U31

Started on VDJ and learned the basics, Traktor came with my Omni control so i tried that but kept drifting back to VDJ, my mate went on an Ableton course so i thought i’d better try that out or get left behind, and with a lot of help off Emma Partnow from here i learned enough to hold my head above water.
I absolutely LOVE Ableton, it mapped in to the omnicontrol like a dream, id LOVE to try it on an APC20… but DJ sets in Ableton is all about preparation so this kinda takes the fun out of it for me… if i want to lay a technically perfect mix, Ableton wins hands down…

But i kinda like the sound of those little mistakes that creep in when you wing a set on the fly, where you didnt quite mix out or in just fast enough, where the beats are just slightly out and i correct them
I like that if you listen you can hear the errors, it proves that its me, a fallible human being is doing all the hard work. i think it makes the mix just that little bit better.. yeah i stuffed that bit up and held it together just fine!
So VDJ still holds number 1 position here

It aint ” other shit” to someone, tho, to them, our “good shit” is their “other shit”…
Just because we don’t happen to like it, doesn’t make it rubbish. Its just not to our tastes
Always bear that in mind.
Chart music will probably never be my cup of tea, but if the likes of Guetta can make a living out of what they are doing, good on ’em and long may it continue.
It aint harming me, i aint forced to listen, and i’m sure one or two of his tunes, suitably remixed have been span on the decks by me in the past

You gotta be quick on the EQ’s my freind!
Normal mixers have 3 eq’s per channel (Yeah yeah A&H have 4 i know!) Sooo lets think about those 3 bands, low mid and hi

This is grossly generalising but :The Bass, beats, drums are controlled by the low
Synths and vocal are controlled by the mid
Cymbals etc by the high

So you have a tune playing and you want to bring in the new choon… to do so you cut frequencies with the eq’s so as the two choons don’t clash- if your first choon has a vocal, i’d possibly bring the new tune in by killing mid and setting hi at about 9 or 10 oclock.. you gradually swap out the bass lines this way, lift the line fader on the new tune and turn down the low eq on the old tune as you go… the old choon will run with the new bass line.
then fiddle with the hi’s till the new choon is taking the lions share of the sound… so now you got the new tune running with the vocals and synths off the old tune.. Now you can either line fade the old tune out, or turn the mid eq down while turning the new tunes mid eq up…. and you have a transition!
Or at least 1 way of doing a transition.. Swap methods, try to bring in the new tune by bringing in mids first, try sneaking up the line fader on the new tune with all the eq’s set at 12 oclock, there are a million ways, and only practice practice practice and experience will give you an idea of what the best way will be!

I hope that makes sense!

We’re obviously from different generations, in my time you strove to educate yourself further, above and beyond the basic groundwork given at school. You earned this extra knowledge with your own hard graft
It seems in the last few years a culture of “Want it now, Need it now Gonna get it now” – with zero, or little at best, attempt to earn it has drifted in to attitudes.
We aint saying we wont help you, we will, but dont expect us to wholesale roll over and casually give you everything we have worked hard to gain.

Its the same thing as those very teachers in your own analogy filling in all the grade test papers for each and every pupil and all of them pupils getting straight A’s
What happens when all those straight A pupils hit the real world of work, and are faced with a problem?
They wont have a clue how to solve that problem because their teachers CHEATED THEM
If you fail to understand the point im trying to get across here, the problem really is yours, im afraid

I’m the other way round dude, i’ll Synch 99% of the time and only go manual if its obviously out… Synch is a tool, its provided so ill use it.
But i will say most of the time ill arrange a set in advance and ill notice if a bpm is out when organising the tunes, and then ill tap em out.
This method is naturally gonna fall down when i do a set on the fly…
Keep us updated on your progress, i dont doubt you’ll crack it in under a day!

mr stifffy, post: 7255 wrote: Why cant you believe it?? I think mapping is something to get to know your software, as a digital dj its part of our job. If people want to get lazy they really shouldnt be trying to get into this industry. Ive spent hundreds of hours to get my mapping how I wanted it, that took time and dedication. I will gladly help someone with mapping issues but dont think I should provide something I put a lot of time into. Its kind of like asking “hey can I borrow your mixtape so I can try get gigs?”.

People really need to stop getting lazy the same way people get pissed off when they ask what a song is and I dont tell them, I spend several hours a week searching for tunes that stand out. If people want these songs they need to put in the same time otherwise in all honesty I think people are attempting to jump into the deep end for the wrong reason (girls, money and being able to say “im a dj”)

Amen Brother

The question you just answered got my back up just a little bit too!
Traktor maps the Omni control rather well, everything on the control surface does what it says, the jog wheel jogs, the dry wets do there shiz, loop buttons work, the top effects buttons scroll through the effects and select the focused deck, the pitch faders do just that and the eq’s and kills all work fine and the LEDS light up. Just plug it in.
But mapping? That’s highly personal.
For me in Traktor the Omnicontrol is essentially out the box, but in VDJ i spent a day making things do what i want them to do, and a virtual stranger asking me for a rip off of that, you might as well ask me for a ten minute ride on my Mrs.
Trust me, it aint gonna happen!

Ha ha its like teaching someone how to mountain bike down a steep boulder field, its all well and good telling them, and trying to explain how its really done after they have read the internet and taken on board all the rubbish advice from the Billy Bullsh*ts out there, but its far easier explaining as you show them…

I hope the original answer makes sense and helps in some way, but it sounds like your getting there.. and dont worry about if you get the tunes running true by ear and the display shows its out by the 0.2 or 1 bpm or so, thats as close as damn it, trust me!