If your like me then Deck a Dance has piqued your interest. The impressive list of forward thinking features and “universal” timecode compatibility certainly makes it worth checking out. Oh and the advertising is hard to ignore as well.
Archive for February, 2008
You Can Be a Pro DJ
Many, many times I have heard people say: “gosh how did you become a professional dj? That must be so hard!” Or other djs complaining that they could never go full time because the competition is too tight. Well, I can tell you first hand that its not hard to make money, get gigs and even go pro. Naysayers might point out: “Your just lucky or you have special talent- not everyone can get the gigs you have gotten”. Nope, wrong on both accounts. I am not lucky and not even that “talented”, just terribly persistent and painfully stubborn. You see by putting yourself in the frame of mind where you can accept the possibility of easily making good money by doing something you love (sharing music with others). You have taken the first and most important step to making it happen.
Dj with a Guitar Hero Controller
Arcade buttons are cool
but taking a plastic guitar into the crowd and taping away a solo is some next level fun. In the past 5 years I have experimented with just about every piece of midi gear out there so now its time to raid the game controller closet and continue to find new ways of mixing 2 songs together. The crazy thing is how well cue point juggling techniques translated to the Rock Star guitar. It may seem like a limited controller but with 5 buttons, a 2 way strum bar and some whammy action you can do a lot with a little. I tried every guitar made for guitar hero and in the end this Rock Band edition for the PS3 works the best and offered the most flexibility. Want to try it yourself? Yes, I will be posting pre-set files and instructions soon so you can get your own air guitar button tap on.
Microwave DJs
A few months ago I wrote a piece on the term “Microwave DJ”. This negative description is used by a lot of different people to easily identify their personal interpretation of a push-play DJ. I expected the piece to be controversial but is was more misunderstood than anything else. A regular reader and fellow blogger put it best:
“I sort of took offense to the article at first, but when I saw one of your youtube videos I totally understood where you are coming from – your motivation for the article is: if you’re going to be using a laptop to dj you better be putting it to good use… I think people who don’t understand that about you will think that you’re trying to defend that traditional dj culture but you’re really advocating change in a weird way.”
Until people really get the creative potential and intention behind this new digital movement they are not going to see how its can easily co-exist with the old traditions of DJing. The German philosopher Hegel is thought to have presented the idea that everything begins as a conflict between two opposing ideas , the thesis and the antithesis and is ultimately resolved by the synthesis – the superior resolution that includes the best of both ideas. We are trying to find the synthesis around here at DJ TechTools.
Itunes Cracked and Dj Busted
Two noteworthy dj stories popped up on the BBC radar today. In the first, English drum and bass dj Grooverider was arrested on his way to a gig in Dubai. Apparently carrying any marijuana into the the United Arab Emirates qualifies as smuggling drugs and will result in a 4 year mandatory sentence. Note to self, international djing is not all champagne and limo rides to clubs overflowing with models. It also includes, among many other things, the following risks:
1) getting charged 1.4 million Euros for playing “pirated” mp3s.
2) having the Brazilian police switch off the lights, pull a world famous dj out of the dj booth and put another one in his place because the club did not pay taxes on his dj fee.
3) getting 4 years in a middle eastern prison for carrying a joint.
The Cheapskate’s Laptop Stand
All those beautiful adverts you see for controllers and music gear always show the shiny devices floating freely in a wonderland of white space and light. Once you actually get the thing home you’re faced with using it in on a real-life table filled with cables, cups of tea and other pieces of electronic junk. I like to keep my laptop front and center instead of to the side, so mixing involved a lot of leaning over a table for extended amounts of time. There had to be a better way, so I started looking around for the ultimate laptop stand.
4 Dj Sound Cards under $200 (2008)
CHECK OUT OUR DJ SOUNDCARDS UNDER $200 (2010 Version)
At this price point there should not be much of a difference right? Well, one thing we do not like around here is assumptions without any real evidence or experience to support that assumption. So, while writing a new column for Remix magazine about sound cards I took it upon my self to try and find out what separates a $100 sound card from a $800 one. After talking to all kinds of “experts” and engineers and after sifting through mountains of marketing propaganda I had a really hard time really finding any quantifiable differences. This reality is hard for us to accept in a society that places a high value on the price tag of a product. “Its $1000, so its got to be the best right?!”
Continue reading 4 Dj Sound Cards under $200 (2008)
The Sound Card Reviews are Coming
Dj tech tools is working on an extensive comparison of 4 excellent dj sound cards for under $200. We are testing their performance and have created a way for you to listen to the difference between the Numark Dj I/O, Novation NIO, Maya 44 and Indigo Dj. The video and full reviews will be posted on Friday which brings me to my other point. From here on out we are moving to a regular posting schedule. New articles come out every Monday, Wed and Friday morning with bigger reviews and tutorials published on Friday mornings. Its very tempting to get caught up in the blog rush of posting small bits every day but we want keep our focus on a few really helpful articles per week and not dilute the content. So check in on those days OR subscribe to our feed via email in the bottom of the Tool bar.
From the editors desk, on which is piled 50 sound cards-
Ean
UDG Producer: A good travel bag for the VCI-100
Even after our popular dj bag discussion, I was still searching for the perfect bag for my VCI-100 because after a few international trips I had ruined the pitch faders by not storing the VCI in a good enough bag. The guys at AMS suggested the UDG producer bag and were kind enough to send us one to check out. It looks like the perfect Dj bag for taking a VCI-100 or other small controller on planes but lets see if I ruin another set of pitch faders this summer in europe…..
The $700 Ipod for djs
The pitter-patter of excited chatter has been bouncing across cyber space about a new Dj device called the “pacemaker”. This hand-held player is essentially what everyone wished the I-Pod could do but with more realistic dj controls. Unfortunately it will set you back more than $700 and to be honest, I wonder if anyone will even enjoy using it. Most djs like twisting knobs because it taps into our male psyche in such a powerful way. I just cant see anyone really replacing knobs unless they do so with the one shape we enjoy playing with even more- the phallus. Need proof? Go to your local guitar shop.
Although the non-dj press is raving about how much they love the concept, ”An amazing gadget, this could be one of the biggest hits- Simon Perry, Digital Lifestyles” , it remains to be seen if djs will embrace it. Lately the target market of most digital dj devices seems to be squarely aimed at the bedroom consumer and weekend warriors as they correctly assume that market has the most buying power. While the economics of these designs is intelligent they fail to take into account that this group tends to look to the professional users for purchase guidance. Make a product that is good enough for the pros but cool enough that everyone wants to buy it and then you will have a truly successful offering. To their credit the creators of pacemaker have obviously put a lot of thought and intelligent design into a small package but we are curious to see who will end up using it.
Controllerism @ NAMM 2008
Here is some footage of NAMM 2008 performances by myself and our good friend DJ Moldover from controllerism.com. Moldover showed off his heavily modified Novation 25SL at the Ableton booth and then came over to check out my performance at the Vestax booth later that day. We had a great time and got a lot of very curious on-lookers most likely thinking to themselves “what the hell are these kids doing!”
