I started a post asking if anyone uses time code in their 4 decks set up. Now I was just wondering what people use to control 4 decks and how they have it set up on a pure midi set up. I want to maybe get a new controller but struggling to see how I’m going to control 4 decks. Obviously people are doing it so if someone could shed some light on the situation that’d be awesome.
I am currently using an external QWERTY keyboard due to the amount of buttons and a nanokontrol for the rotary faders to trigger FX.
What I have mapped to the buttons is; Load deck, play/pause, 5 hot cues, loop in, loop out, loop active, loop size inc and loop size dec.
So thats 12 buttons in total for each deck. The only thing on the market with that amount of buttons is the launchpad. But I have seen people using all sorts of controllers. How are people doing it with such few buttons? All the pad controllers out there have 16 pads. I’ve seen people using things like the trigger finger to control 4 decks.
Can anyone share some secrets?
With how cheap I can get the Nano Kontrols for I just have one for each deck, plus a master one. So for a little over 200 bucks I have all the controls I need vs controls that cost three times that much and you oly get enough to handle two decks on those.
Plus I just added some Akai LPD8’s just for the EFX units as they were built specifically with those in mind if you ask me
I use 3 Eks xp 10s for 3 decks, it set me back about 300 euros and they also came with a reasonable soundcard (well actually I preferred the audiofire I had before) and I like their layout. The buttons are definitely not appropriate for cue point juggling but once you get used to them their actually quite precise. Jogwheels are sort of big and very nice andhave a touch sensitive platter which gives you a lot of mapping possibilities with few mods.
Currently I mapped them to all transport functions (cue, sync, play, loops, loops and beatjumps etc.) browsing and filters, a quick fx access like Ean implemented on the new VCI tsi is a future project.
combine them with a NanoKontrol for fx and a Nanopad for Cuepoints and you should be sorted.
control 4 decks on my vci 100, brought in a nano pad to use c and d in differents ways, so i have 2 things for 2 different combinations of 4 decks - check the link in my sig
I use Bomes through rules and presets (about 90 presets in total) to jump around decks using toggle buttons. the left deck controls a/c, right deck controls b/d. I also use my MIDIFighter in conjunction for cue jumping, beat jumping, loop control and I’m digging into clock control too, and visual feedback of my deck tempo
i had hoped to convince Ean to adopt Bome for his 3.0 mapping. i am willing to put in some time to make this happen on my own, but only if there are other people helping out and more importantly using the end result. any interest in collaborating or are you pretty much set and done with your layout?
Jazzmutant Lemur isn’t everyones solution because it’s a grip, but I have also made a 4 deck setup for my padKontrol using Farmpad and Bomes that can basically do everything except EQ and Crossfade on all 4 decks. 4 decks would be simple on the launchpad.
Loved your write up about the 3.0 mapping btw. I have done the same thing as you have by splitting each deck inside bomes and then just importing the master and splitting the controlled deck and the virtual output number.
its a light weight programming environment. it accepts all sorts of input (MIDI, keyboard, mouse) and it can output MIDI. this way you can rewrite MIDI messages. you can set internal variables (much more powerful than traktors modifiers), you can also set internal timers that trigger things.
YES!!! This is my problem! Somebody else who shares the same outlook, at last! Does anyone else not want to have to use the shift button?
This is basically the reason I started this thread. To see how I can work around not having to hold down multiple buttons.
So I take it when people say they use they left side of the VCI 100 to control decks A & C they are holding down a shift button to control deck C right?
I Have a bcd3000 I repurposed the scratch buttons as modifiers. So I have a separate shift button for each side. I’m thinking that will be a whole lot more usable than just a single shift button. It’s just experimental for me at this point as I have not started to mix on 4 decks seriously yet.
