In this article I will show how I get ready to DJ with Ableton Live and also show one way to setup your DJ rig in Ableton.   The great thing about Ableton Live is just because this is how one person does it, you do not have to follow my setup exactly.  Ableton gives you the ability to setup your rig how ever you want.   We all think differently and Ableton frees us to mix the way we think rather than being stuck with 2 or 4 channels, a cross fader, and cue points.

Preparing Songs

Before we can start mixing we need to first prepare our songs for use in Ableton.  Although this may seem tedious at first, it is actually very simple once you get going and when you get the hang of it, you can prepare a track live in under a minute.  

I like to use a utility called Rapid Evolution (www.mixshare.com) that databases all your tracks, finds the BPM and key of the songs for you.  So first I pull up RE and find a song I would like to use.

Then we drag it into an empty Ableton Live session.   I have a session created specifically for making new clips quickly.   You can also drag the song directly into your DJ session while DJing if you like.

We then need to warp this track in order to use it in Live.  Warping tells Ableton what BPM the track is and keeps the track in time with other tracks.  You may also warp a track that does not stay at the same BPM in Ableton, and Ableton will keep the track's time steady with other tracks.  To start warping we find the first down beat:

As you can see Live did not set the 1.1.1 marker at the actual beginning of the downbeat, so we can correct that by dragging the 1.1.1 marker to the beginning:

As you can see Live detected the BPM as 127.99.  Sometimes just setting the first downbeat is enough for Warping tracks. But just to verify I usually check one of the last downbeats and make sure that is also correct.

As you can see it's just a little off.  If we had not corrected this the track would eventually fall out of time.

Now we see that Live has the correct BPM, and if you play the track against the metronome you'll he it is completely in time.  If you speed up the session it will still stay in time.  Now what we want to do is make a few different cue points so we can jump around the song during our mix.

First what I do is select the clip and hit CTRL-D or Command-D three times.  This will create 3 more copies of the song.  Then I select each one and create a different Start point.

What I then normally do is test jumping from clip to clip and see if I like those cue points.  The easiest way to do this is setup some keys to trigger these clips.  For my "clip maker" session I just set a, s, d, and f as my keys to trigger.  Hit CTRL-K or Command-K select the clip you want to set and then press the key.

Now all that is left to do is to drag the clips into a folder in the browser.  Select the first clip and then hold SHIFT and click on the last clip, this selects all the clips, you may now drag them over to the folder.  This creates a new ALS (Ableton Live Song) with your new clips in it, it does not move the location of your original song, rather they just point to the original song and keep your cue points in the ALS.

I like to name my songs "BPM-Key Code-Artist-Song Name".  This way they are sorted first by BPM, then Key, and finally artist and song name.  

Now the ALS containing our new clips are ready to be dragged into our DJ set!

How to DJ with Ableton Live, Part 2

This is my setup:

As you can see, I have 2 "turntable" tracks for dropping my ALS into.  I also have 2 "juggle" slots for dropping in either loops or one hits into.  I will expand on the juggle slots later.  I also have two "Auto" slots.  These are for putting dummy clips into.  What dummy clips are for is they allow you to automate your effects by just having envelopes in them, no actual audio.  In order for the dummy clips to work, you need to route your audio from your turntable tracks to your "Auto" tracks and then turn on monitoring, if you look at the screenshot you can see that I have that done in there already. 

I also put a delay in my Return A and a Glitch effect in my Return B.  Then I have all my tracks crossfader channels set to A and Return B set to B.   With the Mixer sends set to "Pre-Mixer", I can crossfade to the glitch effect and send crazy glitches through there and it'll effect all songs playing. This is great for slamming a set through glitches and then jumping back. This was initially done in an example Live set by Tricil.

I also have a Live Utility plug-in dropped on both turntable tracks, this allows me to adjust the gain of my tracks.  I set them to a Midi Control and set the range to -20 to -15.  The reason the tracks are set so low on the gain is that after run through effects and EQs the signal can get boosted quite a bit, this is better than setting a limiter on the master because the tracks won't get clipped.  We can also then set a saturator on the master channel to give it a little more warmth.

On the Auto tracks, I have my actual EQs and effects.  I have EQ8s on each track modelled after the Allen & Heath 3D Mixer, you can find these presets at www.abletonlivedj.com.  

Let's get started with a mix now.   Drag two ALS's into the two turntable tracks.  

You can now trigger one of your clips, and jump through the track with your different cue points, you can also start dropping your next track when you like and jump through the different points, you're now mixing with Ableton Live! Congratulations!

Juggle Slots

Now obviously if that's all we wanted to do with Ableton, that would get pretty boring, so now I will talk about some of the more fun we can have with Ableton.   

What I use are "juggle slots" for juggling through one hits and loops to have some fun.  You can create juggle packs just like we create ALS's for songs.  Just we set the start and end points much shorter.  I have also chopped up some acapellas into loops and can drop them into my juggle slot and trigger them during a mix for some live remix action!

You can then set them to trigger via keys or a midi control.  What I do for my one-hits and vocal samples is I create the clip and set them the Launch mode to "Gate" this means it will only play while I am holding down the trigger.   I also set the Quantization to None.  This way it plays once I press the trigger.

In my set I also have multiple one hits and vocal samples already in the set from multiple sources these are loaded with the set so I have them ready from the start.  This way you can slam on your midi controller and create your own drum beat on top of the song.  Great for when you're doing a breaks set.  This works better than dropping impulses on to a track because this gives you as many hits as you want rather than the 8 you get with impulse.

Dummy Clips

Dummy clips are clips that have no sound to them but trigger envelopes instead, we can use these to automate effects and create build ups while freeing our hands to tweak other effects also.   Rather than write up a how to on creating dummy clips I will just refer you to a great resource that already has written in detail how to create them: http://www.teragon.org/wiki/index.php?title=Dummy_Clips

That pretty much wraps up getting started with DJing with Ableton Live.  That should get you started and the rest is up to you as now you can start to create your own style and make millions as a superstar DJ!!