Why did Sasha move away from Ableton and back to CDJ’s?
thought this might be an interesting thing to discuss…
a few years back there was a big debate among the midibox scene about whether or not Sasha had paid vast amounts of money to produce his own ableton live controller based on the midibox. Around that time he released at least two albums (the Involver series) and was dj’ing around the world using the Mavern and Ableton Live.
More recently, every time I’ve seen him play out, he’s been back on the CDJ’s. I heard that his controller wasn’t 100% reliable all the time but it still seems like a strange regression from someone who was so pro-ableton.
well to be honest, sashas sets from his ableton era sound extremely lazy, and for a man who was whacking on one tune every 9 minutes and mucking around with effects, he wasnt using it for much of its potential. his more recent sets seem a lot more involved, and when i saw him last month i saw a rare thing, sasha actually smiling… i think he just enjoys it a lot more. i used to be totally pro-complete-controllerism, all ‘forward thinking’ and that. i loved the idea of being on the cutting edge and trying to push it to the limit. now i’m 2 tables and a mixer, TSP2 as a record box and FX processor… i just prefer the touch of vinyl and how much more involved it feels. maybe sashas the same, maybe not. but he does seem to be enjoying himself a hell of a lot more now hes back on them!
Everyone needs a change. Also with cdj 2000 and the djm 2000 you have a lot more things available to you that can give you more things to do. I agree that ableton can be a much better tool but requires lots of prep. It’s nice to show up to a gig with a stack of CDs or a USB stick and going wherever the night takes you.
Basically, he had the Maven built to custom specs with a nice but really overkill sound card in it…and whatever they did to squeeze that stuff into the box lead the power supply to be unreliable. And it blew up repeatedly.
He had it repaired; he had another one built; it kept dying. And he ended up having to travel with 2 complete ableton rigs…one of them based on an iMac and the Maven, the other a small handfull of controllers and another computer.
Finally, he just decided it was’t worth it. He went back to doing edits in the studio or on his laptop instead of doing them live and just not screwing around as much during his set and switched to CDJs.
In the last year, I’ve seen him spin on Rekordbox + CDJs (using the laptop as a crate) and on a prerelease copy of Traktor 2 back in March (X1s and CDJ-2000s as controllers or time code…not really sure). Apparently it’s just simpler and easier to travel with, and it’s not like cost is an issue for him.
I really can’t say I disagree with him. X1s are the most straightforward DJing has been since I was on Vinyl…but I’d still pick vinyl over them, and probably top-end CDJs as well. Maybe I just didn’t get along with SSL or cheap CDJs. I remember very much enjoying FS2 before I upgraded to an Intel Mac and NI and Stanton killed Final Scratch.
Every time I boot up my setup, I think I’m going to do something awesome…and it usually devolves into just playing 2 decks like I did when I was on vinyl. It’s just a lot cheaper and easier to buy wavs and not bother with pitch controls. But I have real questions about whether it’s better.
I found his mixes in the Mavern era confusing - he seemed to suprise you with track selections rather than wow you with the mixing - the mixing in the elusive Los Angeles ‘Live’ compilation is in my opinion rather shoddy. His dabblings with Traktor and X1’s was all hype, but amounted to nothing. I feel he, like Digweed has come full circle. His style has changed, his Ushaiha project has showcased fresh talent and ‘Cut Me Down’ became an anthem. He really seems to be having a good time. I find his latest quote quite interesting (I’ll dig out the original), but he basically says that the DJ booth of the future will be massive servers of music and interfaces for DJ’s to plug 'n play with controllers.
Cut Me Down became an anthem, really? Apparently I don’t go out enough, but…man, that track sucked. At least, the stems we got for the remix competition sucked.
And I really loved parts of his ableton era. The edits he was doing live were impressive, but you kind of didn’t hear them if you weren’t really familiar with the music. I never did figure out how his Ableton setup worked, though.
And I still listen to Involver2 (or however he spelled it) … it was so much fun.
When I saw the VCM-600, I switched to ableton because it was pretty damn close to the Maven, just laid out worse with much shorter faders. It was a lot of fun until I started trying to do too much with midi remote scripting and became a coding project. After a while, it made me crave the simplicity of vinyl.
So, I guess it makes perfect sense why he went back to CDJs at least to me because I kinda did the same thing…granted, I did it a lot worse than he did, and I didn’t have to deal with wondering if something I spent 40,000 quid on would fail at a gig. But, still….
(also, yes, that’s what the maven was reported to cost)
Agreed. I’d really like to see a thread about why people use what they use and how they came to it.
We’d get a lot of “it was cheap,” or “i don’t need anything more” entries because most people just aren’t as verbose as me, but…I still think it could be interesting. I started one of those on DJF at some point and very much enjoyed reading it.
Especially considering that I just don’t get why anyone would want to do the things that controllerism brings to the table…I’d find it interesting to read it here. I mean…I think that Ean is a tremendous wanker. He’s more successful than me, and I like the community that he and his friends/partners have built, but I’d never pay to see him live. That music just doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest. Finding out why people do what they do would be interesting.
A little while ago photojojo posted a video of him mixing, and I found the discussion very informative and entertaining.
None of us is Sasha or Hawtin or any of those guys (afaik), but it could still be fun. 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.
And it wouldn’t be as much speculation as this thread is. I mean…I’ve watched/read interviews with Sasha on this topic and overheard him discussing it backstage at Ultra last year, but…I don’t think any of us conclusively know why he switched.
As far as his ableton mixes being sub par, I rate Invol2ver. That mix freaking owns and is quite reminiscent of his chuggy prog roots. That being said, I haven’t seen the surly fellow live for years.
The biggest reason he decided to switch had nothing to do with reliability issues with the Maven. It had to do with the fact that he felt disconnected from the music. Moving back to CDJs gives him a better personal experience - filled a gap he was experiencing.
Also, there were more than 2 Mavens, they didn’t have some overkill soundcard in them, and the reason they were expensive is because the components used in the construction were the best of the best. Parts were chosen not just because they fit the bill from an engineering standpoint, but also because they felt exactly the way Sasha and the builder WANTED them to feel. Everything on the Maven was quality, from the recessed ports in the back to the linear faders and pots.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
^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.
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.
