Most of the comments I get from people around me using Turntables and CD-J’s is that Ableton just isn’t “on the fly”. Now my solution, and answer to them is this, YES I do have to warp all my tracks, BUT if I warp what I have in one main file and continue to add new tracks I obtain, then warp them in the same master file, isn’t that one way to play “on the fly” with Ableton? Curious if anyone does this already. Right now I have different “sets” that I go through and construct, and one “master set”, which I would like to try and play live from, just haven’t yet. Not trying to start a fight, just curious what people who use Ableton are doing in terms of “live” playing.
Warp my tracks as I get them, organize them in Rapid Evolution, drag and drop to the track in ableton. You don’t need to save all your tracks in one set, once you warp them ableton creates an analysis file so it remembers how they are warped.
Also if you’re playing house music / anything with a heavy kick you really don’t need to warp beforehand.
I warp tracks as i get them.. then cut them down into intro - main 1 -break - main2 etc.. once i have done this i save the file as a project.
This means i can drag the project into my dj template and it will load as loops in session vue. Mix in … delete last tracks loops, load in next track… rinse and repeat
I have been working on putting all my drum loops, synths, etc from tracks I finish into one giant set, allowing me to remix my own tracks and remixes live and mix them together, along with other tracks.
Thanks for all the replies. I knew Ableton created an analysis file but I thought it was only for the file it was created in. So if a song is warped and you save it, you can pull it into any “set” and it will be warped automatically?
My Ableton sets sound about the same as my CD sets…which sound about the same as my Traktor sets. Obviously, there are some differences based on the limits of each platform, but…I kinda always sound like me at least to me and people who know my mixing well.
Don’t let people say that Ableton sets have to be pre-planned. They don’t. They’re just saying it out of ignorance. The sad thing is that half of the ones I’ve heard say it are Ableton DJs…they just don’t get it.
i think the pre-planning aspect is a strength of Ableton, makes for way tighter and potentially more musically intricate set. To say that its “sad” that people do this is in itself sad heh
Might as well use Traktor if you like on the fly imo makes way more sense. Not to say you cant use Ableton that way its just way more complicated than it needs to be.
