01 David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland – When Love Takes Over (Electro Extended Mix)
02 Melleefresh, Deadmau5 – Sex Slave (Original Mix)
03 Costello – Girls Speak Louder (Donique Mix)
04 Alexis, Darmon, Eran Hersh, George F – Girls Who Like Girls (Original Living Room Club Mix)
05 Larry Tee Feat. Roxy Cottontail – Lets Make Nasty (Afrojack Remix)
06 Jewlez – Get Down (Original Mix)
07 Pain, Gubellini – Shake It Up feat. Darook Mc (Maurizio Gubellini & Stefano Pain Main Mix)
08 Martin Solveig – Poptimistic (Bingo PLayers Vox)
09 Mowgli – London To Paris (Original Mix)
10 Laidback Luke, Lee Mortimer – Blau! (Original Mix)
11 Funkagenda – H3lix (Original Club Mix)
12 Wolfgang Gartner – Latin Fever (Original Mix)
13 Starkillers – Bitch Ass Trick (Original Version)

Incidentally, this is my first recorded mix on the APC40 with Ableton

                          

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Track List:

                          

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The Xponent is an awesome tool, it is the perfect transition medium for anyone thinking of moving into digital and is very well featured. Its a little on the plastic side, and the faders feel like they are fisher price, but it works like a dream and is portable enough to follow me around the country!

I now have two primary setups, home & away.

Home is the Xponent, married to my main desktop feeding a pair of KRK RP6G2 Active Studio Monitors, and it sounds awesome!

Away is the Xponent. married to my X200s Laptop & feeding a pair of M-Audio AV20 portable studio monitors, although it lacks base, it has punch, power and clarity and lets face it, we don’t want to piss off the neighbours in the hotel now do we

I still suffer from the age old problem of not actually having time to use this lot, but the away kit helps with that problem a fair bit, so once I get fully transitioned, expect a flurry of new mixes on the way!

                          

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The fact of the matter is, I am bored with mixing! What I mean is, simply firing up the 1210’s and spinning a few tracks just doesnt do it for me anymore. I think this is a trend that is also reflected in the current dance music scene. Consider a true talent in the scene today, such as Deadmou5, vs an old skool DJ like Dougal or Vibes? The once,  “studio only” production techniques are being utilised on the fly to bring dynamic, real time remixes to the clubs. This is something that really interests me, something I want to pursue further. MP3’s are part of the equation, but so are real-time sequencers like Ableton Live, sample pads, real-time effects processors and a lot of time spent creating, dissecting and amassing lots of custom loops. Put all this together, and you have what the scene now desires, and what I personally want to give.

Watch this space….

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Enjoy!

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a) mitigate many, many boxes of 12″ vinyl
b) get easier access to the latest music
c) play tracks of my own creation without having to have them cut to 12″, and finally
d) retain the look and feel of my 1210’s with all their analogue loveliness!

These requirements put me in the digital DJ space, with the key players being Traktor and Serato. As you will have seen in previous posts, I had 100% decided to go with Traktor, simply because it had the ability to run 4 live sources through it, that as well as the fact that the Audio 8 interface is pretty solid, and very versatile. The thing is, an Audio 8 interface is great if your moving from gig to gig, but these days, I work for a living, so the chances of me playing out are slim, so why spend £500 on TraktorScratch V3 when I can get one of these instead

The Korg Zero4 is simply amazing. It has a multitude of effects, versatility and that all important ability to plug straight into the PC and run Traktor. Now, I already have a Pioneer DJM600, which is an impressive mixer and still considered one of the best on the market today, but, this mixer just exudes quality and functionality. For starters its a Korg product, so your in the realms of world class engineering, but then its got so many features it is unreal.

Take a look at this, this is the per channel effect section of the mixer:

Then, to complement that you have the same set of effects on the master channel! so theoretically you could apply LFO LPF to Channel A, LFO HPF to Channel B and a Phaser to the master out, all during the same mix. That would sound pretty impressive. Here are the main channel effects:

Now, I really want to find out exactly what the effect “Decimator” sounds like!

To top all that off, you get a fully featured BPM locked Sampler:

So all in all, you get an awful lot of toys for your money. Incidentally, the Korg is retailing at £750, only £250 more than the TraktorScratch V3 Package. You will of course need to get a set of control records at £15 each, and a copy of Traktor V3.2, but despite that, I think its an investment worth taking. So much so, that it is one I am seriously contemplating.

The only downside of course, if I ever end up in a situation where someone says, hey, come play a set fro us, its gonna be difficult to turn up with a whole mixer rather than a simple box to interface!

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All of this equates to one simple thing, new mixes are on the way!

I had been waiting for a suitable opportunity to purchase the new Traktorscratch V3 setup, but to be honest, this works just as well. Sure, its a little clunky, very basic and quite slow, but once you get to grips with its idiosyncratic nature, it is actually quite usable.

Of course, now I have the basics back up and running, and can start to churn out some fresh mixes, which is what its all about.

Stay tuned

Pure Retro Sheek, Traktor FS V1.1 on an N800C!!!

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If you can find some of these, buy them,  they really are worth it. I had to get mine off ebay in the US, but despite coming with 110v power supplies and the hastle it took to find a suitable UK one to replace them, it was worth every penny.

This is what you get for your money:

“The Electrix EQ Killer ($299) is a Kill Box that lets DJs and producers EQ an element without investing in expensive equipment. Built like a tank, the unit comes encased in a rugged aluminium housing that will absorb a lot of abuse. With the included joiner plate, you can connect two Electrix Mods devices in a 19-inch rack. The EQ Killer can also rest on a flat surface. The front panel is tilted upward, making the controls easier to read.

Kill the Band The front panel is divided into three sections: Low, Mid, and High. Each section has a Momentary switch, a Band Kill switch, and level control knobs. The level knobs dial up the amount of gain or attenuation for their respective frequency bands, offering up to 6 dB of gain per band. Unity gain is achieved when the level knob is set at 12 o’clock. Between the Low, Mid, and High level knobs are the Low X-Over and High X-Over sweep controls. The Low X-Over sets the point where the Low band ends and the Mid band starts. The High X-Over adjusts where the Mid band ends and the High band starts.

The back panel has three input/output sections. Inputs 1 and 2 have standard RCA stereo connectors. There’s also a switch to select between line level and turntable input levels, and grounding posts for turntables. The third section’s Send/Return loop lets you apply external effects to the killed band. At the front of the unit’s bottom right-hand corner is an input selection switch for toggling between turntables or line-level devices. The button will act as a bypass switch if there’s only one device connected to EQ Killer”.

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ok, I have had an X25 deck stand for years now, and it is actually quite good. Its stable and well put together, and of course, holds enough of the basic equipment to keep you up and running. Of course, as I expand my setup, I have come to basic realisation that what I need, is actually a simple flat surface. So me, being me, I opened up visio and knocked this up:

….essentially  it is 2 sheets of 8ft x 4ft, 3/4″ mdf cut into a number of shapes and sizes, screwed togetehr resulting in two vertical podiums, each wide enough to take a 19″ rack mount perfectley, and a worksurface 2meters by 750mm, big enough for plenty of equipment. the whole thing stands 600mm high, which is the same height as your kitchen sink! so its ideal to stan infront of for long periods of time. If anyone is interested I’ll post up the 2 x cutting guides for the mdf sheets so that you can make your own. To put it into perspective. you can buy somthing similar, but inferior at www.htfr.com for well in excess of £130. The total cost for my version, which is bigger and better, is £30, yes 2 x sheets of mdf from B&Q at £15 per sheet. for the sake of an afternoons work, i know which one i would do!

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This is the final choice and the result of much deliberation and research.

It would seem that for the most part its a two horse race, Serato vs Traktor. I’ll give you the highlights to make it simple. Serato is very very stable, easy to use and generally a rock solid solution to mixing MP3’s. Traktor has less reputation for stability but so many more features and possabilities when it comes to taking your music to the next level. This is best domonstrated bythe release of traktor 3.2 and its ability to mix 4 sources in the same interface! this means you could have 2 x decks + two other input sources all up at once mixing through a 4 channel mixer, when used with the Audio 8 interface. It was this feature that won it for me.

With this I can utilise Ableton Live like it was another deck, and have a 4th source as something like a standalone sequencer, drum machine or other random piece of electronic excellence. Now all I have to do is save my pennies and actually buy one!

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Here are some of the ones I have seen and a couple I have used:

Stanton Final Scratch
Not available these days unless its second hand, I had a Mk1 version, USB connectivity and the Software was only stable on a MAC, even then, a little tempremental!

Serato SCRATCH
Recentley borrowed one of these of a mate, and I have to say I was impressed, easy to use, stable, even on Vista! and quick response from the USB hardware.

Native Instruments AUDIO8 DJ
I am itchin to get hold of one of these, it looks pretty impressive and ticks all the boxes in terms of functionality, Firewire interface so it should be spot on for scratchin, and based on the latest version of Tractor FS, so again, proven technology.

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Don’t get me wrong, i understand the simplicity of the CDJ’s and the obvious sound benefits of CD, but they are just too clinical.

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