Since Sasha used it on ‘Involver’, everyone’s talking about Ableton Live. So we got John ‘OO’ Fleming to take the latest version for a spin…Since Sasha announced that he mixed his latest CD compilation using Ableton Live, everyone’s been talking about it. So what’s all the fuss about? Well, you’ve probably noticed from the past few issues of IDJ that I’m a bit of a technology freak: I love gadgets and anything to do with digital DJing, and I’ve tried pretty much all the programs that are available for us forward thinking jocks. And I’m a firm believer that this is our future.
I’ve been using Live for some months now, but the first big mistake I made when I began was treating it like any other piece of DJ equipment/software. It’s not: it’s a sequencing program and should be treated as such. This totally confused me, as at first I couldn’t work out how to mix my tracks! This was partly my fault as I rushed into things not reading the instructions. Surely you should be able to just grab a track and play it like any other piece of DJ kit? Not in Live – as I’ll explain.
As we’ve said, Live is a sequencing program – it was originally designed for musicians to perform live shows. You have a multi-channel mixing desk on which you can create groups of ‘sequences’ (intro, chorus, breakdown, outro). Inside each ‘sequence’ you’ll have all your separate pre-recorded parts (in a wave format): drums, bassline, main riff etc.
These sounds will have their own individual channels on the mixing desk so that you can control Volume, EQ and plug-ins (as on any standard desk). As you press ‘play’ on each ‘group’ the sequencer will start (quantize) the group to play in time so that you can build your track as you wish (in a similar way to how a keyboard sequencer works).
Now this is where the clever people at Ableton came up with the idea of placing a whole track in place of those individual parts, and suddenly a DJ mixing programme was born! Make sense now?
So just how can you use Live to perform your DJ sets? As I said before, you can’t simply select a track and play it. Every track must be prepared so that it can be played on the sequencer. Think of it as preparing a loop for a track you were making in the studio: first you have to find the original BPM of the loop, then you adjust it to fit into your track.
The difference is that here, we’re using a whole track and fitting it to the master BPM. Live has a unique ‘Warp’ feature, a real time pitch-shifting tool that cleverly adjusts the original BPM to the master BPM on the sequencer. You can do this in real time (so it sounds like a record speeded or slowed down) or you can set it to hold the original pitch (so the track will stay in the original key).
Setting these ‘Warp’ markers can be easier said than done, though! Using the built-in BPM counter you find the original BPM. Then, with the very accurate waveform window (that zooms in like no other program I know), you have to make sure every kick falls on every beat of the bar, otherwise the track will play out of time. When completed you save the settings and a little ASD file will sit alongside the original file on your hard drive. So next time you recall the track all your settings will be there.
This is the only part that I don’t like about Ableton Live 4, as it can be very time consuming – especially if you have 8,000-plus songs on your hard drive! Not all goes smoothly, either: if you burn a file from vinyl the BPM may not be constant or bang on time, so you have to edit the ‘Warp’ points every 16 bars or so, which is very frustrating. But I suppose once they are done they are there for life.
Tedious part over, now the fun begins – and all that previous hassle seems worth it and all is forgiven! So simply drag one of your tracks from the hard drive window in Live and drop it into one of your mixing channels. The ‘Warp’ feature instantly pitches the speed to the master BPM setting on the sequencer.
Now when you press play, all beats will play in time with the sequencer, thanks to the programmable quantize feature. So grab another track and drop it in the second channel of the mixer, press play on that track and it will play perfectly in time with the other track. Keep on grabbing tracks and they will all play in time!
Cheats can prosper
Hang on a minute – isn’t that cheating? You now don’t have to manually get the tracks in time! Part of me says yes, as I’m proud of my smooth mixing, but the other half says no, as I can now focus on the thousands of other tricks that I can perform within this program (and anyway, holding the mix in time is only a small part of the mix: you still have to find the correct mix point, mix in key and tweak your EQ correctly).
You see, I now have access to a studio set-up. I have an array of plug-ins at my disposal, along with over 24 channels to play them! The world of the DJ and that of the producer have suddenly come together. I can prepare loops, samples and acapellas and drop them in time over my mix and sprinkle them with FX (all in perfect time).
Live comes with an impressive selection of FX and plug-ins as standard, and you can also access your existing VST plug-ins. The tricks you can perform are never-ending, and your DJ set has suddenly become a live remix.
Once in record mode Live records every move. Any fader, knob-twiddle or BPM adjustment is recorded in the display. These can later be edited and fine-tuned if you weren’t happy with a few moves, making this ideal for those mix CDs.
One important feature that’s new to Live 4 is a MIDI-based synth/sampler. The MIDI sequencer is pretty basic but enough to be able to write a simple song. The sampler can be a useful tool, as you can drop any sample into it and program a sequence to be played over the top of your DJ set. This is immense fun, especially when you trigger them using an external MIDI keyboard.
Setting up Live on my Apple Mac Powerbook was a very easy process. It was purchased and downloaded from the Ableton website, set-up was self-explanatory, and within minutes I was up and running. And generally, Live 4 is on the whole pretty user-friendly. Every time your mouse rolls over a function, the bottom left-hand window gives you an explanation of what that function does – very useful.
The browser window is large enough to view many tracks on your hard drive (though unlike Final Scratch you can’t store record label, genre and comments info, which I like to because I’m useless at remembering track titles!).
I’d recommend using an external USB/MIDI controller, though, because it can get pretty fiddly trying to do everything with your mouse, and I’d also advise getting an external sound card, not only to ensure you get better sound performance, but so you’ve got multiple ‘out’ signals and can monitor via headphones.
Almost faultless
I find it hard to find too many faults with Live 4. My overall experience has been a pleasurable one. They could explain the ‘saving all the Warp settings’ bit better: if you don’t have experience of a sequencing program you will struggle. I have 10 years experience and I needed help!
But I must be honest, once you’ve done a few they become easy, and I can now prepare them within minutes. The problem is that if you suddenly want to play a track and the settings haven’t been saved you can’t, so I would like to see some sort of manual override if possible.
One other slight grumble is that Ableton Live 4 doesn’t play MP3 files, and in the world of digital sales, surely this should be the market they’re aiming at? But still, this is what updates are for. Maybe in Live 5 we’ll see these changes.
Conclusion
I’ve really only just touched the tip of the iceberg of what this program is capable of doing, as I’ve mainly looked at it from a DJing point of view. But from a studio/production/remixing point of view, the edit facilities on a simple waveform are next to none and put programs like Cubase or Logic to shame. Your mind will be completely opened to the thousands of re-programming tricks that you could do.
Like Sasha, I am now thinking about using Live for all my DJ sets…
I’ve been using Live for some months now, but the first big mistake I made when I began was treating it like any other piece of DJ equipment/software. It’s not: it’s a sequencing program and should be treated as such. This totally confused me, as at first I couldn’t work out how to mix my tracks! This was partly my fault as I rushed into things not reading the instructions. Surely you should be able to just grab a track and play it like any other piece of DJ kit? Not in Live – as I’ll explain.
As we’ve said, Live is a sequencing program – it was originally designed for musicians to perform live shows. You have a multi-channel mixing desk on which you can create groups of ‘sequences’ (intro, chorus, breakdown, outro). Inside each ‘sequence’ you’ll have all your separate pre-recorded parts (in a wave format): drums, bassline, main riff etc.
These sounds will have their own individual channels on the mixing desk so that you can control Volume, EQ and plug-ins (as on any standard desk). As you press ‘play’ on each ‘group’ the sequencer will start (quantize) the group to play in time so that you can build your track as you wish (in a similar way to how a keyboard sequencer works).
Now this is where the clever people at Ableton came up with the idea of placing a whole track in place of those individual parts, and suddenly a DJ mixing programme was born! Make sense now?
So just how can you use Live to perform your DJ sets? As I said before, you can’t simply select a track and play it. Every track must be prepared so that it can be played on the sequencer. Think of it as preparing a loop for a track you were making in the studio: first you have to find the original BPM of the loop, then you adjust it to fit into your track.
The difference is that here, we’re using a whole track and fitting it to the master BPM. Live has a unique ‘Warp’ feature, a real time pitch-shifting tool that cleverly adjusts the original BPM to the master BPM on the sequencer. You can do this in real time (so it sounds like a record speeded or slowed down) or you can set it to hold the original pitch (so the track will stay in the original key).
Setting these ‘Warp’ markers can be easier said than done, though! Using the built-in BPM counter you find the original BPM. Then, with the very accurate waveform window (that zooms in like no other program I know), you have to make sure every kick falls on every beat of the bar, otherwise the track will play out of time. When completed you save the settings and a little ASD file will sit alongside the original file on your hard drive. So next time you recall the track all your settings will be there.
This is the only part that I don’t like about Ableton Live 4, as it can be very time consuming – especially if you have 8,000-plus songs on your hard drive! Not all goes smoothly, either: if you burn a file from vinyl the BPM may not be constant or bang on time, so you have to edit the ‘Warp’ points every 16 bars or so, which is very frustrating. But I suppose once they are done they are there for life.
Tedious part over, now the fun begins – and all that previous hassle seems worth it and all is forgiven! So simply drag one of your tracks from the hard drive window in Live and drop it into one of your mixing channels. The ‘Warp’ feature instantly pitches the speed to the master BPM setting on the sequencer.
Now when you press play, all beats will play in time with the sequencer, thanks to the programmable quantize feature. So grab another track and drop it in the second channel of the mixer, press play on that track and it will play perfectly in time with the other track. Keep on grabbing tracks and they will all play in time!
Cheats can prosper
Hang on a minute – isn’t that cheating? You now don’t have to manually get the tracks in time! Part of me says yes, as I’m proud of my smooth mixing, but the other half says no, as I can now focus on the thousands of other tricks that I can perform within this program (and anyway, holding the mix in time is only a small part of the mix: you still have to find the correct mix point, mix in key and tweak your EQ correctly).
You see, I now have access to a studio set-up. I have an array of plug-ins at my disposal, along with over 24 channels to play them! The world of the DJ and that of the producer have suddenly come together. I can prepare loops, samples and acapellas and drop them in time over my mix and sprinkle them with FX (all in perfect time).
Live comes with an impressive selection of FX and plug-ins as standard, and you can also access your existing VST plug-ins. The tricks you can perform are never-ending, and your DJ set has suddenly become a live remix.
Once in record mode Live records every move. Any fader, knob-twiddle or BPM adjustment is recorded in the display. These can later be edited and fine-tuned if you weren’t happy with a few moves, making this ideal for those mix CDs.
One important feature that’s new to Live 4 is a MIDI-based synth/sampler. The MIDI sequencer is pretty basic but enough to be able to write a simple song. The sampler can be a useful tool, as you can drop any sample into it and program a sequence to be played over the top of your DJ set. This is immense fun, especially when you trigger them using an external MIDI keyboard.
Setting up Live on my Apple Mac Powerbook was a very easy process. It was purchased and downloaded from the Ableton website, set-up was self-explanatory, and within minutes I was up and running. And generally, Live 4 is on the whole pretty user-friendly. Every time your mouse rolls over a function, the bottom left-hand window gives you an explanation of what that function does – very useful.
The browser window is large enough to view many tracks on your hard drive (though unlike Final Scratch you can’t store record label, genre and comments info, which I like to because I’m useless at remembering track titles!).
I’d recommend using an external USB/MIDI controller, though, because it can get pretty fiddly trying to do everything with your mouse, and I’d also advise getting an external sound card, not only to ensure you get better sound performance, but so you’ve got multiple ‘out’ signals and can monitor via headphones.
Almost faultless
I find it hard to find too many faults with Live 4. My overall experience has been a pleasurable one. They could explain the ‘saving all the Warp settings’ bit better: if you don’t have experience of a sequencing program you will struggle. I have 10 years experience and I needed help!
But I must be honest, once you’ve done a few they become easy, and I can now prepare them within minutes. The problem is that if you suddenly want to play a track and the settings haven’t been saved you can’t, so I would like to see some sort of manual override if possible.
One other slight grumble is that Ableton Live 4 doesn’t play MP3 files, and in the world of digital sales, surely this should be the market they’re aiming at? But still, this is what updates are for. Maybe in Live 5 we’ll see these changes.
Conclusion
I’ve really only just touched the tip of the iceberg of what this program is capable of doing, as I’ve mainly looked at it from a DJing point of view. But from a studio/production/remixing point of view, the edit facilities on a simple waveform are next to none and put programs like Cubase or Logic to shame. Your mind will be completely opened to the thousands of re-programming tricks that you could do.
Like Sasha, I am now thinking about using Live for all my DJ sets…
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