Armin Van Buuren

Trance Legend Uses Ableton Live on the Air

Dutch DJ Armin Van Buuren has made a name for himself with marathon DJ sets and goose bump-inducing progressive trance. These days he's producing original music alongside his extremely successful DJ compilations, as well as assembling highly successful radio sets and countless remixes. In the past few years, Van Buuren has increasingly relied on Ableton Live.

"My weekly radio show, "A State of Trance," is completely mixed, edited and presented in Ableton Live" says Van Buuren. "I use Live to make quick edits for my DJ sets and to try different things." In addition to making mixes, Van Buuren uses Live for production work: "I use it for every production I make. It's great for creating a fantastic groove on the fly. On my latest artist album, Shivers (Ultra Records), I used Live for the timing of some vocals. On the track "Gypsy," the vocal part from Ray Wilson wasn't in time, and I needed to show him what I wanted it to sound like. The Warp Markers helped me with this. The result ended up sounding so cool that we didn't even redo the vocal; we stuck to the chopped-up vocal in Live."

Having a tool that fits in both the studio and onstage is an important development for dance music, as Van Buuren is quick to point out: "The DJ and the producer are quickly becoming one and the same. There isn't any producer I know who can't DJ, and I don't know any DJ who doesn't make records. Live is an amazing tool for live DJing, but it's also a great tool for producing and making remixes spontaneously. I haven't been so enthusiastic about any piece of software or hardware in a long time."

For more information, check out www.arminvanbuuren.com.