A few questions about performing live.

[Haydn]

Ok, so I've been making electro/house music and I'm looking to eventually begin performing live. The thing is though, most of my biggest influences (Daft Punk, Justice, MSTRKRFT, etc.) all seem to be DJ's and perform live with turntables. This is a problem for me as I know nothing about DJing, doing all that beatmatching stuff, etc.

A few days ago I saw Felix Cartal live and it seemed to me that he wasn't using turntables and was just using an M-Audio UC-33 Midi Control Surface (Which, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, basically just has a bunch of knobs, buttons and sliders).

Assuming my hunch was correct and that he was just using the UC-33, how would I set up a live environment on my laptop for performing just with this thing? I want to be able to do all the same things as DJ's do (controlling effects in real time, mixing and matching tracks, etc.) with the UC-33, without having to buy turntables and go through the process of learning how to use them.

Thanks a lot.

[Stab Frenzy]

Click here.

[RobotHeroes]

If you are going to dj then of course you have to learn to beatmatch, mix, eq and put together a set. You don't have to buy turntables and fx units unless you want to. I use Serato Scratch with turntables but for the times the tables get left at home I just use a trigger finger.

Like stab pointed to, ableton live gets used a lot for dj'ing. Here is one of their official video's that gives an overview of it for dj'ing.

Ableton Live: For Djs

Turntables aren't hard to use and these days I don't see an awful lot of people getting into them. These days most dj apps support midi devices like Serato and Traktor.

Most likely you will go with Ableton Live but that's entirely up to you and what you want. Serato might put you off because it's so basic. Traktor might be a better choice but Ableton def gets lots of use these days. Look around, watch vids and try demo's if you can.

Good luck.

[Haydn]

Awesome, that's exactly what I'm looking for. I know I'm going to have to learn to beatmatch and put together a set, I just didn't want to have to buy turntables and learn how to beatmatch on those, but Ableton Live looks perfect.

Thanks again!

[RobotHeroes]

I just remembered this.

How to DJ with Ableton Live

Ableton Live actually has a session tutorial in it but that one might help too.