F1, my thoughts so far.....

DJ Gear & Hardware Hardware: Controllers, Mods and Gear
1

F1, my thoughts so far…

I’ve been using the F1 Kontroller for a while now, and i have to say, it’s not all that i thought it was.

At first i thought ‘how cool, i can have loads of clips, arrange them out like vocals, one shot fx, loops, etc’
But to be honest, if you’re playing house and some forms of techno, then it’s really just a bit of an indulgence.
Sure every now and then its ok to fire off a loop or fx, but generally playing house and techno, you want the records to play as they are, if you need to be putting loops ontop and fx all over the place then you’ve bought the wrong record in the first place.

I think the F1 is great for those dj’s like richie hawtin who go crazy with looping and mangling stuff, the whole minimal techno crew, Chris liebing too, those sort of guys.
Also for Dj’s who do a lot of cutting and scratching and tricks.

It’s no doubt a really good bit of kit, but i’m generally finding not that much use for it apart from capturing loops from deck A & B, and maybe firing off the odd loop or vocal or fx now and then.

My other downside to it is it’s a bit fiddly, the sample slots are so small that if you have a remix set full of stuff, its hard to really see where everything is, you end up having to get close to the screen staring at it looking for ‘That amazing loop’ you want to drop.

The unit itself is well made, not that impressed with the filters but they’re ok,

Just thought i’d post my thoughts on it really, good bit of kit, but if you’re playing a house set where you generally want to let the records breath then i dont think theres a massive use for it.

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I’ve really been thinkin about picking one up. I play alot of hip hop/trap/electro stuff and use maschine for finger drumming, and really wanna pick one of these up for loops and stuff so things get real funky.

3

yes i think you’ll love it if thats what you play.

4

I just ordered one yesterday and while I don’t see using too much with my House & Techno sets, I’m really hyped about the possibilities for my ambient/downtempo sets. Being able to build out my own ambiances and soundscapes with the occasional vocal sample along with playing some downtempo loops to bridge between tracks is very appealing to me.

5

yeah that sounds cool, it just depends on what you play i guess. I’d really like it more if they made the sample cells a lot bigger and easier to see. Maybe thats just me.

6

i was thinking about the f1 myself but i think in the end id rather just get a second x1 :thumbsup:

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I mainly do Techno and House. I really like it for building/remixing a song on the fly. Now the caveat for that is that I spend time up front to construct a remix set. I either take my own tracks and render out stems and loops from Ableton and use them in the remix set, or I grab bits and vocals and loops from other tracks that I like and build a remix set. I am not trying to capture material on the fly. But what I do get to do is to add a little extra something to a set that might otherwise be pretty standard. Especially if I mixing between two songs using the remix decks. I will being in some loops from the remix deck as I am mixing out of Deck A. build a short mini segment live with the remix parts (maybe 1 to 1.5 minutes) and then begin mixing in the track from Deck B as I mix out of the remix deck.

And yes, I know that I could use Traktor and Ableton together, but I just don’t like doing that and prefer to do all live dj’ing from inside Traktor.

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It does take a lot of investment (time) to get into it, which I haven’t as of yet. I bought one just to see what the hype was about!

I’m still playing more with my X1s

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I just bought one (which hasn’t arrived yet), and I’m often thinking about what I will actually do with it. My style is mainly Electro and Tech House, but I think of it more as a “horizon widener” of sorts, giving me the possibility to go a bit further and explore different options with other styles. But I have to admit I bought it out of gearwhorism more than necessity. I’ll find out soon enough I guess :stuck_out_tongue:

10

i HAVE to ask about the midi layer, could i map a midi layer and access it while preforming?..like use a remix set, hit a button or something and access the midi layer?

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yes. You just hit Shift+Browse

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I think it could be worked well into transitions of songs, breakdowns etc

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MIDI layer works well. I find it very useful. Only oversight is a lack of soft takeover. Hopefully this will be addressed in future Yes, it’s easy to switch (shift+button) back and forth.

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you can add soft takeover to your mappings

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How? It seems to be working for my X1 (HID ode) but not for F1. What am I missing?

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Nothing…

Soft takeover works fine on my F1 - it’s probably a mapping problem somewhere.

edit:
Sorry I thought you meant soft takeover while still in midi mode - to control something else, not going back to a remix deck..

No soft takeover is brokened - I think it’s a bug.

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Re: soft takeover

mine causes setting to jump going from one remix deck to another … doesn’t seem quite right

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Yeah its a pain in the ass - I just try to remember to put all the faders down when changing back to a remix deck.

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I really hate soft takeover and switching layers…yes it is useful to have if you need it…but I would rather not have to use it in my workflow. It’s what is making me REALLY consider a 2nd F1. I originally was going to add a MF3D as I could use it for both FX etc. AND Remix deck control for Deck D, but lack of faders and filter makes me really wonder if a 2nd F1 wouldn’t be a better option…

20

… sometimes a necessary compromise. I’m trying keep my controller footprint to a practical size (X1, F1 & Maschine). A functional soft takeover setup on filters and faders would help. Hopefully they will fix it.