hmmm, interesting sugestion.

In theory this could be possible with any touch device, from a JazzMutant Lemur to a Microsoft Surface, right?

[quote comment=""]hmmm, interesting sugestion.

In theory this could be possible with any touch device, from a JazzMutant Lemur to a Microsoft Surface, right?[/quote]

should be… i’d rather not pay the $10,000+ for a MicroSuck Surface ;)

Lemurs just seem to be getting better and better though, price, and usability wise with their newest v2 out.

[quote comment=""]In theory this could be possible with any touch device, from a JazzMutant Lemur to a Microsoft Surface, right?[/quote]

Sure could

keyboard shortcuts assigned to “snapshots” in the software do the job just fine.

Raylus,

any chance to have predefined (let’s say FX) settings, really all of it, defined to a single button? (Never tried it if Traktor can do that, MIDI translation probably does)

– Mat

[quote comment=""]keyboard shortcuts assigned to “snapshots” in the software do the job just fine.[/quote]

The problem is that i think modular enviroments like this also suffer from similar issues to that of the dj currently has. Instead of having to do 7 things to get do one thing like you would in your dj program you have to drag and drop a whole things into place and in some cases go though the tasks of creating more effects on the fly. This means that your still spending alot of times during your sets preparing stuff to play with.

If we really want an expressive instrument then every messure needs to be taken to reduce the amount of time an artists spends setting up their equipment to perform an action live. Its really its partly the limitations that you set for yourself allows you to get expressive.

Now im not completely dissing modular enviroments here, i personally thing using modular enviroments for the innitial build stage of yoursetup(at home not infront of crowd). When your working in the building stages of your setup is absolutely fantastic and allows you to really tweak out your setup in a way that you could never do otherwise.

So i personally think a mixture of modular and the more traditional ways that things were handled really allows for the most creative expression during a set.

…

We have a lot of modular “plugs” for digital djing but they are not new.
We have Ableton Live which is capable of enable/disable routing fx buses with one button and we hava also automapping.

We have to work more in our setups too. I could perform great sets only with my sp555 (with 2 fx only) and another unit (like kaoss pad or similar) linked before PA. Imagine with send/insert mixers, audio interface + flexible routing (like ableton) and so on…

I think that the problem is the poor imagine and necessities from digital djing which use another “tools” (like video, mashuping, realtime composition) are called “tricky” technics or “unreal” way.

I believe in Free Creative Humans using any Tool. All tools (wiimotes and any toy useful include) are welcome, of course.

Just my2cents.

…

But with sensomusic you could do lot of tricks..it’s a modular soft but i can be loaded as a Vsti !

like he said, snapshots hsould do the job with ease, at least the problem ean described above….

The problems/dynamics with a modular setup being so specific are A) cost B) flexibility and C) specificity. Systems like the scs3 series from stanton are the first semi-modular systems that are being made on a popular scale. How multiple modular devices from varying companies will work together is important of course. Stanton opted for a built in usb hub, which at the moment is a good solution as it is a pretty universal standard for most gear. The other thing is that by having specific buttons for specific functions you offer less flexibility, your # of permutations appliable to the sound always will decrease as you increase the specificity and definitions on each button. In many ways my biggest thing against this is actually its biggest plus. Having more time may let us do more and develop more, but having less specificity might prevent the development of new techniques that might never develop without the creative rein to as you said, (Ean) to make a wonderful mistake.specificity is good, but I feel like there are lots of control surfaces, surfacing, that make for unfeasible/limiting control over the music, given their # of available options per control. For me this is why controls like the monome, behringer and jazzmutant (and midi control in general) are so useful and successful. However I realized just now how impossible the use of the beatmasher as a sampler (the way it is in DJTT mapping) is without assigning multiple commands to a single control. So it’s definitely a good balance, but I think that good planning during a set as a dj for the future moments, help the live creativity come into play, by which I mean not last minute scrambles and then realizing genius, but because you have already planned what you are doing (a la a structure of a plan like start transitioning here) you can think of ways to twist it. So I am with Bento here. Mixture for mixing.

I Think this is a wonderful idea.

I too have been looking for ways to have “one button” solutions to a lot of my idea. But what I have found that even midi-programming something like this in my VCI-100 is very tedious and unreliable.

It would be nice to have a different option for this…

It is all good, the text, the comments. Still, look at the amount of uncreativity with people around the world. Many many won’t even open traktor (I’m sayin traktor bkz of better mapping flexibility) midi setup but instead are b**ching around saying (picture this with whiney voice)”when will the next tsi for my 8 button korg come”. Also on so many places I’ve read lines like this: “but with this controller you get a pre defined setup for traktor, ableton and many other so I think I’ll buy that one.”.
@Bento: I agree with mpetersen3, with good modular interface you can prepare “patches” and wrap them up so many controls would appear as a smaller control surface on your setup, that way you have great flexibility and still can perform live by dragging-in patches into your audio/fx/whatever path.
Bottom line, we are discussing more flexibility but not enough users will take part of it. On some other comment thread (about Traktor 4) there was a very true comment like: Commercial DJ software developers (NI/Serato) will only do so much to be able to sell copies to a vast amout of users. They care about the money.
So now it ends up with routing our audio from dj app to max-msp/ableton and then to the outside hardware units untroducing amount of problems. While technology like VST exists for xy amount of years.
Probably simplest/quick solution for “THE NEXT STEP” is to include good/modular VST hosting capability into the dj apps. What do you think?

my few cents

Traktor needs a vst plugin ability. This is crucial for the future.

@ToS Completely agree with the uncreative comment. Although DJTT seems to be a melting pot of those who got fed up with the “standard” anything. Modular is the way to go, but like you said, money is the issue, and the niche that is begging for it isn’t large enough to justify it.

i think the solution would a modular software made for dj.
I use usine more and more (spend lot of time thinking about what i’m gonna change to my patch, asking on boards and stuff). anyway i’m not to a point where i don’t need ableton live anymore (i’m not doing really a dj set like a mix of djing and live pa working with 16 bar loop)
what is great with usine ? you have low level module but you’ve also highlevel module. for example you have sampler wich are pretty ready to go, have samplelist designed for live use and so on…
The problem with most of the modular software is that they’re too low level wich mean that if you’re not software designer it’s too complicated.
I think the next level thing for dj would be a modular software designed for dj witch would have high level module like sampler with cuepoint and complex loop point and stuff and autosync stuff
this way you could make your routing, choose your effet, use 4 deck or more, have on the fly sample and anything you want
Usine is near this …

Obviously with such a modular approach I expect that I could “group” certain modules. This way I can prearrange things before I play live. The key thing with all of this is that the next generation software will need to focus on flexibility (aka modularity) while giving us increasing power to recombine things. And yes, it also means that the people that want to do stuff like this will need to think of themselves increasingly as music programmers (or they will need to find the services of music programmers).

Well, I like this modular concept – really. If Traktor is finally going to support VST-Plugins this would my choice on a secondary touch display! ;)
You should be able to create your own custom effect-presets that are already prechained objects to trigger FX very fast!

In the mean time I guess the best is to just get a nice usb hub or express card and hook up nanoPad/Kontrol’s with dedicated mappings.

I think the easiest method to introducing custom modular effects would be to design something in NI Reaktor – similar to what Exile uses (youtube him – it’s worth it). I’m thinking you could route all the separate Traktor outputs through Reaktor and then route Reaktor’s output to your soundcard as normal. You then use your controller to midi control both Traktor and Reaktor at the same time – use Trakor for dj’ing and Reaktor for all effects.

Every external audio communication between apps is introducing more lag compared to internal.
So if you are an owner of (i.e.) Traktor you kindly suggest that we GIVE more money to NI. Well that’s ok, I just happen to have 450 euros in my drawer which I was thinking about taking phonecall notes on but now It can serve for better purpose.

[quote comment="19651"]The problem is that i think modular enviroments like this also suffer from similar issues to that of the dj currently has. Instead of having to do 7 things to get do one thing like you would in your dj program you have to drag and drop a whole things into place and in some cases go though the tasks of creating more effects on the fly. This means that your still spending alot of times during your sets preparing stuff to play with.

If we really want an expressive instrument then every messure needs to be taken to reduce the amount of time an artists spends setting up their equipment to perform an action live. Its really its partly the limitations that you set for yourself allows you to get expressive.

Now im not completely dissing modular enviroments here, i personally thing using modular enviroments for the innitial build stage of yoursetup(at home not infront of crowd). When your working in the building stages of your setup is absolutely fantastic and allows you to really tweak out your setup in a way that you could never do otherwise.

So i personally think a mixture of modular and the more traditional ways that things were handled really allows for the most creative expression during a set.[/quote]
[quote comment=""]Every external audio communication between apps is introducing more lag compared to internal.
So if you are an owner of (i.e.) Traktor you kindly suggest that we GIVE more money to NI. Well that’s ok, I just happen to have 450 euros in my drawer which I was thinking about taking phonecall notes on but now It can serve for better purpose.[/quote]

I agree with that…its simply what artists choose to spend their time on. Some people choose to go the other extreme and spend more of their time on the performance/expression aspect . . .

here’s an example – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTB845xUYdU

either way its a give and take ! how much is too much? how much is enough . . .

about the only thing I love about torq is “snapshots” and the ability to use vst plugins.