DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
ze2be
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DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by ze2be » Thu Feb 02, 2012 8:05 pm

Hey guys.

Ive blown the dust of my 90ties techno vinyl,
and are now enjoying the uncompressed dynamics of pre-2000 masters.
And hey: Its a lot more fun then DJing digitaly. The audience seem to love it too!

However, some of the old techno vinyl are pretty dry or flat,
both in the composition layout and with effects and buildups.
Where I come from, we used to fix that with 3 or 4 vinyl decks.
Back to current time: How about using the iPad for that?

Basicly I need "nudge" to cue the bpm, just like Live,
and it obviously have to play my own wav files.
When (or if) I start to get serious cash from this,
(its going to be a regular event) I might set up trakor or serato
and use 1 or two extra vinyl players to do this kind of stuf,
with timecode vinyl.

Its not that I need to stop using auto sync,
its just so much more fun to play without!
When I mastered keeping 4 vinyl decks in sync in the late 90ties,
the next step was to mix even more tracks: using Ableton Live.
Nothing wrong with that, but after 8 years of digital,
I have to admit that geting back to vinyl, theres something
with beat mixing it manually ("analog") that resonates in harmony with my soul.

To my suprice, after 20 years of club and rave experience
with vinyl techno, (2002 - 2011 CDs and Live)
geting back to it feels like its an instrument ive been playing progressivly
since the beginning. Even though I havent used vinyl for the last 8 years.
Its not like starting at point zero, it feels like the last years of
digitally performing with CDs and Live has actually improved the overal skill.

Edit: oh, and im looking for some kind of easy sampler
that can sample short clips from the master output,
so I can make rolls with the kick or percussion on the fly, from the vinyl.
One slot with lowpass filter and 8th note delay for the kick sampling rolls,
And one with highpass filter and 16th note with delay for the rest.
(Basicly mini Live for iPad)


It feels great playing vinyl again. :)
Last edited by ze2be on Thu Feb 02, 2012 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

noland
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by noland » Thu Feb 02, 2012 8:49 pm

ze2be wrote: It feels great playing vinyl again. :)
<3
give a man fire and he will be warm for the night
set a man on fire and he will never freeze again

regretfullySaid
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by regretfullySaid » Thu Feb 02, 2012 8:54 pm

Damn, 8 years without vinyl is a fucking prison sentence.

Check out Filtatron. You can put a bpm in (if you need to) and sync the filter and delay lfo's; And it will record, but I'm not sure it will do the same kind of qunatized recording playback live, but the effects part will.
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ze2be
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by ze2be » Thu Feb 02, 2012 9:45 pm

<3 <3

After some more thought (while vinyl playing) I think Traktor is the answare to remixing old vinyl live.
Because of two things: its possible load the ( "projects") songs on the fly: ie save a sample and loop set for each of the vinyl disks. Secondly because you can cue and nudge the loops.

I presume one can use Traktor as a live sampler. New videos looks very Live-ish.

regretfullySaid
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by regretfullySaid » Thu Feb 02, 2012 9:58 pm

Sounds like a winner. I think Traktor samples now. Plus there's so many templates for controllers and ipad with it, so...bada bing.

I dunno though,I heard about this new DAW coming out that's supposed to rival Live and Traktor; they want to make it useful for both performance AND studio use. Can you believe it? The nerve.
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ze2be
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by ze2be » Thu Feb 02, 2012 10:27 pm

:D Now that would be something.

(playing vinyl) 1999; some good records starting to sound anoyingly compressed here!

90% of the old crap has less audio quality then modern digital masters. But the 10% left actually succseed it! Because not only is there very high dynamic range, there is also no brickwall mastering. So even though the mixing of the song is not top notch, the final product actually winns againg for sounding highly different, on every record.

noland
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by noland » Thu Feb 02, 2012 10:57 pm

ze2be wrote: After some more thought (while vinyl playing) I think Traktor is the answare to remixing old vinyl live.
Because of two things: its possible load the ( "projects") songs on the fly: ie save a sample and loop set for each of the vinyl disks. Secondly because you can cue and nudge the loops.

I presume one can use Traktor as a live sampler. New videos looks very Live-ish.
+1
the performance capabilities traktor evolved over the years is amazing. Right now I'm playing around with it a lot and am astonished of the capabilities. It has nearly all i ever wanted back when i was performing with Vinyl. If the new Traktor update will be the "remix" version it is announced as, i will give it more than a try.
Pure on the fly flexibility awesomeness!
give a man fire and he will be warm for the night
set a man on fire and he will never freeze again

ze2be
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by ze2be » Fri Feb 03, 2012 1:55 am

noland wrote:If the new Traktor update will be the "remix" version it is announced as, i will give it more than a try.
Pure on the fly flexibility awesomeness!
Indeed! Gotta check it out.

Tarekith
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by Tarekith » Fri Feb 03, 2012 6:22 am

Been impressed with Traktor Pro2, some really nice features for sure.

What does this have to do with an iOS app though?

ze2be
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by ze2be » Fri Feb 03, 2012 9:42 am

Tarekith wrote:Been impressed with Traktor Pro2, some really nice features for sure.

What does this have to do with an iOS app though?
Because at the moment I have an iPad, and I dont have a Traktor setup. Also, id love to not have to bring a laptop. But so far there dont seem to be any DJ loop players with functions like nudge, pitch, cue, and sampling, for iPad. Or is there?

Meta DJ perhaps.. There is no free demo. Have you tried it?

ze2be
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by ze2be » Fri Feb 03, 2012 10:57 am

Cant find anything about live sampling on the Meta DJ site.
iMachine would be perfect if it had DJ friendly pitch, cue and nudge.
A simple interface with 8 slots is enough. But some effects would be nice.

Tarekith
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by Tarekith » Fri Feb 03, 2012 3:25 pm

Check out dj player on the app store.

ze2be
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by ze2be » Fri Feb 03, 2012 6:41 pm

Tarekith wrote:Check out dj player on the app store.
Thanks. It looks nice.. But can it do realtime sampling, on the fly?
Nothing is written about it in the specs. Also, this app might be overkill.
Looking for something simple, everything one page: live sampling, nudge,
bpm fader, loop and one shots. Can be as few as 2 sample slots,
preferable 4 or more, with eq and delay.
Ill do all the mixing on the analog mixer.

I bought iMachine just to find out if it could do all these things.
Nope. No nudge, no bpm fader. Im curently trying Loopy.
Its almost there. Realtime sampling, bpm fader, looping,
but no one shots and no eq or effects, and most importantly: no nudge!
Its going to be impossible or way to hard to beat mix with this.

Also have Djay wich I like alot. But no recording here either.

Its funny, theres tons of semi pro sampling apps,
but it seems none will let you do realtime sampling,
and perform in human timing using loops,
and jam out with the likes of accoustic ("real") musicians. (without sync)
Need nudge!


Still looking..


OT thoughts. If Claes at BitWig introduces realtime sampling in their samplers,
like he did with his own vst sampler (Vember Audio) some years back, im sold.
That, and if it will import .als files. Maybe im oldschool,
but I want a sampler who can sample, not just load a wave file!

ze2be
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by ze2be » Fri Feb 03, 2012 7:49 pm

Update.
Did a test run with TRG 16, in Nano Studio.
It works, and has some nice futures like realtime sampling
and effects, but no nudge!!
Its very hard to keep a beat in sync without nudging,
And the bpm slider is hidden in a pop up menu. It hides everytime
you go back to the drum pads. Transport is always visible though.

Would be perfect if nudge and bpm slider was next to the transport.

More searching..

ze2be
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Re: DJs: Similar to Live iOS App? (+ a happy rant)

Post by ze2be » Fri Feb 03, 2012 8:32 pm

Very usable option: CDs! :lol:

Got a few CDJ-100S. Even though these only have 1 cue point
for each track, there could be loads of short tracks on the CD,
prepared to match the vinyl disk. Samples!
Scroll through them with the ff and fw buttons. Cue always on zero.
No effects, but hey I can record them with effects. The first track on
the CDs should be a long drum loop, just to match tempo for the samples.
Prepare the loops in Live, and export/burn to CDs.

No direct resampling, but a few CDs are lighter then even an iPad.
(if the CDJs stays at the club)
And certainly a lot cheaper to replace if they break!

Worth a shot.

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