Ever since I started doing my demo DJ sets on Ableton (instead of with turntables live), I've started to wonder if it might be a good idea to start DJing live with my computer, possibly as a full-fledged replacement for my tables. There are a few logistical problems that arise from this method, the most obvious being that my DJ'able CD collection isn't entirely on my computer. The second issue is that although Ableton can be used for DJing, it's not automatically set up for this and would need a fair amount of tweaking ahead of time. Finally, using a laptop live is a bit uninteresting and a little unintuitive, so I find it's best to use some sort of hardware controller to control the vast majority of functions in the program.
The solutions to the problems aren't all that complicated, but some do require some time. First off, getting my entire CD collection back on my computer would first involve fixing my external hard drive and then putting all of that music on there in WAV format. Second, the most time consuming issue is preparing all of these tracks for use in Ableton, which essentially means importing all of them into the program and adjusting various beat markers so that all of the beats line up for all of the tracks (this would take quite a long time for my over 100 tracks I like to DJ with). Thirdly, although there are plenty of control surfaces out there, finding the right one has been quite difficult, but I've finally settled on the Behringer BCR2000, which has enough knobs and buttons to be able to control virtually any parameter I would need to alter live. Here are some other products I was considering.
In the end, I'm not 100% I'm going to go this route, but the possibilities are exciting, so I'm gonna fix my hard drive and take it from there.
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