SA DJs: You got that tik tok g6 mash up remix by dubstep in your serato?

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > Musician's Lounge > SA DJs: You got that tik tok g6 mash up remix by dubstep in your serato?

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Is there any particular reason Virtual DJ doesn't seem to get a lot of respect? I've heard it criticized for stability reasons but anything else? Looking at the feature set it seems pretty robust...

# ¿ Mar 4, 2011 18:46

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 19:08

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

chrix posted:

If you can't beatmatch, it's going to be very hard for me to respect you as a DJ, let alone refer to you as a DJ. Leaning on the software (Traktor, Ableton) to do the hard work for you takes the whole idea of being a DJ and throws it in the toilet. At that point, you're a glorified jukebox.

Er... I'm not going to argue that DJs shouldn't know how to beatmatch... but you seem to be saying that the main part of being a DJ lies in a semi-antiquated technical skill as opposed to, say... track selection, pacing, and mixing. Which is actually MORE insulting.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2011 21:08

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

melee beats posted:

I think what a lot of people miss in this argument is that there's a vibe that's really important, and you're in control of it. That goes beyond making a playlist and just playing songs off of it.

Right... I'm pretty new to this whole thing but it seems as though what the DJ does is way more in-depth than beatmatching. Most DJs I've met are thrilled about auto beatmatching, because it lets them skip the chore and pay more attention to their real job.

Edit: It's like saying you won't respect any secretary that can't write shorthand or something...

# ¿ Mar 7, 2011 22:19

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Has anyone got any opinions/know anything about the Vestax Typhoon vs. the Hercules RMX? I'm looking for a controller/sound card combo in the $300 range...

# ¿ Mar 11, 2011 21:23

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Cynicus posted:

The thing that's annoying me, is the fact that the pitch detection in Traktor is shoddy at best. If I slightly move the pitchfaders up or down, the increase or decrease in pitch can vary from 0.1% to 0.3%, or whatever Traktor feels like. This makes beatmatching on hearing alone trickier than I feel it should be. Not to mention the fact that if you've left the pitchfaders untouched after you think you've beatmatched two songs, Traktor sometimes adds up 0.1% pitch to the deck you've last adjusted, regardless of your input.

It should be noted that this isn't Traktor, it's your MIDI controller, since using MIDI it only has 128 "steps" that it can use.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2011 16:55

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Cynicus posted:

Boo.

Is there any way to work around this, or do I have to just accept it until I'm able to afford better gear?

The latter, sadly. I'm right there with ya.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2011 14:40

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

oredun posted:

traktor blows, i dont even see how you could mix with four decks unless you used sync without the waveforms overlapping. i just think thats crazy how stupid the beatmatching is with traktor, its either straight up like vinyl, look at the little meter which is never right, or hit sync.

if you like serato just get the sl4. i know i am.

If your phase meter is off, you haven't beatgridded your tracks properly. And if you're using waveforms to beatmatch, you shouldn't be getting high and mighty about hitting sync.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2011 15:29

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

proj posted:

Thanks for the reply!

Personally I'd rather vinyl & serato, but I can't really justify the spend at the moment with my current skill level.

Either way, definitely some food for thought, might try to pick up a VCI-100, I prefer knobs over sliders...

In the same price range as the Typhoon, I've had really great experiences with the Hercules DJ Console RMX. Built-in soundcard, built like a brick (it's made of brushed steel and feels like a real piece of kit). I've found it plenty customizable as well, and it has a good feel and adjustable jog wheels. All in all I can't recommend it more for under $300.

http://www.hercules.com/us/DJ-Music/bdd/p/62/dj-console-rmx/

# ¿ Jul 5, 2011 15:08

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

shyguise posted:

I have a bunch of suspicious files and i want to check if they are either re-encoded mp3s or poorly mixed/mastered track. Do you guys have any techniques/programs for analyzing mp3s on an apple computer to make sure they are not re-encoded 320s?

I'm not clear what you're looking to test here. You have MP3 files that don't sound good and you are looking to check the bit rate? If so, you can do that in iTunes.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2011 18:52

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

vanilla slimfast posted:

No he's trying to figure out if his mp3s which are encoded at 320 were reencoded from a lower bitrate source originally

e: you can take any crap audio file and reencode it to 320 but that isn't going to magically make it sound better

Well yeah but there's not really a way to test that is there? I mean, other than the file sounding like crap.

Also, this is one of those reasons why you should buy your music.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2011 19:41

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

pg2011 posted:

So you're looking to see if files are a transcode? I use Spek (http://www.spek-project.org/). It's multi-platform, free, and very straightforward.

Different encoding settings cut off frequencies past a certain point. 128 kbps files, for example, cut off all sounds above 16 kHz in order to make the file size smaller. When people convert 128 to 320 (or anything above 128), Spek will show that the mp3 still cuts off at 16 kHz because converting to 320 can't magically bring back the sounds above 16 kHz.

Oh. Brilliant!

The more you know...

That said, still... buy your music.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2011 14:43

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

So I just got my first real gig, DJing an LGBT charity event... for five hours o_o

This is going to be an amazing experience. And afterwards, I will sit down forever.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 14:55

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Twiin posted:

Congrats! 5 hours isn't that big of a deal once you get used to DJing, but it might be a tough place to start. Make sure you bring a lot more music than you think you'll need, and make sure you don't blow all your big tracks early. With a set like that, you can craft the evening pretty well. Figure out 1-2 anchor tracks in advance for each hour that will set the mood and that you can use to play off of.

For example:

10PM: That ambient thing with the girl singing and that underworld track
11PM: That trip-hop track and that other trip-hop track
12PM: That really popular techno track with the big kick
1AM: My guaranteed floor-filling banger
2AM: That melancholy house track everyone loves to slow dance to

This is really great advice, thanks!

Yeah I have a ton of music but I'm hard at work buying more...

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 15:47

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

geeves posted:

That said, I think that learning to beatmatch with vinyl is still the best way (or with CDJs with the BPM counter covered with electrical tape) - I think it's an extremely valuable way to train your ears (I DJ in my headphones, both tracks in both ears), to really get to know your tracks, to hear all the differences in them and that when mixing you know the split second something isn't right and know which track to fix, in what direction without having to hit the sync key (whatever the gently caress that is - and holy run-on sentence).

Absolutely. I'm a controller DJ but I'm trying to get my hands on some turntables (on my budget) to learn to beatmatch with, because I think it's a skill I should have if I'm serious.

I think of it like Picasso or Pollock. These were guys that abandoned the traditional structure of their art, and what gave them the ability to do that and be taken seriously was their mastery over the traditional form. If Jackson Polluck couldn't paint a figure, he would just be some dude throwing paint on a canvas; but since he could have been painting figures, and instead decided to make action paintings, that meant something.

Maybe sort of a strained analogy but you get what you mean. Nobody can call you out for being a laptop DJ if you're choosing not to spin vinyl but know how.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2011 14:01

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

vanilla slimfast posted:

Nope. Traktor is a standalone program.

Ableton did partner up with Serato to allow you to hook the two programs together kinda how you are describing. It's called The Bridge: http://www.ableton.com/thebridge

I've never tried it out so I can't speak to exactly how it works or how well it works

My understanding is that you can route Traktor Pro 2 through Ableton and record each deck separately/use Ableton's effects but I've never tried it.

P. badass if true.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2011 00:25

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Firaga posted:

You can do this, I don't know the details but that's what Hawtin does. I know some others do it too but I'm not sure who.
Basically he runs Traktor with dual X1s to control 4 decks, loops, and hot cues. Its wired through a second laptop where he uses Ableton's effects. External mixer of course, I'm pretty sure he uses a Xone 92 usually. I think Loco Dice and maybe Dubfire do this as well, but their setups are always changing...
I know they use Maschine now too but I don't know if it's wired through Ableton.

With Traktor's effects I can't see the need for Ableton unless you're doing some extremely creative poo poo like looping 4 decks and running samples and different effects on each deck, even then, Traktor 2 is extremely powerful.

Again, I can see the use for recording sets def - nothing worse than screwing up something super minor about a transition 45 minutes into a mixtape, and it would be great to just be able to go back and fix that part of the mix. I can also see just preferring some of Ableton's tools if you use both extensively.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2011 14:10

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Maguro posted:

I dunno man, it's cool that you can get someone to pay you tons of money to play the funky chicken but the dudes behind the decks at events like this always look miserable.

It seems like the sort of thing, like stripping, that you plan to do temporarily because the money's good. But then it turns out that the money's too good to stop doing it, and next thing you know you're 55 and the Electric Slide is echoing in your dreams.

I'm doing a transman's "becoming a man" bar mitzvah in January, but that's more of a spoof of mobile DJing than actual mobile DJing.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2011 15:22

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Speaking of vinyl, I just got a sick deal on a pair of Numark TT-1s. Not Technics, I know, but I'm looking forward to learning to spin vinyl instead of being a purely digital DJ.

Now I just need some vinyl.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2011 15:51

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Professorbx posted:

Get Traktor Scratch/Serato, best of both worlds. Also, the TT-1's were a dope turntable for the day, congrats!

Oh believe me, I'm planning on it.

First I need to get a mixer, though... buying the tts themselves busted me for a little bit

# ¿ Nov 1, 2011 03:31

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

http://www.digitaldjtips.com/

# ¿ Nov 2, 2011 13:57

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

WAFFLEHOUND posted:

This seems to be 80% GET A GIG NOW and 20% gear reviews.

Yeah but there's are some great articles in there on MIDI mapping and technique if you dig for 'em.

Sadly I don't know of many that are better... DJ Techtools suffers from similar "once every two months we'll release a tutorial, in the meantime GEAR" syndrome.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2011 15:55

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

Styliferous posted:

While we're (somewhat) on the subject of turntables, I'm trying to buy a pair of decks to augment my current equipment (Traktor Pro 2, Kontrol X1), and I'm wondering how much I should spurge on turntables. Currently I'm looking at both the Numark TTX or the Stanton STR8-80s. Anybody either have a pair of these, or have experience with them? I'm only hoping to pay ~$500 for the two, but if the TTX is far superior to the Stantons I can just save up for longer no biggie.

Before buying new, I'd watch Craigslist for a little while and see what pops up. Lots of people getting rid of their decks in a recession.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2011 14:31

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 19:08

Chitin: Apr 29, 2007; It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

OK, so since I'm starting to collect vinyl I've decided to take that collection in a different direction - I've been pretty much 100% a house head so far, but on vinyl I'd rather spin more trip hop/glitch hop/downtempo style stuff. Sound Tribe Sector 9, RJD2, UNKLE, etc.

Thing is, I'm very used to house where all the BPMs are in a very narrow range and there are long intros and outros. Does anyone have any good resources for DJing this sort of thing? What's the technique to this?

# ¿ Nov 7, 2011 16:10

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > Musician's Lounge > SA DJs: You got that tik tok g6 mash up remix by dubstep in your serato?