noob questions
noob questions Posted on: 14.06.2012 by Errol Mckellar hey,well for starters, this is prob the most awesome site/community ive ever seen. the amount of help and knowledge u guys freely give. ive never seen anything like it. being around musicians my whole life...well they usually dont want anyone to know how they did something or got a certain sound. (a lil background so u understand where im coming from) ive been in bands since i was 15 in some capacity. i am a guitarist but have always had a love of synth in all its forms(trance,house,industrial...etc..). i have a macbook, microkorg, boss dr-660, and a presonus firestudio. ive been using this setup for recording but now im moving into a dj direction. ive have been POURING over info for about 6 months, trying to figure out not only want i want to do but what is the best gear to use. ive also talked to every dj(that isnt a douche waffle) in the area. most of them are just "dj's" that play songs or requests. i want to mash buttons and twist shit!! i digress im going with the s2 and traktor, price is good ad seems like a pretty safe bet. the questions i have are: 1) how different are dj headphones vr studio headphones. i currently use a set of presonus i got from a friend. 2)is there anyway to use either the microkorg or dr660 for midi control in tractor. if not cool. its more just to have extra stuff on stage to look cool. kinda like, i only need this combo amp with 2 12s.... but i have 2 full stacks thnx | |
| Sulema Eshel 15.06.2012 |
Originally Posted by trouble maker
Yeah, here you go http://www.ableton.com/free-trial You may find that you want Ableton anyway if you are planning to play tracks with wavering BPMs (live bands, non-EDM stuff, EDM rips from vinyl etc). This is so that you can warp the track to an exact BPM, as Traktor doesn't like tracks with wavering BPMs. In T2.5 they have started to address this problem by providing an average BPM across the whole track, but you'll still find yourself having to nudge forward and backward to keep it in time. Hopefully Traktor will sort this problem soon, but I have been waiting for them to do it for about 4 years now, so I wouldn't hold your breath! |
| Errol Mckellar 14.06.2012 | hey, well for starters, this is prob the most awesome site/community ive ever seen. the amount of help and knowledge u guys freely give. ive never seen anything like it. being around musicians my whole life...well they usually dont want anyone to know how they did something or got a certain sound. (a lil background so u understand where im coming from) ive been in bands since i was 15 in some capacity. i am a guitarist but have always had a love of synth in all its forms(trance,house,industrial...etc..). i have a macbook, microkorg, boss dr-660, and a presonus firestudio. ive been using this setup for recording but now im moving into a dj direction. ive have been POURING over info for about 6 months, trying to figure out not only want i want to do but what is the best gear to use. ive also talked to every dj(that isnt a douche waffle) in the area. most of them are just "dj's" that play songs or requests. i want to mash buttons and twist shit!! i digress im going with the s2 and traktor, price is good ad seems like a pretty safe bet. the questions i have are: 1) how different are dj headphones vr studio headphones. i currently use a set of presonus i got from a friend. 2)is there anyway to use either the microkorg or dr660 for midi control in tractor. if not cool. its more just to have extra stuff on stage to look cool. kinda like, i only need this combo amp with 2 12s.... but i have 2 full stacks thnx |
| Errol Mckellar 15.06.2012 | i downloaded the trial. (thnx for the link escapempc) im gonna play around with it but i believe, as stated before, traktor is just an all around safe bet. good for beginner to pro. as of right now, im trying to figure out how to midi map this keyboard and drum machine....if at all possible. if i can get something going with those, i can hold off on the s2 for a minute. |
| Rosario Whitington 16.06.2012 | Well the Ableton ting was just an option, I believe it requires a bit more experience, to mix with Ableton where as Traktor is easier to start with:-) An S2 with Traktor is great for beat matching, and if you want, you could at a point expand your set with the Maschine software! Hope it helped, Feedit |
| Sulema Eshel 15.06.2012 |
Originally Posted by trouble maker
Yeah, here you go http://www.ableton.com/free-trial You may find that you want Ableton anyway if you are planning to play tracks with wavering BPMs (live bands, non-EDM stuff, EDM rips from vinyl etc). This is so that you can warp the track to an exact BPM, as Traktor doesn't like tracks with wavering BPMs. In T2.5 they have started to address this problem by providing an average BPM across the whole track, but you'll still find yourself having to nudge forward and backward to keep it in time. Hopefully Traktor will sort this problem soon, but I have been waiting for them to do it for about 4 years now, so I wouldn't hold your breath! |
| Cliff Lohman 15.06.2012 | ableton has a demo version on their site. Not to rush you but they are having a big annual sale that I believe is only happening for a few days (in fact, it might end today). I believe its 33% off any ableton product. Personally, Im not a fan of ableton for dj'ing and I reckon that somebody new to dj wouldnt appreciate it too much.. Unless theres some very specific things you want to do in ableton, I wouldnt consider it. And its expensive for just software (no hardware) if your believeing about the full suite. I like Ableton for routing of FX and routing of audio to send/return channels. But Im finding myself using it less and less. Traktor just got the remix decks which gives you clip launch abilities and my guess is traktor will keep adding the dj-centric pieces of ableton over next year or two. Imo, Traktor or Serato Itch are both great platforms. Traktor has nicer fx and is very customizable. Itch is a bit more basic and is not at all customizable but it has some pretty unique features that Traktor doesnt (slicer mode is pretty awesome for button mashing). S2 for Traktor or VCI380 for Itch would be the ways Id lean. |
| Errol Mckellar 15.06.2012 | Thanx for all the feedback. I was toying with the ableton idea because of the "live instrument" feel of it. Honestly if i could run everything(chop, mix, stir, serve) off of the gear i have there would be no need to get the s2. Which saves $$ for software. Well damit....now i gotta re-evaluate. Does ableton have a free trial like traktor so i can mess with it? |
| Cliff Lohman 15.06.2012 | S2 is solid choice if u want to go with traktor. And for button mashing, traktor is def the way to go as u can customize the way u intend to mash buttons to ur hearts content. One other controller that i just got and am loving is the vci380 but it uses serato itch. Its pretty nice and has some very unique features. Worth checking out but its a lil pricey (800 usd) |
| Rosario Whitington 15.06.2012 | Well spoken:-) Why not check out Ableton? Since you've produced some music before, you could easily integrate your own stuff with others stuff (songs) :-) Maybe Ableton isn't your thing, but check some vids about live mixing with Ableton Other than that, Traktor RULES!!! Best of luck, Feedit |
| Eileen Sailes 14.06.2012 | What It Dookie Trouble Maker. Welcome! Traktor Pro is definitely the way to go when it comes to the software side of things, and the S2 is an amazing piece of hardware full of monstrous capabilities. Like escape said anything that outputs midi can be rigged through traktor so definitely mess around and experiment to get your unique set up, everyone is a little bit different. Other then that all I can say is practice and when your done practicing...Practice some more. AND ALWAYS PRESS RECORD! |
| Sulema Eshel 14.06.2012 | Welcome, it's really good here thanks to the friendly natives. 1) DJ headphones are much more bassy than studio ones. Still, can't see why you couldn't use yours, especially if you are mashing buttons & knob twiddling, as you won't be 'mixing' per se. (yea ppl?) 2) Does the microkorg or dr660 output midi? Is so, then you can control Traktor. Of course if they only have buttons on, then you are not going to be able have such a good control of 'pots' in traktor (volume, filter etc). Like a push button volume control on a stereo, rather than a nice big knob! Likewise if you only have pots on the midi controller, you wouldn't want to use them to control Play in Traktor (although you *could*). Enjoy your new passion - WARNING: The rabbit hole goes really deep |
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