Chuck Van Eekelen

It can. But they are two different “mechanics” so to speak. That is why I said if she want to play around and listen to the end result or if there is any “live” doing this stuff in the future.

I seem to remember that there is a time limit on the video option on Nikon camera’s. Believe max. 10 mins or so?

I am a bit surprised. Not sure what the outlet specs are in Australia, but these speakers have power units (unless they sell a different model in the US) that can be used 115-230V and both 50/60Hz. It should detect what voltage and automatically adjust.

M-Audio Keystation Mini 32 or Akai LPK 25 midi are the first alternatives on the low end of the totem pole that come to mind. Both far less elaborate than the others at about 60% of the price.

It’s more of a personal preference thing I think.

Let’s see … 54 now and just celebrated 40 years on the decks in June.

So, never mind age. Do what you like. Worst case you have a nice hobby, better case you will find those in your own age bracket that will ask you to play at their birthday parties and anniversaries, best case, you will be asked to play for total strangers and actually get paid for it.

This is a tricky one to answer. Quite frankly, I am not an advocate of re-compressing to another format (transcoding). And even then it would depend on the quality level of the WMA’s.

Without going the entire route about bitrates and such, the end-result is the same. It’s not a desirable action to take imho.

So, building a core collection of 600-800 tracks wouldn’t be to bad. Also you can try sourcing digital versions of stuff you already own online. Re-ripping vinyl isn’t a task I would take on lightly either. CD’s are a lot easier. Ripping a track is a matter of less than a minute usually. So if you are talking 800 tracks, that would take you less than 15 hours or so. While waiting for the next rip to finish you can do the tagging and such on the previous rip(s).

And rip into FLAC (lossless) so you can always reproduce CD-quality tracks should you need to. It’s easy when you are done to convert the FLAC into MP3 should you so desire. I use Platinum Notes to work on my tracks before adding them in my collection, but just flat conversion software will work also. Always convert with the highest quality settings is the best advice here.

Hope that helps some.

Hi Patrick and welcome to the forums (and by implication welcome to your girlfriend as well).

There are a few things to mention here I think. Several options for tossing lyrics and beats from two different tracks together:

1) Acappella’s over track B. If you have/find lyrics only bits, you can clearly play those over any other track’s instrumental part. Keeping an eye on musical key and tempo of course. Regular DJ software can accommodate that quite easily.
2) Mashups, this is where you merge two or more tracks together. This COULD be by using the vocal part of a track with the beat or break part of another. Mashup software can help you do this, it’s more of a preparation thing. Also regular DJ software can help you here. Especially since the EQ (frequency control) per channel allows you to “bring out” the vocal part of a track by turning down the low frequencies and perhaps even a bit of the highs (experimentation is key here).
3) Producing. This is more about creating tracks from scratch, where you create your own beats as well. Clearly you can take vocals and add those to the track. This would work best with compatible vocals. Here you’d need production software, the most well-known is Ableton Live.

The second part of the equation is ambition level. Does she just want to dabble in this at home at her leisure or does she ever want to do this stuff live in front of other people (if only the family at the next house or bbq party)?

The main site offers entry level courses to both disciplines. If it is more the DJ-ing side that appeals to her, then “How To Digital DJ Fast” is the best primer to get going on basic stuff.
For producers the “Producing For DJ’s” would be a good place to start.

Both come with a full money back guarantee. So should she pick one or the other and during/after the course she thinks that is not the right thing for her, she can apply for a no-questions-asked refund.

Hope that helps some.