The fever is coming a little early this year. Wednesday is looking like it will be a fun day to keep an eye out as a number of interesting things may come together.
Rumor has it Ableton will be doing something special
Serato has called a Press conference for the same day
Big woopity doo right? Well, Serato rarely calls a press conference unless they have something really special to show off, so chances are high they may be introducing something big. Ableton, one the other hand has Live 8 coming out any day now so they could also have something up their sleeve. Finally, don’t forget that both of these companies announced they are working together late last year.
Perhaps tomorrow is the day when we will see just what that combo might be? Check back as Dj TechTools should have news first thing in the morning. Normally, we dont focus on dj news around here but Messe is always a fun time to jump on the hype bandwagon for a week. Care to join?
The DIY spirit is alive in the world today and now where is that more evident than here on Dj TechTools where many, many readers are busting out the old soldering iron and creating their own Dj controllers. For those without mad electrical skills, the Lemur concept offers the possibility to create your own virtual controller in just a few minutes. Sadly the hefty price tag puts it out of most people reach but fortunately, we have found a way for you to create your own touch controller for under $250!
In case you missed it, your first destination should be the modifier basics tutorial which will get you started in the world of midi modifiers. Simply put, a modifier allows you to use a single midi control for 2 or more purposes. In this example we are going learn how to create a toggle modifier. Previously I showed you how to create a shift modifier which means:
“When I hold down shift then B becomes C”
A toggle modifier simply says:
“when I push shift then B is always C until I hit shift again”
In Traktor Pro, there is no explicit command that sets a modifier to toggle, you just have to use a simple logic trick instead.
Traktor Pro currently comes in 2 flavors depending on the style of control you prefer, Traktor Scratch Pro and Traktor Pro, which offer DVS functionality or Midi Control respectively. Today NI announced 2 “light” versions of the software which offer the core functionality at a reduced price. The name of the new software, Traktor Duo and Traktor Scratch Duo, highlight the major difference. These new versions only offer 2 decks instead of 4 among other slight limitations. As is usually the case, we got our grimy hands on both months ago, and can give you some good insight on what they have to really have to offer.
Announcing our brand new “Press Play” laptop stickers, which are designed to convert your Macbook’s apple logo into a glowing play button. Mac makes some great laptops but lets face it ,all these glowing apples have made the classic icon a little cliche. Personalize your mac, controllerism style and advertise your passion- not a brand.
Available in silver, black, and white, these high quality stickers come as part of our new sticker packs, which include two additional vinyl “hard drive” stickers. There are two variants to choose from, one with the apple leaf for the cheeky types, and one without the leaf for the minimalist.
One of the users in our rapidly expanding forum has made this wonderfully fun arcade controller and shared some info on how you can do it yourself. Inspired by the Monome and Ean’s original arcade button mod, King Vitamin set upon a journey to create a unique controller for his live ableton sets. The result is a great example in DIY controllerism that you could easily adopt into your own concepts. Lets dive in and take a closer look at his controller, the mappings and how you might also do the same thing.
Recently, we received a well intentioned letter that is making the dj rounds in America. The letter urges djs to not support the new Performance Rights Act in congress because it will mean bars, clubs and restaurants may pay more money for music played and their business will suffer. This statement requires some deeper investigation, and djs deserve to know all the facts before taking a stand on an important issue that effects our fellow musicians and performers, who like us, work to scratch out a living in the arts.
We’ve received lots of great feedback from our popular series, “iTunes power tips for DJs”. Today I’m going to address a some important questions that have come out of the comments sections of Part 1 and Part 2.
Jump in, drastically twist around the track, grab their attention and pop back the groove perfectly in time. Mix in equal parts but use sparingly.
That’s the recipe for a good effect technique, something you can use quickly for a little pizzaz that will impress your colleagues and the crowd. There is a youtube video after the break that is a good example of just that kind of a trick. While many of us have been wrapped up in Traktor’s chained fx, some golden nuggets in the advanced FX may have gone un-noticed. One example is a mysterious FR.R button on the ECHO, which appears to have shown up in the latest 1.1 release but then again, I may have never noticed it. One click and you will be hooked, when combined with several other buttons it can create sounds out of thin air!
Has your DJ equipment ever stopped working and your left scratching your head wondering why? Did you drop $500 on a midi controller and still get irregular performance? Well, don’t throw in the towel just yet, chances are that it is probably a problem with the cable connecting your equipment to your computer. We have had many reported instances of gear dropping out in the forums and in particular the VCI-100. While Vestax did a great job with the quality of the VCI-100 they skimped on the quality one area, the USB cable.
Lets take a look at what goes into choosing a cable that you can rely on.
You may already know that we have a beta list which receives monthly updates of our VCI-100 mapping but I would like to point out the new dedicated mapping page that is now public and can be accessed from the top of the blog. This will be the central place to get information about and download the current beta or public version of our mappings for officially supported controllers. I bring this up because the new beta version 1_7 has several cool midi functions you may want to use on your own controllers.
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