Can someone help me about: Pre-mixed Bootlegs?! Soundforge?!

[belchman]

Hey peeps,

Quick one..
I was DJing with a fairly big house/electro DJ in the UK (Joshue Roberts - MOS, Nitro etc etc) and was checking out his mixing quite thoroughly.

I realised that a lot of the really creative, quick and impressive mixes that I was in awe of before were infact 'bootlegs' which he'd put together before hand and mixed in.

Now this would definitely be classed as "cheating" to all those haters in the purist youtube fuckwit fraternity (who can't even come to terms with DMC champs pressing their own acetates to compete with..) - but I definitely understood why Josh was doing this, preparing a few songs together before playing live (without just recording a mix and pressing play).

Firstly (to the DJs) - am I being a total noooooob or is this a fairly normal thing to do?

Secondly (to the production-heads) - what would be the best medium to do this? I've been looking at Acid as a DAW, as in my (very few, and shit) productions I prefer to use samples to make beats and I like ACID's workflow for this. But would this kind of 'pre-mix' bootleg thing be better done in something like Soundforge?

I don't really have a clue about what soundforge is for - if anyone could enlighten me, I'd greatly appreciate it

I hope there are people who might enjoy lending me a teeny weeny part of their enormous wisdom on this

[Patch]

Ableton Live is great for this. Ableton Live is also great for doing this on the fly.

With enough experience, ad the right controller and template, there is no reason NOT to be able to do this type of thing totaly live...

[BestLegsinHD]

agreed. usually i split my tracks up into sections--intro, bass drop, vocal drop, anything of interest. this allows me to loop the sections i want and/or throw some fx and other cools stuff over it.

not sure what soundforge is. looks like a big mastering vst type thing.


****i use ableton forgot to include that bit =D

[charo]

i'm a little confused what you mean exactly...

are you saying they are making mashup bootlegs before hand or are you saying they are playing prerecorded mixes?

edit i guess i'm a fuckwit cause i don't think it is right ever to give the illusion you are making a mix live when it is prerecorded, doesn't matter if you are doing it for two songs or a whole set. Its no way to start off djing thats for sure.

just to be sure, i have no idea who this dj is and have no interest or intention on calling them out: you just IMO unfairly lumped anyone who would never do this and have a problem with it into an adjective laced grouping.

[rjw]

Soundforge is a wave editor. It's good, but (I think) limited to working with a single stereo file at a time. You CAN make mixes in it (using the crossfade paste function) but you'll have a lot more control with something like ableton live or even acid...

Acid is like a multitrack version of soundforge, so you could use that instead!

But, as others have said above, Ableton Live is really the best way to go for preparing a premix.

[belchman]

I like Ableton.. but I've never been very comfortable with it outside of the clip view - it seems very geared towards live DJing and looping.

I used to use Logic as my main DAW before my HDD broke and I lost it.. bad times!

Thing is, I take a pc laptop on the road with me aswell which has DAWs on it, and I want to be able to perfect this kind of pre mixing thing..

@charo - I'm not calling you a fuckwit (the very fact that you're on this forum voids your membership in that group ) I'm talking about facilitating the creativity of my mixing by tweaking songs to make them suit my sets better. And more importantly, make an "intro mix" kinda thing...

Joshua R is a really good DJ. He's a serious workhorse in the booth cueing CDJs etc etc, but there comes a point where spending time grabbing songs and finding cue points can either become really regimented (keep you staring at the laptop screen, or just generally dying), or just waste time/processing power/risk knocking a cue point in the wrong song and fuck up the mix totally.

For example, one thing which he did with a DAW in the booth 15 mins before the doors opened, was whap out a USB mic and record "I'm in Ripon bitch" (as that's where we were spinning). And things like that just made the world of difference for the crowd.

@charo (again) I don't know about anyone else, but I consider this kinda thing exactly the same an Syncing (which i hardly use FTR) in that it facilitates mixing and allows you to be more creative in other ways. I maintain that the people on the floor don't (or at least ought not to) care about exactly how you mix the music - what's far more important is what comes out of the speakers, and how you connect with the audience. At the end of the day, even if you prep your tracks before hand - it's not like you're just pressing play and rolling out someone else's 50 minute mix off the radio. It's still you.. is it not?

I don't know why, but I like the feel of ACID - anyone with experience can back me up on this? or re-instill some faith into ableton?

[rjw]

You know there's two views in ableton right? if you switch out of the clip view and into the session view it'll function a lot more like acid...

..saying that though, if your comfortable using Acid I'd use it! All DAW's do pretty much the same thing so it's just personal preference!

[belchman]

yeah... might dig ableton out and have a play

To be honest, I'm only just getting into production, and am trying to get myself really well acquainted with a DAW. I know what to do musically and soundwise, but I need to foster good relations with whatever sequencer I end up with so I can do it!

[LanceBlaise]

I make many, many, many edits of tracks that are out... basically my own personal remix for no one else. I may give to a friend or 2...

This is common amongst techno djs. I know Wink does this alot, which is where i started doing it. Its not cheating if it is like a personal remix of the track... If he is pretending to be doing something on the fly then i could see it as cheating, but if he is just dropping in a personal remix then there really isn't anything sneaky about that. Again, it really just depends on what is being displayed.

[pepehouse]

To do especial re-edits of tracks is not cheating, who said that? do them and play them proudly, many pros do it and is a lot of fun, if you already have ACID use it, it sounds a lot better than Ableton and you can do the same things, no need to spend more money in something you'll have to learn again from scratch.
And please, re-edits are not remixes.