Loads of DJ choices. Pic: Øyvind Bye Skille.

It’s a jungle out there. A jungle of different digital DJing platforms, controllers, sound cards and all.

Being a “traditional DJ” is much easier. If you play vinyl (like we all did back in the good old days) you had couple of choices, and in 99% of the cases it was a Technics turntable.

Couple of years forward, in the new millennium playing CDs got easier and Pioneer CDJ-1000 became an industry standard.

Now you can play music from your laptop with a digital DJing system, control the music with CDs, turntables or a controller. And that is just why it’s so damn complicated.

There are too many options.

Personally I think digital DJing with CD/vinyl control is just a short phase before everyone is starting to mix within the software with their dedicated controllers. The problem at the moment preventing that is that there isn’t a industry standard like in playing cd or vinyl.

Who’s there?

Ableton Live can be used for DJing, but is in better use when used for live performances or studio production. Serato Scratch Live is one of the best programs out there when it comes to controlling digital music with a turntable.

Their collaboration, The Bridge, gives an artist an advantage to use the best of both programs DJ wise, if you own both the products (and if you got into the public beta, as it’s still not commercially released). Here’s a post about it at Innotune.

If you didn’t understand the previous, don’t blame yourself, the situation is just as complicated as was the sentence.

Oh, Serato also has a program / concept called ITCH. That is pretty much a version Scratch adapted to be used only with the dedicated controllers. More info and a full list of ITCH controllers can be found from their site.

There is a software called Virtual DJ, version 7 soon to be released. It’s affordable, and can be used with controllers and all.

There is Native Instruments Traktor. Native Instruments are known for their virtual studio plugins, synths and recently DJing software. They have slowly but steadily expanded towards hardware industry too, there’s audio interfaces mainly for DJ use. They are steadily releasing dedicated controllers for their Traktor DJ software that takes the playing and performance to the next level.

Their latest performance system is now introduced, yet awaiting for the release date to public. It’s called Traktor Kontrol S4.

Conclusion, concussion, confusion?

I don’t know why, but I feel Native Instruments and Traktor at the moment are taking the role of the industry leader. It might be the software, it might be the controllers under their own name. It might be the german engineering combined with US marketing. It might be the clever use of big-name-artists and social media. It might be the fact that they’ve done a lot of work simplifying the digital DJ platforms easier to understand.

At the moment I could go out there and buy a gigantic amount of different software, controllers, audio interfaces and all – trying to find the right combination just for me. But instead I rather wait for the commercial release of that Kontrol S4 and just burn CDs before that – like I’ve done for the past 7 years.

If you are working for some of the DJ software companies and you are reading this text, please take this little piece of advice or request: Please make it easier to choose your software. Please make it easier to choose the controller to play the music.

Compare the situation to mobile phones. Apple releases one new phone model a year. Just one. Nokia releases, well… Nokia releases several phones a quarter, most of which I’ve never even hear of.

Today, when I’m writing this, Native Instruments is the Apple of DJ Software industry. The others are not.

Make it simpler. Survive.

The Bridge by Ableton and Serato

When Ableton announced in October 2008 their partnership with Serato I was super excited. I’ve been producing solely in Ableton and I have also tried to DJ with Ableton, controlled by Pioneer DJM-800, but at that point it didn’t feel right, I didn’t feel comfortable with it.

Serato has been in the game of digital DJing for more than 10 years, their Serato Scratch has been a choice of several DJ’s during the years, and especially among hip hop scene, using control vinyls to control music on your laptop, has been “the” way to DJ.

While Serato has been strong name in hip hop, Native Instrument‘s Traktor has quickly risen to be the equivalent to Serato in EDM.

Personally I was expecting a product that would shake Traktor’s current unconfirmed number one place in the contest of digital DJing platforms.

Today the first result of the partnership was revealed as a product called The Bridge.

Their collabration allows DJ/artist/producer to control your Live set in Serato with control vinyls, CDs or with their ITCH controller. The other way to use the product is to use it as a mixtape creation tool. DJ on Serato and the recording can be later brought to Ableton in order to do flexible post production.

When asking for a comment from Håkon Lofthus prior to the launch, he was feeling optimistic:

I’m really excited to see what they will come up with, and if it’s a product that can evolve dj’ing more in to a artistic, innovative and spontaneous direction. For me, that’s the key.

Fellow Innotune member Thomas Sagstad had also a comment:

I don’t see my self using this product! As it would sill require me to look into a computer screen and working a mouse for track selection!

I’d prefer the CDJ 2000 + the Ableton as an EFX rack / Sample library!

I have to admit, I was expecting a lot from Ableton and Serato. Ableton has been under my magnifying glass for years and being a bit of a geek on digital DJing platforms, I was expecting a lot from the coalition.

However, now when The Bridge is finally revealed I have to try to cover for my disappointment.

The biggest question in my mind at the moment is: “is this what I awaited for 15 months?”

I already decided I’d pick up a digital platform I’m going to use from spring 2010 on, and today helped me a lot. With current features of The Bridge, I’m looking for another platform to spend my money on.

The only thing at this point keeping the hope up is the choice of words on the website: “The Bridge—the first result of the partnership announced in October 2008.”

Maybe eventually I’ll see the possibilities of the software. But now I only hope the first result is soon getting company from the second result. In this form, from my point of view, this isn’t anything for my use.

What do you think of The Bridge?

Remember Prodigy’s Smack My Bitch Up?

The times have gone by, the video itself has got a cult status, but the track keeps living a life of it’s own still being remembered in night clubs all around the world.

Prodigy’s lead man (that usually keeps everything low key) Liam Howlett is known for his sampling. Some music enthuastics have been spotting various samples from Prodigy tracks. Now in the era of YouTube the stuff gets some videos.

In the summer 2009 a very creative video of how to recreate Smack My Bitch Up was posted to YouTube. The spotting of samples was spot on and the way how the data was presented, indeed top notch.

However just a month a go producer from Ukraine Jim Pavloff showed his superb producing skills by recreating the whole track in Ableton Live.

Check it out.

Sampling (other people’s tracks) is something that is usually kept tightly undercover, one reason being the copyrights. There’s no mention there’s been used partitions of another track. But properly used it’s really entertaining to spot samples.

How do you feel about sampling? What if someone gives out and reveils your secrets?

So, it havent been long time since the Akai APC40 was introduced to the market with full support from the Ableton developers. But now it seems like we have a new gadget which takes the step further (atleast for me) with the new Vestax VCM 600 comming into the market. Sure, many may argue that how could it possible beat the Akai APC40…

I think that the VCM 600 got a better overview, less messy trigger/button organization and it gives you a better overview of what actually is goin on. The VCM 600 is abit more expensive (around 700 euro) though and it doesnt have the smart play triggers like the APC 40 has… I wish someone could combine these two into one solid piece of midi performance gear!