DJimC
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DJimC
ParticipantI found this in a quick google search. I’m no traktor user though, so I couldn’t really see if this would work for you:
ParticipantI doubt there is an easier way than to remap the 8 cue buttons ons your DENON. That said, it shouldn’t be too hard to remap those buttons either.
Participantthis might help: http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2011/09/a-practical-guide-to-volume-settings-for-djs/
short summary, you should control the main volume with the amplifier and try to get all your signals along the way to approximately 0db by setting the gain correctly.
ParticipantHave you tried writing the BPM to the filetag? The beatgrid might still be off (phase-wise), but the BPM should be ok.
ParticipantDiBartdi, post: 31276, member: 4249 wrote: Some tracks I use for these types of transitions are One by Sweedish House Magia, The Rattle by Bingo Player of Cmon by Tiesto vs Diplo, but there goes mi DJ friendly-Chart friendly list of tracks :S Do you have by any chance that top40 dance song mix uploaded somewhere so I can hear how you do it and what tracks do you use to keep the mood up?
These are exactly the kind of songs I was talking about for making somewhat easier transitions. I guess it depends a bit on your crowd wether they will accept the occasional track without vocals for about 1 minute, but I think that you will get away with it. Just don’t try to mix everything with minimal or deep house, you still want to keep the energy high!
I’ve only done two parties with top40 music (I’m normally a DnB DJ), so I don’t have a mix online. Some tracks that I’ve used were:
– Major Lazer – Pon de Floor
– Herve – Together
– Mike Candy’s and Jack Holiday – Ready or not 2011 (Exclusive Club Edition)
– Zedd – Stars come out
– Ducksauce – Big bad wolf
– Congorock – BabylonAlso look for remixes like Hee Won Jung said above and look for more obscure tracks from these top40 artists. They often also make some instrumental tunes which can complement other top40 songs really well.
ParticipantA technique I’ve used in this case was to mix the top40 dance songs with some instrumental house or dance tracks. When you alternate between the two you always have a ‘DJ-friendly’ song to mix out of or to mix into.
Just make sure you don’t stay to long on the instrumental songs. I tried to start the next top40 song after only 16 or max 32 bars of the instrumental song. Most often you still get 16 or 32 bars of intro on a top40 song, so you still get some value from your instrumentals. Sometimes it’s even possible to cut the bass from your top40 song and let it run parallel with your instrumental for a while to make an instant mashup.
Participantyou should take a look at the mapping of the buttons that you use for triggering your cue points. It most likely says something like ‘hot_cue 1’ for the button that triggers cue 1. If you change this to ‘hot_cue 1 & sync’ it will also sync your track after triggering cue 1 (this effect should be nearly instantaneous).
ParticipantIn VDJ you could add a sync command to all mappings of hot_cues, play buttons and other places where you would want to snap to the beatgrid after making a jump through the song. Of course, for this to work you need perfect beatgrids which requires a lot of preparation. But that would be necessary in traktor as well.
ParticipantAs far as I know, you can post mixes without any problem as long as you don’t try to sell them (and even that might be legal). I don’t know if it’s 100% legal, but I’m pretty sure nobody will be sueing you for it.
The only thing illegal about it I can think of would be the fact that you’re probably not paying copyright fees (which should be paid with any performance of other people’s music. Clubs and bars often pay a flat fee to play music all year long).
ParticipantHee Won Jung, post: 31194, member: 948 wrote: Effects, which is a huge part of EDM Djing…well honestly the standard VDJ effects are so bad that i wouldnt even go near them…I have heard some of the user made effects are pretty good.
I think it’s safe to say that VDJ has access to such a wide variety of effect VSTs (read: all VST’s, which can be free and are even professionally developed and sold) that you can get at least as good effects as the standard traktor effects.
Hee Won Jung, post: 31194, member: 948 wrote: Honestly I am really against software which allows you to totally customize everything from layout to decks to skins etc. etc.
And yet there is a very active mapping community for traktor as well as for VDJ. I think that traktor might provide a better ‘out of the box’ experience, but advanced users will want to customize their mappings. One simple example would be my Mixtrack Pro which doesn’t come with a ‘gain’ knob. I was very happy that I was able to map another button to that function. Now that I’ve bought a Vestax 400 I’m also very happy with the ability to map all these unmarked buttons to my liking instead of just using the standard mappings. Now I realise that both traktor and VDJ support quite advanced mappings, although I do believe that traktor is slightly more limited.
Hee Won Jung, post: 31194, member: 948 wrote:
The Positives regarding VDJ are really lacking to me. Karoke, and Video Djing. Well First off If i am ever doing a Karoke…ill probably put a bullet into my head and hang up the headphones for the rest of my life.Regarding Video DJing…I find VDJ Video DJing is really lackluster and i find it rather…actually really bland. I use Resolume for Video DJing and i will never go back to any other program for Video DJing.
Agreed, karaoke and video DJ’ing are only catering to a certain segment of the market and will not be a primary reason for buying VDJ for most people.
In the end I’m convinced that a skilled mapper/skinner could make VDJ behave exactly the same way as any standard traktor configuration. However to get the most out of VDJ, you have to be confortable with doing some mapping yourself to make it suit your particular needs.
All of the above of course relates to VDJ 7.2, when VDJ 8 comes out we will have to start comparing all these packages again 😉
ParticipantNADAL, as a VDJ user I am curious to hear some examples to explain “Before I drove the smart car now I’m rolling in a Maserati Gran Turismo.” Which features or performance boosts did you get with traktor that weren’t available in VDJ?
In my experience VDJ can do whatever I want it to do, but to unleash it’s full potential you sometimes need to do some mapping and adjusting yourself. Also, the standard effects of VDJ are not very good, but some (free) VST’s gave me all the effects I needed.
ParticipantI’m actually looking for inspiration, so hundreds of different answers would be just fine. At the moment I have got some plans for these buttons, but there is quite some room for more mapping. For example, I didn’t think of a +/- 4 bar skip button until I saw it somewhen in a VDJ skin.
ParticipantI wouldn’t worry too much about it. If you want to hide it slightly, you could always use this sequence of tracks in the middle of your second gig instead of at the start. Also, 10 songs should last for about 30 minutes max, that should still leave you will plenty of time to be orginal in both mixes.
ParticipantIt shouldn’t be too much work to get the artist and title tags filled according to the file name. Most of the mp3 tagtools like tagscanner support batch jobs. You should be able to select all your songs and let the program work it’s magic. It’s also good practice to use tags instead of filenames, since it’s more portable between systems and platforms.
Also, I’ve heard there is an option in the traktor search menu to search for ‘all’ or for ‘file’, perhaps the second option will result in searching through the filenames. Somewhat misleadingly, the ‘all’ option only searches all tags and not the filenames. Check this discussion + bug report to NI: http://www.native-instruments.com/forum/showthread.php?t=156421
ParticipantI think an application like tagscanner would be able to fill your mp3 tags with information from the filename: http://www.xdlab.ru/en/index.htm
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