Recently DJTechTools.com published an article I wrote on Image-Line’s Deckadance DJ Software. You can check it out here.

The article is intended to introduce users exploring the Digital DJ realm to what, in my opinion, is one of the best digital dj applications out there. Have a read and let me know if you have questions or feedback!

Major change in my professional life – more news to follow on that. In the meantime, enjoy this latest mix installment to mark the start of a new beginning.

Play loud.

Dance with abandonment.

Enjoy!

Electro House, 30 Min Mix, download for free via Soundcloud (think you have to press “down arrow” button, but it should be free).

Contact me for bookings & info.

Thus far the setup is working great! The Hercules controller with the X1 is such a powerful combination. The Hercules its also serving as the sound card.

The lovely thing about the setup is the ability to be completely free to mix anything together easily and on the fly with no preparation required.

As a result I have been banging out mixes almost every night, often throwing in tracks I have never used before and sometimes never listened to before!

At some point soon I will post up a mix for everyone to check out.

I am using the default / supported mapping of the RMX and using custom controls on the X1. The X1 actually controls both Deckadance and Ableton. It’s really only day 2 with the RMX and I must say that I am very happy with it thus far. It’s really nice that it has so many buttons and the good folks and image line did a solid implementation and mapping for deckadance.

The RMX is dedicated to controlling Deckadance, while the X1 is split between DD and Ableton. I am still experimenting with effects routing and controller mappings. In ableton I am mainly using the tarekith effects racks – which are amazing.

What I would love is to figure out if I can output each deck to a separate channel in ableton, thus giving me the ability to apply ableton effects per deck vs the entire mix. That would be really sweet.

Let me end this post by saying it’s been a very long time since I have had this much fun. So many toys and so much to explore!

I will also say that I am sort of jonesing to get back to producing. It’s been a bit since I have pulled together some original material. Ahh and I have new production toys to explore – just not enough time to do everything…

I have an addiction to MIDI controllers. I have many of them. Also APC 40, novation launchpad + nocturn, all three korg nano kontrols, vcm 100, traktor x1 kontrol, x-session, there must be more.

I sold some – was able to tear myself away from the xstation (even though it had beautiful sounds) and the remote zero SL (even after I modded it thinking it would be my dream). I even took an electronics class an learned how to build my own controller but that never got much farther than ordering the parts.

The lastest feeding of the addiction happened spontaneously (as it often does)… A brief decision to look up the Hercules RMX, price check online only to find B and H photo in manhattan – not too far from work – had the best prices. I went in. And soon I was in the over sized pickup line. It’s so shiney. Built like steel.

It took a minute to get it to work properly with Deckadance (mostly because I am one of those morons that overlooks the obvious). But it works now and boy does it work beautifully. And it’s but one USB port for the audio interface, leaving the other wide open for possibilities.

What will those yield? Perhaps I will run it as a vst inside ableton and connect up another controller for effects and clips? Or maybe I will use the port for the maschine (yes I have one of those too) and overlay my own beats to tracks? Maybe I need to run two laptops in sync? Maybe I need more controllers because I am a control freak.

What is all this about being in control? Don’t I know that this is merely Maya and it is but a dream?

When will I ever learn?

With quick access to so much more music comes the greater headache in sorting and learning the tracks. Not that I’m condoning this behavior, but how many people have swapped entire digital music libraries with one another? In a matter of minutes you can acquire 1,000 songs (or more)!

With so much media, how can one get out from being buried alive under all of those 1s and 0s?

First and foremost, there is no doubt that organizing a music library is going to be time consuming. Especially if you are the least bit anal.

Although there are a lot of tools out there, I have found that none of them are really perfect. iTunes is used a lot, but there’s a lot it cannot do – such as bullk rename tags, enable the user to move file locations, tag from filename, tag to filename, and more. For these reasons I use MediaMonkey (www.mediamonkey.com). It’s like iTunes but a lot more powerful (and dangerous) when it comes to bulk editing of tags. Unfortunately this is a PC only app, but fortunately I have a PC as well as a mac!

Here is a list of handy tools and tricks I use to organize my music library

1. Back your master music library to another device or external drive – storage is cheap

2. Sometimes less is more

Think of your digital DJ library as a crate of records. With real records DJ’s only carry what they play otherwise the crate gets way to heavy.

The more you have in your library, the more you’ll have to sort through, the more time it will take to select tracks.

So don’t be afraid to toss music out of your Digital DJ library – I tossed over 110GB of music. Some of it is total crap, a lot of it I really like but will never play (like the Go Gos).

3. Get the right tools

The main tools I use are
MediaMonkey – like iTunes but better for bulk mp3 tagging to/from filename, and also better for organizing files on a drive, PC only
iTunes – hey it’s free and you can create multiple libraries if you need (Mac tip: hit Option and click on icon to launch, you’ll see)
iPhone – helps me decide what to keep and what to toss
dougscripts.com – indispensable set of iTunes tools – check them out!

4. Decide how you want to organize your folders

I personally hate the way iTunes does the “automatically keep files and folders organized”. I like to keep my DJ tracks in separate folders by Genre. Media Monkey is greatly helpful in accomplishing this easily. Once I get the music organized into the genre folders, I leave Media Monkey and move on to iTunes.

Before putting the music into iTunes I go to preferences and TURN OFF copy to itunes folder and TURN OFF the auto organize feature.

5. Use ratings

I rate my tracks in iTunes as follows
5 stars – something I will definitely play
4 stars – I will probably play it, I like it
3 stars – I like the track but am not sure if I would play it
2 stars – not sure if I like it, maybe has some cool parts, am on the fence leaning towards no, most likely wouldn’t play it
1 star – will not play, delete

6. Use Smart Playlists

This is the coolest feature of iTunes. I use these all the time to focus me on the task at hand.

For example, I set up a smart playlist to include the tracks with the genre labelled “House – Electro”, AND a 2nd rule that adds music that only has no ratings.

Now I have a dynamic list of tracks that I am going to preview listen to each one – typically at the start, middle, build, and end (like a DJ will do at a shop dropping the needle of the turntable at various points in the song). I quickly decide what to rate it. As soon as I rate a song, it gets taken out of the smart playlist, and then I move on.

I have smart playlists set up for 5 stars house-electro, 4 stars house-electro, 5 stars-breakbeat, etc. etc.

I typically wind up tossing the 1 and 2 star tracks (why bother when I have plenty of 4s and 5s?).

I also use static (non-smart) playlists, by genre and song energy level / where it fits in the mix
so I have a list for house-electro intro tracks – here I put tracks that are good to start a set with. They are a little bit mellow, they pick up toward the end etc.

7. Use Option-Delete in iTunes (on the Mac, PC must be Alt or Control Delete)

This is a handy trick I just learned… if you’re in a playlist and delete a track, it’s still in your master library but no longer in the playlist. However, if you come upon a track while in a playlist and want to delete it both out of the playlist and master library, press option-delete (on the mac), and it gets moved to the trash.

I thought iTunes was pretty much useless until I learned this shortcut / tip. Now I love it (esp the smart playlists).

8. Use your iPhone / iPod / iTouch etc to help you rate

If you set up iTunes so it will sync playlists with your iXXX device, you can then use that device to rate the tracks while on the go. Then when you sync again, those ratings will find their way back into iTunes.

Yesterday I took a train from NYC to Philly. I had a huge playlist dumped into my iPhone. I spent the entire ride preview listening to tracks – I was skipping around, going fast, rating the song, then moving on. People around me must’ve thought I had ADD or something.

When I got home, I synced the iPhone. All the ratings appeared in the synced playlist in my library. I selected all the 1 and 2 stars and hit option-delete, and moved them to the trash.

Given that most digital DJ software read iTunes files, having organized playlists makes it a lot easier to find the perfect house-electro track at the right energy level!

That’s it for now. Hope this helps some people out there!

Love the feature in Deckadance that reads the iTunes file. The only issue is DD deck only shows the artist, title, and album. In my comments tag I keep the mixed in key code… Which of course doesn’t show up. At first I was appending the mixed in key code to the album name, but if the name is too long then I wouldn’t be able to see the code. So with a little help from doug’s iTunes scripts (and time) I moved all the album names to the “grouping” tag slot and overwrote all the album names with the mixed in key code.

The best features of DD are the downbeat button and the visual aid in syncing. It’s not automatic like in ableton live – which when your tracked are warped properly it’s completely locked down. In DD you do have to pay attention to the beat sync and do have to work for it. Which is fine.

The reason DD takes the cake in my opinion (over ableton) is how easy it is to throw tracks in without any pre-prep work. It’s so simple to try something out, to get it to cue up, and go with it! It actually makes the whole thing a fun exploration.

I am currently using two controllers – vestax vcm-100 and the traktor kontrol x1 (which incidentally I bought for use with traktor but now use DD instead). Both controllers work well. I’m experimenting with mappings to see what is most comfortable…

Thus far I haven’t played much with effects. Looking to do so more in the near future. I like the X-Y concept but hadn’t sorted out how to make that fly with a controller. I recently downloaded the TouchOSC app for the iPhone and plan to play with it a bit… It should add two X-Y controllers which is in fact as many as I need. Hopefully I can get it to work!

Thus far it has been a fairly painless experience with DD.

I mainly run it as a standalone but to record the mix I use it as a VST in ableton. In the coming weeks I want to play with ableton effects more. I also hope the good people at image line figure out how to send clock from DD as a VST to the host because although you can load it up in ableton you can’t actually sync them together…

More to come…

The focus of this post is to share some of my experiences with the various applications that I’ve tried, and talk a bit about what would be ideal for me.

Why should you care? Well some of you are probably in the same boat as me, or have been struggling to find something that works best for you. And maybe I can save you some time.

There are two types of Digital DJs – those that started as traditional wheels-of-steel turntable users, and those that got into DJing after being a musician or producer. I’m in the latter category.

As a Producer-turn-DJ I am no purist. The traditional DJs typically are the ones most resistant to the new tech, and put hate on others for not necessarily knowing the fundamentals (like beat matching).

Personally I think it’s silly to harsh people for doing something constructive while having fun. It’s not like they hate on others for writing and mailing letters from the post office! A new era and paradigm demand new tools!

My software history is a long one – started 20+ years ago using a DOS sequencer on a monochrome monitor that weighed a ton. My two favorites for the last decade have been FL Studio and Ableton Live. It’s unfortunate that FL Studio is PC-only, since I switched to the Mac I rarely ever use it. But I digress…

Anyway, the software available for Digital DJ includes Traktor, Serato, Torq, Virtual DJ and Deckadance. I think Numark makes something as well, but I don’t know it at all (or even it’s name).

In my experience, Serato is pretty popular with the turntablist-turn-Digital DJ crowd. I have never used it, mainly b/c I don’t love the idea of buying expensive hardware. That’s actually sort of dumb because I spend a lot of money on all kinds of controllers (a minor addiction).

I have also tried Traktor – it comes in Scratch version and Pro (I own the Pro). It’s pretty cool, giving you 4 decks, killer effects, lots of control over your mix, high level of flexibility, and it’s a very stable application (which is important).

Recently, however I discovered Deckadance. This is a surprise given that I love FL Studio, have been using it for years, and hadn’t bothered trying this before. It offers 2 decks, 8 built in samplers, the ability to host VSTs and run as a VST inside other hosts.

The comparison of these two DJ apps is against a pretty high benchmark – Ableton Live. Yes I didn’t list it as a DJ app because it really isn’t one, it just happens to enable people to use it for DJ purposes. It’s a killer app for production, but the downsides of it as a DJ app finally outweighed the benefits. For example, it has no cue points, decodes everything into a WAV format files, and the file browsing sucks for DJ purposes.

I spent the better part of 4 months building a DJ set that got to be over 1000 scenes and 18GB. Not surprisingly, stability became an issue.

That’s what led me to Traktor in the first place.

And now Deckadance.

Of all of them I see Deckadance as the killer DJ app. There are still many ways this app could be better. I am liking it better than Traktor because of it’s file analysis for beat sync, the “Downbeat” button, and the various visuals that help the DJ keep their music in sync. What this basically means is, out of any app I’ve seen, it’s the one that allows me to be the most spontaneous e.g., little to no prep beforehand is required.

Yes, yes, you could say that a “real” DJ who knows how to beat match (I did at one point year and year ago) wouldn’t care much. Let me remind you again – I’m not a purist. Instead, I like to focus my efforts on all of the things that come after beat matching – effects, arrangements, tricks, layering etc.

Deckadance also works fairly well inside Ableton as a VST. The only issue is the syncing… They haven’t quite sorted out how to get them to lock, e.g., have the VST generate the MIDI Clock to be sent to the host. I’m sure the folks at image line will figure it out.

In the meantime, however, it works nicely inside an Ableton track as a VST, enabling me to use all the Ableton effects etc.

The Midi controller mapping isn’t entirely easy or as robust as it could be. Also I haven’t really played with the built in samplers too much so I can’t say much about them.

Overall, while it’s still early, the reason why I like Deckadance is that it’s just fun. Yes it has limitations, but it lets me get on with the music instead of tech supporting or prepping to play… Which happens way too often these days!

Oh I forgot to mention, I am using the VCM-100 as the primary controller. I have a lot of others including the APC40, X1 Kontrol, LaunchPad, X-Session Evolution, etc. Tonight I am going to map the X1 Kontrol to it and see how I like that setup. At some point I will probably bring Bomes into the mix to control the visual feedback on the controller.

That’s it for now… more to come!

After the organization exercise it was time to see how deckadance really works. First I ran it as a standalone, got my controller all mapped up, and loaded in a bunch of dance tracks. Away we went! Syncing on the fly was no issue and really easy.

Next I tried it as a plug in VST in ableton. The Image Line folks published a fix to the ableton 8 mac crash issue, and it worked just fine.

What took a minute was configuring deckadance in ableton to allow me to monitor the headphone cue. Once that was sorted there was no issue with running inside ableton.

This week I plan to push the envelope some more by setting up loops and other elements inside ableton, and seeing if a live set with deckadance truly do play nice with one another.

Thus far there’s a big thumbs up for deckadance. Can’t stress that this is what the ableton + serato partnership should’ve yielded!!