The basic principles of this technique will not require a rocket science degree. I know we usually just turn over the TKS file but in this case I would like to walk you through the basics so you can learn the principles yourself. I was asked the other day “why guitar hero”? The answer is simple, its a medium that the audience can relate to. Tapping on arcade buttons or keyboards may look cool and in many cases work much better but unless the audience can understand and relate to what your doing, they just wont get it. At this point just about everyone has either seen or played guitar hero so when you bust it out in the club the learning curve just got a lot shorter.
Nathan Ramella, who is known for his work on the unofficial Ableton live Python API, has come up with something that is sure to shake the very fabric scratching as we know it today. Ammobox promises to finish the transformation of the turntable from a utility device to musical instrument by converting control vinyl signal into midi like values. Using his software in conjunction with Reaktor 5 allows you to take those values and scratch multiple samples at once or scratch a stream of pre-sequenced samples layered on each top of each other. You can even quantize and record the results to quickly “scratch” in notes of a song on the fly. Imagine a scenario where you have pre sequenced a set of well known drum samples and you build a beat from scratch by layering in each sound at a time.
This will be the last update we post about the VCI-100 Special Edition on the blog. All other updates on shipping dates or purchasing the extras units will be sent out through our new email service here. That being said I have some important news for those that already purchased a VCI-100SE and those that want to purchase one.
Continue reading ‘Black VCI-100SE Update’
When Apple released its I-Phone SDK , developers around the world had a free pass to create anything they could imagine for the multi touch interface. Not surprisingly there has been a small gold rush of apps that allow you to make or manipulate tunes with the newest must have consumer gadget. Here is a short list of some of the interesting ones and not so interesting.
For those that avoid acronyms like Perez Hilton’s blog, DVS stands for Digital Vinyl System. Aka Final Scratch, Serato Scratch, Traktor Scratch, Butt Scratch, Back Scratch and anything else that ends in Scratch that may interface with a computer. Mr. Kirn of CDM has unearthed this very interesting story about our friends at NI who apparently settled a law suit in favor of the reported owners of one type of digital scratch technology. Wait a moment, I thought Riz invented that? Well apparently not according to this article in Create Digital Music:
Native Instruments acknowledges the validity of patents held by N2IT, and has now fully licensed their usage worldwide for its TRAKTOR SCRATCH digital DJ system and related products.
The patents held by N2IT relate to general principles of digital music playback using time-code records, which are being utilized in TRAKTOR SCRATCH as well as in other manufacturers’ digital DJ systems with time-code control
Native Instruments has a impressive record in the software department but their hardware products have less of a history. So when the audio 8 was released many months ago, I was speculative, and held off giving it a try due to the fact that I had already identified several good sound card options. One thing that remains elusive though, is a reasonably priced, high quality sound card that supports direct phonograph inputs. With more and more people using Ms. Pinky, Deck a Dance and tools for Ableton Live time code control, Phono inputs are a good thing to have around.
In response to the handy feedback icon you see on your left hand side of this site I will be starting a “FX Fundamentals” series and go through many different uses of FX that you can use inside Traktor or any other software. First on the list is filters, the work horse of a dj’s effects arsenal. Along with a basic overview of the different filter options, I will go into multi mapping a single knob to many parts of a filter and layering 2 filters for even more effective results. Check out the video bellow for the scoop.
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