The latest is Hack the Planet – a hackers themed night in Wellington playing Psy, House, Techno and Breaks.

I will, as usual, be spinning Psybreaks.

I’ve just built version 2.1 of the DJ Template: with a bunch of rather elegant fixes.

You can download it from http://github.com/willrjmarshall/AbletonDJTemplate/archives/master

In no particular order:

• The routing for the dummy clip FX has been changed. It is NO LONGER on Send A.
• Send A is currently unused.
• The crossfader no longer introduces distortion when in the middle position. It is now completely transparent!
• I’ve added the kick drum sample I use as a sidechain reference
• I’ve expanded the macro racks on each track so you can see where I hid the DJ Rack.

Please note: two files are missing from this template. They are intended to be missing. Please don’t email me asking about them

-Will

I’ll be playing fourth, at around 1am or so.

Come along! It’ll be awesome.

I’ve recorded a mix I did on Sunday night, which I’m pleased with.

(If this embed is broken for you as it seems to be for some people: just go to http://soundcloud.com/willrjmarshall/psybreaks-dj-set)

About five minutes ago I just committed the latest version of my DJ Template to github. You can download it from http://github.com/willrjmarshall/AbletonDJTemplate/archives/master

I have decided not to use any Max for Live or Python API devices in this template, as I feel that this would make it harder for people to use easily. You only need a copy of Live 8.1.1 , although an APC40 and the NativeKontrol template would both help.

There have been substantial changes since the first, naive version of this project: so I’m going to do a quick summary of all the new features and improvements. In no particular order:

• All the dummy clips are now on the right hand side of the crossfader, and are all grouped under Send A
• I have removed many dummy clips, and am trying to work out what I want to put in slot #2. Ideas are welcome
• Send A volume for each “deck”  is now controlled by the same fader as the mixer volume. This means that the volume will always be identical on the left and right sides of the crossfader.
• The scene launch buttons no longer launch scenes. They are now global beat-repeats, which do interesting things when you hold them down. If you are running the custom version of the NativeKontrol template, these will be momentary switches; otherwise they will be toggle switches.
• The Standard DJing Rack is now hidden inside another macro rack. This is so that there is only one macro rack on each “deck”, to avoid having to scroll the APC40′s Device Control.
• There are a number of new effects on each deck. These make use of my Phase Cancellation Splitter: which is easy to use, but might confuse first-time users. There is a video explaining how this works below.
• Sends B and C have sidechained Delay and Reverb respectively. They are sidechained to a muted 4/4 kick drum loop: so will pump regardless of what you are playing (and whether it has bass).
• The master channel has another Cancellation Splitter effects rack. I may delete this, as I never use it.
• The rightmost “cue” button on the APC40 cues a special track, that listens to the output from the Master channel. This means you can cue your overall Master output: a feature which Ableton lacks .
• The template is colour-coded in a vaguely useful fashion. These colours are designed for dark themes. Change them if you want.
• Channel 4 is labelled “loops and hits”. This is a suggestion, but it is the same as all the other channels.
• There are utility plugins with a -6dB cut on each “deck”. These are to provide additional headroom. If you are having issues with output volume,please read about headroom and digital signal clipping, and turn the gain up at the amp/sound-card/PA instead! Your audience will thank you.
• I have added the dark theme I use to the project. Here are instructions for adding the skin to Ableton.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s a blend of minimal and progressive electroish stuff. Tracks I like currently, basically. Recorded on an APC40 and LPD8.

It was fun: I’ve been getting some positive feedback on my set over the last few days, and a certain number of people wanting me to run a new event sometime in the near future.

However, I ran into one limitation I’ve not previously encountered: lack of space for my controllers in the DJ booth. At most other events I’ve set up the DJ booth myself: and have mostly been playing alongside other laptop jockeys, so have always had space for MIDI gear. This time, however, the guys running the PA were all vinyl or CDJ users: and didn’t make any space for we laptop users to set up. This meant I ended up playing from the edge of the table: somewhat uncomfortably and unable to properly see the audience.

In response to this, I’ve come up with a Plan. I don’t really want to be moving turntables and so on around – since that will inconvenience other DJs: but I am working with a friend to build a portable wooden stand that will fit neatly over a Technics 1200 or anything smaller: and have space for my APC40 and LPD8. This will also resolve the height issue I tend to have with DJ booths: I’m a reasonably tall guy, so I often find leaning down to see my screen and use my controllers ends up giving me a sore back, and makes it hard to watch the dancefloor.

I’ll post pictures of the first prototype one it’s built. Looks like it might be as soon as this Friday.

To avoid this, people working in dark environments tend to invert the default colour scheme on their computer. Instead of having dark text on a pale background, they have pale text on a dark background. This means far fewer pixels are lit up, so there is less overall light and the text stands out more. This is easier on the eyes (and frankly looks cooler).

Sadly, Ableton does not ship with any useable dark themes. There are some extras, but they’re basically just minor colour changes: and haven’t been designed for DJing use. It’s important that the key features are picked out in strong colours, so you can see what’s happening at a glance.

Thankfully, someone has written an Ableton Theme Editor, which lets you create custom themes for Ableton. You can also download other people’s themes: there are some good ones at http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=134087&p=1060306&hilit=themes#p1060306.

There is one minor limitation in Ableton’s theme engine, sadly. The default palette of colours for clips is quite bright: which works fine when the clip names are black – but is hard to read when they’re white. There are a few colours you can use that are readable, but it would be nice if Ableton added some darker clip colours for people with white-on-black themes.

The current theme I use for DJing looks like this:

I’ve found this technique incredibly helpful when building DJing effects, as it allows me to utterly mutilate/phase/beat-repeat/flange the high frequencies of a track, without affecting the bass and kick in any way. One of the limitations of classic effects is that they apply to the entire audio stream, so they can make the kick messy or otherwise cause the energy of the track to drop. Isolating the bass and leaving it untouched avoids this problem entirely.

The other cool aspect of this technique is that I can sweep DJ effects over a frequency band. I’m quite fond of starting a flanger running on the very highest frequencies of my audio stream, and slowly sweeping the high/low cutoff down, until the flanger is affecting everything except the kick. This produces a sound not unlike a classic filter sweep (Xone92 or DJM-800 style), but without changing the overall frequency footprint of the track, lowering the volume or otherwise causing grief.

Lastly, it lets you do weird glitch effects that de-sync the audio streams. The simplest way of doing this is to apply a beat-repeat to the high channel, so the melody stutters while the bassline keeps going.

The video below explains the theory behind this technique, and shows how to set it up inside Ableton in about 30 seconds. Please don’t shoot me because my signal theory is grossly oversimplified.

You can download the Ableton Rack shown in this video from http://marshall-law.co.nz/audio/boywonder/Splitter.adg.zip.

If you want to see some example DJ effects built on top of this rack, take a look on the Master channel of the latest version of my DJing Template..

Click here to view the embedded video.

Originally this was a response to the limited options for sharing Ableton Effects Racks. There is no canonical, centralised repository, and most of the available tools have extremely limited findability and accessibility. As such, we’re currently speccing out a new site: one that will hopefully be clean, elegant, simple and functional, and be able to handle pretty much any format we can throw at it (Reaktor templates, Max patches, Ableton FX racks and projects, AudioMulch configs, etc).

I’ve found another developer to work with, a rather talented fellow called Breccan, and we’ll be throwing the first draft of this together on Sunday 20th. The first set of features has been defined already, and we’ve got several nifty extras if we get time.

We’ve got backing from Ableton Tweets and Great Scott of Glitch.fm so far. I’m hoping to get some solid financial backing once we build the first beta of the site live. If you’d like to help out or donate, email me at Willrj.marshall@gmail.com.