In the past couple of months we decided to replace our external DJ mixer with a MIDI controller. We’ve always liked to mix externally to our laptop, always a bit wary of latency getting in the way of mixing. There were a number of reasons to finally make the switch though: reduce our footprint in the DJ booth, make lugging our equipment around easier and give more options to the mixing. And since we’re sporting a fresh MacBook Pro now we decided the latency problem would no longer be an issue.

Unlike most DJ teams, the three of us DJ together at the same time as opposed to back-to-back. We each have our own roles: mixing, effects and triggering; but we are always looking for ways to improve on our setup.

After a lot of research and discussion we finally decided on a Faderfox FT3. In the end, it was a close call between that and the (as yet unreleased) Novation Twitch. The Twitch does look like an amazing piece of kit but eventually it was the lack of four true channels that put us off.

So yesterday, having placed our order last week, we eagerly took delivery of a brand new Faderfox FT3. And after an evening of playing with it here’s the first impressions:

It’s small, but not too small. I seem to be able to control each knob and slider easily enough. It’s light as well, which is great for lugging around but maybe too light for performing steadily. We’ll see.

The faders and knobs are pretty solid. I’m really impressed with build quality so far. The crossfader is much stiffer than our DJ mixer, but I tried it out a bit and think it will be ok. Maybe I won’t be able to do the really quick cuts that I’m used to, but I can probably map a button to cut the tune in and out anyway, like a mixer transformer button. And maybe after a few weeks of use, it’ll loosen up anyway.

Faderfox have managed to pack in a lot of controls into it’s tiny package. It has a LOT of modes: EQ, effect, global, deck etc, Each time a different mode is selected, the knobs and buttons do different things, plus there’s a Shift button which effectively doubles each control. It’s gonna take a while to put a template together that we like and then get used to.

My worry with this controller was that all the knob are endless encoders so their current position is unknown. That’s normally ok for individual DJs, because they can just look at the screen and see where they’re at. But for us, Phil might be doing something completely different on screen so I can’t quickly look to see a knob position.

Faderfox’s solution, however, is really neat. When you click on a knob, it ‘resets’ it back to zero. So you know you can always get the sound back to normal by clicking the knob. Only four of the nine knobs have this feature and the default Ableton Live template just uses it for three: EQ low, mid and high.

The unit is designed as an all-in-one controller for mixing, triggering and effects and the Live template that comes bundled is set up to achieve all that. But we’ll obviously set up the template to concentrate on the mixing aspect. There’s no need for me to be triggering clips, for instance. And that is gonna take a little while to get right.

There you go then. One evening’s thoughts on our new controller. Be sure to check back again for a more in-depth review in the next month or so.

One month ago the Knob Jockeys upgraded to Live 8. We’ve been talking about it for ages, James has been chomping at the bit since it came out, and since we were still on version 6 there would be plenty of new stuff for us to get our teeth into.

We’re long term users of Ableton Live. We can’t completely remember which version we started with, back in 2001, but we’re pretty sure it was either version 1 or 2. We had a gig to play (back when we were part of Strange Angel), and we needed a decent way to turn our collection of tracks into something resembling a live show. We downloaded demos of a handful of apps that purported to offer some sort of live control over wav files and tracker files (as most of our tunes were still Fast Tracker 2 creations back then), and in the end narrowed it down to two. Whilst testing, one of them crashed, the other didn’t. That was our decision right there – we knew which one we’d rather go on stage with. The app that didn’t crash – Ableton Live.

Of course, we didn’t really have any idea how to use it. Or what it was capable of. All we knew was that it could time-stretch and compress our tunes in real-time in a way we’d only ever dreamed about. And it never crashed. Ever.

The setup we used that day was probably the strangest setup anyone will ever use for an Ableton Live gig. We cut our tracks up into sections, and assigned every single one to a key on a MIDI keyboard, and stuck labels on every key. Then, we used a Roland JP-8080 entirely as a mixer, giving each track its own channel. The only saving grace was that we had decided not to use the CV/Gate and ZX Spectrum controlled TB-303 that day. It was all very odd, but it worked. We had never used Live before, and knew of no-one else using it, and so we were just making it up as we went along. Much was the Strange Angel way, if I’m honest. But that was one of the reasons Live really showed promise – it didn’t dictate how it should be used, it was just intuitive and flexible enough to be used any way, no matter how perverse a set-up was asked of it.

Since forming the Knob Jockeys, we’ve come to know Live a lot better, but still probably use it in a pretty unorthodox way (we’ll describe our set-up in a post soon). Faithfully moving through the versions: 3, 4 and 6 (we were a bit cash-strapped so we missed out 5), the app has grown but the way you use it hasn’t had to. Ableton have worked hard to keep consistency in the user interface, and it’s really paid off. After an update, there’s never been that feeling of being lost or bewildered by new features, but instead they’ve gradually oozed out whilst you’ve carried on working and experimenting. It’s these qualities that that has allowed Live to grow from an application into a tool. Ask three graphic designers how to perform some task in Photoshop, say cutting out a foreground object and adding a shadow, and you’ll be shown three completely different but valid ways, such is the flexibility and comprehensiveness of Photoshop. Live is reaching that sort of level – ask three producers how they carry out a task, like cutting up a sample and adding a filter, and you’ll get three different answers. This is what we love about Live. Oh, and did I mention it doesn’t crash?

And so, to Live 8. The final turning point was when the Live 8 roadshow came to town, and we trekked down to our local music shop in the rain to see all the new features being demo’ed, and all the ways in which we’d never even thought to use them. A few days later, we bit the bullet and bought it. Since we’d skipped version 7, there were some obvious changes that we were expecting and would have to get used to – specifically the new style of marking up. I had actually played around with a demo a few months before, so I was prepared a little, but it still took us quite a while to get into it. That was fine – it was something that needed to change to allow for more complex operations, grooves, and so on, and an improvement in the long run. So we marked up some tunes, played with new effects, cut up samples to MIDI parts, viewed countless envelopes…

And then it crashed.

And restarted with all our work saved, retrieved from the Undo history – brilliant! And then it crashed again.

And again.

Ok, so maybe without Reason running? Maybe a plug-in issue? Ok looking better, just drag this wave into Arranger view…

Crash.

It’s fair to say that the MacBook Pro we use for playing out, and I use every day, gets quite a hammering. It is chockfull of development stuff, music apps, iTunes gumph, and it rarely gets a day off. But Live 8 isn’t crashing when we throw huge projects at it, give it loads of USB controllers, make it run Reason and a bunch of plug-ins. It crashes when we drag a file in, or move a selection, or copy and paste. And that’s why I’m worried. And nervous.

For ten years, we’ve never been nervous of using Live. And now, with four days until our next gig, we are. The installation of Snow Leopard and fresh install of Live 8.1 that I’m carrying out as I write this might fix all these, which will be great. But now that that nervousness is there, it might not go away quite so easily.