I'm finally going to do it, but I need some advice!

**Mental_Twist** · 11-30-2009, 09:47 PM

Hey everyone, new to the boards.

My name is Jordan aka Mental_Twist. I have always been interested in music production / DJing, and I actually stumbled onto this site about two months before I saw Ean on Attack of the Show. Just seeing what he could do with the VCI-100 was enough to peak my interest again. I've always tried to find a hobby that could potentially make me money. But, music is my passion, and now I want to make it.

I used to download trials of Fruity loops and listen to the projects (pre-loaded complete songs) people made, and was fascinated but I was so far out of my league... I had/have no clue where to even start.

Now enough about my life story, I'm 23 now and I've done a lot of research into what I need to get started, and I am just looking for confirmation on this stuff. If you have any suggestions please let me know.

What I have:

- Right now the only thing I have is a sick laptop, I'm a gamer but it has enough power to do anything.

- Beats Studios by Dr. Dre

What I (think I) need to get started:

- VCI-100SE Arcade OR N.I. Maschine (Need advice on which might be the best for starting out)
- Traktor Pro software OR Ableton Live (Need advice on which might be the best for starting out)

That's really as far as I've gotten for a basic entry level set up. Do you think it needs to be more extensive than that for beginning beat making / DJ sets?

Any and all advice is welcomed. I searched for previous threads, couldn't find any on a starter set up (read the beginner's to DJ blog entries 1-3, good but I'm a total beginner so I didn't get a whole lot out of it).

Thanks again! I'll be around! Pz.

**Jester** · 11-30-2009, 09:53 PM

Welcome mate

Yep get the VCI and a good Audio card like the audio 4 and you are good to go on the dj side of things, production is a whole different kettle of fish though.

**comshowen1** · 11-30-2009, 10:11 PM

I actually stumbled onto this site about two months before I saw Ean on Attack of the Show.

**Mental_Twist** · 11-30-2009, 10:46 PM

Well by production I mean making / remixing controller ism type stuff and being able to record what I do.

I'm pretty set on the VCI, as far as the software I'm told it works best with Traktor Pro, is Traktor an easier platform to work with than ableton?

**Jester** · 11-30-2009, 11:11 PM

Traktor is for straight mixing, whereas ableton is a bit of both. That may be the direction you wanna go if you want to do remixing etc. Bento is the ableton expert he'll be able to help you out a lot with that. Its also possible to run traktor thru ableton so i've been told.

**Mental_Twist** · 11-30-2009, 11:17 PM

Cool, thanks for the help and advice. I think I'm probably gonna start with Traktor then as I get better with that move up to Ableton, just seems like the proper progression.

**Jester** · 11-30-2009, 11:51 PM

Good luck to you and we're here to give you a hand if you need mate

**BestLegsinHD** · 12-01-2009, 03:03 AM

i havent used traktor but i would definitely recommend that first. try downloading the trial version of ableton to see if you like it. creating a workflow that works well for you can be frustrating and very time consuming. BentoSan, a moderator on the message board, has a smart mixing template which is a great tool. you can look on the ableton message board for tips (also checkout tarekith's effects pack, free and useful).

i started off with serato itch and learned the basics there (beatmatching, phrasing properly, shit like that [all with the help of this site!]). it was great but i wanted to move into production, so i made the jump to ableton.

traktor seems very awesome! from the videos that ive seen, the program seems very solid. DJtechtools seems to be focus a little more on traktor, so you would always have a community of people that can help you out.

good luck with everything man! =D