Day 324: Deadmau5 talks samples...

Canada's most famous mau5 semi recently released a sample pack on Loopmasters. In this short video he explains how that came about, and gives a brief insight into his early days in the scene, interesting for that if nothing else.

40/365

p&&l

bang!

Day 323: MIDI Fighter - Arcade inspired Midi controller

Those annoyingly clever swines over at DJ Tech tools have done it again. Check this out and tell me it isn't the coolest thing ever.

I don't even really need to explain it do I, look at it, it's a thing of beauty. A simple trigger finger/MPC style midi controller sexed up in a 90s arcade stylee.

The controller comes as a kit, but before you groan in dsisappointment, fortunately no soldering or other such tedium is required. All you have to do is clip the buttons in and screw the case together and you're done.

The kit is further customisable depending on your skills/how arsed you are. And it's reasonably priced to for something so unique. At $160 for something that is uber cool and effectively custome built I say it's a bargain.

The ideal Christmas present for the DJ that has everything... I just hope my nearest and dearest are reading this *cough* *hint* *cough*

As always check out their excellent site for more info, you should have it bookmarked by now anyway ;)

40/365

p&&l

bang!

Day 322: Want to make pro samples and get them released?

Whilst sat meddling with Ableton and my favorite3 VSTs, sometimes I come up with some awesome 1 hit sounds, and I think about how cool it would be to get them on some sample packs, but that's impossible right? Wrong.


Zenhiser are holding a competition that will enable you to do just that. If you weren't sure how cool this definitely is, then remember that Zenhiser released the sample CDs that pretty much contained every important rave sample ever. No mean feat, and endlessly awesome.

Here is the spiel from Zenhiser themselves:

Create your own samples, add them to an audio track in wav format and submit the
track to this Soundcloud group Want To Be A Professional Sample Producer
it’s that simple.

Even if you don’t enter the competition we welcome
your comments on whose samples you think are great and thanks to
Soundcloud’s amazing interface, commenting couldn’t be any easier. For new
Soundcloud users you will need an account to both submit your samples and
comment on the entries. Registration and a personal account are 100% free.

And here are the boring rules:

Producers must submit a minimum of 10 samples contained within one audio track and submit their entry to this sample competition group.
Audio tracks must be in wav format.
Samples can be in any style you wish, one shots, music loops, drum beats or even sound fx .
Samples can be added to the audio track either in isolation, looped or as a
musical track showcasing the samples.
All genres are welcome from Tech House & Minimal through
Drum & Bass and Breaks. If you can produce it we want to hear it!
Producers may submit as many audio tracks as they wish.
All samples submitted must be the producers original work and must not violate any
common law or statutory right of any third party including, without limitation, contractual rights, copyrights and rights of privacy or publicity.

More details about the comp can be found here.

40/365

p&&l

bang!

Day 321: CTRL ALT SHIFT - VJ Culture

We briefly took a look at the world of VJing recently, and here is even more about the great craft.

A film taking a peep in to the closed and mysterious world of the VJ. Some big names on the interview list that even I a non VJ recognise, so think this definitely should be given a look. It might give you a better insight into the world of our visual counterparts, and hey who knows, go towards forging a better working relation.

Next stop VJ/DJ Hands across the world.......

40/365

p&&l

bang!

Day 320: How Slip Mode works in the new CDJ900

Like any other person with a mild interest in DJing, I have been slathering over the new CDJ2000s and 900s.

One feature that has been intriguing me is "Slip Mode". Previously on the CDJs when you touched the platter, scratched, looped or anything similar, the track would pick up at the point where you let go, exited the loop or whatever. This is what you would expect, as this is also what a record on a turntable would do.

However, even though vinyl emulation is a key feature of a CDJ, it doesn't have to be the only features. Taking advantage of the digital functionality is also good. What slip mode does then is keep the track 'playing'' (though not actually sounding) underneath what you are doing. This means that when you come out of the loop or scratch the track resume where it would have been had you just let it play.

This opens up some interesting possibilities, such as scratching, yet the tune can still be beat matched to the other channel perfectly on release, or holding a loop, then dropping it back on the breakdown for on the fly remixing etc.

Weirdly this feature is only on the lower priced 900s and not the 2000, which seems odd. Certainly this makes them more appealing to me as the 2000 only really has the needle drop and DVD playback (for audio only) in it's favour (ok, some other small features...) and given the inevitable price difference, I think I am going to go 900 all the way.

Here is a good video that better explains what slip mode doe3s:

40/365

p&&l

bang!

Day 319: How to use Ableton like an MPC.

Many people come to software environments like Ableton after using hardware for many years. Sometimes that transition can be hard because you are used to the hands on approach of hardware, or simply because you've got to learn something all over again.

Here is a good video about setting up your Drum racks in Ableton (effectively what an MPC is) so that they work in a similar way.

Even if this isn't your thing the tips are real handy, as I didn't even know you could set up a 'simpler' preset that could be used with your drum racks, or indeed anything else.

This would also be real handy for live performance where you might want more than one version of a sample, with effects etc.

40/365

p&&l

bang!

Day 318: VJ Demo with VJ Fader touch visual synth.

Yesterday we touched on the prickly subject of VJs. I say prickly, because it is much more complex than what is a DJ.

VJing seems to be a much more individual art, ranging from firing off visuals with a laptop, to using DVJs, to a million other things in between. Plus I know these guys get real angry if you try and define them using merely words.

That said, check out this gnarly video, which I think is a good example of what can be done when using visuals with music. I am sure there are many other such interesting viewpoints. If someone at VJ Loops wants to step up and send us a video, we'd really like that.

40/365

p&&l

bang!