bagpuss
Hi there clubheads,
I'm currentely using VDJ with the intention of using it proffesionally in a club when i'm confident, have the right set up and have time.
I Know i'll have to get a laptop which i'm thinking about, and I know that it's going to set me back around 700 quid, which is enough.
Also these XP10's look interesting and I think that after practice they would add a whole new edge to your performance, but there a brucy bonus and not compulsery.
Everyone says that if your gonna play in a club then you'll need a mixer, I can understand that a mixer would be better for crossfadingto save you hunching down, but why else is a mixer needed or better?.
Another thing I would like to ask is how do you guys organise your music collection, I've got one folder with all my dance music and it's getting massive, another thing with dance is that there is so many different sounds/ genres and it's hard to always find suitable tracks to mix into.
I'm currentely using VDJ with the intention of using it proffesionally in a club when i'm confident, have the right set up and have time.
I Know i'll have to get a laptop which i'm thinking about, and I know that it's going to set me back around 700 quid, which is enough.
Also these XP10's look interesting and I think that after practice they would add a whole new edge to your performance, but there a brucy bonus and not compulsery.
Everyone says that if your gonna play in a club then you'll need a mixer, I can understand that a mixer would be better for crossfadingto save you hunching down, but why else is a mixer needed or better?.
Another thing I would like to ask is how do you guys organise your music collection, I've got one folder with all my dance music and it's getting massive, another thing with dance is that there is so many different sounds/ genres and it's hard to always find suitable tracks to mix into.
Posted Thu 25 Mar 04 @ 4:57 pm
DJ Rick
You just have to do what's right for you.
If you don't want a mixer, don't get one. However, what will you do then, just plug the outputs from your laptop directly into the amplifier? I suppose it would work, I've never tried it that way.
As for organizing files, keeping them all in 1 big folder is certainly a way to go. I've found from talking to my friends that for every DJ using an MP3 collection to work, there is another way of organizing files.
I simply keep all my songs in 26 folders. "A", "B", "C", and so on by the artists first name, or by the name of the band.
Most of the guys I know think this is entirely the wrong way to do it. But it works for me. I used to organize my Vinyl the same way, then later on, I organized my CD's the same way. 15 years I have organized my music alphabetically by artist.
You have to just decide what works for you. You ask a lot of questions about wanting to DJ. You need to think about it hard, and do it the way that works best for you. The way others do it might not be right or wrong, it just works for them.
EXPERIENCE is the best teacher.
If you don't want a mixer, don't get one. However, what will you do then, just plug the outputs from your laptop directly into the amplifier? I suppose it would work, I've never tried it that way.
As for organizing files, keeping them all in 1 big folder is certainly a way to go. I've found from talking to my friends that for every DJ using an MP3 collection to work, there is another way of organizing files.
I simply keep all my songs in 26 folders. "A", "B", "C", and so on by the artists first name, or by the name of the band.
Most of the guys I know think this is entirely the wrong way to do it. But it works for me. I used to organize my Vinyl the same way, then later on, I organized my CD's the same way. 15 years I have organized my music alphabetically by artist.
You have to just decide what works for you. You ask a lot of questions about wanting to DJ. You need to think about it hard, and do it the way that works best for you. The way others do it might not be right or wrong, it just works for them.
EXPERIENCE is the best teacher.
Posted Thu 25 Mar 04 @ 5:11 pm
Lolo from Paris
Hy Bagpuss,
I use VDJ, the XP10 controlers and a mixer for fun with my friends and private parties.
So, I prefere to use a mixer. My feeling is better when I mix.
With my opinion, using a mixer for clubbing is the best way :
You could have troubles with your computer (hardware and software). I don't speak about VDJ !
What's happen when your computer should be out of order and you don't have backup for playing and mixing music.
With that, you have an aptitude for adding others and news sources like MD, Turntable or CD-DVD players...and still playing and mixing music.
:-))
For the second point, I prefere to classify my music
1) by music category (RNB, House, etc).
2) by date => All my folders begin with the year.
3) by name.
Regards
Laurent
PS : My english is bad and broken. It's difficulte to explain my idea.
:-)
I use VDJ, the XP10 controlers and a mixer for fun with my friends and private parties.
So, I prefere to use a mixer. My feeling is better when I mix.
With my opinion, using a mixer for clubbing is the best way :
You could have troubles with your computer (hardware and software). I don't speak about VDJ !
What's happen when your computer should be out of order and you don't have backup for playing and mixing music.
With that, you have an aptitude for adding others and news sources like MD, Turntable or CD-DVD players...and still playing and mixing music.
:-))
For the second point, I prefere to classify my music
1) by music category (RNB, House, etc).
2) by date => All my folders begin with the year.
3) by name.
Regards
Laurent
PS : My english is bad and broken. It's difficulte to explain my idea.
:-)
Posted Thu 25 Mar 04 @ 8:48 pm
bagpuss
Hi again guys,
thanks for your responses,
what i'm in the process of doing is to put all my mp3's into one folder ( dance styles - as it's for the club enviroment), and then i'm going to select every track of one genre(in my opinion) for example house, then move them all as "shortcuts" into a sub folder as house, and then do the same with old skool, new releases, trance etc.
Is that a good idea?, I think so.......
Also VDJ is good in the way it will organise songs in alphabetical order, either way, but what I would like to do under the artist or title field is to press (say) "C" and it to jump to all tracks begining with "C", and the same with all the other letters. Just like how windows organises it's files.
Just think how much quicker it would be if you had thousands of tracks in one folder and you needed to get to "l" or "p",
and also to do the same in order of bpm's,
thanks for your responses,
what i'm in the process of doing is to put all my mp3's into one folder ( dance styles - as it's for the club enviroment), and then i'm going to select every track of one genre(in my opinion) for example house, then move them all as "shortcuts" into a sub folder as house, and then do the same with old skool, new releases, trance etc.
Is that a good idea?, I think so.......
Also VDJ is good in the way it will organise songs in alphabetical order, either way, but what I would like to do under the artist or title field is to press (say) "C" and it to jump to all tracks begining with "C", and the same with all the other letters. Just like how windows organises it's files.
Just think how much quicker it would be if you had thousands of tracks in one folder and you needed to get to "l" or "p",
and also to do the same in order of bpm's,
Posted Fri 26 Mar 04 @ 5:38 pm
smokey187
use the search it eliminates songs as u press the letters
Posted Sat 27 Mar 04 @ 2:42 am
jackcu
I use a mixer just because it feels better when working. Also I have CD decks as backup in case the laptop goes down (it never has) or in case someone brings along a CD (it happens). In this case I just put the CD in one pf the players and fade up an extra channel - simple.
Cheers,
Jack.
Cheers,
Jack.
Posted Tue 13 Apr 04 @ 9:34 am
OjLeno
Ever since I started collecting mp3's, I've broken them down into genres. I found that the more music I have (over 6,000 now), the more I felt I needed to break them down more (like, into sub-genres). For instance, most of my genre folders(20's-40's, 80's, Alternative, classical, dance, dance (old skool), hip hop, hip hop (classic), hip hop (gangster), Jazz & Blues, Latin, Metal, Oldies, R&B, Reggae, Rock, Ska & Punk, I have a "best of" sub-directory with links to whatever I think people will like the best and whatever is new & hot.
It used to be a pain sometimes trying to remember where you put *this guys's* song when you sorted (as I still have trouble differentiating R&B from hip-hop), but VDJ's search is good and quick, and all you need to remember is one word from the artists name or the song and its there.
Now with the playlist feature... you can set up your main "plan" for the lineup just do a quick search for requests you might get and find a nice spot to mix it in.
It used to be a pain sometimes trying to remember where you put *this guys's* song when you sorted (as I still have trouble differentiating R&B from hip-hop), but VDJ's search is good and quick, and all you need to remember is one word from the artists name or the song and its there.
Now with the playlist feature... you can set up your main "plan" for the lineup just do a quick search for requests you might get and find a nice spot to mix it in.
Posted Tue 13 Apr 04 @ 1:22 pm
jamieo77
The search feature in more recent versions of VDJ make it real easy to find a track & you can sort by the available MP3 Tag Info.
Maybe in newer versions of VDJ they will display more of the MP3 Tag Info and allow us to edit those Tags so we can sort by many different types of category.
Personally I like to keep all tracks in one folder, much quicker to find a track, especially if its one where you mind goes blank and you can't remember the full Title or Artist Name!!
Maybe in newer versions of VDJ they will display more of the MP3 Tag Info and allow us to edit those Tags so we can sort by many different types of category.
Personally I like to keep all tracks in one folder, much quicker to find a track, especially if its one where you mind goes blank and you can't remember the full Title or Artist Name!!
Posted Tue 13 Apr 04 @ 10:32 pm
digijoc-Mele
"Everyone says that if your gonna play in a club then you'll need a mixer, I can understand that a mixer would be better for crossfading to save you hunching down, but why else is a mixer needed or better?."
Don't see why you would need to hunch down unless you just can't see your screen very well. Maybe you are thinking that you must use the mouse to drag the onscreen fader. I use the keyboard to move faders.
However, I think one good benefit to using the outboard mixer, even if you use it along with the onscreen mixer, is that you have better control of the headphone cue volume/tone etc.
Don't see why you would need to hunch down unless you just can't see your screen very well. Maybe you are thinking that you must use the mouse to drag the onscreen fader. I use the keyboard to move faders.
However, I think one good benefit to using the outboard mixer, even if you use it along with the onscreen mixer, is that you have better control of the headphone cue volume/tone etc.
Posted Thu 15 Apr 04 @ 3:26 pm
bagpuss
That last post has raised another question, which is better for live performance, mouse or keyboard?
I'll be interested to hear your preference.
Personally I use the mouse but that's just because i'm used to that and never considered the keyboard, but with the mouse you can hurry it along better, or jump to another point of the crossfader for a quick affect on your mix, also this could be useful in the event of "bull-zing" up your mix, but now I think i'll try it with the keyboard to see how it feels, that is until I get a mixer,
I'll be interested to hear your preference.
Personally I use the mouse but that's just because i'm used to that and never considered the keyboard, but with the mouse you can hurry it along better, or jump to another point of the crossfader for a quick affect on your mix, also this could be useful in the event of "bull-zing" up your mix, but now I think i'll try it with the keyboard to see how it feels, that is until I get a mixer,
Posted Thu 15 Apr 04 @ 4:15 pm
Liamalone
Hi,
lol@"bull-zing"......I take it You mean when You "mess up" a mix, then You can quickly rectify using the mouse. I "balls up" mixex all the time. Anywhay, My folders are a disaster - done by date, genre + p2p(winmx, kazaa etc). Getting a new hard drive shortly,... will remedy this then :)
later,
Liam
lol@"bull-zing"......I take it You mean when You "mess up" a mix, then You can quickly rectify using the mouse. I "balls up" mixex all the time. Anywhay, My folders are a disaster - done by date, genre + p2p(winmx, kazaa etc). Getting a new hard drive shortly,... will remedy this then :)
later,
Liam
Posted Thu 15 Apr 04 @ 6:36 pm
digijoc-Mele
Bagpuss wrote:
"but with the mouse you can hurry it along better, or jump to another point of the crossfader for a quick affect on your mix"
I've always used the keyboard. The only thing I use a mouse to do is to select tracks. Consider the following keyboard mapping. Your number keys accross the top the keyboard will become the fader, where you can jump to any fader position or do the Alecia Keys move... sliding back of your fingers along the keys to move fader left or right. You can even beat juggle this way.
sc key="1" action="crossfader"
sc key="2" action="crossfader" value="512"
sc key="3" action="crossfader" value="1024"
sc key="4" action="crossfader" value="1536"
sc key="5" action="crossfader" value="2048"
sc key="6" action="crossfader" value="2048"
sc key="7" action="crossfader" value="2560"
sc key="8" action="crossfader" value="3072"
sc key="9" action="crossfader" value="3584"
sc key="0" action="crossfader" value="4096"
for smooth action, you could also remap your +/- keys like so:
sc keycode="12" action="crossfader" value="-128"
sc keycode="13" action="crossfader" value="+128"
"but with the mouse you can hurry it along better, or jump to another point of the crossfader for a quick affect on your mix"
I've always used the keyboard. The only thing I use a mouse to do is to select tracks. Consider the following keyboard mapping. Your number keys accross the top the keyboard will become the fader, where you can jump to any fader position or do the Alecia Keys move... sliding back of your fingers along the keys to move fader left or right. You can even beat juggle this way.
sc key="1" action="crossfader"
sc key="2" action="crossfader" value="512"
sc key="3" action="crossfader" value="1024"
sc key="4" action="crossfader" value="1536"
sc key="5" action="crossfader" value="2048"
sc key="6" action="crossfader" value="2048"
sc key="7" action="crossfader" value="2560"
sc key="8" action="crossfader" value="3072"
sc key="9" action="crossfader" value="3584"
sc key="0" action="crossfader" value="4096"
for smooth action, you could also remap your +/- keys like so:
sc keycode="12" action="crossfader" value="-128"
sc keycode="13" action="crossfader" value="+128"
Posted Sat 17 Apr 04 @ 3:22 am