Ableton Mixing

[Yep.]

Well, it's been a while since I've posted here, and I just recently started messing around with ableton mixing, so I thought I'd start a thread about ableton mixing. Basically, the way I've been mixing is by creating 4 tracks, 2 audio and 2 midi, I Put my songs in the 2 audio tracks and put 2 instances of iZotope Stutter Edit in those tracks. From there, I route the midi into stutter edit for both midi tracks. If you don't know, stutter edit with a launchpad is like having 64 different sounding, quantized DJTT supercombos at your disposal.

My gear setup is a mapped Traktor Kontrol S4. The mapping just remaps the eqs and filters as well as the crossfader and volume faders. My launchpad is in it's standard mapping, and I basically launch clips in session mode and improv with stutter edit on top of tracks. For me, this is the best setup I've found. Traktor is great, and I really love it, but being able to put any AU or VST into my set and solo over breakdowns with my launchpad or midi keyboard with massive is the best for me as a producer, pianist and DJ.

How do you guys feel about Ableton mixing, I know it can be seen as "cheating" because you can warp tracks to fit your tempo immediately, so it's like a sync button, but I think when you focus more on creating new remixes than just playing tracks, it really doesn't matter how you mix.

Do you guys have any tips for a new ableton DJ, any setups you want to share, or anything at all you want to share about mixing with ableton? If so, post it! I wanna know as much as I can before my next gig so that hopefully I can rock a show with ableton.

[AdamPollard55]

its definitely not cheating. i use sync in traktor and warping when i use ableton. beatmatching isn't a creative performance technique, its a simple mindless process that shouldn't need to be done by hand when a computer can do it perfectly. any process that frees up creative time should be encouraged.

also, big up stutter edit. I love it.

Im in the process of doing a run-through of my current ableton performance setup. been getting real creative with my apc40, mini midi keyboard and midi fighter pro, and it's really fun . lots of crazy routing, return tracks and stutter edit instances, haha!

my only bit of a advice for newbies (I don't know how well you know ableton) would be to understand as best you can the different warp modes. that way you can play tracks at more than a few bpm higher or lower without it sounding whack.

[deevey]

Having got an APC40 to replace my RMX with the full intention of mapping the APC to Traktor, things kinda went from.

"Oh can map lots of buttons in Traktor now"

To

"Well, thats a Pain in the Arse, but I can do this pretty easily in Ableton!"

Currently working off 2/4 "DJ" channels and 2/3 "Record" channels and 3/4 Plain ol' Loop channels.

I have the DJ channels running into the Rec's of the sample channels, 4 returns for eq's, and 8 "One knob" effects per channel which IMHO is plenty for regular DJ'ing without needing to worry about scrolling through parameters and watching everything closely.

Turnado and SE sure looks cool though and might play around with it a bit more to see if its worth splashing out for

I do however have some major gripes with Ableton as a DJ app though, which would turn alot of DJ's off, not enough to turn me off though - YET!

1. Needing to select before I can see waveforms.
2. Browser completely Sucks donkey balls for DJ'ing.
3. Multiple FX control simultaneously without an additional "Knob Bank" is a big pain in the Arse - I have a BCR but don't wanna bring more gear to gigs
4. Some basic stuff is not midi mappable and only available as keypresses e.g. Quantize.
5. No "Multiple Waveform Views".
6. No Basic included channel EQ's - I know you can add as much as you want but' I'd be nice to have basic 4 or 3 band as standard.

Agreed on the warp Mode's, it takes some getting used to so everything doesn't sound like crap, phased, gated or losing thump

In general though I use Warp pro/8 formants/40 Envelope is a good starting point for most stuff I play unless its got mega synth breakdowns with vocals without loosing too much depth at which stage tweaking is needed.

I run the same EQ acrosss all 8 channels but only 4 eq's so 1=5 2=6 3=7 4=8, just have to be careful with what i'm killing so it doesn't conflict e.g. Keeping bass drums on an open channel.

My 4 deck / 4 record APC40 mapping is here if any one wants to take a peek... It has most of the "dangerous" stuff killed off, like play/stop/rec, clip stops and and scenes - Basically anything that could kill the music accidentally mid gig.

I have changed the routing somewhat for myself recently and made it more of a 2/6 mapping but haven't got round to being happy with it just yet to upload.

http://www.djtechtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29570

Note - Utilizes midi keystroke mapping for some functions.

Should Add I'm kinda torn between modding my BCR or Just buying an X1 to control the DJ Decks :-S

[darwinarmy]

i use ableton, nuo4.0, launchpad, a8dj and kp3....

4 audio tracks (with stutter edit)
4 midi track (armed for control the stutter edit in the user1 of launchpad)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zxqOEBTYgk

enjoy

[Garygary1]

i use ableton, nuo4.0, launchpad, a8dj and kp3....

4 audio tracks (with stutter edit)
4 midi track (armed for control the stutter edit in the user1 of launchpad)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zxqOEBTYgk

enjoy

wow, this is actually pretty sick. makes me wanna try ableton djing

[darwinarmy]

thanks