Bahstid

Ironically, I JUST finished my laborious conquer of DMX on Traktor/S8.
…
I hope to post a video soon. maybe in a week or so if there’s interest.

Curious if I was on the right track with my post above, or if there were any notable differences. I’ve been out of the traktor “loop” for a bit and would be interesting to know what the options are, sort of thinking of wiping everything and setting it up again…

Random “check one two” post as my replies seem to being eaten.

I might end up rambling a bit, so I’ll make my point first: no need to go all in, you should give it a go if you are curious – the latest version of rekordbox is mappable to other controllers and an S4 is common enough that I’m sure someone else has done the hard work for you already, so just download the demo version thats free for 30 days and see how it fits. In the greater scheme of things the differences between what you’ll get with that setup, and the “real” pioneer setup really are minor. (You won’t have jogwheel support, but take it as a chance to work on your pitchfader technique, or just cheat with sync during the experiment. There’s nothing magic or completely foreign about Pioneer jogs anyway, so what you’ve previously done with Traktor and S4 jogs will transfer fine if you do decide its the way to go).

ok, now the rambling bit… some of it undoubtedly applies only to me, but just sharing views on the format wars as asked.

In my “career”, I’ve been from CDs to vinyl to CDs to Traktor+DVS to Traktor+Controller and am currently mostly on USB (on denon 3900s when I can, but in public mostly various Pioneer models), but thinking of breaking out the Traktor again. Considering you’re talking about the XDJ-RX, am I right in assuming you are thinking more in terms of USBs rather than the whole Rekordbox-as-dj-software thing and maybe considering a move away from pc-based DJing? [Just another note in reference to my advice above, you actually get less from a regular Pioneer and rekordbox setup than you do from the software version, so its not like you’re missing out on much by checking it out that way, and the differences between a mapped version and the hardware version ie which button to press, are things that you could pick up during soundcheck or a short practice anyway].

While @Vintages advice is solid, I’ll disagree with his premise a bit – Pioneer is the club standard unfortunately and they aren’t going to be displaced overnight. I’m not saying he’s out right wrong either, but just that they are a very safe bet, especially if you are not the headliner being able to conform to them is a great asset.

Not to mention how much easier life is when your DJ “rig” is two USBs and your headphones… haha and the 2nd USB is actually a spare. No more bags to carry, no more jostling for space in the booth, finding power points, having to try to inconspicuously plug stuff in or out of the mixer during other people’s sets. No issues when the club hasn’t updated its firmware on the mixer, or they just did and you don’t have the latest driver. No gain staging between controller and house mixer, no soundcheck required. No spare USB cables, no remembering to turn off wireless, no wobbly controllers up on stands. No need to lurk about to the very end to pack gear or keep checking that your $2000 investment doesn’t grow legs and leave before you. No (personal) panic when some fool decides its clever to douse the DJ and booth in champagne. And those mysterious crashes that eventually will happen you get to blame on other people’s gear.

Digital has its place of course, but before getting into that I guess a few caveats and downsides to USBs, probly the first of which should be the confession that I’m not actually using rekordbox either anymore. For the way I’ve been playing recently, it didn’t seem to bring that much to the table, and while there are a few obvious merits, the extra step of running stuff through yet another piece of software seems a bit of a hassle for relatively minimal gain. I mostly buy music in .flac format, so there’s already a bit of a process involved in converting my setlist to .wav (I don’t know if recent rekordbox will do this conversion now – I know it was updated to at least play flacs at some point, but sorta meaningless if CDJs belligerently won’t play them – if so, it would actually be a strong motivator to get me to have another look). After purchasing, a track will also have to be quite special to get played more than 2 or 3 times, and frequently only once… I’ll come back and pop it into a set months or years later, but by then I’ll have forgotten why I have those cue points set in various places, or will want to change them anyway. Mostly I make loops on the fly too and in my prep or while cueing up I can usually pick up if there’s a key clash – if I were playing other genres, I could see key information being a bit more useful though. I also tend to have fairly well-defined setlists prepared anyway – these days “reading the floor” is more a case of deciding how many tracks to skip than deciding on what to play next entirely off the cuff. If I sense things are going in an entirely inappropriate direction, I’ll just flip to another folder that was prepared for a different night. Anyway the point of this paragraph is just to point out that my approach to prep might be quite different from other people’s – if I were just starting out in clubs and less experienced, doing a showcase or mixtape, or still being a resident dj with a core of frequently played tracks, I’d probably recommend a slightly different approach! In my case the other issue of course is that if I’m going to properly prepare tracks, do I do it for Traktor, or Rekordbox or Engine (for my beloved Denons), none of which I can do on my standard linux operating system. If the industry couldn’t agree on a standard beatgrid/cue/tag format, at least the could publish their specs and some of us would quite happily do their work of writing translators for them!

Anyway back to USBs – one of my “issues” is that I’ll probably end up having 10 copies of the same favourite track in different party-specific folders, but then have trouble finding or figuring out which party I played that other one-off track at when I depart from my planned list. Using rekordbox with folders by genre and playlists re-using the source files and possibly some tags or even ratings would likely be a more sensible way to go. USBs also end up constantly full, so there’s before every set something irrelevant to the night gets deleted which is fine until a few weeks later when you go looking for it. Point for pc-based, and while we’re there, when you’re searching for something, you can’t beat pc!

So finally on to the subject at hand: Traktor vs Rekordbox… As a platform, I’d say Traktor is quite significantly ahead still. Rekordbox has a few nifty features though, and with the install-base in thousands of clubs could quite easily become THE platform. IMHO Native Instruments made a really bad move in moving to such a closed platform in order to sell more hardware… As Vintage pointed out the higher model CDJs and some of the mixers are still Traktor compatible though, but remains to be seen how long that holds true. The “2” after Traktor has been there for quite a long time though – considering the work that went into the stems addition and the screens-on-controllers, I’m not holding my breath for an imminent release, but also find it interesting that those weren’t a reason to increment the version number – as if they still have something in mind that will be more deserving of the jump.

And that brings us to why I think Traktor is still the more interesting platform – stems and remix decks. They are not for everyone though – and thats also a large part of why I moved off Traktor, basically it felt like I had this complete overkill system, when most of what I was doing could be done on CDJs anyway, without all the hassle noted above, and not only that, the pc was a bit of a crutch and I was ending up a bit of a lazy DJ and spending way to much time using eyes rather than ears – and adding random effects because you could and you might as well do something, rather than that they were really needed. Anyway, I digress… Traktor seems to be pushing the DJ as Producer angle a bit more and if you see yourself going there, might be worth sticking with the platform a bit more, or if the stems file format catches on you might even find yourself moving in that direction unplanned. (I think the format is going to stay a bit niche though, unfortunately the industry is more likely to try to use it to wring more dollars out of us than promote it on its own merits). As stems is an open format though, Pioneer of course is free to use it, but as they are more hardware based, I don’t see how they really can until the next generation rolls through and even then it will take a while to displace their installed base which remains their biggest strength. Pioneer have of course put out their sample player too now though, so there is some evidence that they have thought in terms of multitrack play, but not sure to what extent that will be incorporated back into the rekordbox ecosystem or if its going to stay as a standalone concept. Being Pioneer it is of course absurdly priced though and while those are nice filters, I think a Traktor remix deck will do just fine…

Anyway, after my 2 (hundred?) cents worth, considering the low barrier to entry, again I’ll say that you might be doing yourself a disfavor by not having a passing familiarity with rekordbox and least getting the manager installed and figuring out how to set up playlists and exporting to USB now rather than when you suddenly land a big gig. At the same time don’t believe the hype – as long as you’re dealing with static platters your abilities will apply just fine… no denying that 2000’s are nice to play on, but they are really no different to a 350 in the most significant ways, (and then your S4 is already “better”). You don’t have to use every possible feature either – otherwise we’d be in here telling you that you had to buy a 2000, a 2000 nexus, a nexus 2 , and XDJ1000 and just in case a 900 too!

@NYSSHP
>>>a. Are there any mixer in this world where I can directly use for a microphone the FX function of the Mixer without having to install any software like a stand alone?
-Yes, most mixers with FX will allow you to do this – the AG06 in some ways is more like an audio interface than a traditional mixer. Although you can actually use the effects on the AG06 in standalone mode , the AG06 itself will only allow you turn the effects on or off – any changes to the settings need the software – even wet/dry mix.

>>>b. I need less number of channels: for 1). 1 DJ Console Output, 2). 1 Microphone, 3). 3.5mm cable input in case any guest comes up with their phone to play their music.
– There are smaller channel count mixers, but very few that include effects, so that’s a good point for the AG06. You talked about playing at weddings or birthdays though, so they seem like situations where having some extra channels might be useful – for example having another DJ also plug in a controller, or being able to have an extra mic or two, or even be able to use it for a small band type setup. The AG06 will at least allow some of this, the AG03 will only really cover your own existing setup, so while you are making an investment I think it wise to allow a for a few extra possibilities rather.

OH!I didn’t know the ZED6FX existed – I thought it was a typing mistake at first! Cute! Actually looks like it could be a good solution – the only problem being that I think its a fairly new model, so prices might be quite high still – I can’t even buy them here (yet?). It seems quite simplified compared to the ZED10’s but maybe that suits you. (personally the sweepable EQ and aux send add quite a lot to the usefulness of the ZED10s, but they probably aren’t relevant for you) You’ll have to see if the price difference is worth it either way. Being A&H, I’m sure it is great quality though and will last a long time! Compared to the AG06, on the ZED6 you lose the compression effect, but you do get tap-tempo on the mixer itself, seeing as you mention using mic delay/echo, I’d say that’s pretty useful.

>>>c. As I new to this field, I don’t have budget to buy invest more 🙁
– That is also why its sometimes worth looking at the second hand market too – sometimes you might not really save a lot of money compared to buying the cheapest things you can find new, but it can put better quality things in reach. In my experience the problem with the really cheap stuff is that you end up wanting to replace it anyway, and then you haven’t really saved anything, so sometimes its better to save a bit more. That said, we live in great times where you do have some choices in your budget!

Anyway, I mentioned the ZED as something to think about while you are deciding – a kind of “high mark” to aim for that you might get lucky and find cheaply somewhere. The AG06 isn’t a terrible suggestion, but in some ways it does seem to complicate things a bit and limit you in other ways, which is partly why I’d go for a more traditional mixer myself.

@Vintage – quite aware that its an “apples to pears” comparison – just that 5 of the 6 items the OP originally mentioned were pretty apple like, and as you said yourself, the “B” word carries a lot of baggage. I did actually price check before making the suggestion, and even where the OP to go brand new, here the FX model sells at $265 shipped, so I’d agree that your $320 makes it a less worthy suggestion. ($175 for the non-fx FWIW). Locally the AG06 is $165 though, and thus the ZEDs seem like a way more bang for buck option that I thought would be justified by going either second hand or holding off and saving.

Another Tascam DR40 user here…as a 4 channel recorder, the especially cool thing about it is that you can record in “Dual Mode” with one of the tracks being set at -12dB lower than the other (stereo track=two channels btw) so you have a “safe” copy in case of clipping that you can edit in if needed (or use instead). The Tascam also have proper balanced line-level inputs with decent connectors – XLR or 1/4inch rather than the stereo mini jacks of most recorders.

This is getting to be a bit silly back and forth, but you guys really don’t seem to be getting my point…

In responding to a guy who says “all I wanted was to learn turntablism… I just want to enter the scene so bad”, I made a few suggestions to try to minimize the ongoing costs, the first of which was, yes, to start with only ONE turntable and to use his existing controller for beats – never once came even close to pretending that there are no costs involved.

In fact the whole cost assessment was an experiment for me too – never got into figures in the first post, but when I got accused of a “total bogus” post, thought we should see how it holds up. If young Kevin would pop back in and tell us that juggling rather than scratching is his main focus or that he intends daily two hour practice, then sure, my figures are off.

You mention changing out styli in clubs once a month… no argument there for a public performance where people are paying entrance fees, and the music skipping or worse stopping completely can really wreck things. Can you not concede that when playing in private and at a beginner level, you could extend that limit, especially in a style where high fidelity reproduction is almost a non-issue?

Yes, I actually checked before posting. M44-7s are $85, but N44-7s are $50 from a very mainstream supplier in the posters area. I’m sure he could find them for cheaper, but used that figure instead of the $35 I see them for locally as didn’t seem like a typical price. (and sorry, but its frankly rather telling that you didn’t pick up on the M/N difference)

Disrespect? But hip hop is ABOUT disrespect! Painting on walls, overloading mics for kickdrum sounds, “stealing” bits of other peoples songs and doing things that records and turntables weren’t designed for.
(That was intended as a joke btw… but on second thoughts maybe I’m serious lol)

Anyway, my point about using stuff to its absolute limits, was qualified with words like “compromise”, “ghetto” and in reference to carboot sale records with rescued needles… “beyond the point were you should replace it” etc. I was clear also to point out in the first post that scratch needles should be strictly separated from playing ones.

Not going to repeat everything, the whole point was just that in many years of bedroom scratching, I’ve never come close to $100 per month in upkeep, or even $50 for that matter and thought that a sample of even one might be useful for the poster to know about.

Good (very!) that you pointed out to him that there are ongoing costs, just not sure that pro-level ones are applicable here.

I don’t really have any horse in this race, so there is no motivation for me to make up stories on the internet, just sharing my experience. There was no vinyl where I grew up and started DJing, but about 5 years in, I moved to a country that was pretty much vinyl only and went a bit scratch crazy. Nowdays I use a few scratch techniques for effects when playing out (kinda gone back to CDJs in clubs anyway), but mostly just scratch in private – its kind of like participating in the music rather than passive listening. So publicly I’m not a turntablist, but I’ve worn enough paint off crossfader faceplates to speak from experience.

Never implied there was no cost, I only said it could be done a lot cheaper than the $100 per month originally mentioned (then $50, now $30!?) and thought it a bit sad to see someone get put off their dreams by an extreme example, when in my experience, I doubt I’ve even gone to $10 or $15 per month overall, and I’m talking about when I was using TTs a lot, not including times when they were dormant. Anyway, here’s my story, tell me how bogus it is… I’ll calculate as we go along – maybe I’m off…?

TTS – I bought my 1200 MK3Ds new in 2001. To date ZERO maintenance costs. (I did swap out a tonearm due to some non-DJ related damage, which I wouldn’t regard as average, but throw in $80 for that if you want~=$5 per year). For the first 3 years of their lives, they saw a few hours of daily home “playing” and mixing use and I’d guess around 15-20 hours of scratching per month. After that they were installed in a smokey club for three winters and have been rented out and borrowed 10’s of times, as well as being dropped more than once. Then for a few years they were mostly boxed up with probably less than 50 hours per year, and then hauled out again for about another 9 months of heavy scratch duty again when I got Traktored up in 2011/12… I’ve hardly been kind to my turntables – no idea what parts need tuning with “special treatments”.

Slipmats – In that time I’ve only had 4 pairs of slipmats. The original technics ones are a little ratty, but they still work – the point being that the others were bought more out of curiosity than that it was a case of it ever being impossible to scratch due to wear… and one set went missing so really only 3 I don’t really have any horse in this race, so there is no motivation for me to make up stories on the internet, just sharing my experience. There was no vinyl where I grew up and started DJing, but about 5 years in, I moved to a country that was pretty much vinyl only and went a bit scratch crazy. Nowdays I use a few scratch techniques for effects when playing out (kinda gone back to CDJs in clubs anyway), but mostly just scratch in private – its kind of like participating in the music rather than passive listening. Publicly I’m not a turntablist, but I’ve worn enough paint off crossfader faceplates to speak from experience.

Stylii – My usual supplier lists N44-7s at $35, but currently has no stock, so dunno if its a fair price to count on. I was actually surprised to see that price – I usually expect closer to $50. Without price hunting, amazon.uk has them for ~$50 so we’ll go with that as a maximum, bearing in mind that you might need the M44-7 kit at $85 the first time. How often they need replacing is a much-debated question – some people use the same ones for years, but obviously not for heavy scratching. Personally, when scratching analogue I use my needles until they break – not the best thing for the records though, but as they’re pretty trashed already, feel like they’re going to wreck a new needle. The point is that you can get pretty ghetto for your own entertainment and practice with some 50cent flea market vinyl and a re-straightened old needle.
I’m a bit better behaved on timecode – conscious to try and spread the wear too. I’ve needed to replace a lot more needles due to carelessness than anything else – have developed the habit now of always using the little lever to lift the tonearm (not for re-cueing obviously) and locking it on the stand whenever changing records. Anyway, the manufacturer rates them at 500-1000hours of play time. Not too sure what to make of that figure – as the turntablist model, one would hope that that meant scratch time, but I’m skeptical… for argument sake we’ll say scratching is 5-10x heavier wear, so we’ll call it 100hours. Thats 3 months of an hour per day cutting…. So $85+$50+$50+$50=$235 for the first year. (and incidentally if you are that dedicated to keep up an hour a day over a year, the hobby might even be worth the fabled $100 per month)

Timecode – I’ll admit I’ve spent far longer scratching vinyl than timecode, but my original Traktor vinyls from 2011 are still mostly holding up with I’d guess 300 hours on them. There are some dodgy patches, but just pick the needle up and drop it somewhere else and you’re good to go. These days the hassle of setting up means I almost never use timecode when playing out, and I’d probably get a new set if I decided to, but as the OP is just setting out, don’t see him needing pristine code either. Relative mode is your friend. Lets throw in an extra set for $30 though.

So where are we? Above comes to $295 per year = $25 per month, so not too far off with your $30, so basically you end up agreeing with my “total bogus method”.

I think my estimates are really conservative, so while you think that’s a lower bound, I’d call it a maximum – if you’re spending more than that your turntable is set up wrong (also, for the OP, as well as initial leveling and height adjustment, before every session wash your hands, re-balance the tone arm and clean your vinyl before and after). Technically there’s an extra $85 in there as the OP had already budgeted for the first M44-7 too, so that puts maintenance costs at under $20… although I imagine you could break a few extra needles and gouge some records when first starting out, so we’ll leave it there… So I stand by my assertion that $25 is cheaper than $100 or $50. And, yeah, thats a single table but as I originally said think a single deck is a good way to get your feet wet – adding the second deck reduces wear on the first setup anyway.

That said, probably worth mentioning that I’ve spent a lot of time and money trying to get away from turntables – they do bring their own set of problems, costs are probably the least of them! However, if you are wanting to be a turntablist, there is simply no other way to go. My current home setup is Denon 3900’s(big spinning platters) which are 90% of the way there and one technics 1200 for the real deal. These days I can’t be bothered to set up controllers or carry my own decks anymore unless I’m playing for over 2 hours, so I’ll usually play on whatever the club provides…. and that I feel is the advantage of having learned on dodgy equipment – I can deal with any gear, because its all a step up from where I started.

Guesswork?

• This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by DJ Vintage. Reason: Removed duplicate text

I’m pretty sure you can get some of the way with this, at least as far as controls/performance buttons goes, but as far as I know don’t think you can save midi information with tracks as such, but there are other “events” that I think you might have some success with e.g. something like “loop on” etc.

(Bear in mind this is theoretical – I haven’t done it (yet) and haven’t actually looked in Traktor myself to verify, so this is all semi-educated guessing)

Anyway, basically it will come down to a custom mapping (or tweaking your existing one).

– Create a mapping and set MIDI OUT PORT to your ipad (see the end about midi in)
– Select “Add OUT” and choose the event from the drop down that seems appropriate
– Then you’re going to have to fiddle a bit to work what the midi command is that QLC expects to trigger the light (or you might have to tell it to expect a specific note)… I’m not sure if the “Learn” function will correspond to the one on the control, or if you might even have some luck with it being sent from QLC. (you might even have to temporarily change the MIDI IN PORT to the ipad for that to work and change it back after)
– you’ll get a few options popping up – set some values and see what happens!

MIDI IN??? My first instinct was to tell you set this as your controller, assuming you’d be e.g. hitting a remix deck pad and having the colours change or something, but when I got as far as the “Learn” step I suddenly remembered that I think it would then want to transmit the same midi note that your controller sends to QLC, which might not work out – I don’t know if QLC has a set midi map or if you can customize/remap it. By using “None” or “Traktor Virtual” you may get access to the “events” and the same behavior without relying on the specific knobs. If you set MIDI IN to the ipad, it will be redundant as you’ll have to trigger the lights from the ipad, but by not doing that, I’m not sure that you’ll be able to use the “Learn” functionality, so setting it all up might be a bit tedious. I’m not sure if Traktor will behave well if you change the midi in port after you have done the mapping though.

Happy experimenting – pretty sure this will get you on the path, evn if I’ve forgotten a few steps.