ABLETON 5 ANNOUNCED--and look out, NI

That **** drives me nuts when DJs try to be creative and go way over board. I heard a guy use all kind of effects from trains airplanes to doorbells and ring tones........ AAHHHRRRGGG!!!

 

a nice flange, chorus or delay is welcome through breakdowns anyway. Before the alesis air FX i used to use the filter in half ammount and crate that tube sound using the resonance level high. Now i can flange, filter, pan, add some more things, but SIRENS!!! airplane crashes and stuff fall out of my taste. But it would be nice to have some cymballs or drum loops to nicely blend the incoming song without much distortion when u don't have a clear ending or begining to do phrase mixing.

 

I've now tried Live three times, in its last three releases.

I still can't get my head around it as anything other than a composition tool. The closest thing I've used is FruityLoops, not Traktor.

*sigh* ... I must be in one of my dumb moods again.

I'll be sticking with ACID as my editing/remixing tool, and Traktor 2.5.3 for presentation.

 

geez..sorry smutek..
my post was just to show how rediculous a contest of that nature posted above me would be. thus your post showing a totally different view of the same point i was trying to get across. ableton live, traktion and acid all have more features than traktor and in putting a set together with them, they would win hands down. my thing is the only program that interfaces with turntables is finalscratch2/traktor which i use for djing. for me there would be no editing, no vst's, no filters..etc, just song mixed with song.

at present adding the extra step to warp marker all material that i dj with is not something i wish to do, yes it is easy, but time consuming. i already have to record vinyl in real time and transfer, so doing such doesn't make sense for me.(if you dj with ableton then you have to). i'm a dj first, not a computer based producer. i dj with turntables, not cd players, the reason i got finalscratch in the first place. ableton live i use in the construction of music i wish to play and in live performance situations its become my main tool. since there is no turntable interface for the program, i'm not going to switch to it for that purpose. ableton live is a multifaceted program which i love to death, i just couldn't take the time away from composing to set up all the material i would need to and also not have my interface, the turntable, to work with. i hope you understand my point of view, its not a "don't dj with ableton" point, its a "i can't dj with ableton" point.

 

I know what you mean, things become clearer when you switch on the keyboard or MIDI control selection/assign thing... every box, slider etc can be easily assigned to a controller...

I believe Reason and Cubase have quickly tried to copy this in their latest releases...

Of course there's the crossfader but I still reckon they could get more funky, a customisable user interface, [like reaktor, you build your synth front panels], build a software mixer with say 3 faders [tracks, bpm, filter]... channel on/off/filter/bpm jump/reloop routed wherever you please... Combine this with a custom mawser....

 

No problem. I misread you, and sorry if I overreacted.

 

Good to see you guys did not all torqued about abut the misunderstanding between you, but I do think you misunderstand the original intent of the message I posted To be really fair (and I intentionally did not mention this) the exact same mixout should be rerun 2 weeks after the first mix date. My point was never to show that one application or the other was better overall but rather that each has its own strengths and weaknesses in addition to its own way of doing things. Traktor may shine at delivering truly immediate results but Live may be the wapon that excels after a little preparation. You all here make some very good points in argument.
Steve - Its here, NOW! get used to it, Embrace it or you may just get steamrolled by it. - Very true do not rule either applicvation out for live or studio use, both application had their roots in being a studio tool but the actual field use by real DJ's like yourselves showed the real use case for both was live performance.

Sean - Just because you can does not mean you should! - God yes! After seeing those two laptop battles there haver never been a more true statement in support of that argument. Judicious use tho will produce amazing results!

Christopher - Comparing apples to apples. True. Both apps have different usage methods to achieve the similar results. It takes a mind shift to get around Ableton and it takes a good deal of practice and experimentation.

My actual intent for suggesting the original mixout was to show that neither application holds the exclusive high ground.

With Traktor an experienced Traktor DJ can be given 10 tracks and literally within 10 mins of getting them can be mixing a set with them. With Live, as it is released today, there is preparation time to get the tracks properly warp markered and clips marked before play is really feasible. Depending on how good you are that could take minutes to days.

With Live, if you start spinning and have a set built out to play and the night doesn't not go to plan and the floor does not like your selections its a bit difficult to switch gears effectively and change styles. With Traktor you simply flick through you collection to find something more appealing and you are off to the races.

With live if you want to drop effects or soundbites into your mix you simply loaded em in and trigger them. With Traktor you can load bites up into a deck and loop them but its time consuming and takes one half of you performance vehicle away.

With Live if you want to tear those same sound bites up you have a great array of filters for the task. With Traktor you have filters but is fairly limited in scope what you can do.

With Live 4 you have only Waves and Aiffs as your media choice. With Traktor you have many more options including the weapon of choice MP3. Live 5 adds MP3's as a choice and allows you to do everything Traktor can ddo today.

With Live you are often in the mode of reprogramming your midi controls during the session as you progress, to control different things. Its easy, fast and hugely effective (if you have live and don't do this, learn to)! In traktor you can map your keyboard and midi controller to almost all traktor functions but its method on the fly is really very static, clunky and awkward.

Traktor provides a familiar metaphor for use for DJ's. But extending the current interface to include more significantly function is unlikely to be possible or effective as there is simply not ernough screen real estate to do it. Live has turned the presentation metaphor on its ears and it takes users a good while to get their head around it. Do the tutorials and a get a good book on live it really helps.

Application stability wise Ableton hold the high ground. Their application has never yet crashed on me in practice of live performance. Traktor 2.5.3 is my weapon of choice live as I cannot use Traktor 2.6.x for live play because it freezes my mouse and keyboard out and it requires a reboot to fix.

I'm not gonna touch the support issue. Save to say things are happening behind the scenes...


So as you can see even just these few thengs show both apps have their strong points. Don't Count Traktor out because the immediate spontenaeity and ease of use are huge! Don't count live out, its not the easiest application to get your head around but it is hugely powerful. don'y overdo it in Live and you will get better results, small steps, gauge the effect, progress onward.

You might look to team up with another live or Traktor user and see what you can come up with. The results there are very often spectacular! I used to, but my partner there now lives in bumf**k Arizona so that is lost.

Bottom line use you weapon of choice but its worth discovering what your alternatives can do for you as well. My thought is that the be DJ has the best and most tools AND can use them the best to devastatingly good effect, WE ALL HAVE aLONG WAY TO GO.... how say you all?

Phil

 

<<With Live, if you start spinning and have a set built out to play and the night doesn't not go to plan and the floor does not like your selections its a bit difficult to switch gears effectively and change styles. With Traktor you simply flick through you collection to find something more appealing and you are off to the races.>>

You know, that's a really important point. I've had nights where I started off totally misjudging what I thought the crowd would want, and had to switch gears in a big way to get some motion going. (Which, as an aside, is why I can't understand DJs who prepare set lists beforehand and then slavishly stick to them). The thought of trying to just balls it out after losing the room is not a fun one.

I don't really want Traktor to be more like Live. I want Traktor to take advantage of its platform to expand its capability beyond what's traditionally been done with two TTs & a mixer, and I've pointed to Live as an example of this kind of reconceptualization. This very concept is why I have a hard time with what is basically the degradation of Traktor as a Final Scratch operator, instead of what ought to be Traktor's logical evolution. I'm actually quite happy with TDJS (2.5.3, anyhow, which is what I'm sticking with until something demonstrably better comes along); I'd just like to see it broaden & advance.

 

I have to disagree with this one mate... Changing styles is the same in both applications, just pull a different tune across...? The only extra work you may wish to do in Live [v4] is copy the track and change the loop points for a mix in/out section...? If you store ya tunes in folders according to style I actually find it easier than using Traktors overgrown browser... just me...

 

http://www.ableton.com/index.php?main=news



Ableton 5 Available

 

I have used Ableton beta and I must say I am very impressed.. However, I am not switching to ableton for many reasons which I don't think will ever by replicated by ableton.. I don't think there is a real brand competitor here, it is just a different form of competition that Live poses... Why I am still sticking with Traktor:

1. Beatgrids give you a tight mix as in Ableton Live although I would really like to see multiple or elastic beat grids in the future for the tracks whose BPM drifts with time (happens to my vinyl rips)

2. Perhaps I didn't get my way around Live yet but I find it much easier to play whichever song I want instantly with Traktor by using the search function.

The loading time of a song in Traktor is almost instanteous whilst on the other hand Live takes some time to analyse the track.

3. I cannot set cue points and loop as easily as in Traktor nor I can visualise the two tracks side by side as in Traktor. (note that I haven't used the session arrangement in Live)

4. The filters and audio effects in Live are a major top and I was wondering whether there is any way of using them (does Traktor support Rewire ?)

 

I've been messing around with the beta for a bit... but I think I need to read the manual cuz I have no clue what I'm doing in it. Also the beta is going to expire tomorrow so I wont be able to play around with it anymore.

 

If it's like v4 there should be a little help box [bottom left] that when you move the mouse over things it gives a brief explanation... An arrow bottom left corner opens and closes this window...

 

You can. Download the demo.

As for instant looping - it is not as straightforward as Traktor, that's for sure.

Live takes a lot more time to get used to.

 

I used ableton a little bit more and I became more impressed to be honest.. however there are still improvements to be made before fully switching to there but it works for me nicely if I am planning to play only a certain genre at a gig with long beatmatched mixes in mind.. I am sorry NI but you were partly out-beaten this time. All I have to do now is save money to buy Live but that will only happen in a couple of months ! until then you better come with a more decent program targeted to digital djs and not finalscratch users.. I had been saying this long time ago, that integrating FS was a step backwards... what we needed is a truly digital application but we were ignored blatently (as usual in the course of the years)...

 

For me is not a step back i want to dj normal with vinyls and fs helps me a lot on that, Ni is not good, but if u dont like the way fs or serato is i can understand but dont talk in general.

 

"i want to dj normal with vinyls"

myself, If I wanted to go back to vinyl I think I would avoid all the digital stuff and look at the Vestax vinyl cutting machine for computer edits, loops etc...

As to Live v5 I've only used it a bit now, but it's much better than v4 in audio quality [complex warping] and for loop points...

 

back to vinyl? as i said on anothers post in my style vinyl is the more used format thats why i chose vinyl controled soft.

 

well from my point of view vinyl controlled software is the worst combination you could ever have in the Dj scene as you:

1) Lose the feeling and the beauty of classical vinyl manipulation in a way since you have software and digital equipment in your set up

2) Lose the endless possibilities of digital mixing since you are constrained by the vinyl interface.

The only advantage of final scratch is that you can scratch your mp3s (hence the name) but I don't think it offers anything more than that compared to other ways of Dj-ing.

I thought and still believe that it was a mistake for NI to proceed with FS implementation in Traktor and the aftermath of this has already appeared with the announcement of Ableton Live 5.

I am still sticking with Traktor though due to the nature of my audience and the need to switch between different genres swiftly and frequently. However, expirementing with Live has lead me to understand that finally there is more than Traktor could do.

 

Yes but its an easy methaphor to get traditional DJ's to accept, Until more DJ's buy in the digital arguments (and we are on a tipping point now) that metaphor needs to stay in place.

Oh that my vinyl mixing skills were even half good enough for it to even sightly approach being a thing of beauty ;-( <sigh> For my money having FS would allow me to improve those skills while in the digitial realm. I still want to get a digital control system I just don't know which one yet Traktor v3 may point the way...

yep for sure that is a good argument till I watch PvD or someone really good on a digital control platform then I realize how much I have yet to learn and that makes this so much more exciting.

Actually I think this bought a great deal of versatility to the system that was not there before. Granted it has brought its share bugs but overall its been good and for DJ studio users it is transparent.

yep I am exactly the same. Sadly between pushing on NI to improve support issues and a new software release at work and painting our house, Live 5 has had zero playtime. even Traktor has been limited. Maybe broadcasting today will be a bit of a breakout!

All right time to fire up the spraygun and go get messy!

Phil