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Ableton Live

D

djarsalan2006

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 14, 2009
160
0
New York City
How many of you guys out there use Ableton Live to produce and mix ?
what to you use with it such as Midi Controller or anything ?
Post a Picture of your setup
 
I've been using ableton for a very long time now. And the biggest difference, in my experience, from any other DAW is that you can (and almost have to) develop your own method of doing things which is in no way a bad thing. But as far as midi controllers go, that means you can really get a vast assortment of different setups based on what you want to do. I have 3 that I use, personally, for DJ'ing, Producing, or Remixes/Mashups. For starters, though I'd definately look at a UC33e as ALOT of use ableton people use this. Mine is part of all 3 setups. I also have an axiom 25 and m-audio kestaytin 49. Maybe you can be alittle more specific? I've seen about everything under the sun done with Ableton and it's limits are only as far as your imagination can go.
 
I'd agree with the above, Ableton is incredible, the sky's the limit. I use it with an Echo Audiofire 2 and a Novation Remote 25 (one of the old ones, now discontinued) for DJing. It's an incredibly powerful program, with a unique workflow. Great for chucking ideas about without committing to anything.

What exactly do you want to know about the program?

JC
 
Yeah but what we're saying is what are you talking about using it for? Thats like asking how to design a house without knowing how many people its for or where it's at etc...

If you're talking about DJ'ing, though, I use 4 slots in session view. 2 slots = one deck. Any track I might want to use for DJ'ing, I'll warp, find the key (by ear... don't trust Mixed In Key type software), then make the song into a few clips using follow actions.... Since a "deck" is 2 slots, in the left one I will make a seperate clip for each verse and then put a looped version of the chorus on the top. So I can use follow actions to play a verse, and after it's over it goes straight into the chorus and loops. Then on the right half I make another stack with just different loops I've pulled out from the song. After I get it set up the way I like it, I just highlight the clips and drag them into my library and it makes a nice single .als file that I can drag into my set and have all that ready to go.

For midi, I have a UC33e that has 8 tracks (8 faders and 8 sets of 3 knobs). So each track gets two tracks worth of controls on the UC33e for effects, levels, etc. Usually since it has 6 knobs, those are for hi, mid, lo then 3 x effects. The axiom 25 has 8 drum pads so 4 of them launch clips in the 4 different slots, and the other 4 stop them. It has endless encoders that I use to navigate around session view. Different keys on the axiom keyboard control loop start/stop and on/off, Waveform view, etc...
 
Sorry to thread hijack but,

coday182, how do you map your endless encoders to scroll through clips? I'm trying to get my technique down to a mouseless performance, but launching clips is one thing I can't seem to get enough control over.

Cheers
JC
 
If you mean to drag a clip from the library, then you have to use a third party midi applications like Bomes to turn midi messages into keystrokes. Ableton can't do that alone. If you mean to scroll up and down through different scenes then in map mode, right under the "stop clips" button there is an arrow pointing up and an arrow pointing down, then there is a box next to that. That's the one you map to the endless encoder.

And again if you are wanting to drag clips into the session from the library without a mouse, that's doable but I don't know how to do it because really if you think that using a trackpad or mouse to do that makes you look "less like a real dj" then you're dj'ing for the wrong reason. It can only be counter-productive going from a simple one finger drag and drop with the track-pad to a combination of different midi controllers to insert your track. And either way you're gonna have to have your computer close enough to be able to see what you're doing so you won't be able to lose the computer compltely with a mouseless performance.
 
coday182 said:
And again if you are wanting to drag clips into the session from the library without a mouse, that's doable but I don't know how to do it because really if you think that using a trackpad or mouse to do that makes you look "less like a real dj" then you're dj'ing for the wrong reason. It can only be counter-productive going from a simple one finger drag and drop with the track-pad to a combination of different midi controllers to insert your track. And either way you're gonna have to have your computer close enough to be able to see what you're doing so you won't be able to lose the computer compltely with a mouseless performance.
Click to expand...

No, I'm happy to drag clips into Ableton using the mouse, i just needed to know how to scroll between them. I'm not worried about "looking less like a DJ", because I'm just using Ableton in the house. I'm more after using it to create loops on the fly and remix in real time, but there's definitely a pleasing element in not using the mouse :)

I do have plans to DJ with my friend James but we're gonna be using M-Audio's Torq for that :)

Cheers
JC
 
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