The Drink Line- Build it, Use it!

We would all like to think our dj skills reign supreme,  but lets keep the egos in check and share a short moment of honesty. Alcohol keeps the dance floor pumping.  You can use that knowledge to help your dance floor and make sure the club does well at the bar. The trick is to respect “the drink line”.  The basic timeline of an average DJ would start off light, build itself towards a peak, and slowly drop towards the end of the night. This will work, but the more nuanced and professional djs deftly work in some breathing room for drink breaks.

In the chart above, the dj has programmed 2-4 sections through the night where he intentionally allows the energy to drop moderately. Then after a 15-30 minute lull, the energy picks right back up and thanks to a fresh round of shots, goes to new heights! Programming in a few intentional breaks in energy does a few critical things:

1)    Provides a clear opportunity for drink breaks helping the bar
2)    Gives the dancers some breathing room and down-time
3)    Provides you the chance to play a few great tracks that might not exactly be hits
4)    Using the illusion of juxtaposition creates a sense of gradual energy building. 11 can start to feel like 7 if there is no reference point.

Like it or not- the club is not a non-profit entity. Club owners invest time and money into their institutions to bring in a profit, so if you want to keep your job as a resident dj, it’s wise to keep that in mind when planning sets. Don’t sacrifice your artistic integrity, but keep in mind when the club does well so will you.

THE TEMPO LINE

Just like the drink-line, the tempo line is also used to build and maintain energy throughout the night. It could coincide with your drink line but may also follow a totally different track. Here are 2 very common tempo lines that will pay solid dividends:

The builder should be fairly obvious but it’s amazing how few people actually gradually build tempos throughout the night. Over-zealous openers start the night off right at 130pm and leave headliners with no-where to go. If this happens to you- reset the clock! Let the track run out, start the set at a lower BPM. There will be some temporary energy loss but way more room to work with through the set.

The loop is more common with mixed format sets where lots of different BPMs are expected. This is my favorite style to mix with because tempos changes can give huge boosts of energy to the dance floor. I typically work 2-3 tempo cycles into the mix throughout a 4-5 hour set.

During a tempo cycle,  the BPM can go all the way up the tempo range, loop around the “horn” (180) and then double back down to 90.

The timing of the lower BPMS is very important and  should be used sparingly. A good time to give dancers a break by dropping the tempo is around 2AM when everyone enjoys a good drunken slow dance. The tempo’s and times above are not by any means correct, but used more as an example of the cycle.

UNIVERSAL AUDIO

Some of these principles certainly apply more to venues where drinks are no longer served after 2AM. Others, like the tempo line can apply to any venue if the unique needs and circumstances of the local dancers are considered. These principles should serve as guidelines but ultimately its your eyes, ears, and judgment that will make the best call for the dance floor. That is, after all, why they pay us the big bucks!

The idea for this article came from Jules Etro but was re-written for clarity- Thanks Jules!

Today we get back to the basics with a good old fashioned Traktor tutorial. After months of requests, we finally address a common problem- how to get the BPM for and beatgrid an acapella. If you have any questions, post them in the comments and we will update the post.

Dj TechTools spent some time with Glitch Mob, the Ableton dj crew turned live band, and dug into the details on how they make their new bombastic show work technically. Read on after the break for the full interview on what they like and don’t like about Lemurs and more!

What kind of a concert is the new Glitch Mob Set?

To some people going to the Glitch Mob is a full on rave party and to some it’s an experimental electronic rock concert. We take you on a ride.. we are not afraid to have tender moments and also crush them over the head.

What kind of technology do you use live?

Basically we have a bunch of midi controllers and perform our music through Ableton Live using a series of samplers. We use a combination of traditional instruments like guitar and bass, which run through Ableton, and we also use touch screen controllers called Lemurs made by Jazz Mutant.  We also use Roland V Drum midi controllers.

Before this bigger live show, you did a mash-up remix set. How has the transition gone?

The transition has gone well. The biggest difference now is that we stop between songs where before it was a continuous dj set. It feels good to be up there playing the songs, which is what this show was all about- playing the songs from our new record. Its a heavily percussive album so we wanted to get up there and actually play the percussion.

Are you getting the band effect (stop and watch) or are people still dancing?

I think its a fair bit of both. I noticed last night, playing in LA that there was a whole chunk of people dancing the whole time but then there is a whole different group that is just fascinated by what is going on. I actually think that’s amazing because if people are dancing the whole time it would not matter if we were up there with instruments or a turntable. I have noticed that this is a really cool mix of the dance party and a show you can watch.

How do you make computer technology playable and not stiff?

The way we have the live set set up is that we use a series of samplers instead of launching clips. We previously used clip launching, but for this particular set we have essentially sampled (note for note) every melody and chord progression from the record so we can re-play that exact melody live. Obviously,  due to the fact that it is live there will be that humanistic feel and error involved.

How much does each song then evolve as you play it live?

We have the opportunity to riff.. but we try to keep it as close to the way the record was written because this is the first time most people have heard the record but there are moments where we can throw in a little. There are improvised moments- like we always do a drum solo every single night and every single night it comes out a little bit different.
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Are the controllers you are using expressive enough?

We are always looking for stuff that we can bash harder and tweak more. I imagine a keyboard with big giant keys. We were just over at the Moog factory and checking out the midi-theremin which could get worked in some-how.

The Jazz-Mutant Lemur literally takes center stage, how well do they work for you?

They are not perfect. For example, you can hit them, but you can’t really whack it. Its also not the most accurate or responsive of interfaces. Like, if you have an air bubble in your screen you will get weird anomalies sometimes.  The visual feedback is awesome but its not precise. Its cool because we can actually show people what we are doing because they can see the correlation between visual and audible.

How do you manage to play so many different parts with one controller?

The way we have designed our set, we could not really perform without it (the Lemur). We have written some scripts where Ableton will basically fire off some midi to the Lemur and the Lemur will change pages and then you are ready to play your next part.

Lets say we play 8-10 parts in a song and some of the parts are back to back with only a 16th note between the 2 parts. So with this set-up, you don’t have to press the next page button- Ableton does it for you. Basically, by the time your done playing the end of a phrase, the Lemur page will change and your playing a completely new instrument with a completely different layout with pads and stuff all custom designed for that part. That’s one thing about the Lemur thats important for us.  We could not just have 16 buttons, some of our melodies have anywhere from 4 notes to 12 notes so it has to flexible and open.

So your willing to trade the loss of tactility and errors in exchange for flexibility?

Yeah – not that this is a good thing but when there are those minor errors then its obvious that we are playing up there. When you hear a dropped note, then its like- ok this is live.

We are often talking about one of the drawbacks of Ableton is its rigidity and the fact that it is so hard to screw up.

It actually took us a lot of engineering hours to make Ableton be able to fuck up. It was 2 months solid of trial and error programming to really get things tight but now everything is running pretty smooth.

Get more info on Glitch Mob including tour dates at their website.

Read on after the jump for the full 20 minute mix, and a contest in which you can win the midi-fighter controllers.

MIDI_FIGHTER CONTEST

To make things interesting, and really create a lot of variation, here are the rules:

1) Take any of the songs used in the video (set list bellow)

2) Mix them together in your own creative fashion (minimum 2 minutes, max 10)

3) Add it as a video response to my mix before July 31rst.

4) I will pick, announce and post the winning video next month

5) All gear or software is welcome but I like creative uses of controllers.

The winner will win the 2 hand-signed Midi-Fighters used in this set.

THE MIX

Originally we shot a full 20 minute mix but it was just too much video so I only published the first 10 minutes. If your interested in checking out the full deal, download it bellow. I fully admit that mixing this fast is purely for show and not really practical or desirable in a club. (I personally am a big fan of letting songs play all the way through) However, for the purpose of a performance video- I wanted to show as many mixes as possible and make it fun to watch.

Download the full 20 minute mix

THE TRACKS

Today’s article never got written, its been 4 days since I last checked email and my 3 man team is starting to drink double espressos inside a coffee. Why so nuts at the TechTools labs? Because we started selling batch # 2 of the Midi-Fighters on Saturday night @ 12AM, they are already 50% sold out and we have hundreds of orders to fill for anxious customers.  Painting, building, photographing, and hand signing midi-fighters is taking way more time than expected so shipping is a little behind schedule and I don’t have a fresh article for our dedicated fans today. The good news? Everyone loves the new “design your own controller interface” and the controllers are looking awesome. There are still 200 available from this batch, so check them out in the web store if your interested. After the jump I have posted a few scans of the first midi-fighters built.

Last but not least-  this Friday, I am finally going to publish the 20 minute video of a mix/routine I have been promising for months!

Thanks are in order to many, many people:

• Zach, Chris and the TechTools team – for putting up with my maniacal insistence on perfection and working so hard to make these controllers.
• Robin (Fatlimey)- for creating the best controller firmware possible – all in your spare time
• Michael (MidiFidler)- For your endless dedication to helping us make great things possible.
• Tommy – For working nights till 5am on website code to make everything run smoothly
• Priscilla- For Making the rad Midi-Fighter Certs.
• Everyone on this site- For your continued support and dedication to the cause.

Without everyones help, this project would have NEVER been possible. Thank you so much.

Apparently scanners cant do gold foil? Bummer!

The Dj TechTools staff has been working 14 hour days on the new Midi-fighter launch and next weeks epic 20 minute mix video. To be totally honest, we are a little behind-  so in lieu of a brand new article,  I want to share a essential read from the past. Remember, there are nearly 500 articles in the archives so dig through the crates and find those nuggets of gold! Now for the classic article: “How to properly phrase a Mix”

One of your main challenges as you mix music is figuring out how to take two totally different songs and make them sound as if they were designed to fit together. Maintaining the musical pace and feel in a mix is a very important facet of DJing that everyone, beginners to advanced, need to understand. All forms of music have an ingrained pattern of rhythm, tension and release that the dancers naturally follow and expect to hear. When those patterns are broken in a mix, it can seriously throw off the groove. Using those patterns to your advantage, however, will keep the dancefloor rocking early into the morning.

8-16-32

Most Western music is built using phrases of 8, 16 and 32 counts, which I am going to refer to as the “rhythmic structure.” The brain naturally expects these patterns, so as a rule you need to always keep each song’s rhythmic structures in sync with each other. The rule can be broken for creative effect, but it’s important to learn the rules of the road before you start breaking them. To match up rhythmic structure, you need to identify the individual characteristics of each song you are working with. That’s the easy part because every song contains audible clues that basically yell, “Hey, everyone, this is a new part!” These clues might include a new instrument that starts playing, a big crash, a drum fill or even just a significant change in the drum patterns. Electronic music loves to steadily add and subtract different parts every 32 counts, making it easy to recognize and work with those changes.

The general rule of thumb is to always start the new song at the beginning of a phrase in the outgoing track. Usually, that’s a fairly simple affair; it’s just a matter of training your ears to recognize the changes and patiently wait until the right time to start your mix. Most songs faithfully follow the 32-count rule, so as long as you get both songs’ 32-count rhythmic phrases in sync, then the tracks’ production takes over to help make the mix work for you. Occasionally, however, songs may make use of shorter phrasings, especially in hip-hop and pop songs, where an 8- or 16-count intro is more common. In those cases, you will need to time when you start the song so that the songs’ parts line up, or you can use loops to extend the intro and give you a longer mix. As an example, we’ll look at a typical hip-hop/pop scenario.

THE POP PHENOMENA

Almost every pop song has a short nonlyrical intro, a verse and then a chorus. Generally speaking, you always want to mix “out of the chorus” so that the audience gets the big musical payoff and then you are into a new song afterward. Because the intro is usually the only part of the songs without lyrics, you are basically stuck mixing intros over the chorus all night.

Most intros are 16 counts long, while the typical chorus will last for 32 or 64 counts, so you can’t start an intro right at the beginning of the chorus. If you did that, your verses and chorus will start slashing with multiple people singing and/or rapping at the same time. It’s essential to time it so that the first verse of your new song starts right as the old chorus ends. Timing it that way will make such a “quick mix” feel completely natural and will seamlessly blend together the musical structures of each song. Your alternative is to use cue points and loops to extend an intro over the top of a chorus and then effortlessly drop into the new song at the right time.

I am going to call that rule “respect the chorus” so it reminds you to always pay attention to how you’re mixing in relation to the chorus of a song. This rule applies just as much to electronic music as it does to pop songs. Most good underground tracks give you a sense of having a chorus or a peak moment of a track; that’s what makes them good “songs” and not just random collections of notes and beats. It goes without saying that you would not want to cut off any tune before that big payoff, so even in the most minimal of tracks always respect the chorus. That does not mean to mix only during the intros or outros of a track either because that leads to a dip in the energy and a really boring mix.

When mixing vocal music in the way I’ve discussed, the new track’s verse takes over for the old track’s chorus and carries the listener into the new song seamlessly. In the same way, you can use the musical parts in instrumentals by timing the start of a big part of your new song with the end of the peak moment in an outgoing track. Do all that while also bumping up into the next musical key to give the transition an extra lift, and you will be considered an official DJ maestro.

You might have noticed that there is a case on one of the midi-fighters in the video above. Well, I am happy to report that with this new batch you can build your own midi-fighter online (with an optional case) and we will send you the controller of your choice fully assembled. Existing midi-fighter owners can purchase a case for only 19 bones, and slide it on without taking the controller apart.

Check back on friday for a full dj mix video of me using 2 midi-fighters. As usual, I will post a few of the mp3s used in that mix and give everyone a chance to win one of their very own.

Chances are you have a least one or 2 pairs of DJ headphones that are broken in some way. If you buy the Sony MDR-V700’s, then you might have 5 laying around. Usually, these cans go to waste, as it’s always just the foam, plastic joints, or some other cosmetic feature that is broken while the speakers themselves (the most important part) are perfectly fine. In today’s article we are going to show you how to re-use those old broken headphones and turn them into something better—for only $20.

The following pictures and instructions were created by one of our dedicated forum members, Villinus, who submitted his DIY headphone fix for our enjoyment. He writes:

“So it all started when my old Sony MDR-V700 broke. A guest at our house party put them on her fat head and they snapped

No sweat. $20 with shipping got me these from the interweb:

http://earplugstore.stores.yahoo.net…ing-l0f-1.html

Initially I thought I could fix them, and upon taking them apart, I realized they had to WAY too many little moving parts and screws/springs/etc., so I knew I would have to replace the body and just use the drivers:

I drilled a hole in the bottom of one can, and one on either side of the top of each can. I recommend using a dremel, to cut/drill the plastic, as it’s way quicker and more precise than carving the plastic with a knife:

Next, it was time to wire them up… Oh geez:

Progress. I ran the wire from a 1/8th inch wire from one headphone can, through the neoprene headliner. I couldn’t believe they are open on either side… it’s almost like they were meant for wiring! 
Something to note: The Sony wire is very thin, and coated with a very thin coating, that is not conductive. You have to hit it with a lighter for a few seconds to burn it off, clean off the wire with a razor, and solder to your wire/solder points.

A slit needs to be made in one side of the foam to let the wires through. Remember, these are DELICATE wires! Last one:

Here they are all wired and re-assembled:

The best thing about these things is, they’re rated a 27 for noise reduction because they are meant for shooting ranges, meaning that what ever is going on outside of your cans can hardly be heard… at all. I’m talking, you can hear your heartbeat. When you throw some quality drivers in there, all you get is music. It’s fantastic!
Also, the earpads snap on and off very easily and are very comfortable. They squeeze your head so snug you could headbang and not loose em 

and finally, my ghetto headphone bag 

This article is a great example of all the helpful things that go down in our world class forum—if you are not a member yet, then hustle on over there and join up! Do you have some great DIY hacks or tips? Send them to our editor!

The boys from Auckland are notoriously cheeky fellows and love to throw ‘easter eggs’ into their software for a good laugh. One of my favorites was the addition of pong to Serato Scratch and several other hidden features that required a bit of trickery to unlock. Sticking to this theme, there are also a few nice easter eggs in Itch that we will uncover in this article, along with an answer to the pressing question: “How can I midi-assign a controller in a software that does not support it?”

HIDDEN SUPER FILTER

DJTechTools first introduced a super filter in controller land on our VCI-100SE and it was subsequently built right into Traktor. A super-handy tool, the super filter is a high pass and low pass filter combined in one knob — turn the knob to the right to cut the bass, and turn it to the left to cut the highs. Serato allows you to convert your bass EQ on the VCI-300 (and possibly other hardware) into a super filter by following these simple steps:

Twist the bass and treble knobs from 0-100% like a madman until a little message pops up on your screen.

DJ AM MODE

Tired of trainspotters ripping off that super rare remix that you ripped off your buddy, who ripped it off from hypem, which took it from a blog, which took it from the artist? Then fight back against the injustice and enable DJ AM MODE! This easter egg also exists in Serato Scratch and basically hides the track listing from peering eyes.

MIDI MAP IN ITCH

Our very own Pilmat turned heads last week when he claimed to have mapped external controllers (like the midi-fighter) to Itch, which only supports “approved” (translation-license fees paid) controllers. His secret? Terribly simple. He used Novation’s auto map software to convert midi signals into hotkeys and YES — you’re thinking ahead — Itch does support custom mapping of hotkeys. Bingo. Houston, we have lift-off.

To be honest, this inclusion is a bit of a tease. Phil is working on a complete article on how to pull off this trick using freeware midi-to-hotkey translation software and a full video walkthrough, which he will post on DJTechTools next week. In the mean time, keep mashing your buttons and twiddling those knobs. This is Ean von GoldenBurger signing off from Shuttle TechTools.

PS. Big ups to Steve Alois who provided the information for this article and the rad graphics explaining these tips!