[quote_center]Early morning wake-ups will never be the same![/quote_center]
You know that terribly annoying alarm tone your iPhone plays you every weekday morning at 6am? Well, DJ MetroGnome from New Delhi has cut together a brilliant live remix on a Native Instruments Machine. Check out the video below.
Make sure you stick around to the end for some surprise guitar skills and a free download of the track. What about setting this mix to get you going in the morning?
Exactly 20 years ago Pioneer introduced the CDJ-500, the first CD deck designed with DJ performance in mind and 20 years later they are still dominating the market. To celebrate Pioneer DJ released this video documenting the evolution of the CDJ with appearances from Roger Sanchez, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Carl Cox, James Zabiela, Paul Oakenfold and Laidback Luke. Check out part 1 below…
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The all new Serato DJ 1.6.3 includes controller/CDJ platter improvements, new Official Serato Accessory support and a bug fix that will vastly improve the experience for anyone using Serato NoiseMap™ CDs.
[/quote_center]Key New Features Of Serato DJ 1.6.3
*Requires Pioneer DDJ-SZ firmware update.
**Requires an official Serato DJ interface, controller or mixer.
We are all for pushing the boundaries of music through technology here at Hotcued.com, however at what stage does technology start to take over the show?
German tech-house duo Booka Shade recently partnered with Vodafone to create an app that allows the crowd to become a part of the performance by reaching for their smartphones.
The seemingly odd pairing then premiered a 45 minute long experiment entitled “Orchestra Of Phones” in Berlin which involved 600 clubbers downloading a free app , holding their smartphones up in the air and tapping their screens when prompted by cues on giant screens within the arena. The app then synchronised light and sound with the music played by the duo on stage to create an all round audio/visual spectacle.
But does the integration of technology into the fundamentals of the performance create a more involved audience experience or does it ultimately remove some of the excitement and actually disengage clubbers from the most important thing in the room; the music… Decide for yourself in the mini-documentary for Vodafone #Firsts below.
http://youtu.be/txPVso87E9Y
As a DJ, headphones are essential, not just in a technical sense for cueing up tracks and mixing, but as a tool for getting to know your all important music collection wherever you might planning your next DJ set. So how do you choose? Either personal recommendations or replicating the DJ you’d seen down the club used to be an easy route to suitable cans but these days in a world where celebrity DJ’s are paid to sport the latest name brand designs and even create their own models, can you really trust what’s going on in the DJ booth?
Big brands cunningly thrust their products into the hands of Sports Players, Celebrity DJ’s and Reality TV Stars in a bid to become the latest fashion trend because people want to be seen sporting the newest, brightest, shiniest set of headphones.
Over it’s 8-year lifespan, Beats by Dre has generated a net worth of over 1 billion dollars and rival Skullcandy makes 300 million annually. These relatively new players in the market are currently outselling the respected electronics manufacturers who have more experience making a quality product.
So what’s going on? It seems we’re accustomed to buy a brand name, rather than a true audio experience.
Luckily, Time Magazine recently setout to see if the big name brands are really worth the big bucks or if you can actually get better sounding headphones without the shinny bits for less money. Their definitive guide gathered the specifications, review scores and features of nearly 3,000 headphones from all ranges along with expert opinions CNET, Wired and Techcrunch. See the chart below.
At first glance Pioneer’s new effects unit is smaller, lighter and cheaper than its older brother the RMX-1000. The hands-on controls are a lot of fun offering instant user satisfaction and the real-time BPM analysis is among the best out there. However it is still a serious investment to add to your system, especially if you use DJ software that already has similar effects built in.
In the video below DJ Mojaxx takes an unbiased look at the good, the bad and most importantly asks should you be buying one?
Apple’s Macbook Pro has become the stalwart amongst professional DJ’s and I would be hesitant to turn up to a club with anything different. However, you probably use your Macbook for a lot more than just DJing. You might need programs like Photoshop for your work and other hobbies besides DJing and these days many ‘must have’ applications can be very CPU intensive and slow up your system. Of course the ‘moneys-not-an-issue’ option would be to buy a custom dedicated DJ spec’d Macbook to run only Serato DJ but it’s a big commitment to buy one Macbook, let alone a second for one single use.
The solution then is to strip the fat, tune up your existing setup and find a happy medium between peak DJ performance and every day use. Here’s my top 5 tips for prepping your Macbook Pro for digital DJing with the all new Serato DJ 1.6.1
I’m guessing we are on the same page when thinking that checking Facebook while performing is a no go?! Not only is this a performance issue, it’s begging the computer gods for problems. Wireless and Bluetooth networking are notorious for interrupting USB communication and causing audio issues. You don’t have to turn these options off and never use them again, but it is in your best interest to turn them off before playing out or recording a mix.
1. Click on the Wi-Fi icon in your Apple menu bar.
2. In the dropdown menu click Turn Wi-Fi Off.
3. Click on the Bluetooth icon in your Apple menu bar.
4. In the drop down menu click Turn Bluetooth Off.
Anything less than 10GB available storage space is going to cause you problems but it’s best to keep your HDD as light a possible for maximum DJ performance. So when making the switch over to Serato it’s the perfect time to have a clear out.
You can manually sift through all the files on your hard drive to find candidates for deletion or you can save time by having a dedicated app do it for you.
Disk Doctor 2.1 is a great resource to free up storage space on your Mac. Simply shut down any open applications, open Disk Doctor, and let it scan your drive, and the program then returns a listing of how much space is being used by applications each of several categories: Applications Caches, Application Logs, Downloads, Extra Languages, Mail Downloads, and Trash Can.
You can download it from the Mac Appstore for just for $2 so it won’t break the bank.
Your Mac likes to cache things in your “free” RAM so if you need them later you can load them quickly. This might be nice sometimes, but if you need to free up a lot of memory before your important DJ gig you might not want it filled with cache files.
Memory Clean wipes them out with a couple of clicks. Watch out though as apps like this are controversial as many believe they just offer the placebo effect of increased memory.
To be honest you can do what this app does by simply opening your Macbook’s Terminal application and typing in ‘Sudo Purge’ to purge unused memory. However, I really like the visual nature of this app.
It sits up in your menu bar and gives you a constant visual readout to let you know how your machine is doing and best of all it’s totally free so you can’t go wrong with this one really.
Download it for free from the Mac Appstore and experiment…
Your Dashboard uses up to around 20MB of RAM, and although this isn’t a great deal it can account to quite a bit on older machines, after all when it comes to optimising speed, every little helps. Turning off Dashboard is pretty easy…
1. Open the Terminal application (it’s in the Utilities folder).
2. Type in the following command then hit Enter. defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean true
3. Type in the following command to relaunch the Dock, then hit Enter. killall Dock
Your dashboard should now have vanished. If, however, you want to bring it back? Simply re-do the same commands above, only change the word true to false.
We can all be guilty of going about our business, finishing a task, saving a file and just closing the lid without even even a second thought. But taking a little extra time every once in a while can pay great dividends.
This is because your Mac has a few tools that it uses automatically to help maintain and take care of itself. Some of these tools only run during shutdown and startup.
Get into the habit of turning your computer all the way off before launching Serato DJ instead of just closing the lid before heading out to a gig. Everyone gets run down once in a while, including your Macbook.
…and finally!
Now there is probably only a small chance of this being a problem but all it takes is one nutter in the club with a remote to fiddle with your Macbook and shut you down mid set.
You can turn IR reception off to prevent unwanted control of your Mac or to prevent pairing with an IR remote control.
1. Go to Security & Privacy in System Settings
2. Click the padlock icon to unlock, then type-in your administrator name and password.
3. Click Advanced.
4. Select “Disable remote control infrared receiver” to turn off IR reception.
Job done.
