How to mix like sasha does on ableton I know he's moved onto the CDJ2000's, but i very much doubt he's regressed back to doing things the 'old' way with just beatmatching one tune into the next, and mixing on the mixer the old way. Still ... here, is how someone found out how he had things set up when he was doing it all on ableton. Pretty mind blowing stuff and puts most people to shame! saw him play last night here in chicago. his current template is completely different from the screenshot posted here. i had one of the photographers take a really nice upclose high reso shot and will post it here when i get it. hes now got a 10 channel setup, which i only saw use of the first 6 the entire night. i talked to his tech guy (not barry jamieson but some round guy with two little ponytails) quite a bit, but alot of the dialogue was lost in translation as its really hard to here people with english accents in loud clubs heres what ive figured out through watching and talking to his tech guy: - he divides his tracks into 3-7 sections each. for each section he has a brown clip and a yellow clip, and a space separating them on the channel. the brown clip is an unlooped section start that after a certain number of bars triggers the yellow clip by use of follow actions. the yellow clip is a really repetitive small loop of the section and has clip modulation info on it which triggers his delays, effects, or whatever. he then has to get out of that loop by triggering the next brown clip, BUT can kill going into the follow action all together by deleting the yellow clip. i noticed when ever hed run off to the bathroom hed kill the yellow clip to keep the music moving like normal while he was in dispose. - he hid his sends on the screen and when i pryed into his effects with his tech guy he all of a sudden played dumb. his tech guys was like oh hes using "supa trigga, delays, reverbs, etc" i asked what kind of delay and all i got was a smirk. - he is playing 3 tracks at a time it seems on the screen, but i believe its alot of rerouted audio that we dont hear. he was also running his maven into the pioneer 800 on 2 different channels but only 1 channel was playing. im pretty sure what seems like alot of extra tracks playing is just rerouting of audio for effects, sidechains, etc. - im pretty certain he is sidechaining the low frequencies of his tracks when he is transitioning. i noticed that he was playing one track with a low, constant bassline. the next track he was mixing in had a low syncopated tom that would kill the bassline of the previous track more and more rhythmically as it was being mixed in. sounded phenomenal. After seeing him play at Leeds a few months back for the sum of 8 quid (!) and being blown away, and then again a few days at Global, i'm always facinated by how he does what he does, and why everyone (including me) jizz all over his dj'ing performances.
i like the idea of side chaining the low ends in a mix where does the 2000's come in though bud? did you see him using them recently?
this is a complete guess, but i'm assuming the situation is no different. Instead of sending his ableton channels to the efx and the sidechaining stuff being done all inside ableton, that instead he just routes the cdj's into ableton and controls the efx with the maven controller (which is what he says he planned to do) to achieve the same thing. The whole sidechaining stuff is facinating like. I wonder how many big producers and DJ's use the same thing - Some people like sean tyas produce some amazingly tight sounding podcast mixes, but then when you here them live its a different sound altogether. Could they be doing it as well perhaps? Makes you wonder just what the likes of Sasha and his sound engineers, PVD and Joris Voorn (etc etc) are using ableton for - I severely doubt its just so they can warp a few tracks and keep 'seven nation army' in time with 'for an angel'.
yeah he used them at leeds as well, although he was using ableton at the same time. Funnily enough, i spotted about 5 times when his loops werent synching with the main track properly, or when he needed to correct the pitch on a tune that was drifting out. Seems like he's forgotten to beatmatch so well after going fully digital for so long
you can have a lot of fun with sidechaining in live but it's another one of things you can go overboard with, takes a while to get a happy medium and build a template that doesn't suck the life out of your memory and cpu.
Joris Voorn used one of these at Habit linked into 4 channel Traktor http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/7847-jazz-mutant-lemur.html
deadmau5 uses a lemur too, although I think he uses it with ableton and monome controller. There's a vid on beatport showing it in action: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAqM281kNio"]YouTube- Deadmau5 live at Roxy, Prague 01/02/2008 - part 2‎[/ame] http://www.beatportal.com/feed/item/deadmau5-technical-rider/
You can rig it up to use either. The Lemurs are the best out there, you can pretty much build your own interface platform from scratch, completely custom to how you want it. Once I have the $$ put away this is next on my want list. Deadmau5 was using both Lemur & NI Maschine last year when he played the academy, I'm assuming the Lemur was controlling everything in ableton & the Maschine was triggering kicks/claps/bass/melody's/effects etc... Few pics here: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=9349628&id=541140105&ref=fbx_album http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=9349626&id=541140105&ref=fbx_album
Maybe a cheaper option would be the ipad proudy? Especially if Zabiela's "Gatertronic 3000" takes off.... [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jasVTIHP4mA"]YouTube- James Zabiela Messing with iPad and Ableton Live‎[/ame] Found this quite interesting too... [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stcf_8H_qVM"]YouTube- NanoStudio iPhone - First Demo‎[/ame]
There was a 2 part Youtube Interview that he did with Future Music Mag which was really interesting, broke down everything he uses, just tried looking for it there but looks like the vids have been taken down.
I dont much rate touchscreens. I prefer using real knobs and sliders and the like for controlling transport functions and the like. I dunno why people keep trying to persevere with iphone/ipad controllers either - they are neither here nor there. No decent cpu, no access to the file system .... they are quite expensive for a high latency midi controller in that case. Still, its quite interesting just what people are trying to achieve.
So far this is my favourite take on touchscreen and controller... [ame="http://vimeo.com/13724835"]"emulator" on töken concept on Vimeo[/ame]
I think the whole ipad controller idea is to get people away from having to stand behind a computer all night and actually move around the stage or into the crowd to interact better with them. Read a thing recently in IDJ about Griid which Richie Hawtin has been using to control ableton using his ipad (or 2!) [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3GermFZ9_g"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3GermFZ9_g[/ame]
It looks great, but I can see the iPad being the most temperamental piece of kit (controller wise) EVER. If you loose your wifi connection you've basically lost control of all your music?
I'm the same in that sense, I'll always use a mixer to fade & EQ my tracks, but the whole control element of the Lemur's v Traktor looks brilliant. You can script so much to 1 deck (or 4 for that matter) and have the layout completely custom to enable you to have as much control over 1-4 decks as you want, all your loop points, effects, etc... on a single screen at your finger tips with out having to flick through screens or activate/deactivate other decks is a huge selling point for me.
Yeah totally agree with you mate. Its maybe one of those things that over time will get much more solid but i'd rather stick to a hardware piece of kit any day. ....plus I can't afford an ipad!
