Syncing CDJ-2000 and Ableton Live
I love to use Ableton Live for loops and acapella snippets, all synced into a live set. With MIDI sync you can use the software with most DJ software like Traktor. Traktor got all kinds of new features over the last two years that cover a lot of the functionality from Ableton Live, so that sync has become less important and Serato has the Bridge. But like a lot of other DJs out there I prefer to use the Pioneer CDJ-2000 system. And that one doesn’t sync with Ableton Live…or does it?
A few months after I got the Pioneer CDJ-2000 I figured that it must be possible to get a tight synchronization between Ableton Live and the CDJs. I did a quick technical feasibility study which had a promising outcome. The only problem with these kinds of great Ideas is, that they also require a great amount of time.
Lucky as I am I work for an awesome employer called TASS technology solutions that gives me a lot of freedom for technical ideas and challenges. TASS also works very close with all mayor education institutes in the Netherlands and provides their graduate students with challenging assignments that people like me make up.
Ömer Soy, a grad student at TASS technology solutions, has been working on my assignment to realize a stable MIDI Sync between Ableton Live and multiple CDJ-2000s. The results are looking promising and I will be uploading a video, demonstrating the sync, soon.
Sync Ableton live and Pioneer CDJ-2000
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Comments (6)
STEREOSOULZ
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Hi I just wanted to say that i admire your work and i can t wait for u guys to release this .We were trying desperately to find a way to sync ableton with our pioneers cdj 2000 nexus.Just like u ,we like to use samples loops acapellas…..sounds etc…..live all in the same universal tempo. We would buy it if u guys r gonna sell it cause we know the amount of work involved in this .Let me know as soon as possible when r u gonna release this.Thank u and good luck.Stay in touch
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Aidan
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Can you let me know your progress on this?
Thanks :)
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Patrice Sauve
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Please hurry if pioneer doesn’t fix this and you guys cant I will have to ditch the cdj pioneer system. After watching Funkanomics I was blown away at how they interacted so easily with serato and ableton. I wish you well and keep me posted… very excited.
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Alex Godbehere
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I managed to get this working from a CDJ900 a while ago. If anyone is interested, hit me up at alex.godbehere@gmail.com (includes the author – I could send over my code). The sync isn’t 100% tight, and a problem arises when two decks are running simultaneously; however it’s nothing a bit of code couldn’t fix.
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Martijn
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Hi Alex,
For now we use cross vibes with a video plug in, to get some information to do some show control. But
we are looking for a similar way as you to use the pro link protocol to get some accurate information out off the CDJ’s.
So I am very interested in your work, to see if we can get a good sync signal out of the cdj’s, I hope you will share your work with me.
Kind Regards, Martijn Westhof
Sorry for the lauzy English but we are dutch.
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Nick Summers
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Hi, could you please send me the link to the video syncing Ableton to Nexus DJM 2000’s?
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