Why did Sasha move away from Ableton and back to CDJ's?

DJ Gear & Hardware CDJ & Vinyl DJing
61

I’m not quite as bound as Prof, so I’ll give a little more information.

Milo, Prof and I are both product managers for companies that make DJ products. It doesn’t take a lot of digging to find out who for. We both know VERY WELL the person responsible for making all of the Maven controllers for Sasha. We’ve both known him for years. We’ve both held Mavens, opened them up and looked inside them, and talked extensively about what went into the build.

Legally we can’t go into any more detail without violating agreements we have made, and violating the trust of a friend. You can choose to believe us or not.

62

I like this thread alot. Although i fully agree with Milo that the diy controller threads where so much more interesting up until about a year ago the atmosphere on here has also changed quiet a bit but sure that happens on every forum.

Anyway back on topic. @nemonic and Prof can you tell us why Midibox wouldnt work? Because to me it seems like if the ‘builder’ of the Maven didnt use Midibox he must of spent a hell of a lot of time rebuilding a whole new midi system and if he didnt use midibox why not prove to the world that it was his own design by telling us?

63

must have missed this part of his response…

64

There are a lot of midi projects besides midibox. He might have just chosen a different one, though I don’t really have a clue why.

And idk about the other people, but I can vouch for nem0nic knowing what he’s talking about…not that I have any more credibility than he does or anything, but when he talks about sh*t like this, I listen.

65

pretty sure this is the one i was thinking of…

http://www.eangolden.com/new-mix-recording-live-the-end-up/

66

MIDI isn’t rocket science. There are many solutions available to a DIYer - even more if you have better resources available.

67

If I’d found it on my own, I wouldn’t have listened because of that sentence.

I really hope that sentence had something to do with search-engine optimization and not what Ean actually thinks. 'cuz, well, I think he’s flat-out wrong about everything in it.

I’ve got to drive to UGA today…the night before the UGA vs. Alabama game…I’m going to be stuck in traffic for a while. Because you recommended it, I’ll throw it on m iPhone before I leave. But…full disclosure…I don’t have high hopes. If he manages to not ruin a song I love, I’ll probably be impressed.

68

Personally I never understood Sasha’s idea of having thousands of Live clips available for all kinds of mixes. Too many choices, the brain is limited.

I think having a lot of songs is fine but you do the choices for mixes based on loops on the fly rather than having things broken into small entities that is tough to keep track of, not to speak of maintaining and creating more of those. Or, suddenly DJ:ing becomes an engineering task…

69

did you watch the Roger Sanchez interview on DJsounds?..he says he has a ton of loops and samples and that he is anal about organizing and keep track of them…i would think most of the heavy hitters in any genre are like that with their music…

your brain is only limited by your use of it…

i am sure if you played a few times a week you’d have better control and organization skills with your music…

(not you per se…i am speaking of “you” as a person)

70

well. we’ll all be here waiting at the edge of our seats to hear your verdict. :stuck_out_tongue:

71

Every time I read posts by people who are so openly critical of others I am always very curious about their own skills and experience as a DJ.

I don’t know you from Adam mostapha and for all I know you could be an unbelievable DJ, running your own website and producing music I love under an alias I am unaware of. I’m new here so I lterally don’t have a clue.

I am genuinely interested in what you’ve got to offer yourself, got any mixes to listen to? I’m definitely not making any presumptions before listening and knowing what you do but… nothing winds me up more than people hating on and criticising people who are actually more skilled than them and contributing more to our scene. Again, no presumptions about you, I would genuinely like to listen to something you’ve done or made.

72

100%

I said when the S4 came out I was worried the original spirit of this forum would die…

73

I don’t know, I’m a SW engineer during daytime and I rather be a left-brainer when I do music. I guess everyone is different.

Or, I rather operate like a jazz musician when I create music or DJ rather than analyze and organize.

74

I don’t know why the 2 concepts have to be mutually exclusive. Is a painter less of an artist because they think about what colors to use? You specifically mentioned jazz musicians - are you assuming they dont think about what they’re playing? Every jazz musician i’ve ever met can tell you what scales they were using in a piece, and why they chose (for instance) Dorian over Phrygian. That attitude is kind or ridiculous when you think about it.

People work the way that’s best for them. And now, with the advent of new technology, there are more options than ever to be creative.

75

Miles Davis once fired a musician in his band when he caught him practicing solos for the event in the hotel room…

You learn the scales and so forth to a point – and then you really start playing and don’t think about scales and techniques.

I think the same is true of DJ:ing, as well. I just came home from a jam session, didn’t exactly think of scales and stuff when improvising weird Hendrix stuff on-stage…

76

It’s strange that you can say they’re not based on midibox but can’t say anything else. Most of the other likely ‘diy midi brain’ options are free to use for commercial and closed source projects (arduino, highly liquid, livid, pic-based, etc) - it’s really only midibox that has commercial restrictions.

I’ve no personal reason to think you’re misleading us, but you have to admit (from an outsiders perspective) that there’s every reason to deny the Maven is based on midibox hardware and not many reasons to admit it is. The only thing I can think of is that the hardware designer works for a large midi controller company and he produced the Maven ‘in-house’ (using said companies intelectual property) with Sasha paying a lot of money to keep the whole thing secret via an NDA. In which case, I’m surprised that now a few years have passed, we haven’t seen said company try and commercialise the Maven (again, suggesting that it’s based on midibox, making it impossible).

:stuck_out_tongue:

77

And that freedom to noodle around exists because of the work you’ve put into learning the theory in the first place. To assume that Sasha doesn’t work with the same freedom is wrong-headed.

Also, about Miles Davis. I can promise you that the musicians that made Miles (Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie) were ALWAYS playing through material. And I’m sure that Miles did as well. Again, you’re making things mutually exclusive that aren’t. You’re trying to turn using a specific workflow a pejorative, when all it is is a workflow. One that has a LOT in common with “regular” DJing. People who use Ableton Live to create with are no less artistic than people who create with Traktor, Serato, or plain old hardware.

Why is that strange? I know of at least one other entity that was contacted by our friend to provide an engine for Maven that was later found to be lacking - so it wasn’t used. We’re not talking about them either. Same goes for other components like the audio interface.

Also, your whole thinking about how a product like this would be commercialized is incorrect. Let’s assume that I built a prototype of a product based around MIDIBox. WHY ON EARTH would I try to move that same “engine” to the commercialized product? I’m not some kid in my bedroom - I have RnD at my disposal, and hundreds of thousands of dollars to throw at the situation. I want to develop a solution that is EXACTLY powerful enough to perform to my expectations, but not any more. I want EXACTLY enough room in memory to store the code needed to run the device, but no more. Why?

COST.

Remember, I’m going to make these things by the THOUSANDS. Paying $15 for a MIDIBox is insane to even think about when I can have programmers set up a PSoC for me that does the same thing for $2. Across 40K units, that just saved me and my company a half million dollars. But lets say that I am re-using that same PSoC from one or more other products my company already makes, and we’re ordering the PSoCs from Cypress by the millions. Well, that per chip price might even drop down to $1 or less per unit.

See what I’m getting at?

Anyone REALLY interested in making a commercial Maven would have NOTHING to lose by basing the original models on MIDIBox, because there’s no way in hell they would use MIDIBox in the final production anyway.

There’s no conspiracy here, guys.

78

[quote]I’m surprised that now a few years have passed, we haven’t seen said company try and commercialise the Maven (again, suggesting that it’s based on midibox, making it impossible).

:stuck_out_tongue:[/quote]

I remember reading that it was considered briefly, however the cost would have been too high even using lower grade materials? Also I think it would have required a level of attention from Sasha that he probably couldn’t or didn’t want to commit.

79

you should already be organized…

i work in a hospital and have to constantly think on my feet and make quick decisions…alot of the things i do are now second nature…i can do them without much thought…but i know i can do them well…

80

Fairly new to posting here but been around as a lurker far longer than my join date, but in regards to the early area of discussion in this thread:

I have found, in my own experience, that the more exciting (to me) or enjoyable the music, the less I care about performance or extras, such as effects, but the more mundane the music, the more I am concerned with “what else can I do?”.

For instance, I have been around the block (and record store) many times over the years, and recently, one of my closest friends decided that since he didn’t own turntables, it made more sense for me to hold on to the last remnants of his vinyl collection (which consists mostly of funky and deep house, but these records are the cream of his collection; these are the last records that he owns and the songs that he cherishes the most). I have always liked his funky taste in music and the vibe of many of his records, and what I have from him is a collection of the songs that always stood out in my mind during his sets. Now I have the opportunity to play these songs at home whenever I want, and the strange thing is that when I play his records, I never think of adding effects, or loops, or anything. I just love the songs and the memories that I have tied to them from years ago when he played these sets at various venues in western NC, and I just vibe out to the music.

But then, I play a lot of music that doesn’t hit me as close to home, such as when I play a wedding gig, and suddenly, I feel like I need more flexibility when I play this music. I need more power and capability from my controller. I need to have more efficient functionality from the mapping. So on and so forth.

But the critical point is that I have no connection to the music emotionally and so I need to make it interesting for me, whereas if the music is something that I am connected to, either because of my memories attached to it or because it is an incredible work of music, the less I have to do to make it fun, and suddenly simply beatmatching 2 tracks together and letting them play on their own is enough.

Just my .02.

Back to the Maven discussion…