Ableton and Serato partnership imminent

Ableton and Serato are set to lift the veil on a major partnership on January 14th, the first day of the NAMM 2010 show, though few details have been released about the form that the partnership will take. It’s great news for digital DJ’s and music producers alike however, and speculation is now rife over what it could all mean. Never shy of joining in with a little speculation, here’s our best educated guess at what we might see in less than a week’s time.

Without doubt both Ableton Live and Serato will be running on one laptop (yes, I know, specialist subject the bleedin’ obvious), so instantly are we looking at perhaps a Serato DJ GUI embedded into the Live GUI too? An alternative would be just the two programs running together with a new communication protocol and a mini-preview window in each alternate GUI?

As for the actual software versions, a realistic guess would be a bespoke Itch from Serato alongside Ableton throwing in its recently launched Live Intro. Or, how about the appearance of Serato SL2 (a next incarnation of SL1 - Scratch Live)?

On the audio interface side (USB is assured), the Serato program needs dedicated hardware to run, usually in the form of the control unit itself which suggests a physical modification, or an adapted overlay to an existing Serato controller (Vestax, Numark anyone?). Ooh.. maybe an ‘all-new’ controller specific to the Ableton and Serato collaboration? Quick nurse, get me a towel…

And what of any software hopes and expectations? Perhaps we will see:

• Live style beatgrids with variable BPM applied to Itch software - similar to tempo anchors in M-Audio Torq
• A two way communication on warp marker technology
• The use of Live’s VST plug-ins along with a handshake Re-Wire potential which could give the Serato DJ access to a massive armory of effects and sound textures
• Use platter (turntable) control to scratch clips within Live
• Crossfader assignment to fade out or quickly cut between clips, even with an adjustment to cued trigger points along the timeline
• A customisable virtual work area to optimise use for different types of DJ (eg: those into scratching, breaks and beats and those following a more ’smooth’ production oriented workflow).
• Scratching clips but applying speed up/slow down timestretching

Both partners are also pointing to some exciting events, though unfortunately for us UK dwellers, they’re all Stateside to coincide with NAMM. They include a street based throwdown betwix Serato and Ableton artists in NAMM hometwn Anaheim, CA, and a Get Down party in the same city. It sounds a hoot, and I’m sure there’ll be YouTube video footage a-plenty come the following day(s).

Indeed, we haven’t got too long to wait but there’s already online chatter about DJ’s jumping ship from their current set up to this new team up - assuming they get it right. And why shouldn’t they? This actually has the potential to be a milestone and landmark (non) clash of the ‘digital’ titans! Ableton and Serato - watch this space and check the teaser video below..