spotted in the wild…
at the party i went to tonight there was a guy doing ableton stem mixing on a BCR2000.
pretty cool. looked like a LOT of prep work and not a lot of on the fly flexibility though honestly. like, youre pretty stuck with whatever stems and things you set up ahead of time. id be worried “what if theyre not feeling this…”… but this guy did not have that problem. the dance floor was groovin…
was cool seeing some “rare” gear in the wild
Wow… interesting. I didn’t know that a BCR was considered so ancient. When I first started getting into digital DJing a little over a year ago that is exactly what I was doing. I came to the conclusion that it was a lot of unnecessary work, unless you will be doing a lot of improving on the fly. Which there was none of… For me it was just rehearsing the delicate controller stuff and in the end, well I might as well just have consolidated all the stems into tracks and made it more simple.
So I got myself some turntables and serato and now the poor BCR collects dust on a shelf. HOWEVER… when I get to the point that I’m using the bridge (And I plan to) I may break out the BCR again. Easy to program and very functional, the BCR is a workhorse.
Yeah I kindof see it the same way too. The main thing that turns me off to Ableton “performing” (I wont call it dj’ing exactly) is that it really takes SOOOO so much preparation, and leaves little to no flexibility for really “on the fly” changes to your set list. All the programming, stemming, etc has to be done ahead of time… so how “LIVE” is that??
Unless you were doing some hard charging techno, or really really loopy stuff… I just don’t get the appeal. Youre giving up a lot of the finish and flourishes that make complete tracks, well, complete… all the detail FX and transitions and such…
I dunno, doesn’t appeal to me. Looks like more work than its worth, I agreed.
Couldn’t agree LESS.
Live is the most flexible DJ tool there is, bar none. The only thing you got right is that you need to do a lot of preparation (especially if you’re ONLY using stems) - but as a DJ you’re supposed to prepare well anyway! And by that I don’t man planning your sets. DJ’ing/performance is 90% work (preparation), and 10% play (performance)…
Sasha used to do a lot of stem mixing live.
I used Live for about 6 months with an APC40 and in the end I just longed for a more traditional 2 deck layout so switched. Having said that it was still a thoroughly enjoyable experience and mixing “on the fly” was extremely easy. Warping tracks for me took longer than beatgridding but only marginally. I think if I’d have been more involved in production or “performance” I’d have stuck with Live because thats where it excels in my opinion. You do have to prepare no matter what you use to mix. And beatgridding/warping is only the start of it!!! The bigger part is the buying process and getting to know the tracks and what goes well together. This is the same no matter what!!
Maybe I’m the only dude out there who doesn’t “prepare” for sets, just grab a crate of the new releases for the week and shows up to the gig?
I have yet to beat grid anything (its usually either good enough, or i just turn it off), and I know most of the new tracks because I hear them on podcasts each week or I just preview/cue on the fly and decide if its gonna work…
Maybe thats just me…