MrPopinjay's xwax Setup :)

[MrPopinjay]

My setup has changed (slightly) for the first time in a year and a half so I figured I'd make one of these threads

So after fiddling with software for a year or so and occasionally mucking about with friend's vinyl setups I took the plunge and bought myself two super OEM turntables and a Numark mixer in autumn 2010 along with a Audio4DJ and some timecode records. I tried various different bits of software for a few months before discovering linux and xwax, the minimal open source DVS.
xwax is the shit, you should check it out.

Here's a picture of it from June 2011.


Oh yeah, and I use Senny HD280 Pro headphones. I love them. Big, comfortable, really clear top end and insane isolation. I actually prefer them to the popular HD25-1 IIs

A few weeks later I found an Ecler Nuo 2.0 in a pawn shop and snapped it up. I absolutely adore this mixer and after using it for a while not else I've got my hands on has felt quite as good. Easily the best cheapish 2 channel mixer you can get in my opinion
The Numark M2 is sitting in a box somewhere. I really need to find a use for it.

It's so pretty


So in the last week or so an exciting new xwax feature has started development- generic midi controller support! Purely by chance a controller I own (the LPD8) is the first controller Mark decided to play with. (probably because it costs peanuts) So there it is, sitting on the right of my setup. (Also I'm using a friend's 1210 until I can be bothered to fix my other super oem)



(haha, look how worn out those labels are! I'm amazed these records still track to be honest)

I'm *really* enjoying having cue points. Back before I used xwax I had access to them but I never really used them, I wasn't competent enough simply mixing vinyl to be able to wrap my head around that layer but now I'm more experienced I'm having a blast. I am going a bit over the top though ;P

The LPD8 itself is alright. It's got a few stupid flaws that stop it from being a really awesome piece of kit. Firstly the pads are not nearly sensitive enough, I fixed this by adding some electrical tape to the bottom of the rubber pad. Second the stock knob caps are way too small to use, I solved this by swapping them out for the knob caps from my old Korg NanoKontrol that some dickhead broke and never owned up to. Lastly the firmware sucks. There's no midi controlled LED feedback so I can't tell if a pad has a cue point on it, the three little mode change buttons don't sent a midi note themselves and the thing keeps forgetting what preset I used last time. I can't really do anything about that.

I'm looking to get a better midi controller at some point. Most likely candidate is the very awesome looking Behringer CMD DC-1, assuming it ever comes out ;P

So, whatcha think?

[fullenglishpint]

The Nuo 2.0 is an excellent mixer. Great SQ and everything feels wonderful. Shame Ecler snuffed it.

I like how your setup has everything you need and nothing more... the total opposite of mine!

[MrPopinjay]

Dude if I had a steady income my setup would be a huge sprawling mess :P

Shame Ecler snuffed it.

Nooooo it's not true la la la I can't hear you la la la

[diezdiazgiant]

Just sold my ecler, very pleasing eq and those fat chunky knobs - I liked how I could adjust the eq placing my finger tips on top and twisting. Get really minute adjustments really easy

[tekki]

Just to be on the sure side; are you a big fan of Kurosawa's "Hidden Fortress"?

[MrPopinjay]

I don't believe I've seen it though there is a chance I watched it with my uncle when I was a kid. He loves that kind of thing.

Yesterday was my birthday, one of my gifts was a pair of glow in the dark Serato vinyl, woo! They were slightly warped, boo!

[diezdiazgiant]

Just to be on the sure side; are you a big fan of Kurosawa's "Hidden Fortress"?

Ha you got it, believe you're the only person to recognize my avatar. I'm a bigger fan of the movies Yojimbo and sanjuro but thought it was a cool pic of mifune to use.

[synthet1c]

Happy Birthday for the other day Bro! nice setup

[MrPopinjay]

Haha, thanks synthet1c!



I've decided I don't like having a 15" laptop screen in my setup (and I certainly don't like going to see a DJ perform and seeing nothing but a glowing Apple logo). Imagine that super cool picture of a spider was a 6" screen with a simplistic and compact DJ UI on it, wouldn't that be so much nicer?

There's plenty of cheap (£16 cheap) monitors for car rear view cameras out there but they are all composite which I expect could get fiddly if I want to use it with most computers thanks to the prevalence of HDMI and VGA.
There's also a few USB monitors like the Lilliput UM70 but they are a lot more expensive and I have no idea how well that sort of thing is going to work with Linux. That and USB ports are in short supply on laptops these days...

I guess for now I'll just keep Mr Spider there. What do you guys think?

[fullenglishpint]

I have a question: With linux, is it possible to run windows/osx apps in virtual machines or emulators of some sort? That is to say, could you run SSL or rekordbox if you wanted to and had the right hardware?