ellgieff
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ellgieff
MemberHowitzer, post: 2005 wrote: I love seeing peoples setups, gives me ideas for my own.
Heres the current battlestation:
Although ive got another X1 on the way to replace the midifighter and LPD8. I also REALLY wanna pimp my tech12’s. A nice white pearlescent paint job and a blue LED conversion would make them soooo sexy.
Replacing the midifighter with an X1? But the midifighter looks so cool!
MemberLew, post: 1952 wrote: And along similar lines…
*warning: also contains foul language*
Henry makes me quite sad in that one, though. And I say this as a person who has every record Black Flag ever released, and a tattoo of the Slip It In album cover.
The thing is the way he completely ignores the connection between alcohol, speed and that first wave of USHC – and the accusations of no talent really bug me because let’s face it, Greg Ginn was the talent in the band he (Henry) was most famous for.
Love the AC Slater bit that sampled it, though.
MemberDepends – will you be mixing, blending or doing it radio style (simple crossfades)? If I’m mixing, I _need_ a proper monitor. This is a failing, I know, but it’s the way I am. If I’m doing it radio style, then headphones are good enough. You really need to make sure the crowd can hear.
You will be getting requests, yes. Some of them will be inappropriate at the time. It’s entirely possible that they will make no sense at all (I once got asked to play something from the 80’s while Blue Monday was running). For this kind of gig, I’d do my best to honour any request, but it’s still got to fit.
Angel Of Death – Slayer is a wicked, wicked tune … but doesn’t really fit with Redemption Song – Bob Marley.
Trust yourself, man. That’s the key. You do this (again, assumption) because you like doing it. Trust yourself to know what’s right – and be ready to learn what works for that crowd, on that night.
MemberAlex Wild, post: 1941 wrote: For this gig, I’d change that to ‘play music THEY love’. If it’s a friends birthday you want they to enjoy themselves with good background music, they’re not going to be watching you mixing all night and raving it up to deep underground tunes. Play fun party stuff. When i’ve been in this situation before I’ve asked the person who’s party it is to send me a list of their favourite tunes so I know I can play them for him/her.
If it’s a BBQ, you cant go wrong with some classic party hip hop, reggae, soul, maybe some top 90s tunes too.
Yeah, I see what you’re saying. I guess the thing for me is that we’re DJs because we have a passion for music that most others don’t (I’m making assumptions, here, which I possibly shouldn’t). This tends to translate into liking good music.
I agree, don’t play music they’ll hate. But it’s never worked out well for me when I’ve played things I don’t like in order to try and please others. I think they can maybe tell when you’re phoning it in.
Let me put it this way: one of the gigs I do is a primary school (?grade school in the US?) disco. The kids want to hear the stuff they know, which means top-40 radio hits and stuff from TV shows. That doesn’t mean I have to play things I despise – and the kids love it.
Man, kids can party!
MemberAlso: congratulations on your first gig 🙂
MemberLiambo, post: 1897 wrote: Are they? I personally think the 6’s are ok for general listening.. They are not the best but quite good compared to other ones, for example i thought the Mackie MR5’s were too bass heavy. But as i said and ellieff said, bang for buck is brilliant.
I’d expect the 8’s to be even better again – but it wasn’t until I played some old records while people were hanging out that I realised how badly recorded most rock music is/was. I’m pretty sure it’s because the KRK’s expose all the deficiencies by having a reasonably flat response.
Personal preference – and I’m in the enviable position of being able to have separate sets of speakers/amps for monitoring / general listening / playing really loud 😀
MemberAlex Wild, post: 1906 wrote: Just thinking about the flipside of this debate. We’ve all been talking about the role of drugs for the listener, but what about for the writer? You can’t deny that A LOT of good music has been created under the influence, or been inspired by it.
*warning: contains foul language, not suitable for minors or work*
MemberThe main tip I’d give: play music you love.
Memberfullenglishpint, post: 1926 wrote: Each ‘Sample Deck’ has 4 slots for one shots or loops, each of which has its own independent gain and filter. The deck itself has all the usual deck controls such as EQ, gain, filter, FX etc but that is of course shared between the 4 slots.
Before getting the coloured waveforms I thought they’d just be a nice aesthetic addition, but I actually find them very useful. Mainly because if you load a track without ever having heard it before (not something I recommend of course, hehe) you can tell the structure of the song along with where it’s bass heavy (red or pink) etc. Rather than just seeing how loud it is like you can with the TP1 yellow waves.
Liambo is right, knowing your music is important, but this certainly helps to jog your memory.
Good stuff, thanks man. I do occasionally drop tracks I haven’t heard all the way through on my radio show, so that could be handy – although most tracks have a pretty similar structure anyway, and I know which artists like to break the “rules”, so I’m extra careful with those ones.
Have you noticed any changes with the automatic BPM / Beat detection algorithms? I play breaks, and Traktor often struggles to get even close. Also, does the higher definition mean it’s easier to manually beatgrid?
MemberPhil Morse, post: 1899 wrote: You can have up to four samples per channel you give up and control them independently, so you get more flexibility than just having a sample track loaded on a deck with some cue points pointing at the samples you want to use. You can also record straight into the loop recorder then transfer your recording to a sample deck – whether that’s part of a track or your own voice. So there is the chance to get more creative with them than just dropping samples from a 3rd and/or 4th deck.
So I could be running up to 4 samples at once from a single sample deck? I could see doing some exciting things with that, if I had a midi controller mapped to deal with it nicely. Does each of those sample have an independent gain? What about EQ or F/X, could I apply this to just one of the samples?
This sounds more interesting than I’d originally thought, but I think I’m spoilt by having a KP-3 (which does pretty much what we’re talking about here, plus some other stuff). Of course, that’s another piece of hardware I have to lug around.
Benny Mackney, post: 1272 wrote: I think you should just read up on the changes and decide whether they’re worth the cost. I can’t do a comparison for you, because I started out with TPS4, which is very close to TP2. Happy to answer any questions though.
Thanks Benny. I have had a look over the changes – and so far the only features I can see that potentially mean anything to me are the ones you guys have raised here. I guess that’s why I’m looking for opinions from people who have actually made the upgrade from 1 to 2.
@FEP: What help is seeing what the track is doing for you? As in: how does this help you?
Again, for clarity: a genuine question, not rhetorical …
MemberTwo quick things: Alcohol is a drug. Mixing music with drugs is as old as civilisation.
The only thing different about “our” music is that it’s not made by physical means. Other than that, we’re not really that special.
As an aside it’s not the crowd’s job to respect us, it’s our job to entertain them.
MemberBenny Mackney, post: 1870 wrote: You’ll find a use for them once you have them to play with. You can throw loops in there too. As for the waveforms, they obviously can’t show you everything that’s going on. There’s no replacement for knowing your tracks.
What do the sample decks do (given that I can’t use the loop recorder to drop a sample in because I don’t want to give up a channel for it) that can’t be done with the 3rd & 4th decks in TSP?
Just to make sure we’re clear, this is a genuine question. I’m not stirring or trying to wind people up – is there something you can do with the sample decks that I can’t do with a sample loaded to the fourth deck?
Coloured waveforms don’t do that much for me. The waveform I used to read off the record didn’t have no colour 😛
Membermr_john, post: 1540 wrote: Yeah I had wifi and bluetooth off. I hear putting ram, or anything for that matter, in a mac (let alone a macbook) is a huge pain… Hope I don’t have to do that. I decided it might be a background program I kinda forgot about. Bumptop. So guess I’ll try quitting that from now on and see how things go.
I replaced my MBP hard drive. Was quite straightforward. Ram is supposed to be even easier.
MemberPaul, post: 1857 wrote: Hi All, yes thanks for the suggestions. However am I correct in my general Idea that it goes like that? The
Laptop>Controller – RCA Out>Mixer – RCA In> Amps>Speakers?
Is that the way how those things should be connected? Sorry, I’m totally waaaayyy new about these stuff although we do setup band instruments when I still had a band.
If the controller has RCA outs, you’re using a mixer and an amp, then yes. That’s the chain, at least. It’s exactly the way you setup your home system (the speakers you’re using are self-powered, so the amp is in them), but the soundcard goes into the mixer, and the mixer main out goes to the speakers.
MemberI use Rockit 5’s for monitoring. They aren’t rubbish, and as Liambo said, hard to beat at the price. Also have plenty of input options (RCA, TRS, XLR) – but they might be a bit transparent for general listening purposes.
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