Why did Sasha move away from Ableton and back to CDJ's?

[mostapha]

I'm not the least bit surprised.

I saw one of them in person once, and it was one of the most impressive pieces of Industrial Design I've ever seen in person. The things were fucking works of art.

I don't blame him for switching for reasons mentioned above, but I'd feel really bad turning my back on something that beautiful.

[nem0nic]

He hasn't turned his back on it.

[tekki]

He still keeps on switching between setups, like Hawtin does.

[MiL0]

40,000 quid ….

(also, yes, that's what the maven was reported to cost)

I've read that too and it's either bullshit or Sasha got well and truly mugged.

Sasha isn't an electrical engineer, as far as I know, so he probably paid someone to design and make the Maven for him. The story goes that this engineer basically took the midibox schematics and produced the Maven according to Sasha's specs.

If I was going to do the same, I could pay someone £2,000 per month for half a year to make me a Maven clone. Even if parts come to £10,000 (limited run pcb manufacture, metal work, injection mould setup costs, faders, etc) that's still only just over £20k in total, using extreme estimates. Yeah the Maven looks nice, but do you really think it cost £40,000 to design and make something that was already half done (the midibox documentation covers all the hard work).

More likely is that Sasha spent less than £10,000 initially getting the Maven up and running and then a bit more over time getting it refined and repaired. The £40,000 figure probably came about because it adds to the allure and prestige of Sasha as a DJ (he probably also added on his time as an hourly figure for sorting out the stems/tracks in Ableton Live - although I believe he had a team helping him with that as well!). You think Sasha could command his massive DJ'ing fee if he was rocking out with a controller that was publically known to cost £59.00 from Behringer?

[photojojo]

I mean…I started experimenting with sample decks again after seeing that video of pj. I'm not sure I'm going to stick with them as opposed to using Ableton or Maschine instead, but………it made me think. And that's a good thing.

Thank you, and I think that last bit is the same reason the big guys switch around. Always thinking, tinkering and changing up the way you do things in the never ending search for the perfect setup. Gone are the days where you had to do it one way, now you can do it that way or this way and if you don't like either of those ways you can always do it the other way.

[Emmett]

Agreed. I'd really like to see a thread about why people use what they use and how they came to it.

I mean…I think that Ean is a tremendous wanker.

Well for me I went straight from vinyl (started in 1999) to Traktor with a Xone 3d in 2009. I skipped CDJ's as, at short, I felt they were a complete rip off for the industry standard Pioneer 1000's.

Vinyl became impossible to find and digging for it became frustrating as opposed to enjoyable. Jumping onto Beatport and paying $2 for a song and having plenty of choice seemed like a far more sensible idea. I sold my 1200's, moved onto Traktor and played with sync and 3-4 decks for a month or so.

I then realised this sounds like shit; someone in the studio has laboured over a well produced track and this shouldn't really be compromised for the sake of my own DJ indulgence irrespective of how fun it maybe...

I stripped back how I went about things to using two decks (with the occasional third) and very judicious use of effects. I was still using sync 100% of the time.

Fast forward to a few months ago and I added a Denon DNSC-2000 to my setup. I enjoy the flexibility, information and effects Traktor provides me with but was hankering to re-engage a bit more with the music. For me that means manually beatmatching. It may not for you and that is fine... The 2000 allows me to beatmatch to a standard I'm happy with (as a user of 1200's for 10 years I know what I like) while maintaining the benefits of Traktor for $239 AUD. At short this gives me the same level of engagement I had with the music as when I was using vinyl.


Depending on how I'm feeling I will also play exclusively with sync or a combination of both sync and manual beatmatching. I love this flexibility as it keeps me interested and engaged with the music while being able to really concentrate on mixing if I'm feeling that way inclined.

As for Ean being a wanker I'm not prepared to say that and would go so far as saying I disagree; I appreciate this site and Ean seems like a bloke with good intent as far as DJing is concerned.

I will say that I absolutely loathe his approach to music. In my opinion it is deconstruction of a track to reconstruct it as an output that is significantly worse than the original for the indulgence of the DJ only. It is kind of similar to how I feel about turntablism being an enjoyable, input based approach for the DJ and generally shit for everyone else...

I expect to get flamed for this but please don't try and convince me that this style of controllerist mashing is moving DJing 'forward'. I've been around long enough to see that 1.) Its predecessor (turntablism) is only cared about for its skills sake and not its output for most people who aren't DJ's or turntablists 2.) Output will always be more important than input.

[Xonetacular]

I don't blame him. I am not a fan of ableton at all for DJing- it is just too far removed from having individual track decks and a mixer for me. The prep work and launching clips with the session layout just doesn't feel connected to the music. I like traktor and ssl because you still have actual deck units that you can load any song in your library into through your collection- it feels a lot more like DJing than arranging all the track you want to use in ableton beforehand and launching clips.

Now that I ditched m S4 and am back on X1s it is still strange feeling to not have jog wheels and I do feel a little disconnected and am adjusting. If I could afford them I would get a pair of CDJ-2000s as controllers but that's a lot of money for good jog wheels, a play/cue button and pitch control. I'm sure if I had a pair I would find myself using traktor a lot less which I would enjoy since to be honest DJing on CDJ-2000s is a lot more fun for me than using midi controllers and a computer. I'm not about to drop $3000+ any time soon though.

[Emmett]

^Try a DNSC 2000 for its pitch fader, jog and buttons if you are looking for a cheap alternative.

100mm pitch at a resolution that is well good enough (.04%) and I have buttons for .01% which I use for really fine adjustment. The jogs work perfectly fine in vinyl or bend mode. The buttons feel like Denon's always have.

Change your GUI to as minimal as you like...

[Xonetacular]

Well the thing is I don't want a big clunky midi controller just for jog wheels unless it is a CDJ-2000 and I could also ditch traktor when I didn't feel like connecting my laptop. I don't need jog wheels and wouldn't buy controllers just to have them, the CDJ-2000 isn't really a midi controller to me though and I would use them alone quite a bit since DJing on them is just more enjoyable to me. Having to connect a usb hub and like 5 usb devices and laptop is another reason I don't like complex controller setups.

[dedemccaw]

Class reads and great topic