The people that make Ableton Live and the people that make Serato Scratch have released a joint statement announcing they are to combine their powers to create something new and amazing. This has got many a forum buzzing with the most people of the opinion that the child of this unlikely marriage will be healthy and strong. Im reserving my judgement until I see what they come up with but I am very intreagued.
For the benefit of those that arent familar with either product...
Ableton Live is essentially a loop sequencer. You can have as many tracks as you like and can put FX on each one. So when djing with it, you can mix as many tunes together as you like, can mess with them with FX, loop bits of them up and generally have a grand old time. There are gadgets to control the software with, but its still a case of knob twiddling, button pushing and fader sliding ie its not very much like traditional djing. It does all the beat-matching (getting tunes in time) itself and has been the luddites poster boy for everything thats wrong with the new world.
Serato Scratch is a clever gadget that turns a pair of turntables into a remote control for your computer. Traditionalists love this one as it means they can steal music off the internet like everyone else but dont have to learn any new skills and can contiune to feel really clever with their manual beatmatching - Hurray!
And now for some pointless speculation....
This has caught my interest not just beacuse its 'big news' but also because the partners make such different software. Perhaps I just have no vision but this all seems a bit wierd.
How a pair of turntables is going to be usefull for Ableton users apart adding the ability to scratch tracks is beyond me. Ableton users probably cant scratch and are unlikely to buy a deck and mixer just to add a bit of wicky wicky wah to their sets.
Serato could easily bolt FX channels onto their existing software without a huge amount of trouble. Controlling FX with a turntable could be interesting but again they ought not to need Abletons help implementing it. Turntablists may well want to loop up their scratches and samples to build up new tracks and ableton would come in very handy indeed. They are of course already at it and have been for some time.
To conclude the specutation, I dont really have a fucking clue what they are going to come up with but im sure it will be lovely.
Incidentally there is a new version of Native Instrument's DJing software out, this one is called Traktor Pro. I don't have a copy yet so you will have to make do with NI's guff for the time being. When I do, i will write a review of it and Ableton Live (DDD pt2).
Please do add to my specualtion...comments are open!
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