After more than a year of relatively trusty service and a country-spanning tour, my BCD2000 has finally become too flaky for performances. I’ve been looking at the various DJ-style midi controller options, and was down to about 5 options when I was asked to play a set on short notice at a relatively big festival this weekend. So I made a snap decision and picked up a Numark Total Control, choosing this over the NuVJ because it has a couple of extra sliders and knobs.

This is a NuVJ, my second choice MIDI controller from Numark

As a class-compliant USB MIDI device it installed fine. I loaded my VJ software of choice, Resolume, mapped the jog wheels to scratch video, and scratched.

The video went bonkers.

Deckadance, from the makers of FL “Fruity Loops” Studio, is now shipping. No word on the Mac version in development, but Windows, at least, is shipping now. We’re excited to try it out for all the reasons we were when we first saw it, and now we have some additional details to flesh in:

Music tech gear rarely surfaces in the mainstream. I never saw a Roland Juno and Cubase on Seinfeld. The Hercules DJ Controller did make it onto a recent episode of “24″, however, says CDM reader DJ Klachik:

I was just watching the 5th season of “24″ on DVD, and in chapter 21, I saw this Hercules! It it’s the “DJ Control MP3″ version, so it has no audio exits, so agent O’Brien is using it as a controller (God knows why). I was a long time Hercules DJ Console user myself (I switched to BCD2000 few months ago), so it was pretty weird to see it … it was the episode where Chloe O’Brien decided to leave CTU and become a Gabba DJ. Actually, she tried to play a recording (since you haven’t seen this one, I won’t tell you what kind) from an external mp3 device. But all she was doing, is to change the volume with one of the faders.

Cool I suppose, but we’ll know we’ve really made it when Caprica Six starts spinning experimental electronics on a Monome hooked up to Max/MSP or Bravo begins production on a new reality show called Top 8-bit Musician.

DJ Klachick is an Israeli DJ spinning “urban folk to drunk ‘n’ bass.” I enjoy the current track he’s playing on his MySpace page: “My brother … my little brother … he picks the pockets of hipsters on the L train.”

Brad Sucks, the one-man band known for Internet stardom and Brad’s brilliant title “I Don’t Know What I’m Doing”, is taking on laptop performance. First job: find a way to use limbs on your body other than your arms and hands, since those need to play the guitar.

Like many Ableton Live users, Brad finds his way to the Behringer FCB1010 foot pedal. Before you scoff at the brand name, this foot pedal’s configuration is unusual (ten stomp pedals, two “scene” pedals, and two expression pedals), and the price is ridiculously cheap (often US$150 or less).

Of course, it is from Behringer, which means there are lots of things wrong with it: it doesn’t work out of the box with Ableton Live, and it’s a pain to program. Enter an aggressive community with tutorials, homebrewed Windows editor software, patches, hardware mods, and even a $10 firmware hack. Brad has rounded up all of them in a central location so you can skip Googling and get straight to modding:

I’ve tried, Behringer, really I have. I’ve tried to support and defend you, to explain your quirks and help people use your promising but terribly flawed BCD2000. How do you repay me? You make some OSX drivers, fix compatibility with Traktor, give the BCD2000 a new coat of paint and then sell it as the BCD3000.

There is time, however. You can save yourselves from utter scumbagdom (at least in my eyes). This thing is obviously the same hardware as the BCD2000, so you can do it. Update the BCD2000 drivers and firmware and we’ll never speak of this again.

The alternative is to get crushed by Numark’s NuVJ and Total Control/ION’s iCue, Vestax’ VCI-100, MAudio’s Xponent… Seriously people, when the BCD2000 was announced it was basically the only kid on the block at the price point, 18 months later there are similarly functioned devices from all of the major players, and all you’ve managed is a coat of paint and platform support which was put together by a hacker sniffing USB packets?

Dude, ouch.