Ableton & Musiclink Australia are throwing some launch events in selected cities over the next couple of weeks. They'll be attended by Ableton endorsees, product specialists and certified trainers to demonstrate all the new features of Live 8 by way of clinics as well as live sets for some real-world application.
If you're thinking about getting into Live or upgrading from a previous version, I highly recommend you make your way to one of them if you're luck enough to be in either Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane on the dates below.
If you're in Sydney, we'll be heading along this weekend so we'll see you down there.
More information can be found here on Facebook
Event Dates
23rd May, 2009. Chinese Laundry, Sydney
3pm start
Clinic presentations by:
Anthony Garvin: Manager Studios 301
Damien Goundrie: SAE Liveschool
Neon Stereo: Ableton Alpha Tester
DIZZ1: Ableton Endorsee
Jono Fernandez: Ableton Endorsee
After Party Chinese Laundry 12th Birthday Celebrations featuring Ableton Endorsee Kid Kenobi, as well as Paolo Mojo, Don Rimini, Jaytech, MDX, and more.
28th May, 2009. Miss Libertine, Melbourne
7.30pm start
Clinic presentations by:
Tom Cosm: Ableton Endorsee
Beatnick: Musiclink Product specialist
Danny Bonnici: Ableton Endorsee
DIZZ1: Ableton Endorsee
Jono Fernandez: Ableton Endorsee
After Party featuring exclusive Live sets from Jono Fernandez, Danny Bonnici, Tom Cosm and Dizz1
6th June, 2009. Step Inn, Brisbane
6 pm start
Clinic presentations by:
Craig McCullough: Ableton Certified Trainer, Brisbane Ableton Collective, Ableton Alpha Tester
Tom Hall: Brisbane: Ableton Collective
Paddy Free: Pitch Black, Ableton Alpha tester
After Party featuring Pitch Black (NZ).
I was just doing the rounds of all my tech-feeds and came across this bit of software called Game Booster:
Essentially it's designed to optimise your gaming experience (on a PC only, no OS X version) by shutting down various background processes, cleaning up your RAM and other bits of technical wizardry. The idea is that you run it before you start up a processor-intensive game so that you get the best possible experience.
Wait a minute - shutting down background processes, optimising, cleaning up the RAM - isn't that exactly what we recommended for digital DJs before they start up their software?
The software used by digital DJs is pretty demanding. There's a lot of work going on under the hood - processing audio, computing effects, keeping things in time. The more resources your computer has available to do all this work the better, and that's where optimising comes in.
We always let our customers know that a bit of optimisation goes a long way. Shutting down your wireless network adapter, turning off anti-virus programs, screensavers - you may not realise it, but all of these things are quietly working away in the background. And that means they're using up your precious computing power and memory (RAM). If you're mixing away in your bedroom then this can avoid some annoying glitches. If you're actually playing out in public, then it's pretty much a non-negotiable. The last thing you want to happen is have your software crash on you in the middle of a set, and the more you can do to help prevent this crushingly embarrassing situation the better.
So while the abovementioned software's intended use is for gamers, there's no real reason I can see not to try this out if you mix on a PC. It's a much easier way to do a whole lot of manual tinkering - one click of a button in fact - and a quick Google shows that a lot of people have been using it with favourable results.
A word of warning - try the software at home a few times BEFORE you try it out in the club. You'll want to be sure it does the job for you before you risk a meltdown in front of a packed room.
The software is completely FREE and you can nab it from here:
http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html
Let us know if you use it and if it does the trick or not.
Thanks,
Chris
As any devout Serato or Traktor acolyte will be happy to inform you, a midi controller is becoming increasingly essential gear for a new generation of digital DJ. In general there are two schools of thought regarding the design process. The first attempts to replace your mixer & CDJ/Vinyl completely in favour of jog wheels. The second aims to augment the control offered by a conventional mixer & time-code set-up.
The Stanton SCS.3d is unique in its attempt to do a little bit of both. At its maximal functionality you can use one Stanton SCS.3d to control, mix, loop and cue two decks internal to your digital software. Jumping back a step you can quickly and easily manage all your CUEs, LOOPs and FX on the SCS.3d while still performing all you conventional mixers using a time-code format. Multiple SCS.3d's play nicely together, one can function as you internal mixer EQ controls while you can use two to control two decks simultaneously or swap between all four. The more you have, the more powerful your midi machine. They remind me a little bit of Voltron in that regard.
There are four types of control offered by the SCS.3d Surface.
Slider Mode: Three contact slider LED strips that run vertically along the middle of the surface. These controls are used for EQ control or FX parameter control.
Circle mode: allows you to run your fingers around the perimeter of the surface to control track information in the same way as you would use a jog wheel.
Button control: splits the contact surface into six regions which can be used for setting loop punches and lengths or to navigate through cue points. There are four extra button arranged around the (I want to say corners, but circles don’t have corners!??) control surface that can be used in all modes for extra button functions.
Contact Mode: The control surface is sensitive to two points of contact at all time, allowing impossibly fast cuts and changes as it swaps from one point to the other when you release a point of contact (think of a Laptop mouse pad).
There are also some excellent explanatory videos on the Stanton website.
Thanks,
Matt
Spank!
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!
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!
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.
[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.
New to the store, Traktor Pro & Traktor Scratch Pro are the next iterations of Native Instruments' digital DJ products. They've just had a worldwide release, so let's have a look at them to see what the differences are between these and their older counterparts.
The first thing you'll notice is the new, redesigned user interface (UI).
It sports a much cleaner, more readable look that, to me anyway, is much easier to look at. I always thought that the previous UI was the most difficult to use out of the 3 main contenders in this market, being Traktor, Serato and Torq. Gone is the restricted screen size, so you can now use it in true full screen mode to use up all the real estate you have available. It also has scalable fonts which make them clean and easily read, even at a distance. I think this is a marked improvement over the previous UI.
Beat detection has apparently been improved, with beat grids automagically generated for you when the track is added to your collection.
I've only had a short play with it so far, but after dropping 4 tracks into 4 seperate decks I was able to play them all in perfect sync without doing any manual work with the beat grid at all. Pretty impressive. This also extends to any beat dependent effects so that they'll stay in time with your tracks.
Speaking of effects, Traktor's brand new effects section now incorporates Native Instruments' REAKTOR technology. The result of this is 20 new effects, 2 effect racks that can load up to 3 effects at once, and the ability to chain those 2 racks so that you can actually run up to 6 effects on 1 deck at a time. Oh, plus there's a filter on each deck, so you can actually have 6 FX and 1 filter. Geebus!
With the improved beat detection, auto-looping is now also better and it was pretty easy to punch out perfect loops on the fly. There are now a series of predefined loop-length buttons laid out per deck and visible at all times, making it easier to transition from one loop-length to another. As before, you can also set your own In and Out points to create your own.
Moving down to the browser, NI have introduced 'Crate Flick' to make it easier for those who can more easily remember a track by it's record cover than the track name.
I was expecting something akin to Apple's Cover Flow, where you can visually flick through all of the album art really quickly, but really all you get is a small portion of the cover in the browser, as well as a small but full image of it in the corner of the screen when you select a track. You also get the image displayed on a deck when that track is loaded up in it. Nonetheless, a nice addition to have.
There are some other nice changes, but the above constitute the bulk of the new features.
Traktor Scratch Pro
There's only 1 difference between Traktor Scratch Pro and it's predecessor, as it retains the use of the same Audio 8 DJ soundcard, high resolution vinyl platters and multicore cables from the previous version. The only difference, and it is a fairly big one, is that you now get the FULL version of Traktor out of the box. No need to upgrade if you want to run 4 decks at the same time, you now get it all. Some may be disappointed that they didn't update any of the hardware, but it's worth remembering that Traktor Scratch really raised the bar in terms of hardware when it was released, and that still stands true. If it ain't broke...
Overall this looks to be a really great upgrade to what were already a couple of quality products. NI don't seem content to rest on their laurels at all, which is a great sign that they'll continue to innovate their digital dj line for a long time to come.
As always, if you have any questions at all about either of these just drop us a line at shop@spankrecords.com.au, or call us on (02) 9360 0548.
You can also come instore for a demo as we have it setup on a MacBook ready to try out.
And you can buy them from us here:
You've probably read about Novation's killer new controller, the Nocturn - it's won more awards and taken up more "cool new toys" space than its competitors*.
It looks a little something like this...
You like? We do too!
At $179.00, it can be said that Novation has taken its amazing Automap Universal (2.0, of course) technology to the people. It is the most economically priced, intelligent controller around. It instantly maps most automatable plug-ins, VSTs and major software platform mixers - even Pro-tools.
It's a fine looking little thing too. Super slim (don't we wish) and back-lit for those dark-room environments. It has a lovely 45mm cross-fader and can easily MIDI Map external devices. Learning and clearing control messages is done in a flash and the Speed Dial function is a real "oh my god" discovery - simply hover the mouse over what you want to control and the Speed Dial function will take over.
You can check it out further here.
*there is no competition.
Recent Comments