turntable poetry

Well I didn’t make it to NAMM but have been paying close attention to what has been announced; the big news for many is the Serato-Ableton announcement that we’ve been on the edges of our seats about for well over a year now.  CDM has the rundown and a fervent discussion; you can find more details about most of the new toys at scratchworx and djtechtools, among other DJ news sites.  Items that stand out include American Audio’s all-in-one sound card and MIDI controller VSM4 — check videos at scratchworx.  They say street price will be $500 (though their website says 699); either way you get a lot of kit for that.  Looks great for Traktor but no word if it will work on Serato ITCH for those excited about “the Bridge,” which Serato and Ableton say is only part one of their relationship.

There’s a lot of other cool shit - new phono cartridges from an Ortofon/Serato love-in, a $2599 4-channel 2-computer pioneer-lookin mixer from Rane, a new controller from Numark that looks like a tabletop CD player, a new KAOS pad, a spaceship-looking turntable controller from OTUS, etc.  Read the rundowns at the above sites if you want to drool over more toys; chances are if you’re reading this you’ve probably already done that.

And for all of us who couldn’t make it, they have preserved on youtube this panel at Wham Bamm Thank You NAMM — moderated by Peter Kirn of CDM and including several controllerism visionaries including Justin Boreta and EdIT of Glitch Mob, Richard Devine, Moldover, and more.  And Part 4 of the video features a discussion of what I think is the coolest controller to come out of this, Moldover’s Mojo.  The Mojo won’t be cheap (20 of them will go at $1799, and they will go fast I’m sure) but it will definitely be a hell of a lot of fun — arcade buttons, toggle switches, faders, and touch strips all ergonomically arranged for maximum devastation.  You can check videos of Moldover playing early versions of the Mojo on youtube as well.  Wow, just wow.

Well I just got home from the CDM 5-year Birthday Party/Dubspot Ableton Live Conference at King King and was planning to hit the sack but on a whim I checked out DJTechtools and learned that Vestax and Apple have changed the game, starting now.  I think they will sell a lot of these.  $250 is dirt cheap for a solid MIDI controller + sound card + DJ software; you can easily spend twice that much on software alone.  Plus I have used the djay software before and it is idiot proof — simple, clean interface, near-perfect integration with iTunes, and every basic feature you want in DJ software.  The hitch is, it requires a Mac; I’m sure Apple is happy about that.  Anyone on the fence about what computer to buy their kid could easily be pushed in Apple’s direction with a toy like this.  Some people are complaining that a lot more crappy DJs and “mashup artists” will come out of this, but that is indeed the price of progress.  More simple DJ tools in more people’s hands is a good thing no matter how you look at it.  This won’t replace Serato or Traktor or even good old vinyl for the purists; it’s just another tool, and it lowers the barrier for the beginner.

Kudos to the folks from algoriddim who thought this software up, and please try not to hurt yourselves getting on and off of the giant pile of money you’ll probably be sleeping on from now on….

• Here’s a promo video
• Here it is in action at the Tokyo Music Fair

So I just heard that Michael Jackson died.  I’m surprised I missed it; would have thought there’d be a big to-do in the media or something.  Anyway here’s my Michael Jackson tribute mix.  Enjoy…

“and when the groove is dead and gone…”

Hey NBS, I’ll make a deal with you.  I’ll write a review of your new speakers right here on turntablepoetry.com if you send me a pair.  Awww come on, whaddya say?  You know you really want me to hear a set of these speakers.  And at a mere 200,000 USD I should just buy them myself; in this economy, I can hardly afford not to have them, right?  Sheesh.  And lest you think there’s no competition on this end of pro audio, check out these babies for the same price, and these beauties for five bucks cheaper.  But if you must know, it’s the Acapella Excaliburs I truly lust for, the cheapest of the lot at only $170k.  Jeez, who buys these things?  Audiojunkies has a quick rundown of the world’s 15 sexiest loudspeakers, most of which will set you back 5-6 figures.

Our experiment in collaborative percussion officially begins on March 19th.  Join DJ Professor Ben, world reknown drummer Bernie Galane, and tapdancer Nicole Embree for a night of improvisation on turntables, drums, and shoes.  Thursday, March 19th at the Stone Bar in Los Angeles.  Come check it out!

Here’s my latest mix; what it lacks in precision it makes up for in booty-shakin fun … meow meow. (Warnings - large mp3 file; NSFW).  You can peep the cd design if you like.  Email me for a free CD.

It’s official; professor ben will be kickin beats and knowledge at the annual Pop conference at the Experience Music Project | Science Fiction Museum in Seattle, Washington. I’ll be joined by fellow artists/appropriationists TradeMark G of the Evolution Control Committee, DJ Gavana, and Kumquat.  The conference theme is “Dance Music Sex Romance,” and our performance and presentation explores some of the questions and challenges raised by electronic dance music to the sexual body.

Check out the conference website for details on the conference and check out our cool flier for more information about the presentation, “Embodying Electronic Dance Music Cultures.”

Well, I tried out Nicecast tonight and mixed for about an hour.  Nicecast is shoutcasting software from Rogue Amoeba — it basically uploads a sound signal from your computer to the internet, “broadcasting” it like a radio station.  I was mixing on my turntables and sending the signal from my mixer (Rane TTM-56 if anyone is wondering; it’s about 9 years old) to the sound card on my computer (crappy M-Audio Audiophile Firewire box but it does the job) and through Nicecast, which turned it into an mp3 stream (you can set the bitrate) and broadcast it through port 8000, giving me a URL at the click of a button.  It took me a few tries to figure out that I had to open up that port on my router, but once I did that, I was broadcasting.  I pasted the link in facebook and twitter; according to the software I wound up with 19 listeners!  Not a ton but that’s way more than I thought I’d have.  One buddy told me the signal cut out quite a few times; apparently your upload speed will be better if you turn off bittorrent.  whoops!

It was way too easy; I am going to be doing this again frequently, I think.  Paired with a No-IP free DNS pointer, it’s an instant radio station!  I’ll announce on twitter when I’m broadcasting, but if you’re dying to check I’ll be using this URL: http://turntable.servebeer.com:8000/listen.m3u (eventually I’ll add a link for this).

And if you’re still waiting for that SCS.3D review, it’s coming soon… if you just want the short version: ho-hum.  Pretty cool but there may be better things you can do with your $250.  Peace

Most of the digital DJ world is aware by now of a recent announcement from Traktor as well as a joint announcement from Serato and Ableton regarding upcoming products.  Traktor announced the upgrade of their products to “Pro” versions, due out November 1st.  Their site describing the new products is here; while this is welcome news, I have to admit to being a tad underwhelmed with the new features, and to being a little suspicious that this is just an excuse to make users pay more for an upgrade than we might otherwise be willing to shell out.  I’m particularly bothered by what’s missing in the new Traktor — you’d think by now, for example, that makers of digital DJ software would have taken Serato’s cue regarding waveform display and provide different views of bass, treble, and midrange both by color and by breakdown as has been available in Serato for a long time. The “New User Interface” they’re advertising offers some genuine improvements over the old, but it really is just an upgrade.  Nevertheless, for those who want to use DJ software without turntable control, Traktor DJ Studio is still the best product out there, and Traktor Pro is sure to be welcomed by many users.

Much more exciting — yet far more vague — is the recent joint announcement from Serato and Ableton about an upcoming collaboration.  It’s entirely unclear whether they will release a product together or simply make their two “Live” products (Serato Scratch Live and Ableton Live) more compatible.  (And yes, people are already making the “2 Live Crew” jokes).  Either way, this is a welcome announcement for those of us interested in using both tools in performance situations; they cover very different ground and each product is by far the best in its class.  Serato CEO Steve West announced, “After years of talking together, we’re thrilled to be working with Ableton. It’s exciting to think about what we can offer to DJs and producers: the ability to go beyond just spinning records and add a personal stamp to the music they play.”

Hopefully we will see the result of this creative partnership in action soon, perhaps by the time of NAMM in January.  But Peter Kirn warns us not to get too excited given the vaporware announcement of Ableton’s partnership with Cycling ‘74 (makers of Max/MSP).  Who knows; clearly at this point Serato and Ableton want us wetting our pants about this but they’re not yet ready to tell us exactly what to expect.

On another note entirely, I did finally get “dascratch” from guitar center last week, and I was playing with it a bit while I was in Nashville this weekend.  I’m going to do some practicing with it this week and will post a review soon.

Well, I promised I wouldn’t call the new Stanton MIDI controller by its insulting marketspeak nickname, but the title above was too easy to pass up.  The question is, where is it?  I put my order in September 19th and paid for it with my Guitar Center credit card, even though it wasn’t in the store like the Guitar Center mailing had assured me it would be.  (In fact, there was nobody in the store who even knew what I was talking about until they looked it up online).  I got the impression it would be ready in a few days, but here it is October 2nd and it’s still not there.  I don’t want this to become a MIDI controller site (I chose not to call it “MIDIcontrollerpoetry.com” for a reason), but I do plan to write a review once I play with this thing a bit, which I’m really looking forward to doing in spite of the fact that the “scratch” functions won’t actually work in Serato.  Guitar Center assures me that it will be “any day now,” so I’ll try to remain patient a little longer.  It seems a shame for Stanton not to have been able to capitalize on the hype that they themselves created with the September 19th release date; I’m afraid that by the time it is available, a lot of people will be saying, “daWho?”

Speaking of which, I’ve been saying that anyway, thanks to the atrocious name of this thing — “DaScratch” was clearly coined by some jerkoff in Marketing who thinks he’s being clever and hip.  As was posted on djforums: 

And, yeah, I’m gonna need them to change the name …. Did they even think about how it sounds to use the word in a sentence? “I’m gonna go home and play with my dascratch”. “I’m bringing the dascratch to the gig.” Yeah ok douchebag I’m just gonna bring my needles; you know what, fuck the gig, I’m gonna throw my own party with hookers and blackjack. In fact, forget the party. What were we talking about again?