an advantage for someone who wants to use whole tracks...

[dunkel]

for some reason i discount a person that is doing a dj set from abelton as much of a performance, i know some people will disagree but if you are playing other ppl's music as a dj shouldn't beat matching be invovled, not by a computer but by the dj. i don't know why but if you aren't doing extensive editing to turn it into something of your own, to me you might as well just have someone else do your mix. i think abelton is one of the most powerful tools in my studio but i would never use it to play other ppl's music.

i think the same but not because i stand by the dj testing if he is matching the beats or not, but because its really not atractive or sexy or "perfomance material" to work with a laptop, if u r doing that, than at least make music live.
btw, djing with ableton sounds like a pain in the ass, it is there for loop work.

[solace]

i have a really good .pdf tutorial on DJ-ing Techniques with Live. shoot me a PM with an email address and i'll send it to you.

cheers.

[g]

you mean this?
http://www.ableton.com/index.php?main=t ... b=tips0404

[solace]

nope i have a different one.