had my first major gig last night - touch osc / smartmixer review
dear djtt folks,
i recently got a new setup; a custom 2-deck traktor layout for touch osc on the ipad + the bentosan smart mixer routing into ableton as described in the djtt articles running under mac osx. last night i had the chance to test the new setup at what for me was the biggest gig so far.
twice a year theres a pretty big party going on in the social-studies building of the university in hamburg, germany. i know alot of people there due to the fact that i started studying politics last year. it’s hard to estimate numbers but we had 4 floors this time.
- 2 rooms, one playing rock, other one going pop/trash
- a larger room playing reggae/hiphop/urban
- the main floor featuring electronic music in a huge room fitting several hundred people and the bar. this is where i played.
after an opening set (old school breaks) at 11:30 and the peak time set (electro/techno) between 0:30 to 2:30 by 2 fellow students of mine, i bombed the place for 2,5 hours with urban electro and breaks and some dubstep and drum n bass tracks towards the end.
i was amazed that when i got there at around 1:00, it wasn’t even easy to get to the floor or even in the building due to the huge crowds there. luckily the doormen let me pass the crowd at the entrance which made things easier. the peak time set was running, the room was packed and the vibes all good. perfect conditions.
the only other real gig i had so far was a closing-set at a bar at 4:00 with like 20 people dancing lol. other than that only private partys with friends, so i was exited as hell to play a room with a couple of hundred people. i was nervous all day just like before my first paintball tournament years ago or before my first grappling tournament like 2 months ago. i calmed down, when i dropped the first track and the crowd didn’t vanish. after that i had a great time for the rest of the night. some cliffnotes:
basic a-to-b mixing. still i fucked up most every transition.
the crowd didn’t care and went wild.
after like 10 beers i actually fucked up every transition.
the crowd still didn’t care as i had people dancing on the bar. lol
the floor was packed basicly the whole time. people were having a great time, as did i. the booth had a lot of place to jump around, which is what i did all night. man, i dont even sweat like that in mma practice lol.
the gain levels were all fine (thanks to platinum notes), running a constant 110-115db. i like my earplugs.
when i was supposed to start, we didn’t got any sound out of the mixer. this was due to me nervously plugging the cables into my audiofires input rather than output. the djs made a good job at playing over their set time for a smooth transition.
the smartmixer worked fine just as it did at home. i will probably use it again as it makes for cleaner transitions than me turning eq’s. i am not 100% sure yet as it’s complicated to set all the software up (a crash would be horrible if you have to set it all up again mid set!) and well, knob twisting is fun 
all in all the smartmixer is a great idea and the setup by bentosan worked like a charm. my thanks to him at this point.
the ipad and custom touch osc layout which you see under my post is what seemed to be almost perfect at home once you get used to touch faders rather than pushing them, was a little different in a club scenario:
didnt like:
- your hands get sticky from sweat and beer making it more difficult to use the touch screen
- when youre jumping around a booth, a 9" screen is really small if it contains 95% of your controls. i had to concentrate alot on what i was pressing. last night was the first time i really missed hardware controls and space.
- i fucked up several transitions due to an error with the freeze buttons in my mapping. well, no the ipad’s fault.
liked:
- got to the gig with just a usual backpack. this controller is tiny.
- no latency/connection issues on airport to ipad connection.
- having your own layout in front of you is great. whoever thought about building a custom controller: go for it!
- the visual feedback is great, the screen is extremly bright, even when the place is lighting up and strobing the whole time.
- its fun to take your controller in your hands and jump through the booth. you could actually take it to the dancefloor and drop the next cued up track or do some FX action which makes for a great show.
would i recommend it? no. at least for most people. i think the ipad is great as an additional controller as you can put anything on there you’re missing. its really expensive for just that though. since i was disappointed with it in everyday use, i will wait for the ios 4.2 update and then maybe sell it to get a s4.
man, alot of writing here. might get me some "tl;dr"s for sure 
i would suggest anyone out there in the bedrooms to showcase their taste of music to the public as i had a great night. breaks and dubstep are really small in germany and still i had the whole place jumping. got alot of possive comments afterwards. it was way better than expected. just a perfect way to start. thanks to djtt and their community for teaching me the few skills involved. you guys motivated me on doing this. i wouldn’t want to miss it. thank you, much love!
i recorded the set in ableton and will put it online during the next days. i am not happy with my technical performance, but the music selection makes it worth hearing i think. i also took some photos/videos which i’ll put up tommorow or so.
