Finaly fake live acts are beeing exposed!

[davethedrummer]

Okay, would someone please explain to me how an Ableton set is "live" or "dead". Is the difference that the dead set has placed all of the tracks in advance, whereas a live one is picking them on the fly?

That really seems mostly like splitting hairs to me when you're talking about Ableton, when all you'd really have to do to get from one to the other is, rather than actually laying down the tracks into a long set and hitting play, you lay them all down at home beforehand, then take notes on your setlist. Once you get there, drop them all in at the appropriate time and, voila!

1. Pat DSP at 000
2. Concrete DJz at 112
3. Industrialyzer at 180
4. The Advent at 224

and so on...

You're really only adding about four minutes of work between the "live" set and a "dead" one. I guess you could also record all the EQ changes, effects, and cross fading into a "dead" set as well, but why? Is it laziness? Lack of confidence? Is somebody else doing the work for you a la Milli Vanilli?

I don't know. It just seems to me that Ableton makes it SOOO easy already, why would anyone go the extra step of pre-programming the entire set beforehand? Sad.

except that there's no such thing as "easy"

[eppertheleper]

except that there's no such thing as "easy"

Agreed, but when you compare the difficulty of a dj set using Ableton to one on decks, you've effectively removed two of the hardest elements - beat matching and getting a track to drop on cue. I'm just an amateur tinkerer at best, but those two elements are the hardest parts for me to get right on tables. Ableton matches the beats and, if you know your tracks, getting them to drop at the appropriate time is so easy a first grader could do it.

With Ableton, you've still got to learn the software and know your tracks, but a lot of the technical aspects of spinning are completely handled for you. Anyway, my point was that without those two elements, you're left with finding two tracks that sound good together and mixing them properly so that they don't overwhelm one another. The skills required have been halved. Why someone would go the extra step of removing the last two difficult portions of mixing by doing the whole thing at home is beyond me. Ableton makes it significantly easier to simply mix two tracks together. I'm not knocking those who use hundreds of loops in a set and really push the software to a point that would be impossible using only turntables (Bas Mooy mention above). That IS impressive. What I'm asking is why anyone would pre-program an entire standard mix (one track to the next) at home when doing so on the fly with Ableton is so easy a plebeian like myself can do it?

[DJPAUZE]

Agreed, but when you compare the difficulty of a dj set using Ableton to one on decks, you've effectively removed two of the hardest elements - beat matching and getting a track to drop on cue. I'm just an amateur tinkerer at best, but those two elements are the hardest parts for me to get right on tables. Ableton matches the beats and, if you know your tracks, getting them to drop at the appropriate time is so easy a first grader could do it.

With Ableton, you've still got to learn the software and know your tracks, but a lot of the technical aspects of spinning are completely handled for you. Anyway, my point was that without those two elements, you're left with finding two tracks that sound good together and mixing them properly so that they don't overwhelm one another. The skills required have been halved. Why someone would go the extra step of removing the last two difficult portions of mixing by doing the whole thing at home is beyond me. Ableton makes it significantly easier to simply mix two tracks together. I'm not knocking those who use hundreds of loops in a set and really push the software to a point that would be impossible using only turntables (Bas Mooy mention above). That IS impressive. What I'm asking is why anyone would pre-program an entire standard mix (one track to the next) at home when doing so on the fly with Ableton is so easy a plebeian like myself can do it?

When's the last time you did a dj mix in ableton, you are far from right....

[SlavikSvensk]

When's the last time you did a dj mix in ableton, you are far from right....

what's not right about it, though? he just said you don't have to beat match in ableton, which you don't, and that this fact makes him view ableton dj sets that don't go beyond just mixing (in a traditional sense) as less challenging.

don't see anything wrong with that at all. if all you're doing is dropping tracks in after a few minutes and using the EQs (and maybe a few effects), it is less challenging that mixing. that's a valid point of view.

on the other hand, you could make an equally good case that there's no real point in doing things the hard way if you can do them the easy way. another valid opinion.

in either case, for me the point of software like ableton is to free you up to do other things once the preoccupation with beat matching is taken out of the equation.

[DJPAUZE]

what's not right about it, though? he just said you don't have to beat match in ableton, which you don't, and that this fact makes him view ableton dj sets that don't go beyond just mixing (in a traditional sense) as less challenging.

don't see anything wrong with that at all. if all you're doing is dropping tracks in after a few minutes and using the EQs (and maybe a few effects), it is less challenging that mixing. that's a valid point of view.

on the other hand, you could make an equally good case that there's no real point in doing things the hard way if you can do them the easy way. another valid opinion.

in either case, for me the point of software like ableton is to free you up to do other things once the preoccupation with beat matching is taken out of the equation.

Sorry, I guess I was referring to the actual setup of a dj set in ableton. It's not as easy as drop, press play and you have a set completed.

And again, i hear what his point was and misread the statement.

Pauze

[eppertheleper]

When's the last time you did a dj mix in ableton, you are far from right....

Three weeks ago.

Slav's right. I'm not saying that Ableton can't be VERY challenging. I was just saying, in the context of this discussion on "cheating" your way through a set, that it can also make things very easy if that's what the performer so desires.

[DJPAUZE]

Three weeks ago.

Slav's right. I'm not saying that Ableton can't be VERY challenging. I was just saying, in the context of this discussion on "cheating" your way through a set, that it can also make things very easy if that's what the performer so desires.

My bad dude, no worries.