This year I DJed on Halloween. Since I had less time to deal with the children who wanted candy, I would like to not have to DJ next year.
To do this, I plan to put a skeleton in the costume I wore this year behind the DJ controller. To make the skeleton move to the beat, I plan to control a servo motor via an Arduino Leonardo. The Arduino Leonardo gets the beat information from Ableton. Ableton in turn gets its beat information via Ableton Link from DJAY Pro.
Everything seems to work except for the communication between DJAY Pro and Ableton. Ableton doesn’t seem to get any information about the right speed after one song changes. I think the problem is, that in my case the sync-Buttons are always deactivated.
As I’m going to play an 80s playlist, there will be big differences in speed between the songs.
You can see my automix settings in the attached picture (unfortunately only in German).
The goal is not to make the songs match each other in terms of their speed. Rather, each title will be played from start to finish, so that large differences in speed will be possible.
Can I do something to ensure synchronization after all?
Hi @Chq, I’m pretty sure that SYNC needs to be enabled in djay for Ableton Link to work properly. In your Automix Settings>Tempo Adjust try setting it to Sync + Tempo Blend. This smoothly adjust the currently playing song tempo to match the incoming song tempo over the Duration of the mix. Please let me know if that helps.
thank you for your answer, but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to work either. The system should ultimately work autonomously, so that I don’t have to press any sync buttons for every song so that the skeleton continues to move in time. In addition, the songs should not be adjusted to each other in terms of their speed during the transition. Unfortunately, I don’t see a solution for that yet.
Hi @Chq, I confirmed with our engineering team. Basically Ableton Link in djay works like another (invisible) deck, so if sync is disabled it won’t do anything, just like playing two tracks on Decks 1 and 2 won’t affect each other if sync is disabled.
OK. So can the requirements I have be met with djay Pro and if so, what do I have to set where so that I don’t have to do anything else while the playlist is playing?
I’m not familiar with how things work on the Ableton Live side of things. However, I think if you want Ableton Live to match the tempo of your songs being played in djay, via Ableton Link, you need to enable sync in djay and in Ableton Live.
It’s also important to understand how the Sync function in djay works and how the Master Tempo is determined. For more info on Sync in djay, please refer to this linked FAQ.
For more info on how Ableton Link works, please refer to the FAQ linked below:
There is also a YouTube video that others have found helpful.
If the above doesn’t help, then you may need to determine another workflow for your unique situation. I hope that helps!
It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work even if I import a mix created with djay Pro to use it as a basis for my project. If it really doesn’t work with djay Pro, I will evaluate the strobe LED of a JVC party box with the Arduino, to use this as a basis for the movements of the skeleton. What a pity.
Greetz Chris
Edit 1: I found an alternative solution for myself by sending the sound from djay Pro to a virtual audio input to use with the Ableton Follower. This way I can do whatever I want within Ableton and the skeleton moves accordingly.
Edit 2: Unfortunately, the Ableton Follower works absolutely crappy. I’ll probably try Waveclock next, unless someone here has a better idea.
Edit 3: Waveclock did the job, but -whoooaaah- for nearly 60€!
Link related:
Is there a way to ‘reset’ link downbeats? there are times when a transition, or a 2/4 song comes up and all of a sudden the track is ‘in link’ but offset a beat or two.
The only work around i found was to open preferences, disable link, turn it back on, and have the song skip to being correct again. This would be helpful for the loops too.
I think this is the only way of ‘resetting’ link. The idea is to have a continuous heartbeat IMO, so downbeat jumps are not supported in the protocol I think.
‘Remixing’ the track on the fly by creating some sort of break and realigning the downbeat with (e.g.) a hot cue to ‘correct’ the offset is another option.
