The crossfader
Seven crossfader curves
A blend and a cut want opposite things from the same control, so the curve is yours to pick. The set includes one modelled on the contour Pioneer ships at the max-sharp detent, and one on a battle fader that holds unity until it is a hundredth of the way from the centre.
There is a reverse toggle for scratch hands, and the whole thing, position, curve, reverse, is state the engine carries, so a saved set opens with the fader you were playing on.
- Equal power
- Both sides at about 0.707 at centre: a constant-power sum, so no dip when you blend two correlated tracks.
- Linear
- Both sides at 0.5 at centre. The classic studio mix curve: a slight perceived dip, a smoother level handoff.
- Sharp
- The "hamster" curve, unity until close to the centre, then an instant cutoff. A hard switch.
- Fast cut
- Unity until a set distance before centre, then a ramp to zero over the remainder.
- Slow cut
- Flattened so a side holds near unity well past where the others have started to fall.
- Pioneer
- The contour shipped on the DJM-V10 and DJM-A9 at the max-sharp detent: a moderate S-curve with a flat top.
- Scratch
- Battle and Innofader style: unity until the fader is within one percent of the centre.
One gesture, three events
Quantised launch
So press the drop and the engine works out where the next bar boundary falls, then schedules three things against it: a vinyl-brake ramp timed so it finishes on the bar, a master duck at the drop point that ramps back over one beat, and the next scene, quantised to the bar.
All three land together on the bar. The engine's own comment in the source puts it plainly: what matters is that the drop fires on the beat rather than at the moment your finger hit the pad.
on press
find the next bar boundary
↳ brake ramp, finishing on the bar
↳ master duck at the drop, one beat back up
↳ next scene, quantised to the bar
all three land together
Sixteen cue points per deck. Quick FX latch to high-pass, low-pass, echo and reverse.
LiveSet · DJ controls
The DJ controls
A deck in LiveSet holds a full project, so you can open it up and change it while it plays. On top of that sits the mixer, the cues, the loops and the performance effects a working techno DJ reaches for.
The decks
Four decks, each still editable
Load up to four decks, A to D. Where a CDJ gives you a frozen file, a LiveSet deck is the living project, patterns, scenes, instruments and effects, so you can change what is playing, and where the playhead sits is the smaller part of that.
Four decks, one clock
deck A · full editable project
deck B · full editable project
deck C · full editable project
deck D · full editable project
↳ through one DJ mixer
The mixer
The channel strip
Each deck runs through its own strip, into a crossfader built for scratch and blend alike.
Gain and kill EQ
Per-channel gain into a three-band kill EQ, so a band drops all the way out when you cut it.
Bipolar filter
One filter knob that sweeps low-pass below centre and high-pass above, with resonance to sharpen the edge.
Fader and cue
A channel fader and a cue, or PFL, bus so you line up the next deck in your headphones before it hits the room.
Crossfader
Seven curves, from equal-power blends to a battle-fader cut, plus a reverse toggle for scratch hands.
Cues, loops and tempo
The working tools that let two decks meet and hold together.
Hot cues
Sixteen cue points per deck, drop them and jump between them. Projects saved with eight still load.
Loops
Set a loop in and out, double or halve its length, snap a beat-aligned auto-loop, or roll a momentary loop.
Tempo tools
Master-tempo and key-lock through WSOLA, BPM sync, nudge, slip and beat-jump keep two decks in step.
Ableton Link
Lock the tempo to anything else on the network over Ableton Link and start together.
Performance FX
Performance effects
The transitions live as gestures, hit one and it fires in time.
Echo throw
Throw a trailing echo off the end of a phrase and pull it back.
Reverb freeze
Hold a tail open into a wash and drop back to dry.
Beat-repeat
Repeat a slice from a quarter-note down to a thirty-second for a stutter build.
Tape-stop
Slow the deck to a halt like a hand on the reel.
Stutter-gate
An accelerating gate that tightens into a buildup.
Riser
A one-touch rise into the drop.
Censor
Reverse-play under the mix and rejoin in time, on the beat.
Vinyl-scratch
A scratch gesture over the running deck.
Where it stands
What it does by ear, and what it does not display
There is no automatic key detection and no harmonic-mixing display, so you mix by ear, with no Camelot readout. Decks that stream a full track carry the transport and the mixer. Cue points, loops and warp are for the decks you build from parts. On the deck itself the waveform is a compact strip, with no jog or platter for hand nudging, you nudge from the controller or the keyboard. And the beatgrid is set in Compose and never on the Perform deck, so gridding is preparation work instead of something you do with the room waiting.