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The Ableton thread


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Who is using it and how? Questions? Tips & Tricks...... lets share that knowledge!

Personally I've got it set up with 2 channels of full tracks + loops/phrases chopped out of these; another 2 channels for looping on the fly out of the first two channels and another for random bits and pieces (acca's, homemade leads or drum breaks or whatever)

using m-audio x session for channel faders & eq's and behringer bcd2000(? big box of knobs) for effects and navigation, looping etc

after a while with 2 x CDJ/2 x Techs + kaoss pad it seemed logical and keeps the ADD at bay - always a KNOB handy to fiddle with!

whats everyone else up to?

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  • 3 months later...
  • 1 month later...

I play out with Ableton having used it for years in the studio and loudly proclaiming that I'd never DJ with it. Needless to say once I actually tried I was hooked.

The way I use it is like this;

2 x main tracks - Controlled with Faderfox DJ2. Each of these tracks has eq and 2 different delays. These tracks have 3 available slots so I can pull in 3 instances of a track and select / trigger different cue points / loops.

6 x loop tracks - Controlled with Faderfox LV2. Each of these tracks have a single slot available and a delay. I use these tracks for percussion loops, acapellas etc.

On the DJ2 I use the cue volume pot for tempo and a couple of buttons for nudge forward / back to enable me to beatmatch easily.

I use an Echo Indigo DJ audio interface with a single channel going to the mixer and my headphones going out of the other. I've experimented with dual channels going into the mixer but I prefer to keep everything running (eq etc) within Ableton.

Apart from the delays I haven't set up any other effects in Ableton (primarily because I'm prone to overuse) but I do use the effects on the mixer a bit to effect the overall sound rather than each track seperately.

I have all my tracks set up in key folders (from Mixed In Key ie. 1A, 1B, 2A etc) with an additional folder of A-Z shortcuts. These folders sit in tab 1 of the browser.

I then have a tools and loops folder again set up by key. In this way if I have a track playing that is 7A I can quickly and easily pull a bunch of 7A percussion loops into the loop tracks and trigger them to add additional layers while ensuring that they will fit the key of the track that's playing. These folders sit in tabs 2 (acapellas) and 3 (percussion loops).

My main tip is to only use WAVs (I buy 320 MP3's and convert to WAV) since MP3's have to be decoded to WAV if they're not in the decode cache. This can cause annoying drop-outs. I only realised this late on and had to re-warp over a thousand tracks since the ALS files for MP3 don't work for WAVs.

Hope that made sense. I've put a screenshot of my live setup below.

Cheers,

Craig

Ableton_screen.jpg

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I still use Live 7 since I'm struggling to get used to the new warping system with Live 8 having been warping with the old method for so long.

Since most of the stuff I play (deep house / tech house / techno) is fairly quantised I find that I can usually put the 1st warp marker on the first beat then add a warp marker at the end of the track (and drag in time to the last beat) and everything is in time.

Older tracks that I've recorded from vinyl or the odd track that isn't quantised I sometimes find you have to put a warp marker every bar but for the stuff I'm playing that's the exception rather than the rule.

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yeh i struggle with 8's warp markers i still use 6 for sets at the moment. but with 6 i general use the warp straight function but i'm not doing it live so a little different. wouldn't mind attempting a live set soon seeing as i just bought the korg zero4 that things is golden.

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By all accounts the warping engine sounds better (although I'm not sure I can tell the difference) but I just don't understand why they couldn't improve the engine while keeping the process the same.

Of course it could be just me since some people say they prefer the new method but perhaps they haven't warped several thousand tracks the old way and become indoctrinated.

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