So, I wanted to know who feels strongly enough about their portable audio interface to say that they love it. My experience is that most peoples feelings on this subject could be summed up with “meh.” For the most part, this is how I’ve felt about it as well. I’ve owned a few of the […]
INTERFACE POLL RESULTS
We pause from our regularly scheduled tips to bring you the results of a highly unscientific audio interface poll! Question: “Who LOVES their portable audio interface? What kind is it?” The winner is a tie, with the Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1 and the Motu Ultralite both receiving 5 votes. Here’s the full rundown of […]
FLIP IT, DUB IT
So far, we’ve just been looking at ways to use the crossfader-effects trick with pre-fader sends. You can also have some fun crossfading to return tracks when using a default post-fader send. Remember, the difference between using pre-fader (Send A) and post-fader (Send B), is that when using the post-fader send, the source signal will […]
SHIFT THE BEAT, KILL THE KICK
The beat juggle trick described yesterday works well for all sorts of music, but not all types – it’s often problematic for house, techno, or any sort of groove based around a straight quarter note kick drum. The straight kick rhythm is so dominant, that turning it around even briefly can really upset the flow […]
INSTANT BEAT JUGGLE
One simple and incredibly fun way to use return tracks with the crossfader is for simple beat juggling. To do this, throw a Simple Delay on the return track set up like this: All you’re doing is using the delay as an 1/8 note offset, so every time you flip the crossfader, the signal is […]
CROSSFADE WHAT?
I’m not a crossfader guy: mixing with the volume faders has always made the most sense to me. However, over the last year, I’ve come up with some fun uses for the crossfader on my VCM-600. I use it to switch between my main channels and my effect returns. Today, I’ll show you a basic […]
THE (UN)LIMITER
Folks often discuss whether or not to use any compression or limiting on the Master track of a set used for performance. (There’s no one right answer to this.) For a set where some of the material is already fully mixed and mastered, the answer is mostly no. For my current hybrid DJ set, I […]
SEND TO CUE
From time to time, you may encounter a situation where it’s more practical to cue tracks by using a send instead of Live’s built-in Cue feature. The setup looks like this: In the above example, return track A is set up as a cue track. Check out it’s Audio To routing – anything sent to […]
ONE BUTTON, STATUS AND CUE
One thing I find is that no matter how big, or how many controllers you have, you’ll always run out of buttons or knobs. Somehow, you always use them all up. To solve this problem, it helps to find simple ways to get multiple uses out of individual controls. I just discovered a very simple […]
MORPHING FILTER
The morphing filter that I’ve been referring to over the last couple of days consists of three chains: a high pass filter, a band pass filter and then another high pass filter. The zones are set up like this: The first high pass filter quickly crossfades into the band pass, then a slower fade into […]
