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SmiTTTen's DVS Diary
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Gents and gentettes,
Today was a good day. Today I got my DVS up and running with my S4, TSP2 and a pair of newly acquired Numark TTXs. So, settle in, make a nice cup of tea and let me tell you a little story.
A little background for those of you that don’t ‘know’ me. I used to play back in the day (1994-2000) and was the proud owner of the standard DJ kit: 1210s, 2 channel mixer and a big box of records. In 2000 the ‘professional’ side of my life began to consume more and more of my time and by 2001 I wasn’t mixing at all. In 2007 I sold my decks to a guy at work as they had been sat untouched in their flights for years (now might be a good time to go through your music collection and pick out some appropriate strings)
About a year ago something woke up and started bugging me about getting back into the ones and twosery. I picked up the S4 in January and started playing again. By playing I am talking strictly in the bedroom (or ‘home office’ as us pretend grown-ups like to call it). I found most of the S4 functions pretty simple to master although I haven’t really gone to town on the FX and sample side of things. More recently however, I, like many others on this board, began to feel like something was missing. I was putting together some pretty wicked sounding stuff and didn't mind doing my beat gridding homework but it just wasn’t the same feeling as the first time around.
So I spent a while looking for a pair of reasonably priced decks and was astonished to see that the market price of 1200s and 1210s had gone through the roof. An old friend of mine and DJ back from the hardcore days recommended I check out the Numark TTX decks. He, like me, had owned several sets of Technics but swore up and down that these would make me very happy. On Friday I picked up a pair and this afternoon I got TSP2 up and running. This is what I can tell you:
- Within seconds of putting the needle of the record I felt like I had found what had been missing since January.
- By switching to a stripped down, 2 deck view I found that the software was suddenly playing a far less integral role in the overall experience.
- I began to understand what people mean when they talk about the software “getting out of the way”
- The Numark TTX is a rock solid piece of kit to play on. I would personally prefer its extra gadgetry removed from the unit in order to reduce any margin for problems relating to the extra components. That being said, I would highly recommend them to someone looking for a good set of decks without the need to sell Grandma’s teeth.
- For those of you with controllers who are looking for that more hands-on mixing experience, and who are questioning where you go next with your setup – I would seriously recommend this path.
- My beat mixing skills needs some SERIOUS retuning :D
I will let you know how I get on a few weeks/months from now. Some of you may recall that I was going to try and teach myself to be the next Scratch Monster © That might take considerably more time…
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Congrats on finding what works for you. Looks like a great setup. Post up some mixes soon.
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Much as people rave about the quality of teh jogs on the VCI/S4/whatever the latest bit of kit is - vinyl just feels so much nicer to me ...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
smittten
- Within seconds of putting the needle of the record I felt like I had found what had been missing since January.
- By switching to a stripped down, 2 deck view I found that the software was suddenly playing a far less integral role in the overall experience.
- I began to understand what people mean when they talk about the software “getting out of the way”
- The Numark TTX is a rock solid piece of kit to play on. I would personally prefer its extra gadgetry removed from the unit in order to reduce any margin for problems relating to the extra components. That being said, I would highly recommend them to someone looking for a good set of decks without the need to sell Grandma’s teeth.
- For those of you with controllers who are looking for that more hands-on mixing experience, and who are questioning where you go next with your setup – I would seriously recommend this path.
Exactly my thoughts when I first got myself into DVS. Something just feels instinctively right about managing music via a tuntable. That, and playing is now much more engaging.
Simply playing tunes with sync bores me, even layering up 4 tracks with effects, etc. It doesnt give me as much of a buzz as just playing with 2 tracks on TT's.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
farhanashraf
nice setup!
Thank you Sir! 2 midifighters, Mashine & Ableton and I will be all set...
