April has marked a big month for Serato. With the announcement of the SL-3 kicking it all off, Serato followed up with the official release of 1.9.0 on Monday. The dedicated fanboys and fangirls have been waiting since January and now Serato has finally served up the goods. Scratch Live 1.9 has some major changes that definitely warrant the version rollover from 1.8 to 1.9. We’ve already discussed Scratch Live 1.9 briefly during Winter NAMM 2009. I have been using 1.9 extensively throughout the beta process and am happy to report why you need to upgrade. Continue reading Serato Releases SSL 1.9.0
About 9 years ago I spent 12 months and a lot of money attending audio engineering school. Although it didn’t lead to recording bands, learning the basics of soldering has been very useful as a dj. Fortunately, you don’t need to spend $40k on an education to learn soldering, just read on after the break and we will take you through the basics. But why in the world is this important to djs? Well here are just few good thing you will be able to do:
fix a broken audio cable for nothing
build a really nice cable for $5 instead of paying $40 at the store
When something small breaks on your controller- fix it instantly
comfortably explore the exciting world of DIY midi
After a long dry spell, the Dj TechTools store finally has a few VCI-100′s back in stock. The regular ones sold out lickity split (more coming in 2 weeks) but we have 5 Arcade versions that are still up for grabs. I know they are a little pricey but seriously, you will know where that extra $300 went after playing with those buttons. Cant afford to drop $$$ on a controller right now? Then check out some more incredible photos of custom controllers after the drop.
We are living during a relatively new and exciting time in digital djing when everyone is free to use and re-configure almost any controller with any software. Enjoy it, because the market might not be like this for long. Software and Hardware companies are realizing that they need to team up and create integrated packages that work really well out of the box. Itch and the VCI-300 was the first good example of this in action. Together, that dynamic duo works very well but for anyone that wants to re-configure Itch or use the 300 with other software will run into problems. Even though the 300 is now fully supported in Traktor, its nearly impossible to get the same level of performance and integration out of MIDI that the original manufacturer achieved with HID.
Being a digital Dj has its definite advantages. The equipment is smaller, cheaper and most importantly, more powerful than conventional turntables. With today’s massive hard-drives, you have access to more music than anyone can possibly carry in vinyl form and dj software allows us to do things with the music that musicians haven’t even thought of. In these strengths also lies the biggest weakness; being so reliant on computers, the digital dj is susceptible to random crashes.
In this post, I will suggest some ways to prepare for crashes, prevent them and how to professionally handle a crash the Sullenberger Way (professionally) .
Its Friday, so rather than fill your mind with more technical stuff lets roll into the weekend with a good laugh courtesy of a great video from one of our readers. Its a home video of his 6 year old son rocking a BBQ with Traktor, Korg Nano, and the we will rock you routine. This future controllerist not only does a decent job of beat juggling but he even has groupies rocking out, making this video an instant classic!
You spend one hour digging through piles of digital tracks and finally settle on 3 gems that will work the dance floor. On your way to proudly paying for and downloading the tracks you are met with:
“One or more of the items you’ve selected for purchase are unavailable in your territory”
Dammit and that was my favorite track! A quick Google search reveals that the exact same track, in high quality, is available as a free download from a popular blog. Your left to ponder why anyone would be against you purchasing their music when its readily available through other means.There must be a way around this thing right? Yes, there is and its called using a proxy server. Read on bellow and we will show you how to bypass the territory restrictions by surfing on another persons digital passport.
Some of you may have noticed that the site has been a tad slow over the past 6 months. Well Dj TechTools has been steadlilly growing in popularity and now we have grown right out of our old server. With the profits from the expanding web store, we can now afford our very own dedicated server which is VERY fast and reliable. The switch will happen on Sunday so the site may be down for most of the night but on Monday we will be back up and running with lightening fast load times! See you then…
Only forward thinking users with gigantic imaginations would ever come up with ideas like this. The manufactures just have too much at stake go out on a limb and create a product like the Korg Kaosilator guitar. Vestax and the controller one was an interesting exception, one which never did well commercially but was a remarkable achievement in creativity.
Instead of coming from Korg, this next level toy interface comes from a user named James Haskin who has written a how to tutorial on instructables.com Check out his video bellow where he shows the machine in action.
The recession officially hit Messe this year, with a tiny dj section punctuated by wide open areas of normally precious trade show real estate. Even on Friday, the final day for industry professionals, the halls were markedly sparse with long open lanes and a few casual djs perusing. This makes sense, companies have clearly felt the hit over the past 6 months and many are trimming back big time on un-necessary expenses.
Friday only told half of the economic story though. To get the other half it was essential to go back on Saturday, when the fair opened up to the general public. In stark contrast to friday’s eery quiet, Saturday was rammed with people and loud as hell. They seeming to be carrying the general sentiment felt around the globe. “We may not have much spare money but I am not about to give up on my music passion! So screw the recession- lets go look at some cool gear.”
Amen.
If you looked carefully around the dj area there were still several new midi controllers to be found this year including the Otus Raw, Novation 25SL mk2, Rane SL3, the “next beat” and a new Akai pad. Lets take a quick look at each of them after the jump.
Rane has announced the brand new Serato Scratch Live 3 package, a long awaited update to the original SL 1 audio interface that addresses some of its common problems. Along with a new axillary input and output (which replaces a mic input) the new SL3 boasts 24 bit converters and high speed 2.0 USB.
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