The Spank! Records Blog

Numark NS7's set to drop on the 24th of March.

We got our first taste of Serato Itch a little while back with the Vestax VCI-300 and it has proved to be a very solid platform. It remains true to the Serato ethos of practical uncluttered interfaces yet opens up Serato devotees to new functionalities made possible by increasingly sophisticated modern midi control. While the VCI-300 is a very (very) good controller, hardcore Serato users could not help but be aware of the Numark NS7 system, a complete mixer/virtual deck interface bearing the possibly grandiose title of flagship control system for the Serato Itch platform.

Allow me to hit you with some features. The NS7 has two seven-inch, motorized, high-torque aluminum turntable platters. The turntable controls feature modern and classic settings that alter the feel to model the feel you prefer. Seven-inch, legit vinyl records with 45RPM adapters sit on real slip mats. Solid, rugged, rubberized buttons and knobs compliment a high precision, replaceable CP-PRO cross-fader and D-TYPE line faders. Backlit displays and knobs for song selection mean that there is no need to defer to a mouse or keyboard at any point for song selection. Each deck includes five hot cue punch buttons as well as a touch sensitive strip fader for quick navigation to all your favorite places within a track.

The fact that the mixer/deck/software design are completely integrated mean that this system feels and function in a truly 'complete' sense. There is no need for additional midi controllers or tricking I/O configurations to get your hands onto every feature of the program. There is a button and a controller for everything in Itch here. Build quality of every component is aimed straight at the professional DJ, this interface is very seriously no toy. Foreseeable rigs like this could become installation standard as more and more DJ's move over to digital formats. Who knows, one day your record crate might be as small as your USB stick! Imagine all the chiropractors that would be driven out of business.

Thanks,

Matt.

Spank! Records.

Follow Us On Twitter!

Faster than email and less hassle than having to remember to check our blog, Twitter gives you immediate access to updates from us about what's going on here at Spank HQ. It could be to say that a particularly anticipated product is now in stock so you don't miss out, or a bit of news we just heard about, or anything else that we think you may find interesting that's not worth a full blog post.

If you're not already with Twitter, it's totally free to join up at www.twitter.com.

You can use the Twitter website to check up on us or send your own 'tweets', but I find that the easiest way is to use a desktop client like Twhirl. This is also free and sits on your desktop like any other instant messenger program, so you can see our tweets come up straight away without having to continually go back to the Twitter website. Twhirl works on both Mac & PC.

You can follow us at http://twitter.com/spankrecords.

Native Instruments Maschine Has Landed

Native Instruments new killer groove production studio has hit the floor in EXTREMELY limited supply, and by limited I mean we only received 3, 1 of which has already gone.

Be quick!

Click here to buy one online

VCM 600's are the sex

 

I have long understood and admired the flexible capabilities of Ableton Live. It has always resonated with me on a deep and primal level that this program allows one to build new songs out of sampled, live and midi audio sources in real time and that this function should be the driving force behind a whole new conception of what is possible for live electronic musical performance. Problem is, it's never been quite as 'fun', 'intuitive' and 'easy' in practice as it has been in my (admittedly vivid) imagination. Then the other day I set up a Vestax VCM 600.

First in a new generation of midi controllers designed to ape the session view of Ableton Live, the VCM 600's layout definitively bridges the gap between what you want to be able to control and what you can control with two hands and a midi signal. Six mixer channels, each with assignable EQ controls, separate faders for FX send/master channel controls, scene selection scrolling with play punches on each channel and enough buttons to swap through all the onscreen feedback you could possibly ask for without resorting to the mouse really help to bring alive the complex mixes in Ableton you always knew where academically possible.

The LED feedback signals are spot on, with different colours for each section (transport, EQ, FX ON/OFF) it's easy to tell just by looking at the board what's playing when and where and how much any parameter has been affected. The ability to look directly at all of your EQ kills is indispensible when trying to mix six channels and you will find yourself leaning towards using these kinds of blends when mashing the drums/synths/guitars/vocals from all six different sound sources.

For me it's the simple features like the CLP. VIEW and TRACK buttons that really help this unit bring Ableton alive. You want to be able to swap between looking at your tracks EQ or the FX sends and getting right down into the clip itself to set loop parameter as quickly and with as little fuss as possible. If you're mixing six channels it's all about selecting the right loop from every track that's going to blend and make 'sense' with the others, getting the EQ sorted out and applying any effects FAST. With the VCM 600 you can do this in roughly 10/15 seconds.

The FX section, once set up allow you to turn on/off four chained effects on each FX send and manipulate the wet/dry blend on each independent unit. You could control more parameters on each send with less FX units, though the layout of the controller seems to naturally lead you to the assignment formerly mentioned. This felt like plenty of FX control while manipulating a live set, provided some forethought goes into which FX units you put into each chain and if you do want to control some extra fiddly parameters there are always mouse or keyboard assignments to lean on.

I could rave on (I could) but I don't think any further hyperbolic praise will help to convey just how much I enjoy this particular piece of equipment. If you're interested, by all means come in store and ask for a demo, I would be more than pleased to sing praises in person. Should you trust me already (or be geographically impaired) you can also purchase one of these controllers online here.

Thanks,

Matt.

Spank!

Native Instruments MASCHINE arrives in March

One day Native Instruments are going to make an all-in-one music interface where you just have to WILL music to be so and it will do it for you. That's how good they're getting at making matched hardware/software products. The Kore 2 is an incredibly intelligent way of organizing/finding and modifying normally tricky soft-synth parameters that takes a hell of a lot of the pain out of the art in creating music from your home studio. With the MASCHINE interface NI has taken every thing they've learnt about work flow from making the Kore 2 and applied it to a groovebox that uses your laptops memory and screen for easy (and LARGE) storage and navigation. The resulting product looks like it could be a truly devastating piece of equipment, both live and in the studio. I mean this in the most positive of senses.

The MASCHINE ships with a 5gb sound library of samples the majority of which come pre-packaged into drum kit set-ups. Navigation, audition and arrangement of all these samples are made easy by the Native Instruments 'tag' system which organise all the pre-packed sounds within into reducible categories. You can easily import your own sound banks of samples, either from your computers hard disk or an external drive and apply the same tagging system so you can search through both your own and the MASCHINE samples simultaneously.

The pad bank can be used either as a live surface which can be recorded into loops and saved into the software or as a step-sequencer depending on what kind of looping/sound you're after. Flexible quantization options allow you to edit features timing in your loops without making this sound too mechanical.

The release date for this product is set for March, from which point it will be available in-store or online. If you're interesting in reserving a unit shoot as an e-mail at shop@spankrecords.com.au. You can also check out a number of informational videos at the Native Instruments website here.

Thanks,
Matt.
Spank! Records.

 

Vestax VCM-400 - Coming Late 2009

 

[Updated Feb 10th - We've just spoken with the Australian distributor for Vestax, and the word is it won't be due until later this year. We'll keep you posted.]

One of the more interesting products to surface out of the latest round of NAMM announcements is the Vestax VCM-400, ostensibly the bigger badder brother of the existing VCM 100 controller. This thing looks like a rugged, installation quality mixer with big logical button/fader layout designed to really unleash the midi control/four deck digital sync capabilities of the new Traktor Pro interface.

With a simple flick assignment between deck A/C and B/D this unit is looking like it will be the quickest, most fluid way to control every parameter on all four Traktor decks short of buying two dedicated controllers. Built in sound card I/O like the VCM-100 means this console is going to be a serious all-in-one controller for the adventurous Traktor user. No hard information on Au. release as yet, but here are some photos to wet your whistle. More information as it arrives.

 

 

Thanks,

Matt

Spank! Records.

February is the month for Pioneer Discounts!

I'm sure it hardly needs to be said but Pioneer CDJ's and Mixers really do represent the industry standard when it comes to modern DJ gear. The DJM800's and CDJ1000's are the standard fit out in most clubs in this fair land of ours and the rest of the range offer enough features to give you a comparable performance at any budget. And speaking of budget, we're very happy to extend a special sale price on all Pioneer gear (while stocks last) for February.

With DJM800's for as little as $1,799 and CDJ800's for under a grand, mozy on over to our Pioneer page and check out the savings to be had.

Click here to check out all the specials

Thanks,

Matt.

Spank! Records.