Saturday, December 26, 2009

Day 360: Boxinday blues

All the sherry has been drunk, and the turkey is well and truly dry by now. What's a DJ to do? Easy, watch this, and remember DJing is better than Christmas, and that's all that matters!



73/365

p&&l

bang!

Friday, December 25, 2009

Day 359: Merry Christmas from Bang the DJ.


We hope |Santa got you what you wanted, and that you get chance to have a Christmas Spin before the queens speech, and all the olds fall asleep infront of the telly.

Here is a great little Christmas Treat I found for you on youtoobs:




73/365

p&&l

bang!

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Day 358: DJ Scratch Academy

First we had QBerts Scratch University, now we have the Scratch Academy, also endorsed by some of the biggest names in turntablism.

I discovered this via Indaba music, which if you didn't know already is a great music collaboration website, always offering up collaboration invites with big artists, or other such interesting opportunities.

They also have a thriving community, and many interesting sub sections to the web-site. One of which is their A.I.R pages which stands for Artists in Residence. This is where the collaboration between Indaba Music and the Scratch Academy can be found.

So basically the two sites have teamed up to bring you information and tutorials about becoming a scratch DJ essentially for free. Though I imagine the info isn't as deep as you might find directly on the Scratch Academy website, it's pretty good for free, and it is good to see Indaba bringing in top names and features such as this.

Below is a sample video showing you what we can expect to see on the Indaba mini site:

73/365

p&&l

bang!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Day 357: Free Ableton live Packs

It's nearly Christmas, and I must say there is an air of generosity this year. It's definitely the year of the internet give-away. If you haven't been following TATW's amazing daily give aways then you've been missing out!

Ableton themselves have also made a Christmas giveaway in the form of two Ableton live packs. Perfect for you motley bunch as they include live recordings of Break beats covering Breaks, Drum & Bass and Dubstep.

Here is a word from the artist himself:

“I’m KJ Sawka and I’m excited to introduce the ‘Mad Beatz’ drum n’ bass, dub step and breakbeat collection exclusively for Ableton Live, as a special holiday gift. I’m proud to be part of the world changing Ableton team!

‘Mad Beatz’ is mainly drum and beat-oriented stemming from a live acoustic drumming session recorded at the Art Institute in Seattle, Wa USA. There are also plenty of electronic drum loops, percussion, basslines and keyboard riffs.”

And of course the all important link to the goodies. Below a video of the recordings in action:







73/365

p&&l

bang!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Day 356: More to the point

We're now inside the last 10 days of the year, and after another long break I have another quick update about Bang the DJ.

I've entered a bunch of remix competitions over the last few months, and if nothing else they have been invaluable in improving my music production skills. However recently I was excited to find out I had actually been selected as a victor in one! This is great news for me as it at least shows I am making some decent headway, and this is being recognised by already established artists.

So, a pat on the back for myself, and this of course means adding some points to the tally below.

The remix was of Shamanix's excellent 'Blood Drop'. The original and video are below, then followed by my remix.

The official video:

My version:


Also Shamanix himself contacted me and asked if it was ok to release this as part of a remix package... yes I think so!!!

So according to my score card, and a bit of making it up as this eventuality wasn't covered (winning a remix comp) this earns as follows:

Tune on blog = 8

Tune released = 10

Competition win = 15

The last competition win earned me 10, however I have made this 15 due to not mentioning the Pacemaker competition I sneakily won out right a month or so ago. This won me the Pacemaker that I reviewed last Friday.

This mini round of points brings my total up to 73, which is ok considering the lack of effort I have made in the second half of the year.

A further and more complete update on all things Bang the DJ to follow before the end of the year.

73/365

p&&l

bang!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Day 355: Turntablism with Traktor

If there were still some people left that think Digital DJing isn't as much a skill as with Vinyl, it's time for them to watch this and stfu.

If anything this sort of technology totally ads a new dimension, and therefore exponentially difficult skill set. Half the time the skill is in the creative thinking about how to use this new technology. Sure things such as traktor may make the previous DJ skill set a bit easier, like beat matching and juggling. If you only use it to do those things then yes, it's fair to say you aren't earning your stripes so much.

Apply a little thought though and you soon realise this sort of thing is just small fry really, and if anything the lid is yet to be blown off of this technology, meaning much notoriety is still there and up for the taking.

So, the following video really should put an end to the digital Vs turntablist argument. End of story, let's move on.

P.S. the effect achieved in the video is done using just cue points on the track, and not single shot samples (which would be the easy 'prepared' way) meaning with skill this can be performed on the fly.

40/365

p&&l

bang!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Day 354: Guide to the new CDJ 2000 & 900s

So now they are finally in all the shops after all the hype and waiting. Now you just gotta decide which ones you want. Simple as it may initially seem (one is clearly superior to the other right?) it's not actually as straight forward as you might think.

From what I understand the 2000 is obviously the flagship model, yet it does lack a feature that the 900 has, and is considerably more expensive (some £500 or so) meaning you pay for a whole extra 900 when buying two of these.

No problems though, djsounds (from Pioneer themselves) has compiled a video guide series which should go a long way to helping you decide. There are 8 videos in total covering pretty much any question you might still have.

If like me you are wanting to jump into this next generation of CDJ, but want to make sure you are spending your (considerable amount of) money wisely, then these are required viewing.

Check out the full series here...


40/365

p&&l

bang!