Hy Bound

Argh! I missed this. I used to DJ (I sold my stuff because I didn't have the funds to keep up with DJing) so I'm more than qualified to answer. First off, when you DJ you should have a sizeable collection, enough to make at least 4 different hour-long sets (only re-using some of your songs, not the same songs in different orders), in Drum and Bass that'd probably be around 30-50 records. In order to DJ you'll need the following things: - 2 Turntables (They MUST be direct Drive's, Belt Drive's are crap. Be expected to spend at least $200 per turntable, I highly reccomend skipping "beginner turntables" and going straight to the MK1200/1210's. - 2 Turntable Cartridges (The Stanton AL500's/510's work fine) - A good mixer (Get one with BPM matching if you want, but never use the BPM matching, DJ by ear, just buy a mixer based off of how good it performs) - A very good pair of DJ Headphones (You should drop at least $100 on these for the lower end headphones. You'll need them to block sound very well. - A sizeable record collection (like I said before, you should AT LEAST have enough for 4 entirely different live sets just to start off, thats enough to be able to switch up your set in case the crowd ain't diggin' what you're doing) Now, DJing is a bit hard to explain in words but I'll sure as hell try. Basically, like playing an instrument, it requires A LOT of practice. Despite what Tiesto may think of himself, DJs aren't gods among men, all you are is a fancy record player. The goal of DJing is to transition between two tracks as seamlessly and melodically as possible. Sounds easy on paper but only the best DJs can pull this off consistently. The way you do this is with a mixer. You'll have the volume controls on your mixer, EQ, etc. etc., then you'll have two crossfaders on it. One crossfader will be only for the headphones (which you plug into the mixer) and the other will be for the speakers (what the audience hears). In order to get the two records to blend together nicely, you'll have to adjust the BPM of each record subtley until you can get them synced up, and you do this by adjusting the pitch. Before you start mixing the two, you should always check your headphone's crossfader to make sure they're on beat, if they're not, then always adjust the pitch of the record NOT being played. You want to be able to do all of this work without the audience hearing, which is why the headphones exist. When you're finally confident that you're good to start mixing, then you will start, usually starting on one of the multiples of 8 or 16 bars in the track and not just randomly. How you mix is personal style, how you match up the BPM's is personal style, there's a lot of it that you'll just learn in practice, but everything else stays the same. Expect to bedroom DJ for at least 6 months before being good enough to start doing shows. It'd probably be good to find someone who DJ's to show you how they do it (not from lessons though, all you'll need is a quick one-time explination) to help out. Thats a HUGE help, Thanks a ton!!! :D I was wondering: I hear that records wear out quite fast if you scratch (which i would most likely learn to do) and was wondering if the CD-based turntables are good quality or are worth it.

Forgive me for asking this if its already been covered, but does anyone know a good software guitar pedal that has more of a Peter Hook Bass sound or a slightly Cocteau Twin feel to it? Preferably free.

Anyone wanna answer this?

Sorry if i hijack this thread, but it seems my question is related enough to this as to be stupid to make another thread about it... I REALLY want to play live and do DJing type things, but what would i have to do/get in order to do so? I guess the question is what kind of equipment is needed in order to play live? I know little to nothing about what goes on onstage: for instance why do the DJs have their headphones on while the music is playing on the speakers? Are they trying to match up the beat before the X-fade it to the headphoned track? Thanks for any help, and sorry if i hijack the thread.

lol. Im really excited for it now! Thanks for keeping any buyer's remorse away!

OK, i checked out all of the microphones you guys suggested. I ended up going with the SM57 mic. It seemed to be the best one for the money. I dont have the $300 bucks for that NT2A (I just bought Reaktor 5) and i kinda need a mic soon-ish. Anyway, thank you all for the input and i really appreciated all of the suggestions.

I would most likely record vocals and guitar most. Thanks for the comments guys!

Ive been looking into getting the Behringer C2 condensor mics. You get two for $50 bucks and they're supposedly really good sound. I was wondering though, are they stereo? what are condensor mics? Are they any good from anyone who has tried them? Thanks for the help.

One time...! At band camp...! I can only vouch that the flute is friggin' difficult to play... Practice Practice Practice. EDIT: Um, from what i can understand, trill is where you wobble the knee between the two notes to make it... wobble... kinda like doing the pitch bending thing with a guitar. I know this prolly doesnt help, but i feel bad making my shitty lil joke when you're asking for help. That's all i got.

I didnt mean to kill the thread... Anyone else use Reaktor??? I was messing around with it the other day and havent been able to write a synthesizer worth using in a song... Its kinda frustrating. Everything ive tried to do to be "groundbreaking" turns out to be shit. Oh well, i guess ill use the 65 synths and FX for now

ok, i dunno, but i think this thread may be locked cuz it'll turn into a FROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTY FUCKIN LOOPS RULEZ CUZ REEZON IS FUCKIN GAY!!!!!!111!!!! Thread, but as far as i know i could be totally wrong about this, as i tend to be often... Anywho, in my personal, non-inflammatory opinion, i am a total Reason fanboy but it doesnt do VST support so you'd have to look elsewhere for that and it also doesnt do tempo automation or audio splicing type things. Ableton is a great host for tempo automation and vst hosting but isnt too good with audio that i can tell from my few months with it (it could, but i find the audio splicer to be rather counter-intuitive). Logic i hear is quite good at this kinda thing but i believe its rather expensive at around $900. I would like to say ACID would work for you, but it doesnt work with Macs. I also hear cubase is pretty good, though i dont know from experience... ive never heard of Metro and know next to nothing about digital performer. Pro Tools is the "industry standard" but you definately have to pay for the name... its quite expensive if you're lookin at anything real good/legal *buy your software * I hope this helps some...

Yeah, ive been looking into a lot of the Reaktor type stuff and am looking into downloading a few of the user-created ensembles; they look pretty pro. Sounds good Scott, i was really looking at getting komplete as well, just didnt have the money for that and a new car... Im really just getting started and havent created much of anything with the core tech yet (well, i havent been able to make any sound i just got it a few days ago ) I just got it a couple days ago.

I recently purchased Reaktor 5 and am absolutely astounded by all of the features and the quality of everything in it. I hadn't really heard much about it until recently and have found that a lot of people swear by it. I have by no means even experimented with all of the different factory synths/FX in it let alone the steps deeper into the audio laboratory... It just seems so amazing how all of these synths and everything can be made yourself and with such high quality. There is a friggin steep learning curve as i can already tell, and it does seem pretty heavy on the CPU cycles but the sonic possibilities alone seem more than worth it. I was just wondering if anyone here was well versed in any of the Reaktor products and wanted to share any of their own thoughts/insight about what i can see as the end-all to software synthesis. [/plug] (seriously though, this is like an audiophile's wet dream)

Wow, thats a great idea, ive never thought of that... You are my hero myf! Also, for mentioning Hybrid, Anonymous, you are F'ing awesome... yeah... i guess im easily impressed this morning...

For anyone who cares... Reason 3.0 ACID Pro 5.0 Ableton Live 5.2 EWQLSO Gold Fender Squire some generic Yamaha Keyboard... About 85% of everything i do is in Reason, the rest is various FX and sound tampering stuff in both Ableton and ACID and Orchestral stuff from EWQLSO.

This is SUCH a noob question but wtf does RMS mean?

Doing right now: Final Fantasy VII-Mark of the Traitor (anyone know if this is being covered on the album???) Future: FFVII-Wutai (2nd try) Vectorman- (i cant remember which one, but i think it was the water level) (2nd try) Usually I have a remix i REALLY want to do and when i go to do it, i want to do another remix...

Rewiring actually does work. You just have to use it sparingly; ive been using it in my recent song...

I really like this a lot seph. I really wanted to do a remix of the main theme from shadow of the colossus, but i guess if anything i'll wait a while . Keep going, this is badass and is produced quite well already.

I second this wholeheartedly. This has been my absolute favorite wip ever since the very beginning. SUBMIT THIS! BTW, where did you get the percussion samples starting 1:24. Those are great!

I would actually have to say that I did do this about a year ago when I first started making music and thought it was a great idea. However, I soon found that setting the FX and everything up at the start got me into a huge slump since I kind of set myself into a mold with it. I would recommend doing it if your first starting out so that you have a premade structure to make it easier to start, but once you get proficient and have tons of tracks working that it really is restricting and you arent able to pull off something mind-blowing.

Yeah, I know how to sidechain, I've looked through the manual and it says the compressor that comes with it doesn't do sidechaining. I also do know how to sidechain with Ableton, but I just need a compressor that sidechains, which I think you just showed me. Thanks.

Im really sorry if this has been answered before, but does anyone know of a good *free* compressor thats especially good at sidechaining or at least has it. The only one I've found is on kvraudio and doesn't work with Ableton... I think its just called "sidechain compressor" and is made by a japanese company.

I figure this might be kinda a bad topic, but since there isn't a sticky thread or even a thread that talks about sidechaining in Ableton Live I figured I'd start one. Anyway, I've been through the manual and all over the internet to find out how to do this and I can't figure it out... Sidechain Compression in Ableton Live 5.

I really like this. There's quite a bit going on to keep the listener very interested throughout the mix. The production is pretty pro and tight. I also really liked the phasing of everything in the background throughout. Good job BGC.