Ableton Live - DJing

CyanRain

I've been using Ableton Live for a few months now to compose and produce music, and I love it! Might be a little jumpy at times, but it's ease of use is great!

I've been experimenting at home with DJing i nmy room with it, and have heard that a lot of other people use it to DJ professionally. I have DJed a little here and there, but I don't currently own any decks or DJ hardware, so I was wodnering if any body else has any experience of working with Ableton in a DJing environment? If so, how did you find it?

Right now, it looks liek the best option for me. If anybody knows any other cool DJ software, let me know.

Also, does anybody know how to set up seperate tempo's for both A + B on Ableton? Because it's hard to transfer between a 100 BPM song to a 160 BPM quickly while the BPM for both of them is set up at 100 BPM. If anybody knows how to counter this problem also, let me know

Thanks in advance,

Matt

Pharsykal

I've used Ableton a bit but most of it went over my head tbh. I've always though of it as perfect for producing but impossible for DJing.

As regards other software you can download trials of loads of them before purchasing. I started with Virtual DJ which is great for starting out IMO. All the effects are simple to use and you can change skins to organise your layout.

Others include Serato (great for using with scratch vinyls but doesn't have the effects), Traktor 3, Traktor Scratch (my favorite), Torq, Mixvibes and Decadance. The 3 most popular are probably Traktor, Serato and Torq


There's numerous tutorial on youtube on how to navigate these programs, or else check out djtutor.com and http://www.djforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159619

CyanRain

Sweet, I'll check 'em out, thanks.

Zascar

Try Traktor Pro for DJing

Heisenberg1

CyanRain wrote: »

I've been using Ableton Live for a few months now to compose and produce music, and I love it! Might be a little jumpy at times, but it's ease of use is great!

I've been experimenting at home with DJing i nmy room with it, and have heard that a lot of other people use it to DJ professionally. I have DJed a little here and there, but I don't currently own any decks or DJ hardware, so I was wodnering if any body else has any experience of working with Ableton in a DJing environment? If so, how did you find it?

Right now, it looks liek the best option for me. If anybody knows any other cool DJ software, let me know.

Also, does anybody know how to set up seperate tempo's for both A + B on Ableton? Because it's hard to transfer between a 100 BPM song to a 160 BPM quickly while the BPM for both of them is set up at 100 BPM. If anybody knows how to counter this problem also, let me know

Thanks in advance,

Matt

ive been using abelton for about 2 years now and i find it a pleasure to dj with the effect are endless while mixing on the the fly......

as for the tempo issue as long as they are correctly warped you shouldnt have a problem with going between 100bpm to 160bpm as far as i know the bpm will be the bpm you have set in the master on the top left of the screen.


i could be wrong hope this helps.

franklyshocked

CyanRain wrote: »

I've been using Ableton Live for a few months now to compose and produce music, and I love it! Might be a little jumpy at times, but it's ease of use is great!

I've been experimenting at home with DJing i nmy room with it, and have heard that a lot of other people use it to DJ professionally. I have DJed a little here and there, but I don't currently own any decks or DJ hardware, so I was wodnering if any body else has any experience of working with Ableton in a DJing environment? If so, how did you find it?

Right now, it looks liek the best option for me. If anybody knows any other cool DJ software, let me know.

Also, does anybody know how to set up seperate tempo's for both A + B on Ableton? Because it's hard to transfer between a 100 BPM song to a 160 BPM quickly while the BPM for both of them is set up at 100 BPM. If anybody knows how to counter this problem also, let me know

Thanks in advance,

Matt

Hi Matt,
First of all before any technical stuff on Ableton I would recommend working on your set structure. Trying to jump from 100 to 160 BPM regardless of using Digital technology or DJing with CD/Vinyl is not going to be easy for you or for anyone listening.
It could be however, that you're working with R'n'B tracks and the software is picking up a double beat and the 160bpm track is actually an 80bpm track, which will mix a lot easier with tracks around 100bpm, and when I say easier I mean less abrassively.
In the audio clip window under the BPM there are 2 buttons
:2 and *2
This will half or double the BPM grid in the clip. This should sort out the problem. Once you're on your way I'd still get back to working on set structure, move slowley up the BPM as the night progresses or pick a BPM in the middle that you can mix up or down to. Even using the Complex Pro settings a track can sound terrible if its over warped.
Hope that helps.

CyanRain

franklyshocked wrote: »

Hi Matt,
First of all before any technical stuff on Ableton I would recommend working on your set structure. Trying to jump from 100 to 160 BPM regardless of using Digital technology or DJing with CD/Vinyl is not going to be easy for you or for anyone listening.
It could be however, that you're working with R'n'B tracks and the software is picking up a double beat and the 160bpm track is actually an 80bpm track, which will mix a lot easier with tracks around 100bpm, and when I say easier I mean less abrassively.
In the audio clip window under the BPM there are 2 buttons
:2 and *2
This will half or double the BPM grid in the clip. This should sort out the problem. Once you're on your way I'd still get back to working on set structure, move slowley up the BPM as the night progresses or pick a BPM in the middle that you can mix up or down to. Even using the Complex Pro settings a track can sound terrible if its over warped.
Hope that helps.

Yeah, that definitley helped. But if there was some way way of gradually slowing/speeding up the BPM in Ableton? That I could apply to a wheel on ym controller or something? So I could cross-fade in while gradually converting the BPM as well? Or if there is any way to have 2 seperate BPMs?

And now and then Ableton crashes, yeah? What happens if it does that in the middle of a set? Should I have some other cheap/open-source software ready to pick-up-and-go while I fix up Ableton?

Jev/N

I'm assuming you have gotten the hang of warping tracks and the crossfader assign first of all?

If so, then here's some ideas for switching between different BPMs:

- MIDI assign the BPM counter so you can alter it easliy
- stick a loop on the incoming track
- fade it in at a low volume
- change the BPM as you fade
- bring the BPM up/down and the fader up
- that's it really

- the other way is to 1/2 or x2 the incoming BPM in the track warp window but this wouldn't really work that well as you'd have to reverse it then which wouldn't sound good

Jev/N

One question: I'm assuming you've a cracked version of ableton, what version is it?

Another point - you do have two or more BPMs (each of the tracks) but overall you have one BPM. It wouldn't make sense to have two master BPMs as this defeats the purpose of using it to DJ i.e. having the tracks mixed and at the same tempo

CyanRain

No, I paid for it. Ableton Live 8.

Well, other DJ software has two master BPMs with the option to sync, which makes sense. But I suppose Live isn't supposed to be a DJ tool, so it makes sense also.

franklyshocked

Sorry for the delay in response. I'm currently on holiday so just checked my emails.
Get yourself a midi controller and midi map the project BPM to a rotary dial.
You can adjust the midi map so that there are minimum and maximum values. You can make it so that the minimum might be 80 BPM and the maximum is 160 BPM. It'll just mean that you can't accidentally whack the speed up to 200bpm by over turning the dial.
Another way you can automatically do this is to set up your set using scenes. In the scene view you can write in a BPM. As long as you use the format of a number followed by bpm, the system will automatically jump to that bpm when you launch the scene. You can do more advanced stuff like removing the stop button in the new scene so that the track in the previous scene continues to play out at the new bpm. Check the user manual to see how you do that.
This system won't give you a gradual rise in bpm if you use that method, so you're better off with the midi controller for that.


If on the other hand you were making a mix cd you can automate the bpm.
load your tracks into arrangement view and open a lane at the bottom showing BPM automation. You can use breakpoint automation and either set gradual rises in BPM across the entire mix or adjust the bpm up or down across a few bars. Again, this is something you'll see covered in the manual.


As for Live crashing, without knowing what you're doing at the time I can only make a few standard recommendations. It could be a hardware or resource problem so having another software based system loaded will be pointless.
Download and install the latest version of Asio4all. Don't rely on your laptops built in audio driver.
Adjust the size of your audio buffer. If its set too low your system probably can't handle the strain of multiple tracks.
What type of warping are you using?
Complex and Complex Pro(Live 8 only) use a huge amount of resources so use them sparingly if its a low powered system.
NEVER try loading new tracks during a set.
Never fully rely on software. Live, Traktor, Virtual DJ etc. can all crash...at the worst possible times. Get a cheap CD deck with a track cued to the master bpm.
At least then if there's a crash you have 5 minutes to reboot the system.