Who uses Ableton?

Zascar

From the Sasha thread there seems to be a few here that have some experience with Ableton Live. So who uses it, or has played with it, and what do you think? I've had a bit of a mess around with it but for me its just overkill for my needs, I'm happy with the likes of Torq etc.

It certainly is being used more and more around the place, and decent controllers are now popping up all over the place, and many of the new mixers are getting Midi control too.

copeyhagen

yeh im the same, have it on the laptop but never really got into it. i like software you can pick up and play quickly, like traktor or vdj.

might invest in a good tutorial and give it another go though.

Zascar

Yeah I watched a few tutorials on youtube... Ok it does the beatmatching for you, but you have to 'warp' all your tracks beforehand and it looks like a pretty laborious process to me, I'd perfer to beatmatch them myself!

copeyhagen

yeh i agree, although anyone can master beat matching, its actually one of the aspects of djing i find enjoyable, a seamless mix of songs : )

whats this warping all about then, i remember seeing it alright when i was tryin to give it a go.

does it mean that if you have your, say, 12 songs for a set lined out, that you cant go back and add a song that hasnt been included when warping the set or whatever?

or is the warping just transfering all your music over to be used by ableton, cuz i remember seeing someone offering their services of warping tracks for a fee on another forum..

seannash

warping basically is setting up the tracks on a grid so they all have the same bpm.if you put the mater tempo in ableton to 90 bpms the gris shifts and all the songs will play at 90 bpm or whatever bpm you select.
in the begining warping is hard but after a while,bar the odd tricky track,itl take around 30 seconds to a minute to warp a track.
in the begining its a pain to warp your entire collection but once you have that over with you just keep up by warping your new tracks as you go which isnt so time consuming.
ive played out with it and wasnt too impressed.i did miss the tactile response of actually touching something and beatmatching.you can do some amazing stuff with ableton.the potential to do mindblowing tricks is there but in practical application not very many people utilize it to its ful potential and most people just do a-b mixes which i think is lazy.
if your going to use it and get those disapproving looks you better do something with it that cant be replicated on tts or cdj and for me that was the deal breaker.i didnt do anything too complex with it so i got really bored whist waiting to mix in the other track(time id normally spend beatmatching)
in the end the possibilities are there and i understand why everyone was using it but i now see the buzz dying off and people returning to cdjs or serato becauxse of the reasons mentioned above.ritchie hawtin was a huge supporter of ableton in the begining but it seems as though hes moved back to serato for his gigs these days.
oh ps its not great for production either:D

jtsuited

ok so i'm one of those evil types using ableton. Used it for production for a while but moved on to Logic. Use it for djing and rough musical sketches now.

Ableton is actually great for djing, once you understand warping.
You have a warp grid that you have to make sure is lined up perfectly with the 1/4 notes of the track.
It's a fairly easy process and there's a good few tutorials out there.

Once your track is 'warped' (properly that is- ableton's auto warp function rarely gets it right), ableton stores a .asd file, and everytime you import that track into ableton it should be perfectly 'warped'.

Ableton for djing really suits producers more than djs, as it's nothing like a conventional dj setup.

Oh by the way, don't use the complex warping mode, use Re-pitch. Complex mode introduces artefacts to the sound (caused by the not so great time-stretching algorithm used).

jtsuited

seannash wrote: »

oh ps its not great for production either:D

it's truly feckin awful for production. real easy to make a bad track and nigh on impossible to make a good one (partly due to it's horrendous summing engine - although apparently it's a lot better in 7).

Zascar

I think you can buy already warped tracks from beatport.
But just having to warp all my tunes puts me right off...

jtsuited

Zascar wrote: »

I think you can buy already warped tracks from beatport.
But just having to warp all my tunes puts me right off...

it only takes a few clicks tbh. And once a track has been warped once, it's done forever.

buying tracks prewarped is really really really lazy.

deevey

I just let it auto warp and use left and right keys with the cue bar to sync if it goes off 99% of the time that works and is a little more hands on.

... unfortunatly its one of the main controls cant be mapped to midi (yet) which means I wont use it, I hate keyboards for dj'ing.

copeyhagen

so can u say, import your entire collection and set it to warp the lot in oone go, so u could do it at night while in bed or at work or whatever?

id love to use it for its ability to edit songs in real time, but this is probably hard to master is it?

so the likes of shasha that uses it, for all his involv2er edits he plays, would he use ableton to edit them prior to a gig or would he edit them in a seprate program and just warp the track into his collection?

i have been using the bcd3000 with my laptop and have been offered a few gigs over the last couple months, all of which i have turned down.

if i was to get into it properly, would something like two xp10's and a good mixer be decent enough.

would love to get a good midi controller like the allen & heath one and try ableton out.

whats the actual mixing function of it like. does it fuk up the beats itself much?

any1 know any good tutorials for it?

Zascar

I used to have the BCD300 - its ok once you get used to it, but pretty crap compared to any decent solution. Try the Xponent or the Vestax VCI-100. You can add an additional midi controller like a Faderfox or a Trigger Finger

romarr

starting to get into all this jiggery pokery... was about to get myself live 7...

jtsuited wrote: »

it's truly feckin awful for production. real easy to make a bad track and nigh on impossible to make a good one (partly due to it's horrendous summing engine - although apparently it's a lot better in 7).

What do you chaps recommend instead ?

copeyhagen

yeh the bcd3000 is fairly basic, just got it on the cheap from sum1 in work that wasnt willing to take vista off their laptop.

its ok for what i use it for, which is basically bedroom and party use.

but would like to get something a little more serious.

all the allen & heath stuff is amazin but seriously priced.

was thinkin of gettin the xponent before, is it any uuse. i know there have been threads about it in the past.

copeyhagen

supersnail wrote: »

starting to get into all this jiggery pokery... was about to get myself live 7...



What do you chaps recommend instead ?

if its for the djing side of it, then afaik live le 7 is meant to be grand. correct me if im wrong someone.

Zascar

I have the Xponent and I'm very happy with it. Best value controller by far that does everything yet still has jog wheels etc. Torq Software is very good and is going to get even better with the release of v1.5 but no one knows when that is going to be...

Serato are releasing ITCH: http://www.serato.com/itch - which I'm assuming will be brilliant (Based on SSL) and the new Vestax VCI-300 comes with it. This will be a savage solution but expect to pay about €100 or so I'm guessing.

jtsuited

i used ableton a lot for production but coming from an engineering/production background I found it pretty awful when it came to mixdowns, edits, etc.

Since I've moved to Logic, I have come on in leaps and bounds - in fact the first track i did in Logic got signed to Queep recently for release in summer.

If you're on PC, I'd recommend something like cubase over Ableton for production.

I enjoy the messing you can do in Ableton though so I think I'll stick with it for djing.

copeyhagen

would you be able to use the xponent for a gig or would it be too bedroomish if ya know what i mean?

also, to use it in a club environment, would you just use the line in feature on the mixer and the output feature from ur laptop?

how would you setup using soemthing like that in a club if u wanted to?!

any one ehre used any of the allen & heath stuff, in aprticular the xone 1d or 2d as a midi controller?

copeyhagen

Zascar wrote: »

Serato are releasing ITCH: http://www.serato.com/itch - which I'm assuming will be brilliant (Based on SSL) and the new Vestax VCI-300 comes with it. This will be a savage solution but expect to pay about €100 or so I'm guessing.

the numark controller on that site looks quality.

you meant 1000 aswell did you?!

Zascar

Yeah I can't see why not! All the mixes on my download page in my sig were done on the Xponent. You just use the line out from the Xponent, the laoptop just connects to it for music etc.

DJ_Spider

Hardware:- One word - 00DJ!
Software:- One Word - VDJ!

Thankyou & goodnight!
(stands back and warms hands on ensuing flames!)

seannash

copeyhagen wrote: »

so can u say, import your entire collection and set it to warp the lot in oone go, so u could do it at night while in bed or at work or whatever?

id love to use it for its ability to edit songs in real time, but this is probably hard to master is it?

so the likes of shasha that uses it, for all his involv2er edits he plays, would he use ableton to edit them prior to a gig or would he edit them in a seprate program and just warp the track into his collection?

i have been using the bcd3000 with my laptop and have been offered a few gigs over the last couple months, all of which i have turned down.

if i was to get into it properly, would something like two xp10's and a good mixer be decent enough.

would love to get a good midi controller like the allen & heath one and try ableton out.

whats the actual mixing function of it like. does it fuk up the beats itself much?

any1 know any good tutorials for it?

no warping isnt as simple as that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWv6Ef-MiCg

jonny68

I did have it but got rid as frankly i found it just too difficult to use, im fairly IT savvy but no geek but this was just too difficult to master unless someone actually sat down with me and went through it as i found the tutorials on YouTube to difficult to follow.

Entec

quick tutorial on warping in abelton

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI4EAWVruwc&feature=related

thesoulfulldude

copeyhagen wrote: »

yeh im the same, have it on the laptop but never really got into it. i like software you can pick up and play quickly, like traktor or vdj.

might invest in a good tutorial and give it another go though.

sorry but traktor and vdj are just mixing tools, ableton is an editing tool? VERRY DIFFRENT! anyways here's a song i produced with ableton, great software but very confusing at times

i know this is hip hop and not dance, im just showing you a track i made with abelton. also if im mixing i use numarks cue with numarks total control.... i had a trial of vdj but it made my laptop crash and tracks skip so not going to buy it.....

seannash

thesoulfulldude wrote: »

sorry but traktor and vdj are just mixing tools, ableton is an editing tool? VERRY DIFFRENT! anyways here's a song i produced with ableton, great software but very confusing at times

i know this is hip hop and not dance, im just showing you a track i made with abelton. also if im mixing i use numarks cue with numarks total control.... i had a trial of vdj but it made my laptop crash and tracks skip so not going to buy it.....

people use it to dj so it would also be classed as a dj tool

thesoulfulldude

sorry what? ive never seen anything that resembles a mixing front in live?????

Fringe

I've got it but I have no idea how to use it. I've tried to familiarise myself and I can understand some of it but then when it comes to actually putting everything together and making songs, I'm clueless.

seannash

thesoulfulldude wrote: »

sorry what? ive never seen anything that resembles a mixing front in live?????

okay on the session screen it has,faders for volume,a crossfader.stop,play buttons.waveform display.fx section.
just like serato.
its set up differently but to say it cant be used as a dedicated djing platform is a bit much.especially when theres forums dedicated to its djing uses.and world class djs using it for just that
with version 6 upgrades being primarily focused on improving the djing aspect of it again you cant deny its djing abilities.
but hey if you wanna use it to make hip hop thats cool you can do that also

seannash

Fringe wrote: »

I've got it but I have no idea how to use it. I've tried to familiarise myself and I can understand some of it but then when it comes to actually putting everything together and making songs, I'm clueless.

well in all fairness its not too dissimilar to other apps for production its just not as good.
for starters dont try and do your production in session view.stick with arrangement view and then drag your samples in from your browser,or load up your synth.

copeyhagen

seannash wrote: »

people use it to dj so it would also be classed as a dj tool

exactly. dont know what he was talkin about, cant be used for djing. lol