Ableton and Serato present The Bridge

The Bridge by Ableton and Serato

When Ableton announced in October 2008 their partnership with Serato I was super excited. I’ve been producing solely in Ableton and I have also tried to DJ with Ableton, controlled by Pioneer DJM-800, but at that point it didn’t feel right, I didn’t feel comfortable with it.

Serato has been in the game of digital DJing for more than 10 years, their Serato Scratch has been a choice of several DJ’s during the years, and especially among hip hop scene, using control vinyls to control music on your laptop, has been “the” way to DJ.

While Serato has been strong name in hip hop, Native Instrument‘s Traktor has quickly risen to be the equivalent to Serato in EDM.

Personally I was expecting a product that would shake Traktor’s current unconfirmed number one place in the contest of digital DJing platforms.

Today the first result of the partnership was revealed as a product called The Bridge.

Their collabration allows DJ/artist/producer to control your Live set in Serato with control vinyls, CDs or with their ITCH controller. The other way to use the product is to use it as a mixtape creation tool. DJ on Serato and the recording can be later brought to Ableton in order to do flexible post production.

When asking for a comment from Håkon Lofthus prior to the launch, he was feeling optimistic:

I’m really excited to see what they will come up with, and if it’s a product that can evolve dj’ing more in to a artistic, innovative and spontaneous direction. For me, that’s the key.

Fellow Innotune member Thomas Sagstad had also a comment:

I don’t see my self using this product! As it would sill require me to look into a computer screen and working a mouse for track selection!

I’d prefer the CDJ 2000 + the Ableton as an EFX rack / Sample library!

I have to admit, I was expecting a lot from Ableton and Serato. Ableton has been under my magnifying glass for years and being a bit of a geek on digital DJing platforms, I was expecting a lot from the coalition.

However, now when The Bridge is finally revealed I have to try to cover for my disappointment.

The biggest question in my mind at the moment is: “is this what I awaited for 15 months?”

I already decided I’d pick up a digital platform I’m going to use from spring 2010 on, and today helped me a lot. With current features of The Bridge, I’m looking for another platform to spend my money on.

The only thing at this point keeping the hope up is the choice of words on the website: “The Bridge—the first result of the partnership announced in October 2008.”

Maybe eventually I’ll see the possibilities of the software. But now I only hope the first result is soon getting company from the second result. In this form, from my point of view, this isn’t anything for my use.

What do you think of The Bridge?

2 Responses to “Ableton and Serato present The Bridge”

1. Chantola says:

   2010/01/15 at 07:46

   prefer real vinyls/Cd’s. Call me oldskool but thats the right way to do it..I think its even too easy to play with cd’s nowadays.

   over and out –>

   Current score: 1
2. Digital DJing – modern day jungle | Innotune says:

   2010/08/22 at 18:56

   [...] the products (and if you got into the public beta, as it’s still not commercially released). Here’s a post about it at [...]

   Current score: 0