Labelling the VCI-100 + Midi mapping the song selection controls for advanced looping

[Guust-Fi]

Yesterday I borrowed a simple Dymo 2000 labelling machine. It uses LetraTAG tapes for the labels. To my surprise, besides a White plastic tape, there was also a silver metallic tape included. I decided to try it out.

Of course this method won't look nearly as good as with the new custom overlays. I though it might be useful for some people though so here we go!

What you need:

+ scissors

What you get:


The 2 white labels are just for illustrative purposes.
Fyi: The labelling device does not allow you to change the font or colour of the text etc. Just 3 different sizes (I used middle size) and 2 useful styles (bold or not)

You can see the white plastic tape is thinner than the metallic tape. The text underneath the label shows through a little bit. The metallic tape is completely opaque.
For some reason the metallic tape also doesn't stick nearly as well as the white tape. You have to be very careful not to touch the adhesive side with your fingers.
You might be able to see that it doesn't stick extremely well in the picture. I don't think it will come off though.
On the contrary, you can touch the back of the white tape a lot and it will keep sticking. When you pull the tape off, the labels will be rendered useless.

How I mapped the controls:
I personally don't use the browsing section so I changed it to a little loop control centre . The control centre works on the focus deck, the centre button triggers the loop. Up doubles loop size. Down cuts the loop size in half. Left and Right move the loop one beat to the left and right respectively.

The little round buttons allow you to drop a loop on the fly with a specific size. At the same time the default loop size for the deck in focus will be changed to that specific value. So next time you press the loop button on the deck or the centre button of the loop control section I made, the last used loop size will be engaged.

The mapping can be done without a midi translator. One drawback: When you press the "1" button for example and then the "2" button, the "1" loop will be disengaged and you will have to press the "2" button a second time to engage that loop. When there is no loop currently active, pressing either one of the four loop buttons will engage a loop with that specific size at once.



Here I just put the labels on that match the delay effect in Traktor.

Have fun!

[Julio]

Interesting...

[B33SON]

Do they have white text and clear backing?

[Guust-Fi]

Not the LetraTAG tapes, the D1 tapes from Dymo allow for that I think. I would need a better labelling machine to do that as well.