Since being in College is keeping me away from my decks, I decided to start just using my computer to mix. Basically what I want to do is mix tracks together and I have been playing around with the Traktor demo and I am liking it a lot so far. I am thinking of buying it but then I started looking at Ableton Live 5 and saw that the price difference between the two is less than $100 dollars with the education discount.

I know Ableton is used by proffesionals for remixing and producing, but I hear it can also be used to mix, just like Traktor. I could see myself getting into producing though later on.

I (hopefully) will be playing for my University in the Spring, so I am hoping to learn one of these programs well enough so that I can put on a decent show.

So my question is, is Ableton worth the extra money for what I want to do? Also, do I need anything other than my computer for these programs?

Thanks a lot for your help.

if you wanna try producing later and don't wanna spend additional money on some sort of "producing software" then learning to mix with Ableton and the extra money is worth it...

if you have enough budget you can buy traktor and Ableton later...

there are some pro's and con's about each...like Traktor is more like decks...but you'll have to get used to Ableton. To me also I think is the biggest difference that in traktor you beatmatch the usual way (like decks, CDJs) but in ableton it's more about visually matching the waveforms (I don't use ableton for mixing so I can be off here)

but Ableton gives you "almost" complete sort of producing system which you can produce a full track with later and you can also use VST plugins which will expand possibilities far further, rewire support, also Ableton is great for live recording (like if you wanted to put an electric guitar in your track) and soooooooooo many other things, I love the new pluginz from Live 5 for example some of them are just great!

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Ableton has this concept of "warping" clips (which can be full tracks or just sound clips). What you have to do is before you even think about mixing is prep your tracks and clips...

You first import your tracks and into ableton. From there you set "warp" points on the beats (the latest version can try to do this automatically using an algorithm, but will still require manual fine tuning).

With the warp points in place, ableton handles all the beatmatching for you. It's far more accurate than traktors auto-beatmatching, since you will have prepped the tracks beforehand.

When you are mixing live, you just set the "master tempo" and drag in the various tracks you want to mix. Ableton will sync them up automatically to the master tempo, and you don't need to worry about beatmatching AT ALL.

It's a very different type of mixing than Traktor, which better emulates traditional decks.

quote:

Originally posted by BOOsTER if you wanna try producing later and don't wanna spend additional money on some sort of "producing software" then learning to mix with Ableton and the extra money is worth it... if you have enough budget you can buy traktor and Ableton later... there are some pro's and con's about each...like Traktor is more like decks...but you'll have to get used to Ableton. To me also I think is the biggest difference that in traktor you beatmatch the usual way (like decks, CDJs) but in ableton it's more about visually matching the waveforms (I don't use ableton for mixing so I can be off here) but Ableton gives you "almost" complete sort of producing system which you can produce a full track with later and you can also use VST plugins which will expand possibilities far further, rewire support, also Ableton is great for live recording (like if you wanted to put an electric guitar in your track) and soooooooooo many other things, I love the new pluginz from Live 5 for example some of them are just great!

Is there any way possible of listening to the cued track in headphones without a midi controller? I am running a g3 ibook.

ableton all the way

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Originally posted by djRocket Is there any way possible of listening to the cued track in headphones without a midi controller? I am running a g3 ibook.

I don't know the situation with Ableton.

But with Traktor a Midi controller makes no difference, unless maybe you're referring to a fancy Midi controller that includes audio circuits.

The best method with Traktor is to use a sound card with 2 stereo outputs, one output goes to amp/speakers, the other to your headphones.

However Traktor can also be set to use just one stereo output such as when you just want to use the normal laptop internal sound hardware, this is useful for just learning how to do things or for a small party. One output side (say left) goes to the amp/speakers and the other is for the headphones. So you are using mono sound, not stereo. And most internal laptop soundcards are low-fi, except for Mac. You'll need to rig a splitter cable and connectors to run the left audio to your amp and the right to headphones.

Last edited by tvmann on Oct-07-2005 at 15:58

Get Ableton, give it a few weeks and you'll be hooked.

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quote:

Originally posted by djRocket Is there any way possible of listening to the cued track in headphones without a midi controller? I am running a g3 ibook.

Yes, you can cue clips while listening to the master, like a normal dj mixer type set up.