How will the APC40 affect DJing with Live?

[Silverfish]

Any DJ, any PERFORMER, worth his salt knows his material and prepares.

But, with all things, it comes down to a matter of preference.

[wildcon]

Hi,

To be honest, I think the being able to leap around at random is potentially killing DJ'ing.

And before you jump on me - let me explain

A few DJ gigs I've been to recently (DJ Yoda, Soulwax, Plump DJ's to name a few) have been pretty appauling. It's been a case of:

Clever bit of unexpected tune integration (couple of minutes) - cool
Big breakdown - cool
Brilliant thumping tune (2 minutes) - Excellent
Big looping breakdown - still cool but I was getting into the song!
Another Clever bit of unexpected tune integration (one minute) - cool (ish)
Bigger looping breakdown - sheesh - a bit unneccesary!
Brilliant thumping tune (2 minutes) - At last !
A phucking huge looping breakdown with evey effect in my cool digital set up on 100%) - Not cool, totally lost the impact and has interupted the brilliant tune

Basically this got repeated throughout the gigs and was frankly doing my head in. I actually walked out of one gig as I really couldn't take any more breakdowns (they were literally coming at one very 2 minutes!!)

There was no build up of any note, to let the tunes progress.

'Taste' and 'musicality' - that's what we need not just wanging loops in regardlessly because we now can !

At the end of the day people will 'always' want to hear great 'tunes'

That said I'm a bit disappointed the Akai doesn't have the standard knob set up for EQ

Cheers - and yes i almost certainly will get one

[chrysalis33rpm]

Any DJ, any PERFORMER, worth his salt knows his material and prepares.

But, with all things, it comes down to a matter of preference.

I get why Ableton is great, and why the APC 40 is all that, especially for a 'DJ' who wants to de/re-construct to the maximum potential.

But what we are reacting to is the loss of simplicity- grab a record, cue it, match it, throw it in the mix. Never heard it before, can do it in a loud hectic club no problem. Dead simple.

Its not that I didn't have to prepare when working with vinyl- its that my preparation with one set of tracks could be applied in real time to another set of tracks. I practiced like hell, but then when it was time I could improvise. Ableton doesn't really lend itself to that level of improvisation at this point (i think that the Serato collab will go a long way toward resolving this). Thus my conclusion- use Ableton for its strengths- which is not really as a turntable/CDJ emulator at this point.

Obviously the APC 40 is not made for someone who intends to simply emulate 2 decks- but, as others have described well above, sometimes it really is best to just do A-B mixing and let the songs play out with a minimum of interference. Music in general is already highly produced, after all.

So my preference is to have both options- and to be able to combine on the fly from each.

[suspended childhood]

if you are using 8 tracks, it should help fuse the physical with the logical:

currently, if you use a trigger finger or and MPD X you have you remember...well...there 4 tracks here, and then 2 loops here, oh and a kick here and a HH here....and synths here...

With the APC....you can actually see what tracks are loaded with a much wider grid.

although i dont currently foam at the mouth for this APC thing, I am happy with my MPD 32...but I do see advantages.

[dodeca]

I DJ with live at a club at least once a week, and have no problems with it.

Just swapped out my VCI-100 + Zero SL for a VCM-600, and the setup works brilliantly.

I don't really understand how having to warp tracks interferes with the process of DJing? I agree its a pain in the ass to do for every track I have coming in, but once it's done, that's that. No fucking with pitch sliders, and as much flexibility in workflow as I could ever imagine. I can pull up the track whenever I want and use knobs assigned to loop-in/length as a poor man's track scrub.

It'll only get easier when the Serato partnership bears fruit.

Oh, and a better way to browse tracks would be a plus, although I've started making 'virtual crates' within a single Live set, so I can then drag lists of tracks into my performance at any point.

[Illum]

Sorry, just gotta chime in on all this dedicated eq knob stuff...do people still use real analog dj mixers anymore? I mean what could be more ideal than an apc40 for fx and triggering shit, then running 2 stereo outs into a nice fat rane or a&h? Every club has a mixer right? You don't even have to haul one. Just saying is all.

[dodeca]

The dedicated EQ knobs allow you to mix within Ableton, as opposed to running a stereo pair out for each channel of audio being used. I run up to 6 channels of tracks/loops at a time, which would make it near impossible to run 6 stereo outs into a standard club mixer.

The APC will be great for FX and triggering, but it falls short in that anyone using it to play, mix, and remix full tracks in a live setting will still need easy access to EQ functions across all their channels.

[the_antagonist]

how will it affect djing. its a whole new set of possibilities. I would keep 3 tracks black except of eq3 and some effects which could be controled from djm800. then you have 5 tracks free for ad hoc edit/production.

too many djs and the folk you meantioned are just crap like that. i would be using live to keep breakdowns to a minimum.

id rather carve out my own breakdowns.

[chevthewizard]

How will the APC40 affect DJing with Live?

The DJ-ing of those who don't use it will seem better by comparison to those who do.








Just a prediction.

[vettjd01]

to the people complaining about preparing tracks in advance and warping... i got some advice.

use repitch. set global tempo to 120bpm. then as you drag and drop the tracks you want to play, after ableton analizes them, just repitch to 120, then use your ear to beat match.

does anyone else do this?

[the_antagonist]

to the people complaining about preparing tracks in advance and warping... i got some advice.

use repitch. set global tempo to 120bpm. then as you drag and drop the tracks you want to play, after ableton analizes them, just repitch to 120, then use your ear to beat match.

does anyone else do this?

why bother?

[digitalgeist]

djsynchro either works for akai or is a hip hop fanboy. did you read carefully, djing is not about sitting two nights before in front of your computer and warping all your records so they do sync when you press your 70s style buttons.

Lolz. I took one look at Ableton for DJing and discarded the idea. For one it has all the aforementioned problems with EQing and having to warp all your tracks beforehand ... but what nobody's mentioned yet is that Live has to upconvert MP3s into .wav or .aiff files (not sure what happens to the metadata at that point) in order to use, which doesn't sound like much but when you want a 1000 track library (at about 50mb minimum each in .wav) to pick from it doesn't take a genius to see you're going to run out of HD and RAM space pretty quick.

For DJing on the fly, give me Traktor. For live performance, I'll use Live.

[the_antagonist]

you dont have to warp everything ahead of time. It takes as long as it does to beat match.

[vettjd01]

to the people complaining about preparing tracks in advance and warping... i got some advice.

use repitch. set global tempo to 120bpm. then as you drag and drop the tracks you want to play, after ableton analizes them, just repitch to 120, then use your ear to beat match.

does anyone else do this?

why bother?

you are awesome for your larger than life explanation.

[sherman]

How will the APC40 affect DJing with Live?

Every second photo will have an APC on the desk, instead of a UC33...

/ducks