Haroon

Just spotted this tutorial posted on facebook yesterday:
http://www.abletonop.com/2011/07/how-to-dj-with-ableton-live-part-1/

I have IKEA too, I got the Expedit bookshelf on it’s side:
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/50103086

On top I get 2 decks and a xone 92 mixer (similar in size to DJM i guess), also a xone 1d. The laptop and soundard fit on a stand. Underneath I have storage for my vinyl, I dont know the dimensions of the Akai, but I guess if it does not fit in below, you could use another stand, I have a trolley for my amp and other stuff close by.

I have the 2.2ghz pro, it was similar in spec to macbook, in Ableton it depends how many tracks you got going and how many plugins are applied to each track. A more even comparison is Traktor with four decks loaded and effects on each deck – with my macbook pro it hardly dents the CPU performance, but then I do have memory maxed to 8gb, which I highly recommend.

Do also consider however, that people where creating great tracks with just an Atari ST back in the days and the spec of the machine I got now would have been top of the line for a desktop five years ago. Obviously more CPU power you have the better, producers could always add or do more to rinse it out but sooner or later they all reach a limit. On the macbook you might reach sooner that’s all and when you do you do the same what all the big boys do – bounce a track to audio.

I first started with digital djing in 2004/2005 (I had vinyl DJ decks years ago but sold them), I wanted a cheap setup and and at the time I could not afford decks or CDJ’s. So I got a hercules DJ controller and used the free copy of virtual dj that came with it and later got the full copy. I used it to create my first two mixes I recorded (thanks UR31 for the good words 🙂 But I soon found using the hercules controller as toy town-ish and not having the cue-mix so was reliant on my speakers, which is not good if you only get time late in the day.

I left it all for a while, then last year being more flush I got the kit I have today. I didn’t want o go for the CDJ route as I dont see the point of it, for me its more dead than vinyl, which has some purpose or point. MP3/controllers is the future, but I like vinyl too, so DVS was best of both worlds and Traktor seemed best for me as well as being able to use it for DVS it has great midi programmability so I wont be tied to specific hardware like with searato.

However, I needed to move forwards too so I needed a controller, at the time most controllers just seemed to model the 2 decks and a mixer approach, like the VCI 100, which to me was not forward thinking enough, its not a paradigm shift, I already had got decks/mixer and DVS, so why duplicate that? I wanted to add something new to set-up that looks forwards rather than backwards. I admit the hawtin setup video was very inspirational in this regard. So I got myself the 1d controller, as the time it was the only thing to offer control of four decks at the same time. Its great to sit along with traktor scratch DVS, as i can use my four deck mapping to work it for effects and looping along with basic transport control with the external mixer handling eq. Or when I need to play out I can use my 2 deck mapping and go simple with eq/mixer/transport controls all on it.

However I was not content for just DJ’ing, everyman and his dog is a DJ these days, though with four decks was an improvement there needed to be more I thought. To really separate myself out I thought the concept of DJ’ing needs to move forwards too – what is going to be the real paradigm shift? For me this was live remixing and productions, Sasha had proven it was possible with the technology now, though not having 10,00 to spend on my own Maven, I got the Akai APC 40 and a copy of Ableton and now use it to freestyle and jam around – its an awesome tool.

I guess overall I’m a technology geek too, my only trouble now is that I have more than I can actually use at times, but I have djing technology that represent the past, present and the future.

Emma Partnow, post: 4005 wrote: Cool :cool:;
Let me know what you see under these Links and I will Certainly Contribute to whatever is under those Links if you think it would be Good for the Forum 🙂

What you see is a playlist, with tracks added by different users. The playlist was then aired on a particular show, which has now gone anyway. The point of my sharing those playlist was to show a couple of example of collaborative playlists. I think its a handy tool, as DJ’s I guess we are all keen to share our music and like wise our friends with us. So now instead of sending youtube links to music to my friends via facebook/email we can add tunes to shared playlists – awesome I think!

pilotmike327, post: 3235 wrote: “what seperates me from this guy. He has the same tracks you have as of right now, possibly more. How do you plan to distinguish yourself from this guy”.

Here’s what I think: What’s more important than the tracks you have is how you mix them.

I think, that most people in the crowd at a bar/club dont care too much for the intricacies of mixing, they just want to have a good time, party and hear some good tunes – some of which they know and hear some new ones. It’s only fellow DJ’s who might consider how you mixed the same tracks differently, but the % they comprise of the crowd is pretty low, no? For me the way to standout has to be my tune selection – it has to be a mostly unique assimilation to me. You say the guy has 1/5 of your tunes, well at least you know you can play the other 4/5 to distinguish yourself.