Serato and Ableton announce creative partnership

[Raiden]

DJs, remixers and producers on the forefront of technology, watch out. Serato and Ableton are happy to announce a partnership which will pave the way for the future of Digital DJing. With shared artist rosters from hip-hop (DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ Nu-Mark, A-Trak) to electronica (Paul Van Dyk, DJ Sasha), both Ableton Live and Serato Scratch Live are renowned as the premier performance platforms in clubs around the globe. While Serato's Scratch Live excels in vinyl emulation, music library control and lightning quick hands-on scratching, Ableton Live provides the tools for production, on-the-fly remixing and beat creation.

"Ableton and Serato take different approaches to modern musical performance," says Ableton CEO Gerhard Behles, "But both companies live by the philosophy that software should be straightforward, easy to use, and most importantly, reliable and stable onstage and in the studio. Ableton has never had an answer for the DJ who wants vinyl control, and rather than try to emulate what Serato do so well, we simply make sure that our products work well together."

Serato Audio Research CEO Steve West agrees. "After years of talking together, we're thrilled to be working with Ableton. It's exciting to think about what we can offer to DJs and producers: the ability to go beyond just spinning records and add a personal stamp to the music they play."

Just where this Serato and Ableton collaboration will take us has yet to be seen but one thing is clear: the worlds of DJing, remixing and production for artists worldwide have changes ahead.



About Serato

Serato Audio Research has been recognized as the market leader in time and pitch adjustment since its inception in 1999. Serato formed a product partnership with Rane Corporation in 2004 with Serato Scratch LIVE. Scratch LIVE is a revolutionary DJ product that enables DJs to control digital audio files on their computer. Serato has since expanded its reputation for excellent pro DJ products with the release of Video-SL and ITCH DJ Software in 2008.

[cnetik]

interesting. first cycling 74 now serato.

future looks promising.

[biolysis]

wow. cool. Can't wait to see what comes out of this.

[laurens]

Didn't anybody give the argument that you couldn't scratch with ableton in that post on vinyl vs digital? Now he'll get pretty close.

[contra]

interesting. first cycling 74 now serato.

future looks promising.

that was my thoughts when i heard about the Max MSP integration, but now im worrying that Ableton is opening up new fronts without seeing results from previous.
They'll either make something amazing, or gets bought by pro tools...

[Lethal]

sounds promising... but tbh i think mostly a benefit from a scratch dj point of view.
if you dont scratch i cant see the overall benefit other than using the vinyl as a trigger and pretending to mix synced up waveforms
all good if you can do it all on the fly but then you might as well just use serato, if thats your aim.
obviously the prospect for effects and multiple tracks but then you can do that in ableton without the need for vinyl.
but im just being a bit cynical, it has real potential... definitely an interesting prospect, just comes down to what they do with it.

[Raiden]

I'm hoping something really fresh and creative will come from this. The Digital performance side of this needs abit more & maybe they can find the solution

[contra]

if you dont scratch i cant see the overall benefit other than using the vinyl as a trigger and pretending to mix synced up waveforms

serato is more about the engine rather than the interface. Their first product was a TDM plug, which still today offers the best results for time stretching/pitch shifting. It was the plug that was used to create "mix" cd's.
If this is implemented as Live's main time stretching tool, it will give much more potential for doing live stuff, even with tunes from completely different genres.

[cnetik]

interesting. first cycling 74 now serato.

future looks promising.

that was my thoughts when i heard about the Max MSP integration, but now im worrying that Ableton is opening up new fronts without seeing results from previous.
They'll either make something amazing, or gets bought by pro tools...

my guess is both partnership results will be seen in the next version.

regarding the serato thing in particular i would bet (among other things) on an extra view mode in live, similar to the serato program, which would then be controlled with any midi controller and/or with timecode vinyl as wished. that would compete directly with ni's solution and provide a new platform/possibility for those that already use serato. it's the obvious path. but i hope they do more.

as for cycling 74, i think most people want max/msp (or similar) integration, having a max environment integrated right in live would be sick.

[Lethal]

if you dont scratch i cant see the overall benefit other than using the vinyl as a trigger and pretending to mix synced up waveforms

serato is more about the engine rather than the interface. Their first product was a TDM plug, which still today offers the best results for time stretching/pitch shifting. It was the plug that was used to create "mix" cd's.
If this is implemented as Live's main time stretching tool, it will give much more potential for doing live stuff, even with tunes from completely different genres.

yeah but surely they are both based on granular synthesis, but probably use different algorhythms... ableton itself is already extremely powerful with timestretching so it would be interesting to really test the 2 out to breaking point. both softwares are extremely powerful.
you can already mix tunes from different genres at a similar speed though, especially in something like ableton, look at soulwax stuff for example.

like i said though i think it will open up the possibilities for doing more stuff on the fly, the current problem with ableton is the whole preparation thing, you cant jsut have a shedload of tunes and get stuck in.