Category — Digital DJ'ing

Here’s some nice footage of Z-Trip doing his thing at the Manifest Hope Gallery during the Democratic National Convention.

I frequently come across videos on YouTube that contain snippets of audio I really want in mp3 form, usually for sampling or for throwing on at the end of a set for comic purposes.

While capturing audio from videos is nothing new, the website VidToMP3 just made it a bit easier. All you do is paste in the URL for the video, wait for the conversion (takes less than 1 minute), and download the mp3. Sweet!!

Here’s the first thing I grabbed.

Did you recently arrive at a gig, only to realize you forgot your turntables? Well don’t worry, because apparently these days all you need is a computer and a…piece of paper???

It appears that a DJ MoCAP recently developed a camera-based motion capture controller compatible with the TRAKTOR DJ software. It looks a bit sluggish and there is definately some latency, but hey, it’s a piece of paper remember!

It seems everyone can be a DJ these days given the never ending releases of portable music software. This time its the ProteinDS scratching application for the Nintendo DS.

From the mind of Scott Hobbs, a student at Dundee University, comes the Attigo TT digital turntable, which is basically a touchscreen monitor that you can use to “loop, sample, and scratch wave forms just as you would a record”. I doubt it will replace actual turntables any time soon, but it sure looks fun to play with. Hobbs offers an extensive look into the development process of the Attigo on his website, which is a pretty good read so go check it out. Here are some videos of the Attigo in action.

Final Product // ATTIGO TT from Scott Hobbs on Vimeo.

Final Technology Demo from Scott Hobbs on Vimeo.

Aside from a few improvements, and some direct hardware support, the new release for Serato isn’t anything major. Here’s a snippet from the ScratchLive site:

Thursday 22nd May 2008. Auckland New Zealand.

Serato Audio Research is pleased to announce the release of Scratch LIVE 1.8.1.
This is primarily a maintenance release to improve performance and stability and also introduces support for the following 3rd party controllers:

Denon HC-4500
Denon HD-2500
Numark DMC2

Scratch LIVE 1.8.1 includes changes and improvements to the following areas:

USB performance
iTunes Library support
External Midi control
Offline Player
Deck and playback controls
Library Crates and Tracklist
Preferences and setup options
Video-SL integration

Go here to see the full list of changes.

Vestax has partnered up with Serato to create the VCI-300, a dedicated DJ USB MIDI/Audio system that builds upon the success of the VCI-100.  The controller/mixer comes equipped with a built in audio interface with a 4 in/out soundcard, an extra channel for headphones, and of course the Serato DJ software.  A useful feature on the VCI-300 is a ‘emergency thru’ switch which keeps the music playing if your unexpectedly freezes.  It can control more than 90 parameters and functions of the Serato software, and has a new weight reduced JOG wheel with an adjustable wheel torque mechanism that helps avoid vibration from low frequency feedback.