@ Pete, what's your Ableton Live set look like?

[d00ban]

Yo Pete,

 

 

The other day you mentioned that you DJ with Ableton Live but a lot of people don't even know you are making stuff up "completely on the fly" or something like that.

 

I'm currently building my Live Set and was wondering how you approach it? Obvs this kind of thing can be quite personal so tell me to shove off if you want. I was just wondering...

 

I've currently got what I want it to look like all set up, just no decent controller to test it out properly yet.

 

I've got:

 

Deck A, Deck A2, Deck B, Deck B2, Drums, Accapellas, Dummy slots and then a couple of sends with loads of fx on that I can send any of the decks to individually so I can manipulate the stems on their own without completely fucking up the mix. That's the plan any way. Is this how you do things or is it completely different? I've seen quite a few different approaches now that look decent.

[Guest petesasqwax]

hehe - no problem at all mate, no "shove off" sentiments here

 

I basically tried to apply the basic concepts of Bambaataa's original approach to hip-hop that was then built upon by DJ/producers using 4 track tapes etc. in order to make original tracks from the component parts of others.

I basically spend an insane amount of time creating 4-bar loops of a variety of areas:

BEATS

BASS

MIDS/HIGHS

ATMOS

VOCAL DROPS

 

So I sample shitloads of tracks I like. I did a load of classic "pre-school" hip-hop things - Ultimate Breaks and Beats style shit, for example - which I sampled both as they were and also flipped - and I create a massive sample bank of sounds across those 5 areas. I use as wide a range of different genres and styles as I'm into, from a great chunk of Japanese hip-hop breaks, for example, which are on the more electronic side of things (like Shadetek, Push Button Objects, Funkstorung etc. style of shit) as well as classic rock shit, weirdo Buckethead insanity, scratch beats (MMM especially) - whatever I feel like throwing in there.

Once I have the sound bank ready, I map out 6 tracks of the live view to 6 channels on my Korg nanoKontrol so that I can control the line levels with the up-faders and I use the rotary dial on the top of each line to control the send effect (which general features Soundtoys' Echoboy though I've been known to do others). For some reason, the rotary dial on the nano is reversed when you use it with Ableton like this. I'm sure I can sort it out but I've never bothered - I just use it backwards as it is. I've used an X-Session Pro to do the same job, using the 4 faders for the first 4 channels, the rotary dials above those to do the effects control and the 2 rows of rotary dials above those to give me 4 more channels and effects dials, but the korg is smaller and i prefer to use all faders for the channels rather than a mixture of faders and dials

I map out Live like this:

Channel 1: Beats

Channel 2: Bass

Channel 3: Mids

Channel 4: Atmos

Channel 5: Vocal drops

Channel 6: Accapellas

I didn't mention Accapellas before because obviously I don't chop those etc. (unless I'm using them for vocal drops) but a lot of the time I'll drop accapellas over things in order to break it up and humanise it all for folk.

Does all that make sense? I know it's hardly re-inventing the wheels of veal or whatever, but that's just how it works best for me and gives me the best method of doing something that is original every time and interesting to me as well as it (hopefully) is to the crowd

[d00ban]

Yeah man! Makes perfect sense. Was pretty much the direction I wanted to take it in.

 

I got a nano Kontrol too, I was wondering if I'd be able to get as much out of it as I wanted as it's pretty tiny really when you see all these peeps with APC40s and that. I bought an APC40 when I first got Ableton over a year ago. I had literally no use for it then but reckon I'm at the point where I know what I'm doing enough to actually utilise it. Guess I need to get chopping stuff up, is gonna take ages!

 

You got any vids of you busting it out? Not to copy or any thing, just sounds cool.

[Guest petesasqwax]

excellent - glad I got it all over clearly enough. as soon as I got Ableton that just seemed like the most obvious way to go with it, to be honest. it felt like that was what the software was for and I could never really understand why everyone else who used it wasn't doing the same thing.

fuck, those APC40s look mindbending - like when I first saw a Monome, but with even more lights AND dials and faders too! I think I could probably do a load more with the controller if I really went at it but I don't do a great deal of gigs (I'm basically the guy who stays at home and either does stupid shit to amuse his kids/wife or makes strange noises with headphones on) so it never seemed like it was worth the time exploring it much further.

 

I'm sure there are videos around of me doing Ableton sets in the past but I've no idea if they're only anywhere accessible. I've got a mate with a slightly better DSLR camera than mine so I'll do a 2 camera setup recording of a little set when I get the chance so that I can show what's happening on screen as well as what I'm doing with the controller. I'll chop up some fresh samples and arrange to record it as soon as I can

[Guest petesasqwax]

actually - surely I can do that without 2 cameras. does anyone know a decent screen capture thing I can run on my PC? I assume that's how people do tutorials and the like

[d00ban]

Wicked man! I'm a bit gutted that you're basically doing what I planned on doing though haha. My Ableton tutor showed me his live set and it was freaking crazy!

 

This is it:

 

 

Will be dope when I can split my own tracks in to seperate bits though and do the same thing, they're just a bit shit at the minute though and don't really hold up too well.

[Guest rasteri]

 

does anyone know a decent screen capture thing I can run on my PC?

 

http://www.hyperionics.com/hc/

[Guest petesasqwax]

D00ban - fuck, that looks mental! I wish I had sound - going to have to watch that later. so what's the deal with the Ableton tutor stuff? Is Point Blank like an actual school you attend or an online thing or... ? Looks really interesting.

Rasteri - thanks a boatload - that looks absolutely perfect

[d00ban]

Ya mon,

 

The one I go to is called point blank, it's just round the corner from where I live.

 

It's not too cheap but I couldn't be arsed fekking around for ages trying to teach myself everything.

 

Although, with music there's obviously only so much they can teach you.

 

Been thoroughly enjoyable any way, kept me sane the last year or so.

[Guest petesasqwax]

Yeah, I was just checking the link on the video you posted. Looks like a superb facility and fair play for investing the loot in something you love. I've always been a teach it yourself person - I just get on better that way - but I can imagine that being something most people who produce (myself included) would get a great deal out of. how often/long are the courses? i mean, is it basically a full time course like you'd do at college - can you get student loans etc for it?