NAMM 2010: Ableton and Serato announce The Bridge

The Bridge: it's coming, though we don't know when.
The Bridge: it's coming, though we don't know when.

PRESS RELEASE: Ableton and Serato are proud to announce The Bridge at NAMM 2010 in Anaheim, California. The Bridge spans the gap between music production and DJing, creating a natural link between Ableton Live and Serato Scratch Live/ITCH. The Bridge provides a powerful fusion of DJ and production tools, opening a world of opportunities for DJing, remixing and live performance.

The Bridge works in both directions:

Ableton to Serato

The Bridge provides Ableton Transport Control (ATC), giving DJs turntable-style control of their own multitrack productions. DJs can simply drag an Ableton Live Set onto one of the decks in Scratch Live or ITCH and use their turntables, CDJ or ITCH controller to control the transport.

Serato to Ableton

The Bridge provides the ultimate mixtape creation tool. DJs can perform mixes in Serato Scratch Live or ITCH and save them as an Ableton Live Set. This way, the DJ can still perform the mix—better than cut and pasting it together in a DAW—but also has detailed editing options.

YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/user/SeratoHQ#p/a/u/2/JizdxDfchks

Reactions to The Bridge

"For DJs who don't make beats yet, that turns into 'Hey, I can make beats in here, too.' For the guys who are beatmakers already as well as DJs, it's great because it's almost like you're DJing with multitracks. And the mixtape feature was probably the best thing I've ever seen. People are going to get really creative, I know my brain is working already, there's stuff that I'm going to do that I choose not to disclose right now because it's top secret." - DJ Jazzy Jeff

"Seeing where Ableton is at this state of technology, and all the stuff that's in there, and thinking about Ableton and Serato together is mind boggling. I know there's a lot of stuff that can happen... we're all producers, we're all DJs, your mind starts to wonder what's coming. Everybody's gonna get excited."
- Kenny Dope

"My initial reaction? I was absolutely elated. As with most DJs that are Ableton friendly, a lot of us have been utilizing Ableton's warping to quantize and straighten out records that otherwise fluctuate. Now that we have the opportunity to play with the actual files... and use them in DJ gigs and live shows, the possibilities are absolutely 100% endless. Being as I just saw [The Bridge], my mind is racing with endless ideas..." - ?uestlove

Pricing and availability for The Bridge

The Bridge is free for anyone who owns registered versions of both Serato Scratch Live/ITCH hardware and Ableton Live 8 or Suite 8.

No release date has been set yet; anyone interested can follow the progress of the project by subscribing to the Ableton newsletter: http://www.ableton.com/newsletter

For more information, visit http://www.ableton.com/thebridge

Information taken from official press release

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