Hey all. I’ve been doing some thinking about production minded purchases and decided on Ableton live along with an APC40.
The topic however isnt about the software itself, but rather the way that some DJs prefer to mix with it as they would with 2 tables and a mixer. I havent given much thought to it in terms of live performance but I was wondering what people think about DJs that record a set and put it online or hand it out to promoters.
I would love to make a mix CD showcasing my taste in music, which happens to fall into multiple genres such as DnB, Breakbeat, House, Proggressive, Techno, Electro and dubstep, among others. My plan was to get a tracklist together, do sections of each genre, and set up tempo automated breakdowns so that each section could be mixed smoothly into another.
After some thought, I was wondering if doing this would be considered misrepresentation on my part. I know I can mix different tempos live, but doing this through Ableton would give a much cleaner mix that I would be proud to give to someone.
It’s better if you do it the way you’re going to play live. If you use traktor, record it in traktor, if you use cdjs, record it from the output of the mixer, etc.
If handle out a mix made in ableton and then you can’t recreate something similar using cdjs or traktor or whatever you use live you will lose your credibility despite that fact of being embarassed.
My standing here is even if you do it in Ableton, mix it live. It’s decieving if you hand out something beyond your skills. I’m not saying it’s wrong to do a couple of fixes but a perfect mix isn’t always the best either.
In my opinion, i’d hand out something incredibly good done in ableton. Most club owners or people won’t even notice if you’re doing a really skilled mix. They just notice song selection. The ones that would notice are DJ’s and they didn’t hear what you gave to the club owner.
I use ableton to plan sets if I am playing a big event. In a normal mix i will tempo change 3 to times and it is pretty easy to do if you find tracks that work well when speeding up or slowing down. Once i have planned in ableton it is just a matter of crossing the set list over to traktor and having a quick practice.
if it was me i’d record a live mix - not a pre-sequenced one in ableton. if you were going to dj with ableton then ofc use ableton but launch the clips and mix them live.
there again… maybe whatever helps u get a foot in the door is the best way
How and where was the mix recorded?
The mix was recorded in my studio at home. I practiced lots of different mixes on my CDJ2000s and worked out the structure of the mix with them then when it came to laying the mix down, I did it in Ableton just so I could get it absolutely perfect. I could have quite happily recorded it using the CD players and mixer but I wanted to get it absolutely bang on and there are a few things in the mix that I simply couldn’t do with CD players!
