SmiTTTen
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SmiTTTen
ParticipantThey are $12 each.
ParticipantSpend some time and HONESTLY answer the questions below. You do not have to publish them here. Don’t answer them based on what you think people want to hear and certainly don’t base your answers on what you think other DJs will respect. If you go through all of this you should be able to distill what you are all about and be able to write a succinct bio. If it’s still not coming to you, PM me with your answers and I’ll write it.
Name
Clubs/Affiliations/Associations
How long have you been playing out?
What got you interested in being a DJ?
Why are you still a DJ now?
Which city/area did you begin playing out?
Where have you played since? (if different from above)
Where have you play now? (if different from above)
Are you:
– A two deck A-to-B DJ
– Effects Guru
– Controllerist
– Turntablist
– Something else…
What is your primary style? (i.e. what is the meat of what you will be playing on the night)
What are your one or two secondary styles?
How do you generally interact with the crowd?
– I don’t, it’s head down all the way
– I do when I can
– I like to connect with those on the dancefloor
– I have it as much as they do
– Half the time I am ON the dancefloor!
Your ideal fan:
– Cares most about having a good time
– Cares most about the music
– Is another DJ
Your ideal Venue:
– Large, high profile venue
– underground and cutting edge
– A filthy rave
– House party
What’s your goal for every gig you play?
What’s biggest compliment a clubber has ever paid you?
What’s the worst feedback you could get from a clubber?
Your BIG TUNES are:
– tunes people will definitely have heard before
– tunes people might have heard before
– tunes people might hear in the future when they blow up
– tunes people will probably only ever hear from you because you had to dig like hell to find themNovember 25, 2011 at 3:10 am in reply to: Is scratching on midi controllers "acceptable" for DJing? #10365ParticipantThere’s a good reason you don’t hear much scratching in clubs; it’s hard to do well and doing if it’s not done well it sounds horrible. I have been mixing various forms of electronic music for 15+ years but only started scratching a month or so ago. Right now I am at least off the starting mark in so much as people don’t look to immediately kill themselves when I scratch but I certainly wouldn’t take it into a live environment yet (these suicide dodging types have seen a video or two).
As for whether you can scratch on X, Y or Z it all comes down to the ultimate sound you can deliver. I use decks and timecode and some will tell you that it doesn’t sound “real enough” (i mostly disagree). Different systems reproduce tones differently so whether your current setup is up to it can only be determined by ear. If possible, try a side-by-side comparison and see how digital your unit’s sound is versus pure-play vinyl.
If you want to scratch, scratch! Also, check Dj Angelo’s tutorials on YT. I subscribe to the Qbert Skratch U but frankly, many of Dj Angelo’s videos are more helpful.
ParticipantI will be looking at the AIAIAI TMA-1s soon but was also considering the HD25s. What dont you like about them?
ParticipantHavent had a real chance to play yet, hope to do so in the next day or so. I’t pretty obvious the minute you start playing with it that it’s in a class of its own. I had the S4’s stock fader sat next to it and when I picked that up for a comparison I was shocked at how awful it felt and bear in mind, the S4 fader isn’t a terrible fader. The biggest issue is that if I continue to suck at scratching I have nothing left to blame!!!
Participant
ParticipantThe last comment on DJTT and spammers is somewhat amusing given the hugely DJ related CHEAP SOCCER/NBA jersey sale sites in your signature. You might want to have a look at that.
Participanti think I could kick heroin before Beatport (not that I’m doing heroin, well, not much anyway, it’s not a problem, really). Can someone lend me 50 quid? I need to pay the um, yeah, Mum’s yoga bill.
ParticipantOne note on the Numarks. There is a TTX and TTX1 model. The TTX1 is the first generation and is what I have. There are reports of them over heating and blowing the IC chip in them, which is a cheap fix but a pain in the arse. Of course, I found this out after I got them (though I only paid $200 for the pair). The TTX1s also don’t have the much lauded variable torque found on the TTXs which will come into play if you are a scratch DJ. Having said all that, I have not yet had any issues and do scratch on them.
I did own 1210s for 15 years and was a complete monkey-bucket to sell them a few years back. I still want to go back to them as it’s a love affair that will never end….
November 14, 2011 at 1:30 am in reply to: My first DNB mashup-video: Kelis ft. Camo & Krooked – Far Out There #9796ParticipantGood man 😀
I will take the time to listen to this tomorrow when I can play it at a decent volume without waking my boy up! I am a big drum and bass head and have a few K&C tracks myself. I have also been in marketing for 15+ years, though it’s in software.
Cheers,
SmiTTTenNovember 14, 2011 at 1:08 am in reply to: My first DNB mashup-video: Kelis ft. Camo & Krooked – Far Out There #9794ParticipantSorry if I have offended you. Some tihngs to keep in mind though. Firstly, if you put something “out there” you have to be prepared to take the feedback, good and bad. Your reply was very defensive but I have been in the same position myself. My comment about it not necessarily being your own work is based on my (perhaps incorrect) assumption that you weren’t the photographer on the Kelis shoot or the people behind her original marketing campaign. On the subject of personal taste – you are completely correct – yes this is my personal, unfortunately personal taste is the currency in this business. The look you put together here is somewhat polarizing which isn’t what you want. People who have been in this game for a good while have seen the “sex sells” mantra beaten to death for 20 years. It’s not that we are prudes, just it’s so entirely unoriginal and potentially impacts your message negatively with a good part of your market. This “look” acted as a barrier, rather than a driver for me to check out your work. Remember, you are competing with thousands of other people touting their stuff , so much so, that you need something pretty special to stand out – this IMO does not. As for your resume, I got to “Noiseporn” and began to understand… I genuinely admire you for putting effort into packaging this, it just didn’t work for me and seeing as you are posting it this on a DJ forum, I figured you were looking for honest opinion. I am not sure it would be helpful for anyone to LIKE this all day long just to make you feel good.
Do what you do and believe in yourself, just take it on the chin when someone provides you feedback. I apologize again for the way in which I said what I did. Good luck!
ParticipantI have thoroughly loved the challenge of getting to grips with the apps and the technology that wasn’t there when I were’t lad. Most of all I have gotten a huge kick out of learning about midi, something that I previously considered to be a dark art. Having said all of that, I am finding that I am starting to be pulled back to the “old ways”. If an acetate press landed on my door step tomorrow I think traktor would be packing its bags. I also hate having alll my tunes in one place. I think I would genuinely prefer going back a 60 count record case and have to edit what I take with me. Choice for me isn’t always a good thing. Ideally I want to take the interface out of the experience get back to the real feeling of mixing. Having said ALL…………………………….. of that too, I pay $2 a track versus 5-7 quid. I can go shopping anytime rather than having to get on a bloody boat to get to the record shop. I can also do some of the prep work offline when I am travelling and don’t necessarily have all my kit to hand. I am also a sucker for technology so all this stuff is a good. I think I need two setups. 2 decks and a simple mixer and then the Traktor setup. I need to earn some more money……
November 14, 2011 at 12:12 am in reply to: My first DNB mashup-video: Kelis ft. Camo & Krooked – Far Out There #9791ParticipantI haven’t listed to this yet but straight out of the gate I hate the styling. I appreciate you might be using something that’s been put together by someone else but their taste is way off point. Let the music do your talking…
Participant1. I always felt limited by Torq’s 5 cue point limit. Traktor has 32 cues with 8 assignables. However, the S4 only has 4 cue buttons. I read you can use shift to get an additional 4. Is this reasonably easy to set up? – There is a row of 4 sample buttons above the 4 hot cues on the S4 – you can set Traktor up to use those as hotcues 5-8, it’s one click in the preferences.
Can you access Traktor’s non-assigned cue points to quickly move to musically useful area of a song on the fly? Like back/next buttons on a DVD player? That could come in handy for spontaneous situations. It’s really unclear how you can use the other 24 cue points. Through a few midi commands this should be very simple to set up.
Where are all Traktor’s cue points stored? Torq had separate .tqd files. Its hard to know how I’d file manage a Traktor mp3 library in case I needed to move it to another laptop or external HD. Traktor writes cue points as tag data of your Mp3s. Traktor all has a .nml file for the overall library (or “Traktor Collection”) This library also stored track metadata that is not handled by the mp3 metadata schema.
I like iTune’s smart playlists to organize genre categories. Torq recognized my iTunes comments & custom genre tags, but I had to switch between iTunes and Torq, a bit of a pain. Is Traktor the same, better or different here? I dont use the iTunes intergration too much (though I should). I don’t believe Traktor support Smart Playlists. If it recognizes them (I’d have to check) they would be presented as static playlists which means they won’t synch any changes made in itunes. I am not 100% sure on this so you might want to do more research.
There are Comments1 and Comments2 tags in Traktor and I believe Comments1 aligns with the Comments in iTunes. There is no concept of the Group tag on Traktor. Essentially, whatever tags Traktor has that are standard MP3 tags will be saved to the NML file. There is a lot more/better info on this out there. If you want to know EVERYTHING, buy the Traktor Bible. Its not cheap but worth every single penny if you are the kind of person who really wants to take full control over Traktor.
Does Traktor have auto looping features similar to Torq? i.e., press a key to put the currently playing track into a 32/16/8/etc bar-based loop? Yes – Traktor’s looping is pretty extensive – again lots of video and articles out there – go have a poke around.
6. Probably impossible, but . . . . anyway to import my torq cue points to traktor?
No idea on this one. Torg uses a file, Traktor uses tags. No idea on how Torq defines cue point properties within those files and how that does/doesn’t relate to Traktor. There are some Torq users on here that may be able to comment. You never know, someone may have written a tool to do this…ParticipantIt was OK, cheaper than skiing anyway.
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