Kranic

Agreeing with all of the above here, and I feel somewhat obligated to illustrate the point by example:

The mix I posted in the mixes section, it was synced 100%; think of it what you will.
As a little challenge, listen to it and keep that in mind…
Then after listening to it, listen to it again, and then remember, it’s nearly all 4-deck.
It’s tracks layered on top of eachother, creating – as pointed out by many – a whole new/different sound.
Try to figure out which tracks are which and then check the original tracks.

Why indeed bother with beatmatching? It’s a tool to be used (respectfully) to create a musical experience/journey?

I spend time in advance to make sure the beatgrids are lined up perfectly so instead of having to make sure it’s all in phase/sync I get to focus on what’s really important: MUSIC.

Just my 2 cents.

Interesting mix! Can’t really put my finger on it, but you retain energy and flow! (Rather important elements of a good mix ;))

Just my 2 cents in addition to softcore’s post above…

I work in IT, I know, breath, think and even piss computers, networks, software and everything related.

The main reason why Apple/Mac is so popular in the creative industry, is because it has been the primary platform for creative applications for a long time. After the rise of the Wintel-platform and its establishment as the major player in the business market, major players in the software market saw themselves faced with the demand for the same creative software as the (closed) Mac platform. It took a long time for hardware and software to get up to the same level of quality as the original Mac applications, but they got there.

In terms of software, nowadays, there is no difference between Wintel and Mac. Actually, now that you mention it, the Mac hardware has been based on the X86 (Intel) infrastructure for a couple of years now. It is based on the same hardware as a regular Windows PC would be, tuned to work together. Bootcamp even allows you to install Windows! As of Mac OS X, the base operating system was derived on a Unix flavour, they scrapped the old System7 architecture and rebuilt the whole OS from the ground up.

As softcore mentions, most PC have in no way been tuned/optimised for a specific purpose.

However, it is really important to understand the hardware you are using and more importantly; how do you use your hardware? Do you understand your hardware?

Because the static you refer to is a special type of electrical loop and usually caused by hooking up a non-grounded device with 2 separate “forward”-paths.

In simple terms, you hooked up the output of your external soundcard (embedded in the controller?) or laptop to an external grounded device (like your mixer, because you want the speakers) and then took the (record/booth) output of your mixer and plugged that into the line-in of your laptop to record it.

I could be wrong…but electricity is a really tricky thing. Don’t blame a PC or software for something like that.

Aside from that, as mentioned, it’s really about the Digital/Analog Converters (DAC). American Audio uses low-quality DACs. Your MacBook probably uses the same AC’97 audio chipset as most laptops. Native Instruments uses high-quality DACs in their Audio DJ series. That’s where the true definition in audio quality comes from. Jitter (“stuttering”) is a performance issue.

Posers will be posers and the loudest people usually get the most attention, but please, if you want to get respect, do it by giving respect, by understanding the other party, by actually understanding the argument and reasons behind it.

I don’t give you a hard time for using a Mac…if that works for you, please! Use it! But please don’t flame other people on the basis of what they choose if it gets the job done for them. And by job I mean delivering quality, being good at what they do and making sure other people can enjoy it the way they intended it.

DJ Hessler, post: 9329 wrote: A Macbook Pro

Really!? Care to explain why?

DJ Hessler, post: 9313 wrote: Read the manual carefully from first to last page, ther is no way around it if you want to get it to work!

This and watch tutorials on Youtube as well.

In the end it’s all down to preference, there’s some nice opensource software as well, but it’s all down to preference of interface primarily.

Aside from that, there’s the samples.
Ableton Live has a ton of pre-made samples and virtual “appliances”, but so do FL Studio and others.
And then…there are VSTs, a sort of plugins, that can be used in different ways.
As an example, you can run FL Studio as a VST plugin to Ableton.

FL Studio is quite popular among the “starting” producers, but it’s also being used by experienced producers in the hard-dance scene.
In the top segment, you’ll find that Ableton Live, Logic and Cubase are the most used, mostly in combination with said VSTs.

You need to use what you feel comfortable with. The Ableton Live interface can be quite tricky to get used to.

My suggestion would be to have a bit of a go with FL Studio until you feel comfortable with the interface and get more experienced with everything. From making the beats to using effects to really get that sound you want.

In my opinion, that’s the point where you’ll really know what you want in a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation).

FL Studio has a cheap entry level version which might suit you best for now and if you run into the boundries of the software, that’s where you can think about upgrades to a more feature rich version or even another DAW.

And remember, it’s a creative process, so it’s always challenging 🙂

Just my 2 cents 🙂

WOW! Oo