Richie Hawtin Adding Ableton to the Mix | ||
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By Steph Jorgl Audiohead 
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Richie Hawtin has been spinning and mixing records for over 20 years.
But like many who have already proven their mastery of a given art,
Hawtin recently decided to move beyond just the realm of vinyl, and into using computer-based, BPM-warping
tools — namely Ableton Live rewired into Pro Tools HD — to expand his
options for creativity.
The globe-trotting Hawtin took some time out to speak with us from Berlin and share some tips and tricks that he used to record his latest record, DE9 Transitions, and tracks for his other project Plastikman. Ableton Versus Turntable Speed Warping “I found that I can use Ableton Live to quickly try out ideas of what will work together with different loops and different sounds from different songs,” explains Hawtin. “Once I had some sort of idea, I would bring those tracks into Pro Tools using ReWire, and upgrade the sample and bit rate to 96K. I do that just to give it a little bit more clarity and have better processing on the effects and such.” So deejays don’t just rely on their BPM-warping minds these days! “Ableton Live is a great application, coming from the live performance angle,” he says. “It’s very intuitive to try out different ideas and just experiment. Most of my career, as a performer or recording artist, has always been about using technology, plugging things in, letting things run and seeing what happens. I was never a big fan of planning everything out too much. I like having lots of possibilities for accidents. And Ableton is great -you can load it up, and then just start to play around and have fun and not get lost in the program. You can actually have fun making music and seeing what works together so that’s why Ableton was perfect for outlining the basic structure of “DE9 | Transitions.” “It was also great because I could grab it on a laptop and take that laptop out with me on my performances,” he adds. “That way I could play some stuff out, mix it into Ableton, try things out and see how they worked on a crowd. So by the time I got into the studio I had a good idea already of where I was going with the album.”
Tube Trix in the DJ Mixer Everything Hawtin does gets processed first through a customized So he uses his DJ mixer in the recording process, to send in records that need to be re-encoded and, in some cases, digital files that he wants to process. “I’ll run through that to warm it up a bit,” he adds. “When you’re doing a project like this, it’s important to either retain or re-input warmth into some of the tracks, or it would just become a conglomeration of digital files. Next page: Recording Records with Pro Tools |
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