Noob - Ableton, S4 or Twitch

[IznremiX]

Can you go into this a bit more? You've mentioned the lack of DVS, what are the other capabilities does the S4 have that the Twitch is lacking?

for me 4 upfaders is a HUGE plus. also s4 comes with traktor which imo is capable of more than twitch. the looping section of the s4 is really well made and mapped. you have a filter in the mixer. i haven't had a chance to use twitch and i could be wrong on some points, but those are just things that stick out to me

[ksandvik]

I used Ableton Live for all kinds of DJ projects for a while, but I must say the constant warping and creating clips was making me so analytical when in a creative mode and as everyone knows that's a bad clash. S4 and similar DJ controllers make this kind of analytical work less obvious.

Not that Ableton Live is excellent for remixing and quick track creation.

[farhanashraf]

Can you go into this a bit more? You've mentioned the lack of DVS, what are the other capabilities does the S4 have that the Twitch is lacking?

i dont know if u still want me to go more about the dvs and other capabilities of s4. looks like a few others have chimed in.

[DigitalDevil]

As an Ableton user, I recommend against starting out DJing with Ableton (assuming you actually want to play a normal DJ set). You'll most likely just be completely overwhelmed. Software actually meant for DJing will be much more natural.

[Onimode]

How do you warp tracks in ~5 seconds. Ive been getting into Ableton but one of my major obstacle is the time it takes to warp a track. I have seen couple of tutorials but can you point me in the right direction?
Thanks

More like ~30 seconds to a minute or two if Ableton doesn't analyze it properly. The most common error I've seen on Ableton's end though is it not placing the start marker in the right position. I'm pretty sure most music follows 8/16/32 measure phrases, so you could place your first warp marker where the first beat is, then place others every 8, 16, or 32 measures and put them into place.

[DigitalDevil]

More like ~30 seconds to a minute or two if Ableton doesn't analyze it properly.

Unless the track is a complete oddball... no. Usually takes me less than 10 seconds but I've done it a million times.

How do you warp tracks in ~5 seconds. Ive been getting into Ableton but one of my major obstacle is the time it takes to warp a track. I have seen couple of tutorials but can you point me in the right direction?
Thanks

1. Place warp marker at first beat (auto detect usually puts the first marker slightly before this)
2. Set that marker to 1.1.1
3. Delete all other markers (ctrl-a to select all)
4. Round the auto-detect BPM to the nearest whole number (usually its +.01 to account for the first marker being placed too early)
5. Look if the proper structure is maintained (changes at 16, 32, 64, etc) - usually just zoom in on the last drop and see where its at
6. Adjust BPM as necessary for this reference beat to be on point (usually not needed)
7. Warp the last beat of the track (just nudge onto the grid, the bpm may be off by less than .01 so it won't be visible numerically, but it results in the track drifting off the grid slightly)

Hope that makes sense... when you do it enough times its really easy. When I'm playing around with new tracks I'm always able to warp and chop every track while playing the set; it isn't that time consuming.

[Nicky H]

Probably depends what you're warping, but with house / techno I play with a steady 4-4 beat all you have to do is zoom in to the first beat - 'Set 1.1.1 here, Warp from here'

Done

5 seconds

[ksandvik]

Probably depends what you're warping, but with house / techno I play with a steady 4-4 beat all you have to do is zoom in to the first beat - 'Set 1.1.1 here, Warp from here'

Done

5 seconds

It works in 90% of the cases but you always need to double-check in case the track was let's say digitized from a vinyl spin that introduced latencies, or the producer had fun with the production changing beats or odd breakdowns and actually some old DAWS didn't have exact clocks so the tempo variated for those productions, too. So I would add another 20 seconds to double-check something, otherwise you might have nasty surprised when you play your track for people.

As for human drumming funk and old disco tracks, easily 3-20 minutes for warping. And the output sounds very mechanical.

And this does not include making clips for the intro parts, exit parts, interesting loop points and so on. So there's more work than one expects with Ableton Live. But unlike Traktor you know things are perfectly in sync after all this work.

[Nicky H]

Yeah you probably should check it but I never do - and I haven't had a problem yet..

And yeah warping vinyl rips and old tracks is a different story altogether.

[padi_04]

go for an apc40, get an uc33, bcr2000 or similar if you need extra control. My advice is to forget about the "DJ mixer layout" and build something that works best for you, specially with Ableton.