DJ Vintage
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DJ Vintage
ModeratorLol even with stairs I would not want to haul subs up and down. Roll-on/roll-off is the only way to go 🙂
I ended up renting 22 square meters of space somewhere, partly to no longer have my gear sit in the garden room.
No easy answer I am afraid, other than perhaps selling your kit and striking a discount deal with a rental company.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorNick Powers, post: 40556, member: 2466 wrote: Could you just get one monitor?
Sure you can buy just one monitor, but producing in mono is not advisable.
Listen, go with what you can afford. I think Phil’s advice on the M-Audio’s is pretty solid. They are priced realistically. Then just start cranking out tunes. Keep saving up while you are producing and one day you’ll have enough in the piggy bank to buy some nice Adams, Focals or whatever.
Most important is to get started.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorElMuppet, post: 40553, member: 10300 wrote: I have a question at this point. Why not KRK RP6 G2’s instead (you advice were 5inch) They don’t lack the low end and cost 20€ more ea. (at least where I live)
They are 50 euro more ea. here. And with the 5’s already being double of the Numarks …
ModeratorUhm … nope … it is more that if you train your ears you’ll be able to tell if you have good monitors :-).
ModeratorYep, it is an acquired skill. Actually my last hearing test (two years ago) shows a pretty steep drop from 14KHz upwards. Old age setting in on top of too much loud music in my younger days I am afraid.
The point is that I don’t hear the highs too well anymore. The odd thing though when I mix, I get it right. The risk is that you start EQ-ing in more highs (because you can’t hear them as well), but apparently I have trained my brain/ears to what sound “good” and I can reproduce that despite the fact that I have trouble in the high range.
In other words, although I hear something different than a younger person with good ears, we can both have the same definition of “good” sound.
One of the things to do is try solvege or ear training CD’s. They will help you train to recognize frequencies and chords.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorIf you hang around you are gonna lose money, unless you don’t mind hanging around for free.
You can insure your gear for the abuse/theft bit. Add 6% to the bill to pay for the insurance fee.
Furthermore the going rate here in Holland is 3-4% of the list price of the materials. So jus add everything up, calculate 3-4% and you have your rental fee.
This obviously means you’ll be renting it out 25-35 times before you made your initial investment back. Then you have to make some return on investment. And all that is not counting your hours, but based on pick up/drop off by customer.
If you are really worried about the abuse/theft bit, perhaps you shouldn’t be contemplating renting your gear out (I never do, only for gigs where I either DJ and bring gear or where I do live sound). In both cases I get paid for the work and am automatically in charge of my own gear.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorIf it were drivers it would mean both the driver for the NS4 (it uses the correct drivers for that, we checked last time) and the driver for the laptop sound card are both wrong. Possible, but not very likely.
Codecs could have to do with content on stuff like youtube, but that would not explain it happening when using Traktor as codecs don’t come into play there.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorIs it possible something went wrong with the transfer from PC to removable disk? I had that once. Real pain. I reformatted the USB stick (FAT32), re-exported everything to the USB stick and it all seemed to work just fine next time.
Weird and absolutely one of the drawbacks of the digital way. You walk out of the door thinking you are prepared and then nothing. Good for you that you had a backup drive. Even though finding stuff on it if you have no playlists and no search index can be a real pain on any CDJ.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorIt seems to be an odd problem. It happens when playing music through the built-in laptop and through the S4. We pretty much checked everything, eliminating just about most of it. The laptop makes noises too, even when not playing music.
So, either hardware failure (but it wouldn’t be in the sound card) or it is just Windows 8 (arggghhhh) acting up.
Thanks for the tip though. It is so obvious that it could easily be overlooked!
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorI hear that … but the X1600 is even Traktor Scratch certified … snifff.
Well, unless I buy a 215 euro Numark, I think I will never try out Serato.
Thanks for the input once again.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorTerry_42, post: 40493, member: 1843 wrote: Well the “elastic” beatgrid tends to help me a lot when doing weddings etc.
Now you do not need to mix perfectly every song on a wedding (especially when dinner music is played, you can just crossfade etc.), but the Serato beatgrid is superior in my opinion.
However if it is worth switching over, if you are else satisfied with Traktor is doubtful.
Now I have several things I like with Traktor, but the overall workflow just is not for me (I am not a fan of remix decks) so I stayed with Serato.So the answer is not easy. Is the beatgrid better in Serato? Yes. Is it worth switching for it? No idea.
We have said it before, Terry: “If only there was a simple answer!”.
That is just the thing. I am “sort of” happy with Traktor. I too don’t use remix decks. And I am in the process of redoing my collection, so will have to go through everything once more (at least the 1.000-1.200 tracks I want to end up with as my primary collection). I can do that in Traktor … BUT … if I do decide to switch, this would be a good time.
Another thing is that I CAN (if I want) use Traktor with my new Denon SC2900/X1600 setup, but I couldn’t use it with Serato, which is another drawback to Serato in my case.
Do we know/suspect any changes in Serato’s marketing policy at any time in the near future as far as letting go of the hardware support structure they now have?
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorNone taken.
I have just celebrated my 35 year DJ anniversary last year. I was a full pro for a few years when I was in my early twenties and travelled the world. This is turntables and mixer, nobody had ever even thought of digital anything :-).
So I feel confident that I can DJ without software.
I think we can agree that there is a lot to digital DJ-ing. It is a rather high-tech tool. Not only buying the necessary components (controller, software, laptop) take resources (money), but also a lot of time goes into preparing your collection to be optimally ready to take advantage of all the features digital DJ-ing offers.
As such, the choice of platform (Virtual DJ, Traktor, Serato) is important. You do not want to have three collections to worry about (not mentioning the RekordBox and Denon Engine ones).
The point I raised in my original post was that it SEEMS that various software offerings are more suited to this kind of DJ or that. I would like to find out if Serato is a more suitable tool for me than, say, Traktor.
It is, you’ll agree, fair to say that beatgridding is a feature that is available in all DJ software. And I don’t think there are many DJ’s that turn off beatgridding, just to show they are real macho’s and can do without it. If Serato is more suited to beatgrid the music I use (lots of 70s/80s disco and other non-electronic stuff), then I’d like to try it out, see if it feels right and maybe go there.
Hence I tried to tap into the sheer endless source of wisdom here at the forum and get some more input, before shelling out a couple of hundred for a cheap Serato controller that I might end up selling if I don’t like Serato or having to sell if I like Serato but want a fuller featured controller.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorNick Powers, post: 40489, member: 2466 wrote: Could I just use headphones?
Hey Nick,
Short answer to that is no.
You can (there is no law against it and no one to stop you), but it is not advisable. We (sound engineers) use our headphones if we really need to focus on certain things. Hardly ever will you see a sound engineer mixing with headphones on. The reason is that the acoustics in a headphone are totally different than with open speakers in an ambient space.
I know it is not the answer you are looking for, but that is the way (at least I think and have learned) it is.
Good luck.
Greetinx,
C.ModeratorHey,
I am assuming that with mixing you mean producer-style activities?
The thing really is that the two things you want, really don’t fit in one speaker. If you want “clubby” feel, you need something that will play loud, with plenty of lows and that you can listen too (loud) for a longer period of time. If things go loud, they usually suffer in the “exact replication” department. If you want “exact replication”, studio monitors are the way to go. Problem with those is, they are made for that, exact replication, not long term loud sound production.
In studio’s you will always see two or even three sets of speakers for that exact reason. They will mix on their (mostly smaller) near-field monitors and then listen on the bigger far-field monitors at high volumes.
If you do want them all in one, it’s gonna be a compromise one way or the other.
The QSC’s are good for the loud “clubby” feel but you will never get the clarity and definition that you will get from a studio monitor from them. An alternative to the QSC’s to look into are the Mackie HD-series (12″, 15″ and a 15″ 3-way). Same price range as the QSC’s. I have a set of 1221s with an 1801 subwoofer. I tested many speakers and to me the Mackie’s outshone most. The only thing I found came close were the Turbosounds.
Especially the 1531’s are a serious alternative when space is an issue and you can’t fit subs. Most active PA speakers today are two-way (bass and mid/high driver) and bi-amped (a seperate amplifier for each driver, two total). The 1531 is a THREE-way speaker and is TRI-amped (so three amps total). You get 700W (RMS) for the lows (15″) and 100W (RMS) for mids (6″) and 100W (RMS) for highs. Grand total 900W RMS! Maximum sound pressure levels a sickening 135dB. You do NOT want to turn those full power in a small room :-).
For the HD-series Mackie worked together with a company called EAW who did the sound quality engineering and managed to get a VERY good sound quality out of a PA speaker.Again, worth checking out, trust your ears!
There are some other brands that deliver fantastic build quality, sound quality and power. A good example is Fohhn, a German manufacturer (they actually produce in Germany!). Their prices are steep though.
Good luck with your choice & greetinx,
C.ModeratorNPM5’s … See Phil’s review and you know it all 🙂
http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2012/06/review-video-numark-npm5-studio-monitor-system/
As has been said many times over, you get what you pay for in speakers. So if you want cheap/low-end, you will be sacrificing something in the category sound quality, power, build quality, etx.
Check out the alternatives Phil suggests in his article. If you want something better your best buy (in my opinion) would be a set of KRK RP5 G2’s. They will at least cost each what a set of NPM5’s or M-Audio’s would cost you.
Another thing is that I personally can’t listen long time to studio monitors if I am not editing or something. They are just too brutally honest for just listening to music or practicing DJ-ing. I get tired quickly.
I haven’t tried the AKG 44’s, but looking at the price tag, I am assuming low-end too. That doesn’t mean they are not good, but you really want something decent for producing I think. I use a set of Sennheiser HD25-II cans for mixing/editing. They are excellent (and the somewhat standard choice in the live sound/recording industry) but easily cost 6 time what an AKG 44 costs.
Good luck with your choice & greetinx,
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