On a cold rainy New England day, I fired up the latest vinyl control system from MixVibes known as CROSS. This is one of the newer DVS systems on the market and DJ TT decided to tap yours truly for a review. The first thing I noticed was how small the packaging was for a standard digital vinyl system. A sticker at the top however, kindly notified me that the system includes two 7 inch control records. “That explains the size” I said to my dog Walter as I opened up the box.
Have you been eyeballing some really expensive, possibly out-of-your-league gear? Ever wondered if you could actually afford a Lemur, what it would be like to use it? Try to imagine whats possible but be careful… this animal eyes you back!
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.
The quest to find a good sound card that is portable, dependable and easy on the wallet seems to never end. There are several decent options out there, many of which we already covered in our under $200 round up, but nothing really stands out as a must buy. Some of the more expensive cards try to be the all in one home studio solution offering a variety features but not really excelling at any of them.
A basic dj sound card should have:
That’s it! Make it portable, rugged, easy on the wallet and bingo you have a easy sell. Well my friends I am happy to report that the audio fire2 just about fits the bill. Lets look at its many strengths and a few of the drawbacks in closer detail.
Perhaps you’re looking for a convenient way to add a little functionality to your existing dj controller? Building your own is easy and low cost but at $60 its hard to pass up the nifty Korg Nano series for a quick controller add-on. They have 3 models that each target a different typical dj/producer scenario in a convenient footprint. The shape and size is designed to fit perfectly in front of a 13″ mac book. That’s enough to get me excited as there is almost always enough room in front of the laptop for a thin line of controls. While the Nano pad is the most promising of the 3, the other 2 also could be very handy for many djs out there. They look great in the photos but was Korg actually able to make a robust product for around $50?
Continue reading ‘Korg Nano Reviews’
Native instruments has announced the newest release in their dj line today. It is called Traktor Pro and will replace Traktor 3 and Traktor Scratch with one unified piece of software. Owners of the audio 8 will still be able to control Traktor Pro via time code but every user will now enjoy the same features and share a common software. The underlining technology behind Traktor has been re-written, unified and improved on a number of different fronts that have resulted in some important changes.
I had the fortune of spending a lot of time with the Traktor team in Berlin this year working with the new software as it was developed and during beta testing. This has gave me the chance to understand more about the concepts that went into the new version and work with the new features extensively.
I think it was assumed by Vestax and a lot of other people that the VCI-300 was going to be a more popular controller than the VCI-100. That didn’t turn out to be exactly the case, and now many people are justifiably confused as to which controller they should buy. Here at Dj TechTools we get at least one email with this question every day so to help you make up your own mind, here is the list of pro’s and cons:
About 2 months ago a brand new controller showed up out of no-where and the big three, CDM, SkratchWorx and Dj TT all wrote about the mixer in the same day. The small website dedicated to the controller crashed under the weight of the traffic and the creators of the multi colored Aurora, were surprised to find them selves besieged with requests to buy their new product. The only problem? There was no product.
Reviewed by: Bill Griffin aka SOCIALPEST
If you’re looking for a MIDI pad controller on a modest budget and can’t be troubled to build your own then no doubt you will have found these three; M-Audio Trigger Finger, Korg padKontrol and the Akai MPD24.
They are all around a similar budget and each has their own appeal but on paper its a tough call. Thanks to the help of online store thomann.de I got my hands on all three and set each up in Traktor, Serato and Live to see which would be reigning champ in the sub 200 EUR midi pad controller class.
Continue reading ‘Pad Controller Smackdown’
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