The Traktor Kontrol X1 is an exercise in minimalism, reducing the various uses of Traktor to a few encoders and buttons and a compact form factor. But while it supports MIDI for use with any DJ software, its “high-resolution” mode – as with Maschine before it – uses a proprietary protocol. The unit will sell for US$229 when it ships in February of next year.

The control arrangement of the Kontrol X1 fits a selection of essential parameters into its narrow form factor. The controls are divided in right and left into the two decks, with four sets of effects controls each. There are dedicated controls for browsing through tracks, and cueing and tempo controls. The case can be used either horizontally or vertically.

The strategy appears to be to focus on controlling loops and effects, while those who want to work with digital vinyl can view this as a consolidated mixer / browser interface.

There are some nice extras, too. The box itself comes with Traktor LE, meaning someone can get started with digital DJing for about two hundred bucks. And for another $49, you can add a custom stand and case – details too often left out of controllers.

We saw this controller in September, in use in Richie Hawtin’s set. On NI’s promotional site, Richie has something interesting to say about Traktor, which is that it isn’t necessarily getting used by everyone in the same way:

You can put ten people on a stage with Traktor, and each one of them will have a different way to be creative and bring out their personality through it.

My sense is that this hardware will be well-received, because it is focused on some clear functions, it’s compact, it’s cheap, and it can be used in different ways by different people. Those trends have proved successful in controllers of late. On the other hand, it seems that a generation of hardware controllers that could have employed an open, standard, high-resolution control protocol are doing anything but. Ableton has locked certain software features to certain controllers, and in its controllers uses only MIDI. NI uses higher-resolution data, but has not continued to actively develop OSC. That could mean that, while open-source and visual software continues to progress, we may have to wait years before commercial music software comes to support any standard for this kind of communication using anything other than low-resolution MIDI. The big question may be, is there any incentive to commercial makers to do otherwise?

www.native-instruments.com/traktorkontrolx1.info

It’s Richie Hawtin Watch time! The latest: NI teases an upcoming DJ controller by sharing video of Richie playing it in a club. The surprise: it’s actually what he’s doing with Maschine that seems most interesting to me. And if you recall the Twitter DJ app that he promised in the spring, it’s here, ready to use so long as you have Traktor and a Mac. (If you’re reading, Richie, do let me know if I’ve gotten my facts straight…)

Native Instruments yesterday pointed me to a video they’ve posted of Richie Hawtin DJing at Berlin’s lovely Saturday Adventure Club. The point of this is, of course, to tease an upcoming DJ controller they intend to announce in detail in November. You can already tell a lot from watching the video: it’s a hardware controller (or two chained together) that focuses on the Traktor working method. That is, there appears to be an emphasis on control of multiple effects, and cue and loop points, and it seems you can control Traktor’s full four decks. (At least, that’s what I get from squinting at the video; I could be wrong.) Regular Traktor users may be able to tell more, so … um, squint away.

To me, actually, it’s what Richie is doing with Maschine that looks most cool. He’s using NI’s drum machine to program in live beats and loop those, and it appears he’s then using Traktor as a sort of software DJ mixer / DJ source / effects unit. This shouldn’t be a big deal; in an ideal world, we’d have lots of DJs getting crazy playing their own beats atop their mixes and really mixing up the stuff they’re playing. Sadly, too often what you get is people playing tracks straight, which means you could just stay home and drink and dance in your living room. Richie’s sets do a lot more than that – and of course, what a lot of us are looking forward to is a rebirth of his original Plastikman stuff on tour, expected some time in the near future. If you’re interested in what he’s doing in his live sets, and his fellow minus mates, let me know and I can find out.

Before anyone complains about his line-up of gear, Richie was involved in the development of all these products, including the Allen & Heath mixer. So I would expect him to use the stuff!

In other news, the TwitterDJ app is now freely available, for Twittering tracks live from Traktor. The bad news is, the installation and setup is pretty involved, and it’s Mac-only. I like the idea – part of the vision of TwitterDJ is getting DJs reporting tracks they’re playing, so producers get paid when their music is played. And letting clubgoers discover tracks they’re hearing is also a great thing. I suppose the advantage of it being on Twitter is that it’s accessible to people at clubs with cell phones. But you do wonder if a Web-based format wouldn’t be better, and given that underneath is the cross-platform Icecast streaming server, it seems too bad to me that the app is Mac-only. Building networked apps is a perfect application for platforms like Java and Python. But don’t get me wrong: it’s great to see someone who plays out as much as Richie does experimenting, and sharing the tool he built. I’d like to know if the tool is open enough that other people could take it and adapt the idea to other platforms and servers / communication media.

Here’s a superb reader tip: DJ Josef Prusa has been using SugarSync to synchronize Native Instruments’ Traktor Pro DJ software, so that he and his brother have their full music collection at the ready at gigs. (Naturally, this same technique means that if one of their MacBooks should die, bro to the rescue!) Not only does music get synced, but playlists, collections, MIDI mappings, and settings do, too. Now, you could use something like the ubiquitous free command line utility rsync to do the same thing, but SugarSync has the advantage of giving you cloud storage, too, so you have an additional backup and always-on access to your files.

Traktor is just one example. You could do the same with any other essential files. Josef also syncs Max/MSP patches for monome, plus a promising-looking, in-progress wifi controller. File sync in SugarSync works across Mac, PC, and now iPhone, Windows Mobile, cell phones, and Android. (One gripe: no Linux support, something DropSync can muster.)

Synchronize multiple collections of Traktor PRO automatically

Before this becomes a SugarSync ad, though, I am interested in what other solutions people are using. There are various cloud storage and sync services. SugarSync is fairly unique in providing both true sync/remote access with cloud storage. But maybe you have added your home server to the mix, or found another solution.

Josef seems to be the perfect geek DJ – check out his iPhone-MIDI hack and (while not musical) iPhone R/C car control.

Defining and re-imagining performance with computers and technology is an ongoing theme of this site. In a special guest column, artist Primus Luta goes deeper into that question with some of our favorite artists to look at practical and philosophical dimensions of playing electronics.

Today, the fruits of electronic musical labor can be heard in every corner of culture, from academic to niche to popular. Still, there remains a perceptual disconnect between traditional and electronic music, especially in the context of performance. With traditional instruments, performance proficiency can be measured as a physical accomplishment. Electronic performance, on the other hand, is generally understood as music made by computers. That poses a question: if the music is being made by the machines, what exactly does the musician do? To find out, I talked with some of the best electronic performers on the road, and got a glimpse of what exactly is going on behind the screen.

Live Rig: Mark de Clive-Lowe

From the Studio to the Stage

Historically, performance long preceded recorded music. Early recordings weren’t what we think of today as studio productions, but rather recordings of performances. Electronic music is a bit of an anomaly. While some early electronic compositions were created for live performance, most electronic music today begins with a recording.

Translating the high production values heard on a record into a live performance isn’t an easy task. It isn’t always possible to recreate the same aesthetic on stage, but it is important to make the connection.

“We can multi-track sounds in the studio,” explains 8 Bit Weapon, “but live, you are stuck with all the limitations the vintage computers, consoles and sound chips have to offer. So we have to trim down parts or add parts that are recorded by recreating them live.”

For Richard Devine, assembling the live performance begins in the studio with “trying to translate all the programmed MIDI data and song transitions into Ableton [Live]. Ableton is running the pieces of my tracks. I have hundreds of audio clips running in session view.” Onstage, this allows Devine to “mix and match breaks, intros, or builds for different tracks, and even manipulate how those are played if I select them. I can really do anything with the arrangement of the original track. It is now total remixing and producing on the fly.”

What this means for electronic performance is the ability to condense what could be days of production work into a performance piece of a few minutes. “It’s really similar to my studio process, on fast-forward!” says Mark de Clive-Lowe.

“We create tracks in the studio in the normal fashion,” says J Tonal of The Flying Skulls. “They get broken up in to drum and bass parts, which get played live on the MPC, melody and lead parts which get played on the MS2000, and samples and other melody parts which get broken down into [Ableton] Live clips and played from [an M-Audio] Trigger Finger.” These pieces are then used live to create what they call deconstruxions.

As Mark de Clive-Lowe explains, “the idea of reinterpreting and translating the same pieces to different audiences with different bands and setups is nothing new.” In other words, rearranging electronic music for performance contexts does have its roots in a larger musical tradition.

For some, this has resulted in working to restore the historical role of performance as the heart of a recording. “The experience of participating in a musical happening is ephemeral and never translates to a record,” says Tim Exile. “I have developed a number of paths of improvisation which you could consider scores… these are adaptive positive feedback responses to features of the musical environments I’ve been in. These features can be very local, such as the slight manufacturing error in one of the buttons on the control surfaces causing it to be slightly harder to hit to be sure of pressing it, to the very wide, such as the proliferation of a new genre changing the way audiences categorize and respond to certain musical structures.”

This interplay of the studio and performance feeds the creative loop to take a new shape each time the artist goes on stage. “Most of my studio output is mellow,” says Daedelus. “Most performances are riotous or at least dance-able. So finding relationships and movement in my own output is quite fun, and leads to disaster in the best nights.”

Is It Live Or Memorex?

When it comes to electronic music performance, is the music is being performed or played? As technology like Ableton Live evolves, the line between the two may blur to the point of irrelevance. As Tim Exile explains, “the discussion lies more in the boundaries between performance of compositions and improvisation. Most of what I see being played live these days seems of the live arrangement variation, focusing mostly on compression or expansion of set arrangements in response to the environment. This is live and adaptive and of the same genus as the style of performance exercised in DJing.”

Whatever the prepared sources, this adaptive style is undeniably a performance. “I can’t always reproduce the same exact show twice now,” says Richard Devine. “There are now so many different variables that can change or be manipulated.”

“I employ a lot of pre-made loops,” says Daedlus. “In some regards the legos are in a large box and I try to make spaceships or castles accordingly.”

“There are a lot of our songs that have a prerecorded studio version,” says J Tonal. “That gets played for about two minutes, and then we switch it up into a deconstruction and play a live remixed version of the same song.” Over top of backing tracks from their songs, Seth and Michelle of 8 Bit Weapon “play the Commodore 64 and 128 live like pianos, and use the Apple IIc as a mono synth in the same fashion. The Game Boy can do very basic live sounds and sequences.”

The Nucleus

At the center of any musical performance is the instrument. For electronic music, that instrument is the live rig. That rig can be a single laptop or an intricate hybrid of hardware and software; the possible configurations are limitless. Combining controllers, sound sources, mixing, and effects determines the breadth of available sound. The shape the rig takes becomes the defining point for the artist.

No matter how large, most rigs contain a center – a nucleus from which the soundscape is derived. For Daedelus that nucleus is the monome. “My preoccupation is with the Monome,” he explains, “especially MLR and added goodies tailored for use. I find it the most freeing from linear shackles, figuartive handcuffs, and my own preconceptions. It is improvisatory in the same way jamming in a jazz ensamble is, but with samples.”

Even if your rig is multi-faceted, the improvisational aspect is essential. As Richard Devine explains, his hybrid rig provides “maximum flexibility to change anything at any point in my show.” At the center is a MacBook Pro running Ableton Live 8 which syncs his three primary controllers. “The Monome is dedicated to doing random FM synth triggering with Max, and the MonoMachine is doing lots of synth and baselines, while the Machine Drum handles the huge analogue kick drums, and skeletal backbone percussion.”

Equally complex is the hybrid rig of 8 Bit Weapon. There’s still a laptop, but along with it they have “a Commodore 64 computer, a Commodore 128 computer, a Game Boy, a Apple IIc computer, Elektron Sid Station [containing a C64 sound chip], Nintendo Entertainment System, KORG microKORG vocoder, and a 12-channel mixer.”

While a laptop does all of the number crunching for Tim Exile, the true center of his rig is his two Behringer BCR2000’s and one BCF2000. “The 2-way control is perfectly implemented, and there are hacks around that allow you to use every single button on the surface. I’ve made my own context-sensitive control for layer switching in Reaktor. Pretty much all the state info I need is right there on the controllers.”

Mark de Clive-Lowe’s rig may look like that of a keyboardist with a Rhodes, Clavinet, and other synths. But what he calls “the heart of the show” is the MPC3000 he uses to program beats live. “The tactile interface means i can really get into playing the drum machine like an instrument.”

For The Flying Skulls, each performer takes different instrumental roles. Bringing those instruments together is the Rane Empath. “It operates like a master mixing console for several elements of the show: Snareface on the MPC, Jerome on the MS2000, and a channel from Live running on J Tonal’s laptop.” Using the Empath’s Flex-FX, they “get real-time access to over 100 effects that can be applied to any or all of the channels with touch-sensitive parameter control.”

Audience: Engaged

There is always the need to engage the audience. “This is crucial,” says Richard Devine. “You have to somehow connect with them. I usually try to play some songs that people know, and of course try to play out lots of new material that hasn’t been heard. I like to program large builds and breaks to take the audience on a roller coaster ride, if you will.”

Leading the audience through the performance is no easy task with all the variables in a complex rig, but getting the audience to link the performance to what they are hearing aurally is its own reward.

“Movement is as important as sound in this respect,” says Tim Exile. “I’ve noticed that audiences respond well when they make connections between movements and sounds which they’ve never made before. So if they can see you directly controlling a sound structure which they’d only heard devoid from its kinetic correlate before (a lot of electronic sounds) then they will have a transformative experience.”

“They are seeing a full studio production created at break-neck speed live on stage in front of them,” says Mark de Cliv-Lowe. “They go on a journey via the music – the rhythm, the harmony and the melody.”

Artists can adapt the journey by feeding off the audience. “They are the ocean currents,” says Daedelus muses. “Fighting directly against [them] is useless. I mean, you can tack the ship against the prevailing winds, but you don’t get very far. I like having a direction, but watching and listening and being willing to go elsewhere.”

This doesn’t eliminate the value of more traditional ways of audience engagement. “Definitely always have a mic to talk to yer crowd,” advises J Tonal. “We like to make sure the audience is on the same page as us,” 8 Bit Weapon shares. “We check in from time to time between songs using fun banter.” There is always room in any musical performance for fun banter, but Daedelus warns, “never let audience members try to speak to you in drug-addled states during performance. It is a careless whisper, no Wham reference.”

There Will Be FAIL

With all of the amazing things we’ve been able to do with technology, we’ve yet to perfect the anti-fail science. If only repairing a crashed hard drive were as simple as changing a guitar string.

“I’ve had MPC’s blow up and melt down right before and during gigs,” recalls Mark de Clive-Lowe. “I have played many shows,” says Richard Devine, “where my computer had crashed right before I was to play or I had some hardware sync problems.”

“We have sent the Sidstation back to Sweden for repairs 2 or 3 times,” 8 Bit Weapon recalls. “A drunk club patron tore it right off the stage and it slammed on the floor.”

Managing these inevitable situations is as much a part of the performance as anything else. “The biggest skill for a live performer,” Mark de Clive-Lowe says, “is to be able to take a mistake and flip it so it was never a mistake.” “When you have only a short amount of time to play — when something goes wrong, you have to have a back up plan, which may be having another computer ready to go on standby or another piece of hardware that you can use to play,” says Richard Devine. “There is nothing worse then flying around the world to play a show and running into technical problems.”

But perhaps the absolute worst scenario is, as Tim Exile says, “not being in the right mood. There’s very little you can do about that. There are no other mistakes.”

Primus Luta is a musician, technologist and a writer. When not working to finish his Heads Project, he’s trying to convince himself he’s got it in him to write that book he always wanted to write.

Primus Luta’s blog on noisepages, featuring computer music performance techniques, Plogue Bidule tips, and a lot more:

http://plpheads.noisepages.com/

See the companion video gallery for this story, featuring live performances from the artists interviewed. [about to be posted]

Daedelus

Richard Devine

Tim Exile

8 Bit Weapon

With the fabulous ComputeHer on visuals, using her Apple II.

Mark de Clive-Lowe

The Flying Skulls

Not actually a video that does this crew justice, but you get the idea…

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/07/21/video-gallery-live-acts-live-electronic-performance-done-right/feed/ 69 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/09/19/stanton-dascratch-details-touch-controller-self-configures-for-ableton-traktor-serato/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/09/19/stanton-dascratch-details-touch-controller-self-configures-for-ableton-traktor-serato/#comments Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:10:07 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=4126

Stanton has released the details of its new DaScratch touch controller, and I have to admit, it looks pretty terrific. About as far as anyone has gotten with a smart touch controller is an X/Y pad; this controller, by contrast, defines different areas of the touch surface for different functions and provides LED feedback so you can see what you’re doing. “Scratching” alone doesn’t really make sense in the computer world, even with DJ software, so you get lots of different functions for live performance. I think this may be as big a hit with Ableton Live users and laptop musicians as DJs.

Updated: Richard Devine video above now restored.

The specs:

• 5 touch sliders, 3 of which are switchable via preset
• 1 rotary touch controller (switchable)
• Loads of buttons: 4 hardware backlit switches + 10 + 9 switchable buttons
• USB bus powered
• Windows, Mac compatibility (Linux should work, too; it’s class compliant — you just miss out on the included software app)

What can you do with those touch areas? Stanton suggests scratching, scrubbing, navigation, cueing, looping, sampling, pitch shifting, effects, and the like, but of course, you can hook it up to whatever you like, and for our friends building crazy Pd and Reaktor soundmakers, this could be even more fun.

By switching modes, you can shift the kind of gestures you’re using on the center touch area, selecting three vertical faders, or one vertical fader and a circular touch area, or one fader and buttons. That’s in addition to the buttons and fader areas elsewhere. I’m impressed that in a small space, there’s a significant set of controls. If you want more, you can even snap together multiple units.

The clever addition is that, on top of the hardware, you get a software app called DaRouter. Dumb name, but functional stuff: built on Bome’s MIDI Translator, the software makes it easy to swap between presets for Traktor and Serato or select a generic/Ableton preset. You can’t edit the software presets directly, but you can make your own in MIDI Translator. See the DaRouter page for more.

The best part? Our friend Richard Devine demoing the unit in the video at top. I’m sure Richard can do something a lot more out there with this as the controller, though.

Lots more at the product page:

SCS.3D: DaScratch

Pricing: US$299 list
Availability: Unknown

Stanton wants this to be part of some giant “system,” by which they mean they want you to buy more things from Stanton. I’ll leave that up for you. On its own, this looks like a potentially wonderful controller; I’m eager to try it and see if the hardware build and touch quality delivers.

Previously: Stanton to Release Touch DJ Controller; Surface One, Thunder, Reborn?

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/09/19/stanton-dascratch-details-touch-controller-self-configures-for-ableton-traktor-serato/feed/ 26 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/09/10/richie-hawtin-gives-mini-tutorials-on-explaining-his-live-setup/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/09/10/richie-hawtin-gives-mini-tutorials-on-explaining-his-live-setup/#comments Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:59:29 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/?p=3992

Richie Hawtin actually topped the list of people CDM readers don’t want us to interview at NY’s Minitek this weekend, which I’m tempted to take as a challenge. (Hey, I’m all for combating hype and talking to the many talented but under-appreciated artists out there. I just find it amusing how much negative energy Hawtin attracts.) In the meantime, CDM’s resident electronic scenester Liz McLean Knight notes that he has revealed some of how he works live on his blog.

M_nus label owner and minimal techno pioneer Richie Hawtin has eschewed the “trade secret” mentality (and ridiculous toupe-combover hairstyle, thank god!) and shared brief videos on his myspace blog explaining his live setup.

Traktor lies at the base of his arrangement, and in particular he makes use of Traktor’s Four Decks. Much in the way Ableton Live enables live syncing of basic elements, Hawtin uses elements of unfinished tracks, such as a partial demo track from label-mate Marc Houle, as building blocks in a live set.

And in a move that some people consider controversial in the DJing world, he admits to using the Sync function, as it allows him to focus on other things such as four-deck manipulation and playing with effects, a view to which digital musicians are more sympathetic.

Richie Hawtin: My Setup

I don’t think using four DJ decks can really be considered innovative any more, frankly — not with Ableton Live in common usage and live electronic musicians pushing in other directions. But this is how Hawtin works, and he’s more than entitled that. It’s also nice to see someone who actually uses NI’s four decks rather than just talking about them. And for all the hating around here, I do think Hawtin does deserve credit for having been at the digital DJ phenomenon from just about the beginning. (Whether that phenomenon has been a good thing, that’s a separate issue to debate.)

I’m equally interested to see, though, where people go next. I think Hawtin rightfully deserves credit for his taste factor and the influence that had — even if you hate him, here’s a guy who was able to really build a brand an a musical identity not only for himself but his label and self-imagined genre. If the ongoing attention following Hawtin seems disproportionate, perhaps that’s because others have failed to fill the void or find a way to be that successful moving in other directions.

Yes, that’s meant as a challenge.

Update: here’s a compilation of all the videos. (Thanks, Louis!)

Richie Hawtin 2008 DJ Setup from Dean Koch on Vimeo.

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/09/10/richie-hawtin-gives-mini-tutorials-on-explaining-his-live-setup/feed/ 41 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/05/13/gorgeous-diy-midibox64-midi-controller-for-live-traktor-max/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/05/13/gorgeous-diy-midibox64-midi-controller-for-live-traktor-max/#comments Tue, 13 May 2008 20:23:47 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/05/13/gorgeous-diy-midibox64-midi-controller-for-live-traktor-max/

"DIY project" may conjure up images of something hacked-together and rustic, but then you see projects like this one from William "Logo." Cheap-looking, mass-produced controllers, begone — behold the luxury US$400 and some construction talent can produce!

Logo shares the project on EM411:

After being dissatisfied with a dozen or so controllers, and due to the lack of quality affordable DJ mixer style ones on the market, I bit the bullet and went the DIY route. Overall it cost around $400 to make (it would of been about $300 if I didn’t make several ordering mistakes and splurge on super nice faders). It was by far the largest electronics project I’ve taken on and have the scars to prove it (aka I wanted to throw it out the window several times). Painful but worth it. I’ve never felt anything so damn hefty. It consists of 16 knobs, 5 faders, 16 arcade buttons, and 32 MIDI controlled LED buttons.
I plan on using it primarily for "crazy" 4 channel chopped up DJ sets in Live and simple sets in Traktor. I’m also in the midst of making some simple step sequencers for it in Max to take advantage of the fancy led buttons.

And, of course, having a controller no one else does? Priceless.

This project makes use of the popular MIDIBox project, but we’re also expecting solutions soon based on Livid’s MIDI DIY control board. Which you choose comes down to the configuration you want, but we’ll have more details on the MIDI DIY soon.

More photos (including electronics pr0n shots of the innards), including those above, at William’s set on Flickr:

MIDIBox

Previously, also featuring increasingly-popular arcade buttons:

All-Arcade Ableton Live Controller, DIY Hardware by The Prevolt

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/05/13/gorgeous-diy-midibox64-midi-controller-for-live-traktor-max/feed/ 21 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/05/06/diy-dj-controllers-a-vestax-vci-100-with-real-vinyl/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/05/06/diy-dj-controllers-a-vestax-vci-100-with-real-vinyl/#comments Tue, 06 May 2008 16:30:10 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/05/06/diy-dj-controllers-a-vestax-vci-100-with-real-vinyl/

There are various ways to bridge the gap between vinyl records and computers, as we saw last week. You can cut records with digital timecode. You can build controller hardware that simulates the resistance of a motor, or mechanically control digital media using the turntable platter. And then there are the brute force methods, like strapping mice to turntables.

Squarely in the brute-force camp, our friend Ean Golden at DJ Tech Tools has added 7" records to the wheels on Vestax’s VCI-100 USB controller. If you want to do the same violence to your VCI-100 (I love how abused Ean’s VCI is looking, especially with those custom arcade buttons), Ean has a tutorial:

Add Records to your VCI-100 Jog Wheels [djtechtools.com]

The VCI still doesn’t feel like a turntable; I think it’s best thought of as something new and digital. And you do lose access to some of the controls. But I love that it’s customized in this way. Maybe I’ll add hubcaps to mine.

]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/05/06/diy-dj-controllers-a-vestax-vci-100-with-real-vinyl/feed/ 3 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/05/01/digital-dj-controllers-a-hybrid-numark-turntable-stanton-sans-vinyl/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/05/01/digital-dj-controllers-a-hybrid-numark-turntable-stanton-sans-vinyl/#comments Fri, 02 May 2008 04:13:15 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/05/01/digital-dj-controllers-a-hybrid-numark-turntable-stanton-sans-vinyl/

Since this week has become Unplanned Unofficial Vinyl Week, I might as well keep going. Vinyl with printed timecode is just one path. Here are two examples (one recent, one upcoming) of products that have found other means of connecting digital sound to the turntable. If a product like Traktor Scratch or Serato Scratch Live represent the maturation of the integrated vinyl + hardware + software solution, these two tools virtualize the turntable experience in other ways. And they demonstrate just how much control technology can change in music, turntable or no.

The Numark X2, above, as pointed out by beatfix in comments, is a hybrid of two approaches. It’s a conventional turntable (meaning you can actually hook it up to an amp and hear something, which isn’t the case with timecode-encoded vinyl). But it also uses the turntable to manipulate an MP3 CD. Now, obviously, Numark has missed the obvious next step: why not transmit control data to a computer instead of a CD? The X2, with a street well below US$1000, isn’t new; it’s been around a couple of years. But I’m still waiting for the concept to be applied to a computer output. (Anyone?)

 

In the opposite direction, the Stanton Control System, unveiled at NAMM in January and due to ship in June, does away with the turntable. The deck, the SCS.1d, simulates the feel of a turntable with a high-torque motorized platter and even a motorized pitch fader. Personally, I love this — and think it could be a sign of other, non-DJ controllers with tactile feedback. (You heard it here first. Uh … but I do expect that to take a while, as tactile control design is hard.)

But the turntable has some control features of its own: trigger pads, LCD scribble strips, encoders, transport controls, and preset triggers and navigation keys. They look a little odd, honestly, on a faux turntable, but it does save some space and gear.

The SCS.1m on left is a traditional mixer control surface with LCD "scribble strips" (reminds me a bit of the Novation keyboards) and endless encoders with a light-up ring (as we’ve been seeing various places.) The mixer controller is also a FireWire audio interface with mic and phono ins and dedicated headphone out, plus a footswitch input. That might win the hearts of some Ableton Live users who aren’t necessarily DJs.

This answers what Stanton has been doing post-FinalScratch. With that system defunct, what the Control System does is get you into whatever software you happen to choose. It works with Traktor Studio (the non-Scratch version of Traktor), Ableton Live, Deckadance, and MixVibes.

Cost: US$1499 for the deck, $999 for the mixer. And you can see the problem — a real turntable might be cheaper. But then, given what DJs make… hey, even a few VJ gigs might make it worth it if you really wanted it.

Part of why I find all of this interesting, even without being in the market for such a device myself, is what it says about controllers. The DJ market ought to be fairly predictable at this point, theoretically. And yet here are two examples of products that suggest that even conventional DJing, with a pre-defined set of basic techniques and hardware, can become unpredictable with the addition of a computer. As people struggle to define what a controller might look like for a laptop artist or musician using software like Ableton Live, I think the possibilities become even more wide open.

But then, that’s the fun of it.

I just want to see more high-torque motors in stuff.

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