effect racks in a live set - where to place in live set and what effects work well?

DJ Software & Apps Ableton
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1

effect racks in a live set - where to place in live set and what effects work well?

so I have changed my live setup quite a bit.

I have both Ableton and traktor on my windows laptop.
Traktor uses the audio 10 with timecodes from my Technics 1200 mk2 decks

The audio 10 outputs (using physical cables) to my Allen and Heath Xone:4D separate channels for each deck.

The 4d sends this to Ableton using it’s soundcard.
Ableton outputs all audio to the Xone:4D, which is finally mixed. and sent to headphones / output for broadcast on mixify etc.

The setup in ableton goes like this:
(this is in clip view)

[group]

  • Drum Rack 1
  • Drum Rack 2
    [/group]

[group]

  • Ident voiceovers

  • Seasonal samples (eg halloween)
    [/group]

  • Massive

  • Sylenth

  • Piano

  • z3ta+2

I have lemur (iOS app on my iPad 2) set up to control (well when it is totally mapped) ableton:

  • selecting which synth i can play with my midi keyboard.
  • select which drum rack is active/playing
  • track volumes
  • sends
  • tracks in ableton from traktor

The traktor decks A&B got to 1 and 2 on my Xone:4D

the 3rd channel takes the drums and the 4th channel has the idents / samples and the vst synths

I have a launchpad which I use to trigger my idents, and seasonal samples.

The drum racks are played using the Nord Beat app on iOS (I use the 4 finger swipe left/right to swap between Lemur / Nord Beat.

what I want to do is use some effects in ableton, but cannot work out what is the best way of doing this.
Obviously it is gonna be effect racks and mapped to the macros.

would it be best to do each drum / cymbal / clap etc separate? or on the whole rack?

would it be better to do the traktor tracks separate or both together?

what types of effects work well?

any ideas?

I play Uplifting Trance, although i seem to find people who use this type of live set-up generally play tech house / techno (ie richie hawtin)

2

What is the latency like for the DVS once the audio comes OUT of Ableton Live?

Post a screen shot of your Live Set.

3

will post some content at some point. gotta work today, but have tomorrow off.

I find it easy to get everything properly matched when playing.

I don’t notice latency, as in it sounds at the same time as traktor deck red line hits the beat, I’m hearing the same, not delayed after.

4

So…I used to play trance with Live. My setup was a lot simpler…I was basically just using a VCM-600. At the time, Live didn’t have a step sequencer, so I didn’t really play drums all that often, and I still suck at keyboard. Most of what I added was “recorded” ahead of time…using all audio was also easier on my computer, which was fairly old at that point.

The setup that was closest to yours had effects racks on each “song deck/channel” and each “stuff channel” (synths, drums, etc., so like your groups), and I used the VCM’s navigation to decide which one I was controlling at any given moment.

As far as the actual effects…delay, reverb, fade to gray, some filters…not much else. Each unit was the same so I didn’t get confused, and I’m pretty sure the macros were:

FtG - Delay time - delay dry/wet - reverb size
HPF - LPF - resonance - reverb dry/wet

with a couple buttons to reset everything and I think one to switch between ping-pong and normal delays.

I think I might have also mapped some buttons to select specific effects racks so they’d go straight to those knobs on my VCM…I’m pretty sure each channel had a button for that.

5

Can you try some scratching and report back???

6

nope. can’t do any scratching with the needles/carts on my decks.
I don’t know how many previous owners, and how long they have been on.
they are only Stanton 500 mk2 iirc. which are not made anymore.
I think Stanton have now partnered with Ortofon.

anyway… upgrading them is something I want to do sometime. dunno anything about that.

7

just thought…
I can do a recording of the mixer output, and switch the channels on my mixer to just line in from the audio 10 and cuts out ableton, or to use the soundcard which routes through ableton.

8

Those Stanton carts are fine for scratching.

Could you do some forward/backward cueing on a deck just to check what the latency is like?

9

I personally cannot tell any difference.
it is fine for me.

how do you tell of any latency?

10

I mean latency between the record hand movements and the sound that comes from Ableton Live.

11

that isn’t noticable at all to me.

12

Thanks for reporting back. Looks like I’ve got some testing to do…

13

testing of what?

14

Routing audio from Traktor into separate channels in Ableton Live, then to my mixer.

15

back on topic…What is the best way to utilise effects in my live set, and what effects work well / are best to use?

16

I put my thoughts above.

What do you want to be able to do?

17

getting there with it.

your suggestions are great.

back on track was meaning if anyone had other ideas of what could be done..

anyway…

I’ve also:

  • added a beat repeat with the kick drum in the rack. turning a knob sets the ammount of repeat, and zero turns it off
  • using a separate snare sample in an empty slot of the same drum rack, put an arpeggiator on, and changing the note length creates a snare drum roll, when triggered.

anyone know how to get a produced white noise up-riser? that is controlled by turning a knob… left being bottom, right being top
I don’t have operator or analog in Ableton.

I have Massive, Sylenth, z3ta to generate a starting sound, but not the ableton live synths.