As a long time music producer who began looking at alternatives to Ableton for digital DJing, I came across DJTechTools.com about 6 months ago and instantly became a fan. While Ableton is great for many reasons, you will definitely felt it’s limitations after building a dj set with over 300 tracks. Even on a small scale Ableton is limited as a DJ tool because it lacks cue points, decodes all MP3s into WAV files, and requires a lot of tedious warping.
After reading up about alternatives on DJTechTools.com, I decided on Traktor because it sounds great, has awesome effects and integrates perfectly with the X1. The downside of Traktor however is Beat Gridding, which is only slightly less tedious than Ableton Warping. After more research I came across Deckadance, an often-overlooked DJ application for Mac and PC from Image Line (the makers of FL Studio)In this article we will look at the strengths and weakness of this program and see how far its come in 3 years of development.
5 REASONS TO CHECK OUT DECKADANCE
1. NO TRACK PREP REQUIRED
Yes, you read that right. Can you imagine getting a track and being able to use it moments after putting it on your laptop? It makes DJing fun again, you can throw down a set easily, test out new material, and avoid carpal tunnel by not having to do all the tedious prep that many of the other applications require. (Editor’s notes, Traktor’s Auto gridding functions perform equally well although it takes longer to analyze each track)
2. DOWNBEAT BUTTON
When loading a track into the deck, the software engine automatically places markers in front of the peaks. The analysis is usually pretty right on – if not, it’s actually effortless to modify the markers or do it in real time. This might sound contradictory to Reason #1, but it’s not – try it out and you’ll see.
Have you ever played a track that had a long break and then the kick comes in off what should be the 1-count? It’s a little early or late? The Downbeat Button lets the DJ specify which beat is the downbeat on the fly – which makes mixing tracks together in time and beat matching so much easier.
3. STANDALONE or VST
I use DD as a VST inside Ableton, where there are racks set up linked to smart knobs on a Native Instruments X1. This is a very stable setup and I’ve had no problems to date. It’s a little tricky to get the routing setup so you can cue, so to save time here’s how you do it:
Channel 1: DeckaDance plug in
Channel 2: Deck A Input
Channel 3: Deck B Input
Channel 4: Sampler input
Channel 5: Monitor Input
Channel 6: VST outputs
Channel 7: Deck Record – used to record my mixes (instead of the built in feature in DD)
All channels except 5 are routed into Channel 7.
4. SOUND QUALITY
DD sounds great! I have many interfaces – Alesis Multimix, Apogee Duet, Audio 2 DJ, Vestax VCM-100, Hercules RMX – and the music sounds amazing over all of these interfaces.
5. SUPPORTS MANY CONTROLLERS / MIDI MAPPING
DD comes with native support of many controllers plus it lets DJs use a variety of timecoded vinyl products. In other words, you’re not locked into any hardware. You can choose your soundcard, and choose your controller. If your controller is not supported, you can easily midi map the controller of your choosing.
AND THE NOT SO GOOD…
1. ONLY TWO DECKS
DD only provides 2 decks for DJs. This isn’t terrible given that there are 8 built in samplers. However, while the samplers do offer flexibility on some level that’s sort of overkill in a way that I personally don’t find entirely useful… or at least I am not that dexterous as a DJ! In an ideal world it would be great if it had 4 decks total and 4 samplers.
2. CANNOT SEND CLOCK TO THE MASTER WHEN USED AS A VST
The reason I raise this issue is that I use DD as a VST within Ableton. It would be a killer app if it could send clock to Ableton, which would then unleash the power of using Ableton clips on time with DD mixing. Unfortunately you can’t do that yet. I have tried various tricks like using dummy clips to trigger and control DD but it’s a clunky and unreliable setup.
So while there are some benefits to using DD as a VST, it’s not really capturing the full possibility… Then again, I don’t even know if it’s possible for a VST to control the master clock!
3. EFFECTS
The built in effects and their interface isn’t that great. For example you have to scroll through them and use and X-Y control for wet/dry/amount etc. DD can load and run VST effects. My work around is to use Ableton effects set up as smart knobs.
4. Quantize and SYNC Lock
While you can sync up the BPM and PHASE of 2 tracks there is no way to keep them always locked together like you can with Traktor. For example, if you re-start the track off beat, pressing sync a 2nd time is required to get things back in phase. Quantized beatjumps, another huge saver for djs is also missing.
5.Midi-Mapping
Midi-Mapping is supported but does not allow for any serious customization or deep features.
CONCLUSION
While not perfect, there are a lot of reasons to at least check out Deckadance. Though it’s not entirely perfect, the benefits of not having to beat grid or warp, the ability to be spontaneous, that it runs inside Ableton, and is a lot of fun to play make this my digital DJ app of choice. I also think Image Line is really on the right track – with some tweaks DD has the potential be a serious contender in the digital dj market.
About The Author:
Contributing writer, Manish Sehgal, has released a number of records in the mid 90s as Essa 3, Submerge, Acronym City, En Guy, and City of God. Manish is Co-Founder of Nov8rix Inc, which helps artists get their own custom iPhone and iPad apps, and The RTE Group, an artist management company and booking agency. Manish also DJs as Loopscious, download a free electro-house mix here www.loopscious.com.
REGRET BUYING…
It’s one thing to buy a software and have troubles working through it, but to watch forums hoping for insight and some back and forth from admins on issues only to see myself and others that have had problems eventually start to be ignored because they can’t be easily figured it out is just bad. I even escalated it to their support ticket channel only to have to argue my point. What did I ask for that was so unreasonable that my position was challenged? Give my money back or put me in contact with somebody willing to help me to get DD working. Anyways I give up, keep your money, I’ll be deleting your software. I was initially happy, so much so I got a friend to buy it (he doesn’t use it anymore either and I think I owe him dinner). Then issues started mounting and updates were only making matters worse or presenting new issues. My MBP is super fast and runs way more complicated/demanding software so its not the problem. If you need reliable software, especially if you have a Mac, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for cheap glitchy crap for your kid to mess around with to build DJ ‘skills” and patience, go nuts! If you’re looking for customer service on anything beyond the “Is it plugged in?” realm, not happening here- at least for me!
you can constantly sync. either right-click the sync button (which keeps it in sync even if you speed/slow the other track) or, when you play the track or restart it, instead of left-clicking the play button, right-click, it automatically syncs it. but i see everything else your saying (though i don’t know much about midi controllers) 🙂
how do i get music from my media to deckadance
I bought Deckadance when it first came out, and followed their development for about 2 years. I did like it very much, and used it with a Hercules RMX. However, Image-Line always took FOREVER to update stuff, and they did so in a manner that wasn’t cool. The forum community continually suggested ideas and complained about bugs and stuff that didn’t work as intended (a clear effect of the software developers not being DJs at all). But the functionalities they added to the software were always towards trying to be more competitive, a.k.a. trying to get attention vs. actually fixing stuff.
Not only that, but they failed to provide proper support in their forum, which was the main communication channel with them. They ignored questions and complaints.
The beatmatching functionality was rather poor, but mixing by ear was nice. The effects absolutely sucked, but the re-looper was pretty cool – though after a while it was boring. VST support is not that good, I’ve had sessions crash entirely because DD suddenly decided it didn’t like a certain plug-in half an hour after loading it!
Also, DD can load VST instruments, so there is potential for a jamming session where someone plays keyboards over music. I did this once live and it was working really well – until the player used the pitch wheel on the keyboard and this magically affected the pitch of Deck A. It turns out this involuntary link is hard-coded and can’t be fixed!
Poor support, poor features and slow development were the elements that made me look elsewhere. I had already used Traktor a while back, so I got the S4 and now there is NOTHING that will ever make me go away from Traktor. It’s simply perfect.
10% off instantly, directly link provided by Image-Line:
https://support.image-line.com/jshop/shop.php?offer=Default&promo=BFDAJHE484
im not sure if i want to use ableton with dd. im not sure if the benefits are there.
can i play a live drum beat or synth of whatever in ableton over a track being player in dd? or crossfade into something like that or a clip in ableton?
does that make any sense.. haha
[quote comment=”37641″]not gonna lie, but if you did your research before becoming a dj you would know that the 3 program to use for DJing is traktor, serato and ableton. if you have to make an article deckadance to tell the reader how much it sucks…..than why write the article……decadance, mixvibes, and other “no name” digi decks are still under the radar cuz they suck, dont have a deticated soundcard which in the end makes it hard to use timecode on any of these crappy dj systems………..stick with serato, ableton and traktor and straight up vinyl if you really want to become a sucessful DJ.[/quote]
The article isn’t about how much Deckadance sucks, it’s about the writer’s experience with it and Ableton and how they compare and contrast. I’m currently designing a live preformace rig and a DJ software that has plug-in capabilities is what I need. So now that I know one exists, I’m gonna investigate further. I dislike the effects in Traktor and prefer 3rd party eq plug-ins that I use in the studio for my live rig. If I can integrate them without having to use Ableton or Logic, in a reliable manner, I’m going for it.
honestly i still am still a die hard user of DD have been for about 3 years. It feel so much more fluid the traktor. The Autogrid feature is not i repeat not as on point as deckadance and for me going from vinyl to cd to laptop is more organic using DD. My only problem is my stanton SCS3 controllers doesn’t provide the awesome feedback like traktor does and i had to do lots of midi manipulation to get a good preset going. Haven’t tried it as a vst yet. But on my underpowered 1gb of memory laptop this puppy doesn’t skip a beat and im using scratch2 head unit with no delay either.
i’m one of those old school djs who grew up with vinyl and couldn’t manage the switch to digital. what always threw me was the lack of visual – you can see the music on a record, spot the drops etc.
so i quit, until last month, when a friend showed me decadance. the way it colours the waveforms is perfect. i can see the music again. so after a 7 year break, i’m mixing. great.
the beat sync function of dd failed on a lot of the tunes i was playing with, but i’m used to listening to beat match, and that worked fine. there are a couple of nudge buttons, which are analogous to holding the deck spindle back or pushing it forwards, so i can mix almost as if with vinyl. must go and get a control surface now.
on the setup we had, we routed FL and FR to channel 1 on the mixer, and RR and RL to channel 2, so didn’t use any software crossfades or eq.
I was really happy to find this article.
I have been using ableton for over a year and making tons of crazy tunes (most get trashed though) ..
I have also been trying to mostly straight dj with it, dropping some samples here and there.
I use an maudio ozonic,, its kind of all in one unit.
So ya, I do love ableton, but all those limitations like I read above are true, I though it was just me because I thought I was missing some controls r something.
I will tell you that for producing shit its killer.
But for trying to mix a couple of tunes, and map it to a keyboard – warping all that – it takes up alot of my time.
I kind of envy some of my buddies that just play tracks, some they never even heard before just bamm… in traktor.
Sometimes I wonder if I am loosing to much time trying to dj in live, and also, no matter how much I practice and stuff I always seem to hit something wrong in ableton, or I will forget that I had just recoreded something in the arrangment and then hit play again and bamm.. I am in yesterdays mix… shit.
I don’t know, one thing is having to many options can lead to indecision…. at least for me.
i might pick up a xsession and try out tork as it comes with it… or traktor.
I do love ableton though, part of me just says to stick with it and work out my flow better and all that…
but life is short and I am kind of lazy to warp tracks, I live to just pull them out as I go and I do but, you know.
I learned alot from your posts …
If you want to learn something from me !! Get out an play out ! don’t get lost in the details.
Its great to use as a perfomance software too with FL Studio: Here is my Vid of it!!!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts4im9borgI
[quote comment=”37704″]It can rewire into ableton , it is way beyond other softwares.[/quote]
you know you can map audio to other software using soundflower and such, don’t you? (or the bridge if you are into serato/live) I don’t think it is beyond any other software having such basic midi maping (no midi out?????)
it just fits your needs better.
It doesn’t come as standalone software right? You’re locked into using M-Audio hardware?[/quote]
Not at the moment but that will change in 2.0
i use the xponent with a NI audio 4DJ ,it is rock solid with this soundcard. Torq rocks!!!!
i’m in the process of mapping the CDJ2000 for DD, not easy. hopefully i remember what i’m doing!
Hey, been a proud owner of both for a hot minute. Though I still stick to Ableton for my main setup, Deckadance is wonderful for scratching. Using the timecoded feature (which takes in support for all kinds of timecodes, be it serato, torq, etc) I can add various effects with ableton, such as gates, lfos, etc. Oh, and I can record scratches, and play them later in my set.
More midi customization would be nice.
[quote comment=”37704″]Torq is way better, deckadance sucks. I know i have tried this crap software. Torq has better time stretching than any of the DVS.
It can rewire into ableton , it is way beyond other softwares.
You dont believe me try it out.The only downfall Torq has is it’s browser, but that will taken care of when Torq 2.0 comes out.[/quote]
It doesn’t come as standalone software right? You’re locked into using M-Audio hardware?
Is there an alternative tool to Ableton for Traktor fans that can tighten up old tunes? I have lots of tracks that will just not beat grid.
Torq is way better, deckadance sucks. I know i have tried this crap software. Torq has better time stretching than any of the DVS.
It can rewire into ableton , it is way beyond other softwares.
You dont believe me try it out.The only downfall Torq has is it’s browser, but that will taken care of when Torq 2.0 comes out.
You don’t mentioned the feature most important for me.
Deckadance works with all soundcard and most of control vinyls availables on the market because don’t use a proprietary timecode, so it decode the timecode from control vinyls that you are using, and after a short configuration it works exactly as Traktor or Serato.
I agree with honeycutt, but I guess we should face the truth that the DJTT crew involvement with NI and it’s products is too deep and obvious, and DJTT shouldn’t be seen as an objective source.
Giving poor review to VMS4 just before S4 launch MIGHT have been truthful, even though Traktor guru complaining about bad 3rd party midi mapping is SLIGHTLY odd.
This blatant addition of comment (our products is at least as good) without proper in-depth explanation or comparison seems like a nail to the coffin of objectivity.
I understand the issue of having another program besides Serato that can be combined with Ableton better than Traktor being bad news for NI, especially since better midi integration is promised for following DD versions according to their forums.
Nevertheless, I think it would be time for DJTT crew to revise which way they want to take this site and make it also clear to us readers.
[quote post=”7222″]Can you imagine getting a track and being able to use it moments after putting it on your laptop? It makes DJing fun again, you can throw down a set easily, test out new material, and avoid carpal tunnel by not having to do all the tedious prep that many of the other applications require. (Editor’s notes, Traktor’s Auto gridding functions perform equally well although it takes longer to analyze each track) [/quote]
Oh hi, “Editor.” Nice little plug you had for NI there. Seriously, if you’re going to inject a guest column with propaganda for Native Instruments (“but our program works just as great!”) you lose some credibility as an objective news source.
Ean, if it’s you who’s the “Editor” in question, I’d ask you to consider this: you own this freaking forum and can opine for whatever product you want to. But in your own post, por favor. I use TSP myself, but your insertion kind of took me — and Manish, I’ll bet — out of the moment.
Traktor S4 Sampledeck is the Same thing as in the Deckadance Coz’ Both of them Capture next beat/bar from audio buffer and…Deckadance can do that with the best result But…..I don’t like DD coz’ Sample is manage by folder/Files not a Playlist
I use v 1.7 but It’s Still no Led feedback….(You cannot config midi out like traktor) My oppinion
Good:
Useful Sample Slot Volume+Filter+channel assign button
Loop&Leap Function(Leap = Looprool Serato
It can Be use as VST or Host VST Plug….
It can load Midi File and Play it via VSTpludin that DD host!!!
Bad:
No reverb
FX …Filter is soundQ great but It have only 2 Param/Fx = D/W+Ratee….
DD Program’s Engine … Don’t compare DD to traktor…Traktor is always best
Sampleslot is useless when U routing it into Ableton
And Most people that need sample for launching Audioclip to mix (Mixing live with alot of track ..audio files) I think they move into Live
No CD Cover(Alb album art work)
[quote comment=”37679″]”plus it lets DJs use a variety of timecoded vinyl products. In other words, you’re not locked into any hardware.”
Except RANE right??[/quote]
no rane needed, decadance can run through any mixer you want.
I’ve used a separate phono pre-amp and then run the decks straight to my audio interface and mixed internally on timecode vinyl and CDJ’s.
theres no proprietary connection required.
[quote comment=”37679″]”plus it lets DJs use a variety of timecoded vinyl products. In other words, you’re not locked into any hardware.”
Except RANE right??[/quote]
Not clear on your question – DD gives you much more freedom of controllers and timecoded products… I believe Serato locks you into RANE equipment.
“plus it lets DJs use a variety of timecoded vinyl products. In other words, you’re not locked into any hardware.”
Except RANE right??
here is the cue point clip juggling video previously mentioned.
http://www.youtube.com/MichaelOHaganMusic
Hey, Decandance just came with my
new Dj Controller DJ Tech MK2 and I’m
glad that I’m not the only one who thinks that Deckandance is right now not perfect and well-developed, but in a few years it’ll be a great alternative to Traktor..
For me Traktor Pro is still today the only one:D
But nice wrtitten article!
Best regards from Germany!
When I started playing around with Djing a year and a half ago I tried out so many applications. I found deckadance was the best besides traktor.
if your asking what this program does…..than you should not be using it, because there are better programs out there that are blowing the comp “this program” out of the water! im sry but traktor is blowing serato and mixvibes out of the water….even tho the bridge has been activated….traktor and ableton are holding hands right now!
Thanks for the replies Manish. As an Ableton user I’m quite curious to know more about DD. I also misread the Editor’s unnecessary Traktor comment as yours. It seems to me, though, that since DD&Ableton can’t fully lock, you can’t take advantage of the Ableton effects that are beat locked, as beat-repeat and such?
Traktor’s auto grid is good, if you have 4/4 song without changes. If you need to adjust the grid, it’s tick-tick-tick to the left or right, whereas in Ableton it’s much more straight forward, even if you have to do it with every effing track.
I’d like to see more in-depth article about how you use DD.
Woah completely unaware Arguru has left us. A genius that pushed the boundaries. RIP.
“The built in effects and their interface isn’t that great. For example you have to scroll through them and use and X-Y control for wet/dry/amount etc. DD can load and run VST effects. My work around is to use Ableton effects set up as smart knobs.”
How about these? 😀
http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/powered-by-guitar-rig/traktors-12/
Great article. For all its “Have nots” Deckadance is a fantastic program. It’s like comparing a swiss army knife with a ninja sword. Deckadance is a ninja sword that does what it does well and doesn’t try to do every last thing. It is well on its way to outshining every other DJ app on the market.
i agree, ableton is not a dj program, but it does things, dj programs will NEVER be able to do. that is why, the BRIDGE is a great development. producing/djing finally together..
[quote comment=”37641″] if you have to make an article deckadance to tell the reader how much it sucks…..than why write the article……decadance, mixvibes, and other “no name” digi decks are still under the radar cuz they suck, dont have a deticated soundcard which in the end makes it hard to use timecode on any of these crappy dj systems………..stick with serato, ableton and traktor and straight up vinyl if you really want to become a successful DJ.[/quote]
seems like you missed the key points of the article: I’m a fan of DD for sure, but wanted to present a balanced view.
the great thing about tech is that there is always innovation – at one point ableton didn’t exist, and final scratch was the way to go. times change. serato, ableton, and traktor may not be the “it” tools in 10 years.
in my opinion DD is a viable option to play with the “big boys” (though ableton isn’t really a DJ application, just happens to enable it amongst what it was intended to do).
mostapha – awesome tips on ableton.
…
xD
…
not gonna lie, but if you did your research before becoming a dj you would know that the 3 program to use for DJing is traktor, serato and ableton. if you have to make an article deckadance to tell the reader how much it sucks…..than why write the article……decadance, mixvibes, and other “no name” digi decks are still under the radar cuz they suck, dont have a deticated soundcard which in the end makes it hard to use timecode on any of these crappy dj systems………..stick with serato, ableton and traktor and straight up vinyl if you really want to become a sucessful DJ.
[quote post=”7222″]The Editors may have had a different experience with Traktor – I cannot answer it from their perspective. But I can say that the combination of not DD’s own auto gridding, which is usually right on or easily modified, plus the downbeat button to reset the markers on the fly (which Traktor doesn’t have) is very powerful.[/quote]
it’s pretty much deleting the grid and placing it again as the downbeat comes in (using the autogrid as reference). i have it set with 2 buttons, one of them being a shift function one
Interesting article-always great to learn a little about another program- Keep the variety coming!
[quote comment=”37632″]
Why DD as a plugin?
– Ableton smart knobs / effects
– easier to record sets
– comfortable environment to work in (if you are familiar with it)
– can use clips if you use the nudge feature
Ableton Cue Points
– as far as I know, the only way to do this is via duplicating clips and setting different start times
– if you use cue points then you need to pre-load all your tracks into a set, warp, and cut them up
– with 300 tracks that are each cut into 3-5 cue points, this gets to be enormous and wicked slow
Ableton Warping
– warping 300 tracks compared to not warping anything = ableton being tedious
Overall Ableton
– As a producer first I’m more comfortable in the Ableton environment as compared to anything else
– I didn’t mean to say that ableton can’t do things – it can do quite a lot
– I did mean to say that Ableton isn’t ideal as a DJ tool, which is why Traktor, Serato, DD and a whole host of other apps exist[/quote]
Those are good reasons to use it as a plugin, so…cool.
That is the only way to use cue points other than clicking to jump in the waveform (possibly with a modifier depending on your settings, which is hokey at best, even if you’re using a fairly long quantize setting and have yellow warp markers denoting important positions in the song.
But having to put every song/clip your’e going to play into an als-file is a myth. It leads to a LOT of problems, including the bad performance you mentioned. In addition, copying all of that data from linked files into ram and page files takes a long time, which–i believe–is why so many people object to it decoding to wav for it’s ram images and temp files.
The point is that you don’t need to do it. Figure out what you want each “deck” (aka, audio track) to look like in terms of how many clip slots, how many tracks, etc.. Then, create another set file (i call mine prep.als) that has one of these tracks instead of the number I use for live sets. Warp the file and cmd-d to create duplicates. Set your cue points, loops, color coding, whatever…if you’re picky enough, you can add in automation within the clips to do things like filter/effect sweeps that you want to repeat a lot…whatever. Then save that .als file in a directory in whatever structure you want named in some meaningful way to identify the song. Open up your live set file, use the browswer to find that .als file…and open a few levels down…you’ll see the clips. You can drag those into your set. And, if you grab the right section…the arrangement INCLUDING BLANK SKIPPED CLIP SLOTS will be available.
You can also rename those individual clips based on the song structure or whatever…and those stay with them.
It’s a bit complicated to explain, but it’s fairly simple once you actually do it once. My personal setup has every song having up to 5 ‘sections’ which may be loops, cue points, or full tracks…that are directly mapped to buttons on my controller. In addition, Each song may have up to 8 other slots that I use for various purposes. One of them that I haven’t been able to replicate in any other program is using follow actions and settings that override the master quantize setting to cut-up short sections (usually drums or vocals) to create something that incorporates some level of randomness, stays perfectly in time, ends fairly predictably, and is available at the drop of a hat. Think re-arranging the perfectly-cut 2-bar vocal sections of Bad Boy Bill’s Fast Life in a way that isn’t stagnant and changes every time. This is an older track that I can still play occasionally because it’s different from just about everyone else’s.
The 2 biggest problems with using Live as a DJ tool are these:
1) People want it to be something it is not. It is not as simple as SSL, Decadance, or even Traktor. Solutions require some level of problem solving. You will probably never be completely able to just drop an unprepared track unless you’re solid-enough at warping/prepping to do it on site while another track is playing (yes, i’ve done that).
2) Almost everyone follows a workflow stolen from Live acts (think Daft Punk or Deamau5, as much of a dick as he is) and Producers who admit they care a lot less about DJing (Felix Cartal comes to mind). There’s no reason to load a set with 300 tracks. It takes forever. It waste ram and disk space. It’s unstable. And it’s less flexible, because either everything has to be in at least 2 places and organized well, or you have to make serious choices about where things go…because 2 songs in the same “deck” will never be able to be played back to back smoothly without serious effects.
A quick note on warping…once you’ve warped and prepared a track, it’s done. That may be true now for Decadance and Traktor, but the last time I used tracktor, anything without a 100% perfect, straight tempo would eventually drift, defeating the purpose of using a beat grid in the first place. Maybe I suck at beat-gridding compared to warping, but this seems to happen to me a few times in a set in Traktor…so I gave up on it. I have never had a program (Decadance, Traktor, Ableton, or anything else) correctly auto-grid or auto-warp anything…ever. And it’s easy to see if Ableton is wrong…slightly less so in Traktor and Decadance, but that may just be differences in UI preference.
I will agree that Ableton is not ideal as a traditional DJ tool. IMHO, CDJs are. Different strokes for different folks, but the prevalence of bad information all over the internet about Live means that fewer people are going to invest the money and (more importantly) time in Live. That will have the combined effect of Live’s software development continuing to be perceived as anti-DJ (when it’s really not) and a lot of people putting out the same, boring sets they would with turntables…complete with cue point juggling and effects that a lot of people only notice when you do them wrong.
I remember Deckadance was a nice alternative for those stuck with Final Scratch 2.0 after the Native Instruments/Stanton split.
I still think it’s a very solid program for those not wanting to tie themselves up to one company’s hardware.
[quote comment=”37605″]This is certainly a better solution than using Ableton to DJ with, but I don’t see how this is any better than Traktor. The whole set up feels extremely simple and I would probably go with Numark’s Cue software before this. The only possible saving grace is if the price was under $150. Any more and you might as well get Traktor LE and upgrade to Pro.[/quote]
As with all image-line software, on the surface it looks very simple but has the capacity to go very deep. If you’re curious, I’d recommend downloading it and checking it out.
There’s nothing wrong with simplicity – especially if it gives you the freedom to be creative and have fun.
[quote comment=”37606″]This article makes a little sense, at least explaining how author uses DD with Ableton.
– If the effects are bad, why not use the ones in Ableton?[/quote]
Yes, I don’t love the DD effects, and prefer to use Ableton’s as smart knobs.
[quote comment=”37606″]- Can DD receive midi clock? I don’t see why you couldn’t use DD as slave, and have Ableton send Midi clock and have the programs synced that way.[/quote]
I think so, but that doesn’t solve the problem. Tracks you play in DD wouldn’t get locked to the incoming clock, like ableton clips are locked to it’s tempo (b/c of warping). Meaning you can send an ableton clock to DD at 130 BPM but still play a track in DD at 127, making the whole thing go off.
[quote comment=”37606″]- Using DD’s sampler is obviously complicated, so why not use Ableton for that purpose since it is a sampling/looping DAW? You could have as many channels as you wish for sampler.[/quote]
I only use the DD sampler for pre-loading some “clips” – overlay beats etc. And yes, you can just use ableton to grab anything from DD – it’s another benefit of using DD as a plugin.
[quote comment=”37606″]- Also, you can chop the tracks to as many cue points as you wish in Ableton, and using follow actions lets you play songs through normally, unless you wish to do otherwise.[/quote]
As I wrote in a comment response below, yes you can duplicate ableton clips and set various start points – mimicking cue points. But there are reasons this gets to be tedious and is not a desirable solution (for me, at least).
[quote comment=”37607″]Reasons to get it:
1. NO TRACK PREP REQUIRED
“…The downside of Traktor however is Beat Gridding, which is only slightly less tedious than Ableton Warping….”
“(Editor’s notes, Traktor’s Auto gridding functions perform equally well although it takes longer to analyze each track) ”
Is there a difference or not?
[/quote]
The Editors may have had a different experience with Traktor – I cannot answer it from their perspective. But I can say that the combination of not DD’s own auto gridding, which is usually right on or easily modified, plus the downbeat button to reset the markers on the fly (which Traktor doesn’t have) is very powerful.
[quote comment=”37607″]Another point that needs explanation:
DD can load and run VST effects. My work around is to use Ableton effects set up as smart knobs.
Would it be possible that this article was proof read and explained better how the two programs work together. The subject is interesting as DD is the only VST DJ program, but it sounds like the author uses DD even though he hates it and deep down roots for Traktor.
The anonymous comment above was mine. Thought I was logged in.[/quote]
Sorry, I see what you mean about not being clear.
Yes DD can run VST effects and does them just fine.
However, I prefer to use it as a VST inside Ableton to take advantage of smart knobs. If you don’t know what that is, do a web search and you’ll learn a lot more.
The basic concept is you can chain multiple effects to one knob using the Racks feature, so one knob can start on a delay, change to a reverb, then a flange, then a distortion, etc.
What it does is give you amazing abilities to chain effects and control them all with a nominal amount of knobs on your controller. It sounds like the effects are morphing into one another!
Finally – no, I love DD as it’s really fun, flexible, and sounds great. There are things I like about Traktor – but for now I prefer my current setup.
[quote comment=”37612″]I have to say, that your approach is interesting. But why use Decadance as a plugin?
A friend uses decadance alone, and he has no problems with it. I’ve done nights with him before, and it seems to work just fine.
But your claims about Ableton are just wrong. It /can/ do cue points, though it isn’t as straightforward as with DJ-only applications. All software will decode mp3s to wav files before final output. Ableton just does it earlier to avoid unnecessarily complicated math and possible audio artifacts from processing a compressed format. Considering how much easier it is to effect uncompressed audio, I’d imagine that more software does this than you think…and the performance lag isn’t noticeable on practice even on a slightly older macbook. And warping is not tedious. Most tracks take less than 2 minutes. Depending on how much you mangle the tracks and separate them into multiple cue slots, that preparation does take longer. But, you’ll never lose it. And you can I’ve found that you can automate a lot in Live than you can in any other DJ app without dedicated software to do it.
It is a very different and complicated interface, and it’s not for everyone. But don’t say that it can’t do things it can just because you haven’t worked with it enough to figure out how to do them.
Decadance is very straightforward, but what you get for that straightforwardness is an application that is not capable of as much as Ableton is.
I will say that I’ve been using Live since version 4 and that it’s taken me a long time to figure out a workflow that lets me do things quickly. But, now that I’ve done it, Traktor, Decadance, and Serato feel like they’re not much of an upgrade over CDJs.[/quote]
Thanks for your comment. I do have enough experience with Ableton to stand by my comments in the article. I have been producing electronic music for nearly 25 years and by far Ableton is my tool of choice.
As a DJ though it leaves a lot to be demanded – which makes sense b/c it’s not really designed exclusively to be a DJ tool.
Now to your questions
Why DD as a plugin?
– Ableton smart knobs / effects
– easier to record sets
– comfortable environment to work in (if you are familiar with it)
– can use clips if you use the nudge feature
Ableton Cue Points
– as far as I know, the only way to do this is via duplicating clips and setting different start times
– if you use cue points then you need to pre-load all your tracks into a set, warp, and cut them up
– with 300 tracks that are each cut into 3-5 cue points, this gets to be enormous and wicked slow
Ableton Warping
– warping 300 tracks compared to not warping anything = ableton being tedious
Overall Ableton
– As a producer first I’m more comfortable in the Ableton environment as compared to anything else
– I didn’t mean to say that ableton can’t do things – it can do quite a lot
– I did mean to say that Ableton isn’t ideal as a DJ tool, which is why Traktor, Serato, DD and a whole host of other apps exist
I’m glad to finally see a review of Deckadance. I have tried it out, and I think it’s a very nice program, and coming from people from my home country Belgium (actually just from the other side of town!) and at a price of 99 Euro (for the version without control vinyl input) I can’t do anything but root for these guys.
The disadvantage I see, which hasn’t been mentioned here, is its hunger for resources. When running it on a 5 year old PC (single core of 2GHZ, so not *that* bad, comparable to a modern netbook), I see it uses 80% CPU, with no music playing. Just for the interface! That’s way too much. Traktor, when playing with 3 chained effects, only uses 20 to 25% CPU.
This means that you pretty much need a modern, powerful PC, or you’ll have so little room to spare that often there will not be enough computer power left to get a stutterfree sound. And that is a shame.
[quote comment=”37616″]Personally when I was checking out DD I uninstalled it very quickly. The only reason why I did this was because DD was working ultra slow on my PC. I know that nowdays everybody has a Mac or good PC but few years ago I had 1 core 2ghz processor, 2gb RAM and good AGP graphic card and I couldn’t do much with DD. Of course I was (I am) Traktor user and while Traktor was running almost perfect DD was like 3 times slower. Traktor is even running good enought on my old IBM T43 laptop. There are for sure DJ’s who work on nettop/old laptop/poor PC and if DD developers didn’t improve resource usage they surely will be disappointed.[/quote]
I heard about these problems with previous versions – seem to have no issues running DD 1.7 on a Macbook Pro 13″ (that’s 2 years old).
[quote comment=”37601″]great article.
I have installed DD a few times to see it in action. I think its a good program, but I always find myself going back to Traktor. BeatJump is a feature I use every set, and I don’t know how I’ll get around it if its gone.[/quote]
DD has cue points that allow you to jump around as well. If you do a search on YouTube, someone automated beatjumping via dummy clips in ableton. It was cool. Not sure if it’s an application for a live show (suppose it could be for glitch) – but it illustrated the point nicely.
Curious that considering many of the points focus around the simplicity of Deckadance compared to Traktor that there are no Scratch Live/Itch comparisons, where grids are completely optional, 3-4 decks support is present and ofc Bridge which was released recently
I like those colored Waveforms. Those waveforms in Traktor would be the fuckin money shot!!
Personally when I was checking out DD I uninstalled it very quickly. The only reason why I did this was because DD was working ultra slow on my PC. I know that nowdays everybody has a Mac or good PC but few years ago I had 1 core 2ghz processor, 2gb RAM and good AGP graphic card and I couldn’t do much with DD. Of course I was (I am) Traktor user and while Traktor was running almost perfect DD was like 3 times slower. Traktor is even running good enought on my old IBM T43 laptop. There are for sure DJ’s who work on nettop/old laptop/poor PC and if DD developers didn’t improve resource usage they surely will be disappointed.
…
Preparing crowd for DD news?
😉
…
I have to say, that your approach is interesting. But why use Decadance as a plugin?
A friend uses decadance alone, and he has no problems with it. I’ve done nights with him before, and it seems to work just fine.
But your claims about Ableton are just wrong. It /can/ do cue points, though it isn’t as straightforward as with DJ-only applications. All software will decode mp3s to wav files before final output. Ableton just does it earlier to avoid unnecessarily complicated math and possible audio artifacts from processing a compressed format. Considering how much easier it is to effect uncompressed audio, I’d imagine that more software does this than you think…and the performance lag isn’t noticeable on practice even on a slightly older macbook. And warping is not tedious. Most tracks take less than 2 minutes. Depending on how much you mangle the tracks and separate them into multiple cue slots, that preparation does take longer. But, you’ll never lose it. And you can I’ve found that you can automate a lot in Live than you can in any other DJ app without dedicated software to do it.
It is a very different and complicated interface, and it’s not for everyone. But don’t say that it can’t do things it can just because you haven’t worked with it enough to figure out how to do them.
Decadance is very straightforward, but what you get for that straightforwardness is an application that is not capable of as much as Ableton is.
I will say that I’ve been using Live since version 4 and that it’s taken me a long time to figure out a workflow that lets me do things quickly. But, now that I’ve done it, Traktor, Decadance, and Serato feel like they’re not much of an upgrade over CDJs.
I have to agree! Well written..
I’m a user of Ableton Live for 2 years and of Deckadance for one year now and I have to say that THIS is really what I wanted. You don’t need the Serato Bridge to launch Ableton Live clips inside your DJ programs (Deckadance) interface. Just keep in mind that Beatmatching is very important during your training. With Deckadance inside Ableton Live you can keep up the tempo of Ableton Lives clips with the built in metronom of Live. For example: Ableton Live is runnning at 127 bpm, then your first track in Deckadance is also 127 bpm. When this playing track goes slightly off just use the nudge function of Ableton Live (while the metronome or a clip with a 4 to the floor beat of Ableton Live is on your headphone) or just pitchbend your playing track. So you can have your whole DJ set at 127 bpm, while syncing by ear to Ableton Lives clock. That is not very hard when you are an old-school DJ and you used to beatmatch your tracks by ear in the past. The downbeat button of Deckadance is a very handy feature but inside Ableton Live there is also a way to downbeat Ableton Live to your Deckadance Software. Hit the spacebar to start playing Ableton Live like you would use it as a cue-point button. The rest or when you slightly missed the first beat of your track and Ableton now runs offbeat is only simple pitchbending/nudging until it sounds good. Hmm… I think I should upload a video on youtube. It might be better to understand 😉
There already are a few videos on my channel there but I think there should be a new one. Check it out this week please. Only this week of my nice non-working holiday time is left for me 😉
Reasons to get it:
1. NO TRACK PREP REQUIRED
“…The downside of Traktor however is Beat Gridding, which is only slightly less tedious than Ableton Warping….”
“(Editor’s notes, Traktor’s Auto gridding functions perform equally well although it takes longer to analyze each track) ”
Is there a difference or not?
Another point that needs explanation:
DD can load and run VST effects. My work around is to use Ableton effects set up as smart knobs.
Would it be possible that this article was proof read and explained better how the two programs work together. The subject is interesting as DD is the only VST DJ program, but it sounds like the author uses DD even though he hates it and deep down roots for Traktor.
The anonymous comment above was mine. Thought I was logged in.
This article makes a little sense, at least explaining how author uses DD with Ableton.
– If the effects are bad, why not use the ones in Ableton?
– Can DD receive midi clock? I don’t see why you couldn’t use DD as slave, and have Ableton send Midi clock and have the programs synced that way.
– Using DD’s sampler is obviously complicated, so why not use Ableton for that purpose since it is a sampling/looping DAW? You could have as many channels as you wish for sampler.
– Also, you can chop the tracks to as many cue points as you wish in Ableton, and using follow actions lets you play songs through normally, unless you wish to do otherwise.
This is certainly a better solution than using Ableton to DJ with, but I don’t see how this is any better than Traktor. The whole set up feels extremely simple and I would probably go with Numark’s Cue software before this. The only possible saving grace is if the price was under $150. Any more and you might as well get Traktor LE and upgrade to Pro.
Used to have it as my backup in the earlyvdays of Traktor 3. Luckily, i never really used it 😉
It’s the basic midi setitings (I used a bcd3000 at the time wich was supported but still) and weak fx section that made it a secondary choice and was leventually left to gather dust.
Maybe if Arguru was still around things might have been different. Rip mate
ya it could be rocking but traktor and vdj always rocking…
Meet Djs Helpline
great article.
I have installed DD a few times to see it in action. I think its a good program, but I always find myself going back to Traktor. BeatJump is a feature I use every set, and I don’t know how I’ll get around it if its gone.
First. nice read 😀
Nice article glad to see someone comparing and contrasting other software as this is mainly a Traktor site. I would love it if I could make my own FrankenProgram that has all the good and none of the bad 😛 If only we could use Abletoon in Time with Traktor that was a built in solution that sounded great and was super easy to setup. Thanks for the read.