So we’ve all heard about this collaboration and most of us have had an opinion on it. The view being that anything this cooperation will bring to bear will be something reminiscent of transport nudge control.
Well it turns out that that’s only half true.
Unveiled moments ago, the product – named “The Bridge” – has two operating modes
Firstly, as mentioned above….
Serato to Ableton
“The Bridge gives you the ultimate mixtape creation tool. Perform your mix in Scratch Live or ITCH and save it as an automated Live Set. This way, you play your mix – better than cut and pasting it together in a DAW – but you also get detailed editing options.”
Well we all saw that coming, not in least part thanks to some strategic leaks from both parties.
BUT! Like with most collaborations that seem pointless between two industry heavyweights it’s always safe to assume that there’s something quite special up their sleeves that will validate everything and this instance is no exception.
Drumroll please …..
Ableton to Serato
“The Bridge provides Ableton Transport Control (ATC), giving you turntable-style control of your own multitrack productions. Simply drag an Ableton Live Set to a deck in Scratch Live or ITCH and use your turntables, CDJ or ITCH controller to control the transport.”
If you had have told me this yesterday on the rumour mill I wouldn’t have believed it but it seems that the two companies have significant faith in the stability of the integration of their apps because this seems downright dangerous for live performance as there’s nothing quite as silent as the sounds of a club when someone’s laptop wiggs out.
That said both applications have had their share of bugs but are both pretty good at releasing patches so that matter I’m sure will iron itself out if there are a few teething issues.
Althought I’m no turntable superstar I’m keen to give this a try and find out more about the limitations. As there’s some obvious questions that come to mind straight away.
- Am I going to be able to use one midi controller to control session view on both decks?
- VST support?
- How stable is it and how quickly will it load up projects?
- Visual feedback on session view? Will I be able to see what I’m doing in live?
I’m really looking forward to scanning Youtube after the release date to see what the DMCers out there do to push this new technology to the limit. Beat juggling 8 track records? Why when I was a boy…..
