ABLETON 5 ANNOUNCED--and look out, NI

We were having a discussion about using the ipod as an external hd for ableton and, wondering about the current traktor implementation I wandered over here and stumbled upon this thread.

As an Ableton user I want to say this has been an extremely interesting thread with a lot of thought provoking comments.

The quote below really takes the cake, bravo man. Pure poetry.

peace

 

And while I am at it, this has to be the most short sighted and narrow minded comment I have read in this thread........

No offense, but the poster obviously knows very little about Ableton and what it's capabilities are, especially in the hands of the people who have been using it for years.

Nevermind sasha, I am talking about people like Surgeon, Adam Jay, Richie Hawtin etc.

Hawtins DE9 closer to the edit was created by reconstructing tracks in Ableton then using final scratch to mix them.

Look at his work as plastikman, obviously this is not djing but the creative potentials are enormous. Effects, instruments, multiple tracks, live remixing potential, the ability to control lighting and video through rewire etc...

Traktor is a good tool for what it does but with Live the only limitations are your processor and your imagination. You can make your mix as complex or as conventional as you wish.

For any who are interested, the public beta is now available at ableton.

peace

 

For what it's worth, I didn't start this thread with any intention of getting a "Traktor vs. Ableton Live" war going. My intention was and remains to point out that Traktor is being hamstrung by NI's slavish and increasingly dated adherence to a twin-vinyl-deck metaphor, and that it needs to open up more in order to remain current and competitive. Live was meant as a comparison (and I still think it's gonna become much more of a competitor down the line). I'm glad FS users have the capability they have, but I think in the long run the consolidation has only hurt TDJS in terms of potential to go outside of the metaphor.

As it stands, even hardware CDJ decks are implementing capability Traktor doesn't have. It's not gonna be long before one of us sets up Traktor to follow a CD DJ, only to have him sniff, "You're still using that?"

 

Trouble maker!! =)

 

And that comment validates everything I was saying...

Even Hawtin who you claim as a prime example of a Live exponent used it as a production tool and not a mixing tool.

 

I'd have to respectfully disagree that my comment validates anything you were saying.

The point of including hawtin is that he used both tools to achieve a fine result. his work as plastikman, using live alone, in a live performance setting is about as forward thinking and visionary as it gets. in my opinion. so, i felt it necessary to include him.

traktor, as i said, is a fine tool. but realize that live is without a doubt a more than capable mixing tool with enormous creative potential.

peace

 

Im agree if u maked the songs or the loops to mix live with ableton, but i cant understand if someone go to mix others music without beatmatching em, so i go i mix without work etc etc. Is good to mix ur own created music. But atm i prefer to mix with traktor beatmaching full created good songs and using some vinyls for third deck

 

I'm a live betatester now...

live have sorpassed traktor also for the mixing tool I go live!

NI is a great SW house but traktor don't make free the creativity!

ByeZ!

 

What capability is that?

 

That depends on how you use it. Here's a challenge, almost a competition if you will.

You can use Live or a standin for you if you like and I or some other deft expert from our ranks here to be named later will use Traktor.
We will have a 3rd party (umpire if you will) who will pick 10 tracks from an electronic music genre chosen by argreement with the contestants and umpire. He (umpire) will upload them to a site and at an appointed time will give both contestants access to all but the last file which will be the key track to be played at a point he decides in the mix. When all tracks are downloaded the key file will be posted along with the track position it needs to be in. Both contestants from that moment have 2 hours to record a set including all tracks with the key in the right point in the mix and begin uploading the results to the download site, you must post both the mix or als file and the mp3 of the mix. The results will be posted on Traktion and a poll taken here. People here get to vote on which mix is best. I would be OK to mix but would be more than happy to be umpire leaving the mixing to real experts. Remember I have two dogs in the fight, I agree with both arguments on certain levels.

This is my way of saying 'PROVE IT'. I'm dead serious here, wanna play? It is indeed 'put up' time. I hope that we here get the point I'm trying to prove with this. IT IS NOT ABOUT TRAKTOR BEING BETTER OR WORSE THAN ABLETON!!!

Phil

 

Kim -- If you read this thread, you'll see plenty of attributes identified throughout as part of the griping against NI for not keeping up.

 

Your contest idea seems pretty interesting, but like you, I would prefer to sit out as I am not nearly adept enough to represent the Ableton community. Adam Jay would be my choice to work an Ableton mix. Very cool, knowledgeable and talented guy but I imagine he would probably decline as he is a very busy dude and is probably off in croatia or prague or some such place....

(btw, check out some of his work at http://www.djadamjay.com/ )

I would suggest posting this challenge on the ableton forums, or if you like I could post it for you and see if there are any takers.

Agreed, it is not about rivalry, or which software is best, but the resulting mixes would most definitely be great!

There may be some hammering out to do with the rules, as some may feel constrained by the two hour time limit.

As has been stated, there is a good deal more prep work that goes into preparing an Ableton set for djing, especially when using anything other than the version 5 beta.

Also, for the record, as a self proclaimed Ableton fanatic, I would agree with the posts about traktor being a more spontaneous device to just walk up to and start mixing. That's for me. However, I know cats on the ableton forums who have their entire libraries warped, cut up, organized and ready to throw down.

I agree with you there. Especially the part about "how you use it"

 

ok, i got a contest for ya.
lets take 4 classic disco tunes, early 70's. and have a mix off. there will be no altering of songs, no quantizing,no warping, no filtering, just straight mixing.

suddenly without a perfect 4/4 ableton isn't the greatest option isn't it? i use both fs/tdjfs and ableton live and without a doubt ableton is a great piece of software. i use it whenever i have to do the live performance thing and sometimes to do remixed versions, live, of songs i have written. for me the time that it would take to put songs together in ableton just wouldn't work for me, i would definately have to create a play list and set cue markers and all that other bull that would make djing not as fun as it is. yes, richie does use live for his live performances, and yes it isn't on the fly. from start to finish its preprogramed like an auto pilot.i personally can't do that.

yes its a great tool, they both are. similar uses can be applied to both but there just isn't a way i would swap using 2 turntables and a mixer for any of the controllers out there today.

dj first, producer 2nd, live performance (only if the moneys good)hahaha

 

sheesh man, come on. how about this, we'll take 10 classic disco songs, 10 classic house tracks, 10 recordings of whales and bumble bee's and 10 hiphop acapellas, at no point in the mix can less than 3 elements be playing at one time. none of the songs may be interpreted in its original form. All 30 recordings must be used in some manner and the mix can be only 30 minutes long. also atleast one drum machine must be used, either hardware or software, to compliment the piece.

suddenly without being able to adhere to convention traktor is not the best option is it?

the point is, if you say no quantizing, no warping etc. then what is the point of using ableton at all? you might as well add, no beat grids and no changing the pitch or tempo of the songs. itunes can do that.

the only preperation that needs to be done in ableton is getting the tracks ready by setting warp markers, and perhaps cutting them up into pieces for looping. not unlike analyzing and setting cue points in traktor. outside of that a dj may approach the software in, albeit an unconventional one but still a completely spontaneous manner. so to imply that an ableton set needs to be "pre-planned from start to finish" or "preprogramed like an auto pilot" is completely off base, biased and nowhere near the truth. as an ableton user you should know that as well as I do.

I once did a live show with ableton, not a dj set but a live show, and the only thing I had loaded into ableton was one simpler with a sine wave loaded and that is what I started with. i just started building. i did an improv once with another artist and all I had set up was some george bush samples and an impulse drum machine.

on the other hand I have done stuff with ableton that was completely planned out from start to finish, a sound scape for an "experimental" play and once a performance with a band.

the point is that ableton is a very capable live performace tool that can be used in just about any way you see fit, including traditional djing - or not so traditional if you wish.

christ man, i feel like i am trying to sell ableton here but I asure you that is not the case. i originally popped over here looking for some info about using an ipod as an external hard disk and came across this extremely thoughtful and interesting thread. i probably would not have commented at all had I not seen the "This is a licence for people with no musical talent to inflict their attempts at musicality on an audience" comment.

It is just silly to knock ableton like this, especially in the hands of a capable user. it can simply go places that traktor can not. and i think this was the point of the original poster.

also, i saw a comment from someone who said ableton was after traktors user base. i do not feel this is the case, ableton just listens to it's user base. there has been a huge call for mp3 support since version 3 atleast and ableton has delivered.

as someone who also enjoys using traktor, learned to mix vinyl first and comes from a traditional djing background I will say that the hardest part of using ableton for mixing is getting used to a completely different interface and a new way of working.

I will do my best to butt out now.

peace to all

 

I don't get this... It's wrong, you can't expect to mix in Live without warp markers, its like using a turntable [or Traktor] without pitch control... Once the tune is warped, Traktor is not the greatest, hell neither are turntables...

So a true comparison it would be:
no altering of songs, no quantizing,no warping, no filtering, NO PITCH CONTROL just straight mixing. pointless...

As to preparation, yeah a pain, but then I spent days preparing sets with vinyl anyway....

 

it basicly boils down to that. if you are a pure DJ then Abelton is not for you if you are a producer then it is

 

Well, a pencil and a blank piece of paper is license for talentless writers to inflict themselves on literature. What does that have to do with creative people with vision who want a tool that goes beyond the limits imposed by people who are neither, whether it's Traktor or Ableton or MS Word?

 

aye agreed....


What's a pure DJ...? Is it someone who only uses traditional mixing tools...? I equate DJ with creative, innovator, open minded, not traditional...?

 

Oh dear! I'm sorry I really didn't mean my comments as a slur on Ableton - I genuinely think it's a great piece of software for Producers and Musicians. I never ever disputed the fact that it's fantastic. I'm just not convinced that it's the best DJ tool.

My concern was how it will be used and abused by the Digital DJ community (and Phil's experience seems to back me on this).

I've been to so many nights that have been spoiled by over enthusiastic use of Kaos Pads, Groove Boxes, Siren effects -you name it.

Ableton is the musical equivalent of letting those guys loose in a Stealth Bomber.

 

I have yet to use Abelton so I'm going off of what I read in here and it seems that Abelton is more of a re-mix and effects tool even though you can use it as a DJ mixing tool as well.


Since I don't produce or remix, I just want a stable mixing program. I don’t really need to remix (although technically this can be done with Traktor), introduce sound effects, or even filter effects. I know that this is very important to most of you, but not for me.

I will download a demo version of abelton soon and give it a spin, i may change my mind.

At one tine I thought DJ RED was the cat’s meow, until I tried traktor