Playing DJ sets with ableton & push?

Saftstein

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Sup guys!

So i've been seeing quite a few people playing DJ sets with ableton and a different varieties of controllers. Most of them are using an AKAI controller, Launchpads and synths. So since ableton released the push controller and received a lot of positive feedback, i'm thinking about buying it. I wouldn't like it to use it for productions only, but also for including it in my setup when going live. The push doesn't have faders, but in addition with a AKAI APC40 it could be a good live set up?
Has anyone made some experience with it? Also what do you think in general about playing DnB Sets in ableton?

Cheers :wave:
 
It's lame mate

Explain why it's lame mate :wave:

I haven't played a set with ableton yet :P
Probably you don't have to do any beatmatching? Well, yea, that's kind of lame, like playing with traktor. But i think you can do a lot of other stuff with ableton when going live though?
 
Well, yea, that's kind of lame, like playing with traktor.

whys playing with traktor lame instead of serato? At least you have the option of beatmatching unlike ableton where you have no alternative but to timewarp all tunes to be correct.

What would be the benefit to you in using ableton? 3 decks? 7 decks? live vst's? Or are you actually playing music?
Even if you are doing any of the above, you can achieve most of it through hardware or dj related setups like traktor.

The reason why 'It's lame' is partly because were all old grumpy bastards who love traditional djing, partly because many big DJ's are guilty of 'ripping off' audiences with pre-planned live performances, partly because you have little to no flexibility in your set, partly because people who bring an entire setup tend to break the flow of a night and stress themselves and sound techs out, partly because your sound will never match the sound of a fully mastered tune, the list goes on.

im not saying it wouldnt be cool, but for the most part its not necessary and for the very few truly live sets ive seen, theyve been boring!
 
Ableton is a great tool for live sets and live remixing. I'm not sure about using Ableton to play a DJ set out though as, like the Bosom said, you look a bit of a douche staring at a laptop screen for an hour. I'm a purist though so my opinion is massively biased.
 
One of the guys from Teddy Killerz played on Ableton at fabric, it was whack haha and then my mate proceeded to voice his opinion and told him it wasn't good enough!

I just don't see the point when you can do the same thing but using decks
 
Yeah I find it a much more creative and rewarding experience for myself when I DJ using decks and mixer as opposed to say playing a set on TraktorDJ on the iPad which will Sync everything for you.
 
whys playing with traktor lame instead of serato? At least you have the option of beatmatching unlike ableton where you have no alternative but to timewarp all tunes to be correct.

What would be the benefit to you in using ableton? 3 decks? 7 decks? live vst's? Or are you actually playing music?
Even if you are doing any of the above, you can achieve most of it through hardware or dj related setups like traktor.

The reason why 'It's lame' is partly because were all old grumpy bastards who love traditional djing, partly because many big DJ's are guilty of 'ripping off' audiences with pre-planned live performances, partly because you have little to no flexibility in your set, partly because people who bring an entire setup tend to break the flow of a night and stress themselves and sound techs out, partly because your sound will never match the sound of a fully mastered tune, the list goes on.

im not saying it wouldnt be cool, but for the most part its not necessary and for the very few truly live sets ive seen, theyve been boring!

Don't get me wrong, i don't think traktor is in any kind of way a bad tool for playing sets. It's mostly the beatmatching that i would define as lame when playing with traktor. I haven't really used serato till yet, so i can't compare it.

Benefits? It's mostly about trying out something new & experiment. And what i quite enjoy about ableton is, that you can set up your "decks"(if you wanna call them decks) whoever you want... well.

Yea i agree that it looks strange if you stare at your laptop screen during your whole set, but that's what controllers are for?
 
I dj out of ableton using one midi controller and 2 channels of any given dj mixer. It's really nice in the case that I can load up everything into one backpack and travel REALLY light. Personally for me there are a lot of fun things that I like to do like chopping acapellas over a track which is not the easiest thing to do with vinyl or CDJs. That's just me tho a wack dj is gonna be a wack dj no matter what they are playing on
 
It's mostly the beatmatching that i would define as lame when playing with traktor.

Honestly I dont get this at all, I know traktor has a 'sync' button but not everyone uses it. In most cases people dont setup beatgrids with their tunes so effectively using sync does the polar opposite. Also, everyone seems to forget serato also has a sync button, as does every piece of dj software out there. Also the very software you are considering using is effectively synced too, please remember this.

Benefits? It's mostly about trying out something new & experiment. And what i quite enjoy about ableton is, that you can set up your "decks"(if you wanna call them decks) whoever you want... well.

Abletons session view is great, ive often thought about setting it up for a try out on an MPD or something similar. Personally I'd go with one of the cheaper akai controllers, simply so you dont rinse all your cash on push. Its quite expensive! You could augment it with some of the korg nano series controllers or pretty much anything you can get your hands on!

Do remember though, DJ booths are often short on space with little consideration for digital dj's. Good luck finding room for all that stuff, and if you break the turntables at a dnb night, you will be killed by an angry mob.

One problem I would have with this setup is flexibility, you can only pre-prepare so many songs in your session before you start rinsing all your RAM and losing track of what tunes youve got to play. Its not easy or recommended to start re-warping new tracks on the fly in ableton whilst its playing and youre 'controlling' things.
You could probably say the same about a record box though, but its infinitely easier to remember what a track sounds like via its artwork.


Yea i agree that it looks strange if you stare at your laptop screen during your whole set, but that's what controllers are for?

Every digital dj i have seen uses their laptop screen, controller or not. As much as we'd like to tear away from them, they supply you with the same kind of information you'd get from looking at the grooves on a record or time remaining on a cdj. We need that information and cannot effectively play without referencing it once in a while.
 
Traktor feels just like vinyl on turntables. Only just made the switch but i think the pro's outway the cons. You can still rock up and play a shit set on traktor. From a vinyl heads point of view anyway
 
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