How to make a DJ mix set using Ableton Live
There are many products with which to mix music together these days, but it seems that Ableton Live is the new industry standard of music performance software. Not only does it facilitate totally dynamic live loop mixing, but it's quite good at arranging songs with automation to make a high quality mix set. In this guide I will go over step-by-step of how to use it for that exact purpose.
My demo will use Live 5, but should apply to Live 6 as well.
Initial set up
If this is your first time using Live or if you've never used it to mix full length songs before, there are a few settings you will want to change in your preferences. Under Sample, you will want to set the Loop/Warp Short Samples to "Warped One Shot" and the Warp Mode to "Complex". This will do the best job handling full length songs overall.
(The preferences menu)
Creating your project
Make a directory on your PC somewhere and put all of your songs in that you would like to use. In live, just create a new project in the File menu. When you go to save your project, make sure to save the live project file into the same directory as your songs. This is your project folder, and it's good to keep it all together so you don't lose anything later from moving songs, etc.
Live uses 2 views: Session view and Arrangement view. For what we're doing, you will only need the arrangement view. The way to switch between the views is with the two circular buttons on the upper right. The vertical lined button is for the session and the horizontal lined button is for the arrangement. Just click on the horizontal lined button to get to the right view.
(Session View)
(Arrangement View)
Adding your first song
Importing a song into Live is as easy as dragging and dropping the file from Windows file manager or OSX finder into an Audio Track in Live. In your new project, there should be 1 audio track and 1 midi track by default. You can delete the midi track now by clicking on it and hitting "delete" on your keyboard. Leave the audio track and drag your file in, placing the beginning on the first measure of the project.
(Dragging and dropping your file into live)
Warping the song
After your song is imported and analyzed, you can set/fix the warp points and bpm of the track. This is the most important step of getting things to mix together properly. The way I do this is to start by deleting all warp points if there are any. Live generally doesn't quite get them right for actual songs, although it does a good job with small (under 10 second) samples, but since we're not doing that right now we'll want to tweak this part by hand. Drag the green warp point labeled "1" over to make the line under it match up with the exact start of the first beat of the song. This varies a bit from song to song because many don't start on a beat but you need to find the beat start regardless. Scroll through the song checking to see that the beat lines match up in that same spot on every beat. It needs to be extremely close to correct all the way to the end. Adjust the BPM field if you're seeing that the beats are getting further away from the lines. This may take a little trial and error to figure out. The longer the song is the harder this step is, as you lose precision toward the end.
The way I do this is to zoom in on a part, check it, adjust if necessary, zoom out, move maybe 30 seconds down, zoom in, repeat. If the part you're planning on mixing out of isn't dead on beat in that warp view, it will not work. You'll struggle to mix the song or end up just giving up. If a song seems inconsistent, you will have to create warp points to stretch or squeeze parts to make the some consistent. Just grab any beat and move it to do this. It's very difficult to explain how, so trial and error will be necessary to learn. The more you play with it the better you'll understand it.
(Warp - Finding the beginning of the song)
(Warp - Checking the end of the song)
Adding another song
To add and mix in another song, start by creating an audio track. This is done by right clicking anywhere in the blank space under the existing track controls and then clicking "add new audio track."
(Creating a new audio track)
Drag and drop in your song like you did for the first, then set up the warp for the song, again, like in the first example. Once that is done, you need to determine how these two songs are going to mixed.
Mixing the songs together
Start by moving the song to where you'd like the mix to begin. It's important to remember that you don't even necessarily have to have the mix audibly start there. You have all the same options (and more) that you have with a regular mixer. You can fade the song in, start with no bass, leave it with no volume for the first x number of beats, etc.. There are a few controls that will become important now. One is the bright green number on the right of the controls for the track. That is the "track on/off" button. When green, you can hear the track, when dark, you can't. The button next to that with the "S" on it is the solo. When you have multiple tracks mixed and you only want to hear one, clicking that on will solo that track and mute all others.
Automating volume changes
Underneath the title of the track (mine is "1 Audio"), click on the pull down and select "Mixer." Underneath that, click on the pull down and select "Track Volume." A red line will appear across the whole track. This line is representative of the track's volume. Double clicking anywhere on it will make a dot that you can drag around to control the volume change. To delete a dot, just click on it once and hit the delete key. In my example, I made 2 dots, one to start the fade out and one to end it, then I dragged them into the spots I wanted them at.
(Mixer selected for track 1)
(Volume selected for track 1)
(Automation control dot placed at beat 113)
(Automation control dot placed at beat 159 and moved to bottom)
Automating EQ changes
EQ Changes are similar to track volume changes except that you must use a plug-in. To add an EQ and automate it for a track, you must click the devices circular button on the left hand side of the screen, just under the triangle. Expand "Audio Effects" and click-and-drag the "EQ Three" from there into the track. A control for the EQ will appear in the bottom area. For that track, click under the track name (like for the volume) but instead of "Mixer", select "EQ Three." Under that you have several options. If you want to gradually change the EQ, use GainLo, GainMid or GainHi and use the same technique as audio volume for setting the dots on the red line. In my example, I use LowOn so that I can simple turn the bass off and on for the track. You'll see in the screenshot that the low line is where there is no bass and where it shoots straight up is where the bass turns on. This creates the effect during the mix of having no kick as the new song comes in.
(The devices tree and EQ Three highlighted)
(Automating LowOn for track 2)
Repeat until finished
Keep adding tracks and dropping new songs in, following the steps above until you have completed your mix. If you run into mixing problems, try using different songs and above all, always make sure your warp-sync is set correctly at the beginning of every single song you use. It's ok if you have to make little tweaks that make the end of the song a little off for the sake of a tight-sounding mix, but if you try to mess with the beginnings of the songs, you may end up having lots of problems several songs later down in your mix due to a cumulative effect.
repeat @ create new track until mix is finished
Related Articles
How to make custom mp3 ringtones - includes info on mp3 conversion and editing which can be applied to ableton mixes.
Stumble It!
Hell Yeah! Thank you for having this on your site. It is extremely helpful in mixing with Ableton. I am currently making a mix with Ableton, so I know I'll be hitting you up for advice while using this format.
So, I got my dots, why is ableton not going along with my dots. (volume is not getting quieter). do i still need to go into eq 3? can't i just use volume?
It's hard to say without being able to see your project, but if you have Mixer and Track Volume selected, you should be able to see the number in the box below the On/Off (green) button for your track change as the line changes. If you want volume to affect the whole mix, you'd have to do it down in the Master track on the bottom.
Yeah hi!!! I am using ableton to mix, but i noticed that the songs im play in ableton sounds a bit dead unlike if I play them in itunes for example. It isnt volume.. i think it is part of mastering the entire mix, dunno exactly. Somehow the mp3 songs sound fresher in itunes, but sound a bit dimmer when i play them in ableton. Can u help?
nice post, very helpful, thx!
Thanks for this post!
I would like to know how to separate each audio track in a audio out! Can I put it in phones?
Thanks!
How do you save the whole mix to mp3 when you are finished?
Shawn - Yes, you can. You select the area you want to save, or go to Edit->Select All, and then go to File->Render to Disk. This will write a WAV/AIFF file of the mix which you can then easily convert to an MP3.
hi there
really helpful stuff. one thing, when i use warp on mp3 from itunes it messes up the sound quite a lot. someone told me to use wav files. what do u suggest? also can one make a wav file out of an mp3 anyway *(does it make sense to?)
nick
thanks for this post ! its really help me to understand how to mix 2 or more different songs together..
But, when I try to render 3 songs together (wav format)..its takes a lot of space of my Hard drive..its about 100,000 kb..is there any trick to overcome this ?? because I plan to mix approximately 10 songs..
thanks in advance Robert
Nick - Make sure your warp mode is set to "Complex" and that you are using high bitrate mp3s (256kbps and up). If you continue to have problems with the sound, I would check the CPU usage up on the upper right hand corner of the screen to see that it's not over 20%. I use mp3s with no problems at all, although I know that earlier versions of Live 5 were a little buggy with them.
Sonny - Files in WAV format will always be very large. For 16 bit, 44khz WAV files it's about 10MB/minute. Compare that to 256kbps MP3 which runs about 2MB/minute. The easy thing to do is encode them MP3 (you can do this by installing Lame MP3 encoder and LameDropXP or RazorLame or any other front end). There are some relevant mp3 and audio links in my article How to make custom ringtones
Cheers mate. I've been looking for a tutorial that is straight forward and lets you get involved . Nice one!!! .... I can see myself losing a lot of free time now...
hi mate nice tutorial just have one issue on my able ton when i drag a song in i only see a colour in the arranger
i dont see the waveform of it ( th zigzag blue lines showing the track)
can you help please?
thanks
Imy - Click on the up/down arrow beside the word "1 Audio" or whichever track it is. That expands the display to show the waveform.
Hey Robert. Just passing by to thank you a lot for your efforts in creating this very nicely made tutorial. This is what I exactely needed to get myself started with ableton to create mixes. Wish there would be more tutorials like this around, especially from the companies that create these music softwares. Keep up the good work! :D
Robert, very helpful indeed! Does any one know about any tutorial in mixing up LIVE & without CUE function, which would lead to, basically, guessing! But still :)
where do i get Ableton Live from or were do i download it?
You must purchase it. It's available at most pro-audio stores or you can order from online stores.
this is a great how to page. i've seen many other pages that only confused me, but yours are much, much better. not just better, it's great! terima kasih!
hey thank you so much for this, it was easy to read and very helpful .... you rock!
Thanks Robert, great tutorial.
Is this the best way for djing live because there is a quite a bit of preparation involved for each track, i can't imagine doing this on the fly.
This is great. but what about big bpm jumps?
etc. a song that is 120 bpm then mixing a track that is 100 bpm. I can do this by bringing the master tempo up in session view. but I want the consistency of arraignment view for a mix cd?
any advice? without tracks sounding slow or too fast due to bpm jumps..?
The standard is to not deviate more than 10bpm between all songs on a mix otherwise they either sound strange or the mix changes tempo too much. Try making a few different mixes that suit the tracks to each other better.
Very good, simple tutorial - written in plain English and easy to comprehend! Nice one. I have only been using Ableton for a couple of months, am getting on pretty well with it. Reading this article has been very reasurring that I have been doing things productively enough :)
Be good to know if you follow this up with any more in the future - and if you get stuck on anything give me a shout and if I can help I will! Always good to trade knowledge.
Atephoald.
Firstly thanks for a very informative and helpful article Robert. I'm at the very early stages of live use and am having difficulty with the Breakpoints. I can't get them to create smooth transitions from one point to the next. They just snap and will only allow the envelope horizonatal transitions. I'm sure this is a very fundamental problem that is no doubt easily fixed. Any assistance would be much appreciated. Cheers.
Thanks very much for this great tute Robert. I have been trying (largely unsuccessfully) to make mix cds using Wavelab, Sound Forge and DJ software like Traktor, but this demonstrates that Ableton can do exactly what I need.
Brilliant.
umm. okay how or where do i download this program? does it cost money? and can you take bits and pieces from each song and play them right after another?
But if I want to do a dj-mix set that starts with songs in 90 bpms than changes into faster songs like 100 bmp and than a couple of songs later speed up to 120 bpm songs?! Can Ableton Live just do the same BPM? or can it change bpm over time like a real dj set?
What if I want to do a dj mix set CD (mixtape) that changes in BPM? maybe start slow with a couple of songs and than speed it up later on like a real dj set?
You can automate the BPM just like you can automate the volume changes or any other parameters. I did this in the last mix I made to slowly speed up from 120 to 130bpm. I believe the parameter is just called "tempo" and its on the master channel.
Thanks for the great tutorial. I made a mix that is 22 songs but when I try to export it at sample rate 192 and bit depth 16 it says the file will be 3509mb and the most it can render is 2047mb. This means the most I can render it at is a sample rate of 96 but I don't want to lose sound quality. I read what you told Sonny about using lame and I downloaded it but I am unsure of where I use it in the saving/converting to mp3 process. Could you be more specific? Thanks.
Still cant find out how to change the bpm of 1 track once u have warped it no real point in this tuturial if ya cant change the bpm from 1 track to another ?????
hi mate, great easy to follow tutorial which i have found extremely helpful. thanks. However now that i have finished my mix i have saved the project, but am unsure how to 'render to disk'. I think the reason i am having a problem with it is that there is no tool (file, edit, help etc) bar at the top of my screen. Does anyone know why this might be and how i can resolve this problem? Can see it being straight forward but cant figure it out, thanks
I just want to thank you,
These few pages are far more help than the 300 odd that come with Ableton 5.
The instructions tell me what I can do, but not how to do it !
I have now mixed 2 tracks together, which I have not been able to do since Live 5 came out.
I had almost given up.
So once again, THANKS VERY MUCH ON MAKING IT EASY
Also , is there a way to see how long a mix is in hours and minutes ?
Hi! This is a brilliant tutorial... I've mixed a bunch of tracks together but am completely at a loss as to how to export 15 tracks all into one file (so it plays continuously a mix).
Nothing I try works - so this is a really rookie question. How the hell to do I this?!?
I believe it's called "Render" or something to that effect.
This is EXACTLY the tutorial I was looking for.
Thanks Robert!
This a great tutorial, I used this to learn Ableton, and it was veryyyy useful 10x alot
NOW FOR WHO IS WONDERING HOW TO AUTOMATICALLY change the BPM FOR A MIX CD:
it's very simple, all you have to do is right click with your mouse on the BPM (Upper left, next to TAP) then choose show automation
a timeline will appear called MASTER when u can choose the Min BPM and MAX BPM
set the min and max, then u can adjust the BPM on the timeline, the same as adjusting the BASS or the Volume
That's it!!!
ENJOY
Hey, thanks for taking the time to put this down for us! I'm sure it will be very helpful when I get my set up. What kind of hardware would you recomend to tweek the bass, mids, highs and master volume for the tracks?? I'm used to mixing on cdj 1000's through a mixer and I'm looking for something that will simulate a mixer as far as the volume controls go. cheers mate! thanks for the hard work
Excellent tutorial, got me started with minimal fuss, a page that's a credit to the www and Ableton community. thanks and keep them coming
Thanks for this - it got me starting my first mix in under an hour.