Hardware Ableton Live

all my lecturers use mackie's m-box, it ships with a version of ableton, so they'll work well together. its cheap and easily the best option if you don't need lots of ins and outs.
some places are selling it for £170 in the UK.

midi controller wise, do you want faders? knobs? keys? m-audio make cheap controllers, they're quite flimsy, but for features : price i doubt you can do much better.

i wouldn't get anything with less than a 1Ghz/256mb ram. it depends on how many effects you'll want to run.

you can get away with any mac laptop using ableton. are you going to use hunners of midi VSTs or just a load of loops?

get the fastest processor you can afford but by the time youve got used to it and have started to Push the envelope, you be needing to upgrade anyway.

go to www.ableton.com/forums although prepare for a mac/PC war.

digidesign, the guys behind pro tools make the m-box, its worth checking out too.

Also this prevents people from throwing beer cans at you when you have your head in the laptop for 2 hours "mixing".

This is my NEW card of choice...
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/FirewireAudiophile-main.html

I currently use the discontinued Emagice A6|2.... 6 outputs so I can run a third channel into a DJ mixer for loops and weirdness. You might be able to find one for cheap.

I use the Evolution X-Session midi controller at home to make mixes and mess around, nice unit, not too expensive.

http://www.evolution.co.uk/products/evo_xsession.htm

PS. I've been beta-testing Ableton Live 5 and the new DJ/Remix features are killer.

Jeff, how tight is the auto-tempo detection? Had any tunes that it cant figure out?

Live 5 is awesome! The auto detect stuff is pretty good. The only real problem with it is that it doesn't really know where the downbeat is but you can nudge the tracks now (in any increment, determined by the quantize settings) so once you get 2 tracks lined up they stay locked pretty well. And the complex warp mode sounds a little better than any of the older ones. But it works best with dance music that has a steady beat.

I can also keep more bicycles in my studio apartment without all the vinyl!

I did a 70 minute mix for my brother-in-law this weekend, it took about 2 hours to import all the tracks, tweak beat markers, sequence it and output the file.

There is really no distinction between DJing and remixing when you're working with a tool like Live.

xpost

Although I am amazed at the progress over the past 6 months. Not sure what type of stuff your into but for me..

beatport.com, djdownloads.com, bleep.com and kompakt-mp3.net

.. all keep me well stocked on all the big releases. The fact that I can get everything distributed by Kompakt via digital download is still extremely exciting for me.

yet It is painful to look at a site like juno.co.uk or nuloop and see all the awesome "little guy" 12"s that slip through the cracks of the digital download sites.

A joke with a buddy of mine is... "hmmm do I want this $1.50 dancefloor fodder mp3 ... or a bottle of diet coke?"

stirmonster, I agree about the energy thing. For me the fix was running ableton into a DJ mixer at gigs. IMHO there is nothing better then running 3 channels from ableton into a DJ mixer.

SWEET

i didn't download the beta as when i downloaded the beta for 4 it corrupted all my sets and i wasn't really up for risking that world of pain again. but, i am immensely excited about the auto detect thing as i spend hours setting warp markers every week (boring!!). how well does it work with tracks with slightly sloppy live drumming?

multiplies "everything is everyone's fault"?

walter - if you can be bothered that would be great. try this -

http://s36.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=18OFTZSWI566Y1JK05K1GSB9PC

cutty - ha ha! that multiplies track was a warp marking nightmare.

I threw 3 mp3s in a set, didn't change any of their warpmarkers and it worked fine.

: (

it's very complicated

anybody messed with one of these?

it hits the shops here tomorrow.

have had it for an hour and despite having the most minimal manual in history, i can say without hesitation it is amazing.

I've had this on pre-order from Musician's Friend for the last few weeks. I think they are supposed to have it very soon - I hope it isn't delayed! I've been itching to get my hands on it.

Check out the video at this link. Dude literally pops it out of its box, plugs it in, and starts jamming. Amazing!

i am seriously considering ponying up for an APC and live 8, i've fucked around a bit with ableton in the past but i get the feeling that the APC would really open it up for me.

kinda excited for this: https://www.ableton.com/en/push/