DJ Times August 2012, Vol 25 No 8

PREVIEW

AMERICA’S FIRST MAGAZINE FOR PROFESSIONAL DJs ESTAB

AUGUST 2012

$6.95 CANADA

$4.95 US

HOW MOBILES BEAT THE SUMMERTIME BLUES

DIGITAL ACCESSORIES:

10+ PICKS

www.djtimes.com

MOBILE BUSINESS TIPS NOISIA IDJUT BOYS MOOG MINITAUR PEAVEY IMPULSE 12D GEMINI CDJ-700

RO

A D RE P ORT

2

NEWS

AMERICA’S BEST DJ: SUMMER TOUR ROLLS ON AND ON

By Jim Tremayne

Rock the Vote: San Fran fans at Ruby Skye.

Movement: Diplo takes a leap in Detroit.

ternational coverage, but it’s a party that’s been successfully running its own way for 14 years now. Event organizers Ultraworld and Steez Promo still have their fingers on the pulse of the Mid-Atlantic dancefloor and— despite some hiccups on securing a date, costing them some top talent— East Coast fans still showed up in full force making Starscape 2012 another memorable party.

Chicago’s Spring Awakening on June 16-17: At Soldier Field, we had 15 nominees playing—A-Trak, Claude Von Stroke, Designer Drugs, Dillon Francis, Gabriel & Dresden, Kill the Noise, Markus Schulz, Morgan Page, Tommie Sunshine, Derrick Carter, Diplo, Green Velvet, Moby, and Wolfgang Gartner and Skrillex. Additionally, plenty of afterparties—including a doozie from Ferry Corsten at Vision/ Excalibur—kept Chicagoans out late.

Set along busy Lakeshore Drive, the festival (produced by React Presents) featured four DJ stages, including a massive setup inside the stadium.

Lucky for area EDM fans, the line-up didn’t disappoint—from Tommie Sunshine’s banging afternoon house set to Morgan Page’s singalong session, from A-Trak’s scratching finale to Kill the Noise’s tent-raising crunch-a-thon, a throng of fans (an estimated 40,000 altogether) was given a relatively diverse serving of genres. Although the end of Skrillex’s smoke-and-pyro-infused set was visited by a nasty Saturday-night storm roaring in from Lake Michigan, most Spring Awakening visitors were up for the Soldier Field party, rain be damned. Surely, this scene was a long way from the days of Butkus and Ditka.

Saeed Younan at Philadelphia’s Rumor on June 22: After a massive area thunderstorm poured water onto the club’s main room and DJ booth— forcing a mad pre-gig scramble from Rumor’s able staff—Younan’s set was moved to a secondary room. No

Marc Baptiste

Jellybean Benitez at DJ Expo

Atlantic City, N.J.—Legendary DJ Jellybean Benitez will speak and spin at DJ Expo, which runs Aug. 1316 at AC’s Trump Taj Mahal. On Aug. 15, he’ll present a “Keynote Q&A,” where Benitez will discuss his illustrious career—from clubland to film and beyond. Later that night at Casbah, he’ll join DJs Roonie G and Fei Fei on the decks for the Pioneer DJ Official DJ Expo Closing Party.

For more on the show, please visit www.thedjexpo.com

Spring Awakening: A-Trak rocks Chicago.

Ryan Sahlin

Paxahau

Starscape Smokin’: MiMOSA in B’more.

Javier Ovalles

New York City—After a fast start in major markets like Detroit and San Francisco, America’s Best DJ Summer Tour Presented by Pioneer DJ keeps rolling on.

Supporting the America’s Best DJ online vote and taking paper ballots for the promotion’s 100 nominated jocks, the tour hit venues big and small for both multiple-day festivals and intimate club dates. Before returning to the Midwest for an enormo-fest at an NFL football stadium, the tour hopped down the New Jersey Turnpike for a more modest-sized (but no less manic) outdoor event.

Soon after, it cozied up with the “beautiful people” of the Northeast’s two biggest cities. With DJ Times maintaining a dedicated booth where fans could vote (and take chances to win valuable prizes from DJ Times and Pioneer DJ), the tour stops went something like this: Baltimore’s Starscape festival on June 9: It was hot as blazes all day, but that didn’t seem to diminish the enthusiasm for the barrage of beats in the heat. No, a sold-out crowd of over 9,000 wild fans descended on Ft. Armistead Park’s five stages for 16 hours of grooves, drops and wobbles.

ABDJ nominees Wolfgang Gartner, Tittsworth, Dieselboy, Dillon Francis, DJ Dan, Donald Glaude, Kill the Noise, MiMOSA and Paper Diamond pushed the blissed-out Starscapers to their limits, and nobody seemed to mind that they were missing the desert windstorms at Vegas’ Electric Daisy Carnival, which was playing that very same weekend.

No, Starscape didn’t get the in-

Ashley Suszczynski

INDUSTRY EVENTS…NOTABLES…MILESTONES

problem—he dropped his trademark tasty house grooves on Philly’s smart set and everyone went home happy, if not entirely dry.

Manufactured Superstars at New York’s Gansevoort Park Hotel on June 24: More upscale party people, this time splashing away in a rooftop pool to the sing-a-long set from the spacesuited duo. DJs Brad Roulier and Sean Sabo weren’t the only “superstars” among the models and bottles, however; they were joined by former American League MVP Mo Vaughn, hip-hop honcho Rick Ross and male supermodel Tyson Beckford. Yes, the gold-diggers were paying attention.

For the latest on America’s Best DJ Summer Tour Presented By Pioneer DJ, including all the exciting prizes that fans can win through voting, visiting ABDJ’s Facebook or following us on Twitter, please visit americasbestdj.net.

watch it in action

play the light® Control virtually any DJ application and/or lighting control application via MIDI and keystroke mapping.

3

VOLUME 25 NUMBER 8

14 Welcome to Dada Land

Between Dancefloor Smashes & Massive Festivals, Dada Life’s World Domination Continues

BY JUSTIN HAMPTON

In the DVS World, Sometimes the Extras Make All the Difference. Here’s One Writer’s Top 10.

BY PAUL DAILEY

22 Road Report

Highlights from America’s Best DJ Summer Tour Presented by Pioneer DJ & DJ Times

BY DJ TIMES PHOTOGRAPHERS

24 Summertime Blues

While Other Industries Take the Season Off, DJs Are Using the Summer Slowdown in Increasingly Creative & Lucrative Ways

BY JEFF STILES

7 Feedback

As Always, the Answers to All Your DJ-Related Questions

26 Making Tracks Moog Minitaur

28 Sounding Off

Peavey Impulse 12D & Gemini CDJ-700

30 Mobile Profile

Double Duty in the Windy City

32 Business Line

DJ Expo Lesson: Get Down to Business

34 Gear

New Products from Chauvet, Korg & More

AUGUST 2012

DJ TIMES 4

DEPARTMENTS

SAMPLINGS

38 Grooves

8 Idjut Boys

40 DJ Times Marketplace

10 In the Studio With…

41 Club Play Chart

Goodbye, Kick Drum

Noisia

Phat Tracks from Boy 8-Bit, Floska & More Shop Here for All Your DJ-Related Supplies The Hottest Records, As Reported by Our Top U.S. Record Pools

Cover & Cintents Photos By Martin Adolfsson

20 Digital Accessories

Weighing-in at just 19 and 46 pounds respectively, the 8” two-way ZXA1 and new 12” ZXA1-Sub from Electro-Voice combine to offer heavyweight performance in a featherweight package.

• Rugged, lightweight, low-profile construction • Powerful onboard 800-W (ZXA1) and 700-W (ZXA1-Sub) Class-D amplifiers • Custom-designed woofers and drivers deliver legendary EV sound quality • Size-defying 126-dB maximum SPL • Intuitive input panel for easy control and connectivity

mics • dsp • amps • speakers www.electrovoice.com

mics • dsp • amps • speakers

www.electrovoice.com

FROM THE EDITOR

editor-in-chief Jim Tremayne jtremayne@testa.com

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

A Summer Mix: The Road, Champagne…& Bananas

6

As we step off the road for a minute—yes, we’re still in the midst of America’s Best DJ Summer Tour Presented by Pioneer DJ—we catch our collective breath and—lo and behold—produce another magazine!

But no matter how busy we’ve gotten with the mag, the blog, the tour and DJ Expo preparation, it’s hard not to be looking forward to the next ABDJ gig. Aside from putting a proper spotlight on the worthy U.S.-based DJs with this annual promotion, we’ve been fortunate to catch some spectacular sets along the way. In our news section and our photo spread inside, we take a look back at the recent events (big and small) during America’s Best DJ Summer Tour Presented by Pioneer DJ. As always, DJ Times was there with a dedicated stand, taking votes for the nominated DJs, giving fans a chance to support their favorite jocks while earning a chance to win prizes from Pioneer DJ (top gear) and DJ Times (a trip to Vegas for the ABDJ closing party on Oct. 7). As always, vote and win.

Now onto cover boys, Dada Life. According to Justin Hampton, who interviewed the Swedish duo for us this month, “Dada Life brings a much-needed sense of play and self-effacing fun into an industry nowadays obsessed with its own glamour and magnitude.” I think we all know what he means: EDM has blown up to levels that don’t always make everyone entirely comfortable; but if you look hard enough, you can still find acts that gleefully deliver and, as they say, still do it properly.

Dada Life is certainly one such DJ duo.The group’s anthemic electro bombs like “White Noise/Red Meat” and remixes for acts ranging from Kaskade to Duck Sauce have fired up many a dancefloor. But it’s their wacky live performances—more champagne and bananas, please!—that have really won over the fans worldwide. Justin connects with Dada Men Olle Cornéer and Stephan Engblom, who discuss the secret sounds of their Sausage Fattener plug-in and why they had to move onto DJing with USB sticks—the answers might surprise you.

In our Sampling section, our L.A.-based writers have at it. Justin Hampton (again) connects with the sub-stretching Dutch trio Noisia, while Lily Moayeri talks with eclectic U.K. DJ/production duo, the Idjut Boys. Bass-face music and shimmering summer beats this ’go round—different strokes for different folks.

From our review departments, we take on three distinctly different products. With some help from Bay Area DJ Tony Russell, our longtime Audio Guru Mike Klasco puts the Peavey Impulse 12D active speaker through its paces in Sounding Off. Additionally, Denver DJ Wesley Bryant-King gets after the Gemini CDJ-700 media player. In Making Tracks, Phil Moffa—our resident analog freakazoid—makes a move into Moogland by taking on the Minitaur analog bass synthesizer. I have a feeling Phil’s going to be hanging onto this piece, because when it comes to analog synths, Phil’s kinda like Ted Nugent with firearms—you’ll get ’em back when you pry ’em from his cold, dead hands. How ’bout we just shoot for the old “industry accommodation rate” instead?

As summer is well upon us now, our Iowa-based scribe Jeff Stiles surveys some mobile DJs to find out how they actually take advantage of the seasonal slowdown, and get lucrative results. In Business Line, Joe Molineaux—the Director of the Small Business Development Center at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey—previews his upcoming tutorial at DJ Expo. His “Get Down to Business” column explains how mobile jocks can “get going, get advice, get planning, get together and get growing.”

And speaking of DJ Expo… be sure to come down to the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, N.J., on Aug. 13-16 for the industry’s top event. Mobile, club and studio DJs will get four days of educational seminars, three days of gear exhibits and three evenings of sponsored events and parties with some of our top jocks—including DJ Jazzy Jeff, Skribble, Jellybean Benitez, Roonie G and more. If you’re serious about your DJ career, you can’t afford to miss it. For the very latest, please visit thedjexpo.com.

editor-at-large Brian O’Connor boconnor@testa.com chart coordinator Dan Miller dmiller@testa.com contributors Lisa Abascal Jody Amos Joe Bermudez Angela Bray Wesley Bryant-King Shawn Christopher Paul Dailey Chris Davis Justin Hampton Josh Harris Robert LaFrance Polly Lavin Michelle Loeb Lily Moayeri Phil Moffa Natalie Raben Jennifer Shapiro Nate Sherwood Jeff Stiles Emily Tan Phil Turnipseed Curtis Zack Innes Weir President/Publisher Vincent P. Testa

FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE AND TO ORDER SUBSCRIPTIONS, CALL 800-937-7678 VISIT OUR WEBSITE www.djtimes.com

DJ Times Sound & Communications The Music & Sound Retailer Sound & Communications Blue Book America’s Best DJ The DJ Expo IT/AV Report Convention TV News VTTV Studios

graphic designer/artist Janice Pupelis jpupelis@testa.com production manager Steve Thorakos sthorakos@testa.com promotions/web designer Fred Gumm fgumm@testa.com advertising manager Jon Rayvid jrayvid@testa.com art/production assistant Douglas Yelin dyelin@testa.com Circulation circulation@testa.com Classifieds classifiedsales@testa.com

operations manager Robin Hazan rhazan@testa.com Editorial and Sales Office: DJ Times, 25 Willowdale Avenue, Port Washington, New York, USA 11050-3779. (516) 767-2500 • FAX (Editorial): (516) 944-8372 • FAX (Sales/all other business): (516) 767-9335 • DJTIMES@TESTA. COM Editorial contributions should be addressed to The Editor, DJ Times, 25 Willowdale Avenue, Port Washington, NY, USA, 110503779. Unsolicited manuscripts will be treated with care an d should be accompanied by return postage.

DJ Times (ISSN 1045-9693) (USPS 0004-153) is published monthly for $19.40 (US), $39.99 (Canada), and $59.99 (all other countries), by DJ Publishing, Inc., 25 Willowdale Ave., Port Washington, NY 110503779. Periodicals postage paid at Port Washington, NY, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to DJ Times, PO BOX 1767, LOWELL MA 01853-1767 Design and contents are copyright © 2012 by DJ Publishing, Inc., and must not be reproduced in any manner except by permission of the publisher. Websites: www. djtimes.com and www.testa.com August 2012

Cheers,

Jim Tremayne, Editor, DJ Times

visit our website: www.djtimes.com

FEEDBACK Americ A’s First mAgAzine For Pro Fession Al DJ s est Ablishe D 1988

JULY 2012

$6.95 CANADA

$4.95 US

Ho w D J Expo CHang ED Busin Ess Es (an D LivEs)

mac v s. pC w Hat’s rig Ht for

& Skream have all graced our covers, as well.

But yeah, we’d be snoozing if we didn’t realize that, especially in the past two years, bass music/dubstep has ex‑ ploded, becoming a huge phenomenon in the States. In essentially touring the country the past few years—behind

you?

Pa ul van Dyk’s

$4.95 US

$6.95 CANADA

4 inch

+

Morgan P age Flosstrada Mus Vibe s qua d iZoto Pe n ect ar b ooking g igs With Video sM ithsonMartin eMula tor

ro

a d r ePo r t

www.djtimes.com

048JL12_p001-044.indd 1

6/8/2012 7:43:53 AM

This is Feedback, a monthly feature that fields questions from you, our readers, and funnels them out to in‑ dustry professionals. If you have any questions about DJing – marketing, mixing, equipment or insurance, any at all – drop us a letter at DJ Times, 25 Willowdale Ave, Port Washington, NY 11050, fax us at (516) 944‑8372 or e‑mail us at djtimes@testa.com. If we do use your question, you’ll receive a free DJ Times T‑shirt. And remember, the only dumb question is the ques‑ tion that is not asked.

HELLO DJ TIMES, My name is Dustin Hodges—I work for Nady Systems. I met your staff a few years back at DJ Expo in Atlan‑ tic City with a friend who worked for Ortofon, and I worked for QSC Audio at the time. I just wanted to reach out and say I really enjoyed the article/ interview with VibeSquaD by Axel Mal‑ donado in the July issue of DJ Times.

Aside from being a product geek here at Nady these days, I am an avid bassmusic DJ and producer. While it is getting some attention, articles like the one on VibeSquaD are a real breaths of fresh air, knowing that people are taking notice of this growing trend of bass music. (By the way, in August, I have an EP coming out on Vermin Street Records, an independent bassmusic label out of Boston.)

Anyway, I wanted to reach out and send a compliment to your staff.

Best Regards, – Dustin Hodges, Emeryville, Calif.

DUSTIN, Thanks—we do our best to pay atten‑ tion to all genres of DJ-driven music, whether it’s dubstep, trance, house, techno or hip-hop.

If I remember correctly, we began covering the bass-booming genre in 2007 with Justin Hampton’s story on Joe Nice, “America’s Dubstep Ambas‑ sador.” In early 2011, we were the first national mag to put Skrillex on its cover. Additionally, genre giants like Bassnectar, 12th Planet and Benga

2 inch

1 inch

America’s Best DJ Summer Tour Pre‑ sented by Pioneer DJ—DJ Times has seen the country’s musical moods mu‑ tate. Now these sub-bursting frequen‑ cies have become accepted as part of the overall EDM mix, right alongside tough techno or radio-friendly sing-along house music.

Basically, the kids (and a lot of upstart DJs) are loving dubstep and if we aren’t covering it by interviewing its prime practitioners, then we’re simply not doing our job here.

Thanks for reading and good luck with your musical projects.

– Jim Tremayne, DJ Times

SAMPLINGS

IDJUT BOYS: GOODBYE, KICK DRUM

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

Idjut Boys: (from left) Conrad McConnell & Daniel Tyler

8

The Idjut Boys have been involved in producing and DJing for nearly 20 years. But it’s only now that the U.K.-based duo of Daniel Tyler and Conrad McConnell has released its first artist album, Cellar Door [Smalltown Supersound]. Less aimed at the dancefloor and more so for the bedroom or the porch, Cellar Door’s proliferation of vocals and live instruments drive the downtempo style of the album.

Says McConnell: “We were thinking, ‘Let’s make an album that’s how we remember an album to be: four tracks a side on a piece of plastic, put it on at the beginning, turn it over in the middle.’ That just isn’t a dance record.”

Adds Tyler, “We’re planning on doing a dub copy of the album, which will be more geared towards the dancefloor.”

The album’s opening number, “Rabass,” features a “Purple Rain”-like guitar, courtesy of Andy Hopkins. A Man Called Adam’s Sally Rodgers lends her vocals to three songs, including the slinky “The Way I Like It,” stamping the album with a sensual tone. Both “One For Kenny” (named for the late U.K. music producer Kenny Hawkes) and “Le Wasuk” stand out with creatively played keys by Bugge Wesseltoft. “Lovehunter” brings to mind the proggy/strummy vibes of early Pink Floyd and oddly takes its name from a Japanese designer shoe.

Japan has played a notable role in the creation of Cellar Door, as The Idjuts have been spinning there regularly for the last decade. Playing marathon sets that can last from 10 p.m. to 10 a.m., they have been able to experiment with their music, creating moments that resonate with the crowd without having the rely on a kick drum.

“It doesn’t have to be all-the-way, high-energy music—it just has to hit you at the right time,” says Tyler of their DJ sets. “With the right audience, even if the middle if the night, it can go to those places.”

The Idjut Boys rely on CDs and vinyl for their sets. Getting spoiled by the Japanese systems, they say their ideal booth set-up would include an Alpha Recording System Model 3500 3-band EQ crossover, which offers a maximum boost of 12db and two variable-frequency controls. Knowing this is probably only going to be available to them in Japan, they will settle for a Pioneer DJM-800 or 900 mixer, primarily because each channel has its own EQs and assignable effects, going through the ARS Model 3500 crossover, or, alternatively, a Urei 1620 rotary mixer, Pioneer EFX-100 box and Korg Kaoss pad.

This type of detail is also present during recording. The Idjuts’ studio is based around a 48-input channel Allen & Heath mixing console. Also, PMC Nearfield monitors and Quested Custom main monitors with twin 15-inch bass drivers make a big difference in the clarity and volume of their production. For digital reverb, delay and multi-effects, they rely on Lexicon, Ensoniq, TC Electronic, Yamaha, and Korg. For analog delay and compression, the go-to pieces are the Roland RE-201 Space Echo and Watkins Copicat Tape Echo. And for EQ, it’s TL Audio. Vocals are tracked through a Neumann microphone and Focusrite mic pre. Focusrite Liquid Mix is the Idjuts main plug-in for its EQ and compression—and they love that it doesn’t load up the computer’s CPU. The computer is a Macintosh running Logic.

The Idjuts definitely prefer the analog way of working. On the Rodgers-vocalized “Shine,” for instance, which was started in A Man Called Adam’s studio in Cornwall, they employed an Akai MPC, Access Virus, and an old Wurlitzer electric piano for the backing tracks and melody lines. A guide vocal was recorded with Rodgers and everything brought back to their own studio.

“When we set about mixing, ‘Shine’ was a piano-led boogie track,” says McConnell. “This is a perfect example of why we ‘play’ the mixing board. This is where we discovered the track. It was written, arranged and balanced so we could have a just-pressed record, but we love mixing and so we did—lots and lots of reductive mixing. The track felt better to us with the space and texture it has now.”

He continues, “We are way more literate with turning the knobs and faders of hardware machinery than we are with a mouse. We use as much of the computer as we can to save time. But when it comes to the mix and working out arrangements, we tend to throw everything up on the desk rather than blocks on the screen.”

Adds Tyler: “There’s stuff we do live on the board that we would never in a million years be able to program, or even think to program. You’re reacting to the music as opposed to watching the screen.”

– Lily Moayeri

SC3900:

Scan this QR code to find out more about the SC3900

out at

Au

g13 o

th

#6

J|

Bo

DJing has progressed to a new era with the evolution of digital media. In a world that was once first dominated by vinyl, then CDs, and now the emerging USB and streaming devices, it’s time to revolutionize the DJ booth, because right now as a DJ you make a choice between DJing with a turntable, a turntable and software, or a CDJ/Controller. No one device has ever managed to give you the flexibility to choose depending on your performance, style or your audience.

it k ec

– 16

Ch

THE ART OF SOUND

13

,N y t | Atlantic Ci

That is, until now.

Denon DJ is proud to introduce the SC3900: Digital Turntable and Media Controller with 9-inch Active Platter. Utilizing a completely redesigned High-Torque Direct Drive Motor that accurately mirrors the feel of vinyl, the SC3900 brings home that familiar feel but with the choice of CD, USB, Software, or even a networked Media server as your source of tracks.

• Player Link function for sharing USB drives across multiple SC3900s (up to four) and for connection to ENGINE software (PC/Mac/iPad).

• Completely redesigned 9-Inch platter equipped with a brushless high-torque direct drive motor • Seamless switching between media source devices • Real vinyl platter mode with independently adjustable start and stop times • Built-In USB / MIDI control function • Built-In USB audio interface (ASIO / CORE compliant) • Hybrid MIDI mode included for DVS applications • Supports CD-DA, CD-ROM and audio playback from USB memory devices (AAC, AIFF, MP3, WAV)

Watch the SC3900 in action at youtube.com/denondjtv

USE IT. LIVE IT.

“Like” us on facebook / “Follow” us on twitter more info and social media links at www.denondj.com

WWW.DENONDJ.COM

IN THE STUDIO WITH

NOISIA: THE SPECIAL EDITION Producers may have their preferences when it comes to genres, but the producer’s producer generally has a surefooted grasp of each one.

For the Dutch production collective Noisia, the default for the past decade has been drum-n-bass, but those in the know—most notably Skrillex, who referred to the trio’s recently reissued debut full-length, Split The Atom: Special Edition [mau5trap], as his “go-to LP”—can recognize the group’s abilities in breakbeat, ambient, dubstep, house and whatever else interests them at the time. (On the mau5trap release, winning cuts like megawobbler “Diplodocus” have been re-rubbed by bass-kings like Kill the Noise.) Finally, heads in the U.S.—well, those outside the group’s hardcore fanbase—are taking notice.

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

Noisia: A triple production threat.

10

Asked about the group’s Coachella debut, Martijn van Sonderen poses, “[It’s] certainly different when you compare it to a couple of years ago,” he recalls, “when we used to play in bars in the States and just play for 50 people, and most [of them are] DJs themselves who appreciate your production, and some breakdancers on an empty dancefloor.”

While all three members of the group can produce, DJ and touring duties fall on van Sonderen and Thijs de Vlieger, leaving Nik Roos to oversee the Noisia studio in Groningen, which at the time of this writing was undergoing a major overhaul. The group contracted Northward Acoustics in Brussels to redesign three separate, completely soundproofed studio workstations.

“The whole front wall of each studio is gonna be fully glass and it’s gonna have suspended ATC SCM-110A monitor speakers in the glass,” he elaborates.

Each producer works with Cubase on PC workstations, although individual preferences mean that they use different synths. Van Soneren particularly favors [LennarDigital’s] Sylenth for its layering capabilities and [Native Instruments’] Massive, interestingly enough, for pad sounds. “Unless we write more poppy stuff, if we do actually [write a bassline] for drum-n-bass, [we] usually make a sort of basic sound in whatever synth,” he says. “It could be Synth ONE, the presynth that you can just download from the internet, and then just use plug-ins and just pre-sample it and use plug-ins and automation and re-sample it until it’s good.”

For Noisia’s DJ sets, van Sonderen and de Vlieger have been learning the ins and outs of Ableton Live since New Year’s Eve, and van Sonderen admits they’re still getting the hang of it. They use it alongside an iPad with basic effects, one of which allows a conversion from drum-n-bass to drumstep.

“We don’t wanna do the typcial sort of easy drag-and-drop effects and just rinse the fuck out of them,” says van Sonderen. “If we come across something that we think is really cool, then we’ll play with that.”

But rewinds and pauses are out of the question, and the margin for error on clips is nonexistent. Eventually, with de Vlieger purchasing a large amount of acoustic instruments for the new studio, the DJ set could potentially undergo an overhaul as well with the introduction of new material made for live presentation.

“A lot of our music is mainly about the way it sounds and if a band plays a tune acoustically, that can still translate,” says von Sonderen. “But if we could not get such great sound out of a synthesizer live, the point of the music is gone.

“We’re not aiming for a live show, but if we write music that we think will work in a live setting, then we’ll find a way to do that.”

– Justin Hampton

now offers you a new world, where DJing is even more creative. The entire TRAKTOR range is remixed: All TRAKTOR products come with the full version of the latest TRAKTOR PRO 2 software, with the new Remix Deck™ technology. Combined with TRAKTOR KONTROL F1, the Remix Decks make intuitive expression and creative sets a breeze. And many products have all-new prices: Check out TRAKTOR KONTROL S2, now priced permanently at $559/499 €. Get ready to remix and enter the new world of TRAKTOR: www.native-instruments.com/traktor

OUT

NOW! is the definitive controller for the new Remix Deck™ technology in the included TRAKTOR PRO 2.5 software. Light up your DJ sets with 16 multi-color LED pads, and launch clips in a perfectly intuitive, DJ-centric way, switching between up to 64 tracks, loops and one-shot samples on each deck. Whatever your setup, TRAKTOR KONTROL F1 puts your signature sound at your fingertips. It’s time to blur the line between DJing and live performance. Set the tone, set a precedent, and set the party off. www.native-instruments.com/f1

Welcome To Dada Land

By Justin Hampton

Between Creating Dancefloor Smashes & Playing Massive Festivals, Dada Life Considers Further World Domination

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

Los Angeles—It’s a typically beautiful day on the Santa Monica coastline, and just 24 hours after Dada Life stormed the ramparts of Coachella, as part of a festival lineup dominated by EDM acts.

For the past three months, the Swedish DJ/production duo has been holed up here, waiting out a longer-than-usual Stockholm winter and jumping around from one freshfaced crew of domestic EDM recruits to the next.

As we wait for his partner Olle Cornéer to come back from an errand, Dada Life’s second banana Stefan Engblom relates a gig they played recently in, of all places, Alabama. “That was actually a fun gig, just for the reactions. Half of them were like, ‘What? In Alabama?’” he says of the comments that poured in from the social media networks. “[As for the crowd], it was literally the first time they get to see and experience the whole rave thing.”

For even the jaded nightclub veteran, however, Dada Life brings a much-needed sense of play and self-effacing fun into an industry nowadays obsessed with its own glamour and magnitude. Armed with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of bananas, champagne and supercharged, bass-heavy electro-house anthems (from the group’s self-penned “Rules of Dada”: “No bananas on the rider? Then we do our two-hour deep/tech house set—everything under 118 BPM.”), Engblom and Cornéer have carved out a unique niche for themselves since first teaming up in 2006. Prior to that, both of them had worked for years within dance music—particularly Cornéer, whose

14

Andrew Rauner (continued on page 42)

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

Dada Life: (from left) Stefan Engblom & Olle CornĂŠer.

15

AUGUST 2012

DJ TIMES 16

DJ Times: You tweeted about this.

Cornéer: All we heard was noise.

I got a super-good idea during the show because I was screaming into the microphone. And I played it back the other day and I was like, [makes squelchy noise]. It’s impossible.

DJ Times: What are the most important skill sets for a new producer to acquire?

Cornéer: I would say being able to sleep on a plane is the most important skill ever. If you can do that, you’re halfway there. Because you are

Ashley Suszczynski

work as Dibaba was nominated for a Swedish Manifest prize in ’07.

But as Cornéer and Engblom grew into their roles as Dada Life, they discovered a way to translate their innate goofiness into dancefloor gold with a stream of international hits. With basslines spiced up by a specially designed software plug-in entitled the Sausage Fattener—a product now used by Laidback Luke, Hardwell and fellow Swede Sebastian Ingrosso, among others—tracks like “Happy Violence,” “Kick Out The Epic Motherfucker” and “White Light/Red Meat” have been enshrined in DJ sets and Tumblr blogs the world over.

Having risen in international DJ polls, landed an hour-long mix show on Sirius XM (titled “Dada Land”) and scored remixes from Madonna, Lady Gaga and David Guetta, Dada Life plans to unleash an as-yet-untitled artist LP in the fall. Judging by the success of the outfit’s recent single, “Rolling Stones T-Shirt,” charting highly on Beatport’s Top 100 with a suitably grotesque Aphex Twin-referencing video at over 800,000 YouTube views, it will certainly promise to unleash even more fucking Dada over the heads of the unwashed masses. Before the cheesy punk-rock title puns and inflatable champagne bottles overtake us, we felt it best to ask for details on their production strategies and live performance tricks from the duo, not to mention a little mercy, for the love of God. As per the rules of Dada, we merely got what we damn-well deserved. See it for yourself: DJ Times: So tell me about your entry into dance music. Olle, I know you play guitar, so I’m guessing you may have experience doing other forms of music before doing this.

Cornéer: Yeah, we actually just met at the chili cook-off and we started talking about music. And then we said, “Why not try to make a track together?” We did one track together. That was the first release ever. We did it in like a few hours.

DJ Times: So you were both producers independently?

Cornéer: Yeah, we don’t work alone anymore. We’re both producers. Some dudes, one is the DJ and one is the producer, or one is the instrumental guy and the other’s like, something else. We both do everything, which also means that we fight on everything. (laughs) DJ Times: What were you two working on in those early productions, and how did you merge your production styles together?

Cornéer : I think we merged them from the beginning. That’s not what has changed in any way. What has changed is just the evolvement of our sound. I think we actually, from the first track we did, we felt like it worked, merging our styles together.

The reason that everything is getting harder and harder is because that’s just how the sound has evolved. And it’s going to get even harder. It’s going to get hard until we crash into a wall and then we quit forever.

DJ Times: I saw you have a lot of outboard gear. A lot of people getting into the game wouldn’t have that much.

Engblom: We have a lot of outboard gear, but we never use it. We just use it if we want like, for inspiration to play around with it. But in the end, we just do it in the laptop.

DJ Times: But you use a keyboard for a MIDI. Engblom: Yeah, but I wouldn’t call that outboard gear. I would call that more like MIDI control. Outboard gear is more like synthesizers, compressors, the Avalon stuff. You play it once and then you have the melody in the program, and that’s it.You don’t touch it anymore.

DJ Times: What are you using alongside Ableton?

Cornéer: We don’t use that many synthesizers—not any specific that we can pinpoint. For a while we used [LennarDigital’s] Sylenth a lot, but then we changed them a little bit. I don’t think the key to the sound is in which plug-ins you use; it’s in the combinations that you use them in and how you use them. Our effects chain is...

Engblom: It’s so long.

Cornéer: Yeah, like 20 effects on them, but each and every effect is a normal, whatever, stock effect. The combination of everything is what makes it, which is exactly the same thing with the Sausage Fattener. We had a chain of effect that we always used and we felt like, “Yeah, why not bring this whole chain [into] like, one knob?”

DJ Times: How do those effects chains grow? Something like the Sau-

“The thing we noticed with CDs, you just spill champagne on them, it’s like acid.

It burns a hole in it.”

sage Fattener, that was apparently an effect you want to go for quite often.

Say you start off with a sawtooth wave...

Cornéer: Trial-and-error. (laughs) Engblom: Since we’re two people, we do twice the amount of mistakes, just twice as fast.

Cornéer: When we’re fast, we work twice as fast. And opposite, we make twice as many mistakes, and everything takes twice as long.

DJ Times: Are there any acoustic/ traditional instruments in the tracks?

Cornéer: There are none.

Engblom: It’s for inspiration, live.

Cornéer: It’s for inspiration. It’s like some kind of songs, you have to write on a guitar because they feel good on a guitar and then we just translate it into a synthesizer in that way. It’s more for inspiration, like some songs were written by singing into the mobile phone—singing the bassline. We actually did it the other day, but we didn’t succeed.

sleep-deprived all the time, so you...

Engblom: Sleep when you can.

You eat when you can.

DJ Times: How long has it been like this for you guys? In ‘06-’07, it was just building up your name.

Cornéer : At that time, it was kind of just then, at that time, Dada Life was more like a side project.

We didn’t have the time and then it gradually just changed into the main project. I can’t remember when it faded into the main project.

Engblom: It took more and more time. We didn’t have time to do our own stuff.

Cornéer: I personally think that the skill is to do something original, like hearing what you wanna do and take it that extra step, instead of just doing a copy of the current Beatport Top 10 right now.

DJ Times: What would you say about the rise of programs like Dubspot and the Red Bull Music Academy? Should people learn how

the word marketing. If you’re at an ad company, you talk about marketing.

We talk about music.

DJ Times: I wanted to ask about “White Light/Red Meat.” One of the things that distinguishes that track is the way the pad sound breathes heavily at the beginning.

Engblom: It’s part of the details in our production. It’s all this small stuff that we fight about that makes the little extra, and that’s part of what you mean.

Cornéer: Little effects.

Engblom: Small effects that effects into small stuff, like if you don’t have it, the track is still cool, but like, just play around with that sort of stuff. It’s just the extra mile.

Cornéer: And all of those little details are the things we fight about the most in the studio.

DJ Times: Do you still do sound design?

C o r n é e r : We kind of make it up all the time, actually.

E n g b l o m : We don’t have a library w i t h , “ O h , h e re ’s 10 leads we’ve designed.” It’s more w h e n we m a ke a track we just jump in the synthesizers and start getting out there. People think i t ’s t h e g e a r t h a t makes it. It’s more like, if you know the gear, you can make the sound you have in your head straightaway and that’s really important for the flow just to keep on.

Cornéer: It’s better to have to learn a few synthesizers really well instead of having 20 of them.

DJ Times: Do you record on the road?

Cornéer : Yeah, we definitely work on the road, but we’re way more efficient in our studio. We have a good coffee machine. We have a 9-to-5 schedule. That’s when you actually really effective, when it’s like a factory.

Engblom: Check in during the morning.

Cornéer: At night, 9 o’clock, coffee. Get to work. And sometimes the boss is around telling us to work harder. That’s good, too.

DJ Times: Dada Land, that’s your own radio show. Is that part of Tiësto’s Radio Freedom?

Engblom: Dada Land—it’s part of the world-domination thing.

Cornéer: It’s part of starting our own country with our own rules.

We’re gonna break through. We’re gonna meet with embassies and stuff.

We have a meeting with American embassy when we get back to Sweden. See if we can work together somehow.

DJ Times: I’m reminded of Sealand, that autonomous country off the U.K. coast. Is it something like that?

Cornéer: That’s the idea, but we don’t need an actual geography, an actual region. Dada Land can be anywhere, but we still wanna have our rights. That’s why you talk to people.

We’re not gonna grab a piece of land.

They could probably declare war.

DJ Times: I wanted to ask about how you handled a crisis moment

while DJing.

Cornéer: Catastrophes happen all the time. That’s the fun, actually— almost too many to think of one special. One of my favorite ones was in Salt Lake City. The actual table wasn’t fixed so it fell over and all the equipment fell down.

Engblom: Like three or four meters.

Cornéer: Not on the floor, but down in the pit, and just crashed.

Engblom: And it was like four CDJ-2000s and a 900 mixer.

Cornéer: That was the end of that.

Engblom: But it was the last track, so it was kind of a nice finish.

DJ Times: It didn’t happen at the beginning.

Cornéer: At that point the night was over.

Engblom: For the crowd, if something goes wrong, they know that we play live and don’t just press play and stand there and watch “Entourage” or whatever. If things go wrong they know that it’s real.

Cornéer: I would say that the most stuff that goes wrong is involving us and physical damage. (continued on page 42)

AUGUST 2012

velop your skills.

Cornéer : But then don’t release it, please. I don’t wanna hear it. (laughs) DJ Times: You don’t do dubstep, but you are known for aggressive basslines, which are a touchstone for dubstep productions. Have you consciously integrated anything from dubstep into your productions?

Cornéer: Not dubstep specifically, but we listen to everything. We get ideas from any kind of music. We actually get ideas from ’50s rock-nroll or from basically everything.

Engblom: It’s a feeling, like if you get a good feeling and high energy feeling on a track, you wanna create that feeling on your own, with our sound, with our bass. It’s not like, “Oh, this wobbly kind of thing, gonna copy it and do it.” It’s more the feeling we’re into.

DJ Times: What sorts of monitors are you using in your studio?

Engblom: Actually, we have good

monitors. We have Barefoots—it’s Thomas Barefoot. We have Event Opals...

DJ Times: Tell me about how you work with vocals.

Engblom: We treat vocals as instruments.

Cornéer: We take the singer and we chop him up in pieces and try to make it sound good. We don’t think of vocals as vocal. I think that’s the key to our approach to vocals is treat it as an instrument.

DJ Times: Are you working with Autotune, and if not, with what?

Cornéer: Oh, it’s the same thing with all the instruments. It’s a combination of so many effects. It can be Autotune...

Engblom: Melodyne, anything.

Cornéer: It’s different with each track.

DJ Times: Tell me about how you work with your live sets. Are you working with Ableton again or...

Cornéer: No, we’re DJing with records or USB sticks. The thing we always thought about when we’re DJing is, like, it’s good because you’re trying new stuff out and it’s good because you get inspiration from your tracks. Like I was telling you, the other day, I was screaming the melody during the set in my cell phone and then when you get back to the studio, you just wanna have a show so you can try the stuff out. It’s like a feedback loop, playing out, being in the studio, playing out, being in the studio.

DJ Times: What’s the equipment you prefer to use on the road?

Engblom: The players for us are Pioneers. We know them so well— the CDJ-2000s. We can pretty much close our eyes and, because you know where every button is, it’s in the fingers. We had CDs, but I think we were the last DJs converting from CDs to USB. But the thing we noticed with the CDs, you just spill champagne on them, it’s kind of like acid. It burns a hole in it.

Cornéer: There were holes in our CD all the time.

Engblom: So before every gig, we spent two hours picking out every CD looking at it—is this OK? You’d have to burn a new one. That one track, I need a CD. So I had 200 CDs to go through before every gig. And then when we switched to USB, that was a relief.

Cornéer : And then when we switched to USB sticks, Stefan actually went and made sure. He asked the computer store—“We need to get champagne-proof USB sticks.”

DJ Times: It’s been amazing how you’ve been able to market the Dada Life brand. You have the t-shirts, the Sausage Fattener...

Cornéer: We have the master plan, but we can’t say anything about it. I wouldn’t say marketing. It’s more like world domination. I don’t know

DJ TIMES

to make the music on their own, rather than learn what works?

Cornéer: You still need to be able to copy the tracks out there to then break all the rules. Like, it’s a classic thing—you need to learn all the rules in order to be able to break them.

I mean, you need to copy. You need to be able to copy the Beatport Top 10—and then, you don’t do it.

Engblom: For a beginning producer, it’s a good thing to try to make that track exactly the same [as the original], because then you can de-

17

enter &

win t h E u Lt i M At E D j g i V E AwAy

Free to Enter at

Aug. 13-16 Trump Taj Mahal Atlantic City, NJ

2 cDj-2000 players

The CDJ-2000 is the ultimate technologically advanced multi-format player in the world. No matter what your media preference is, the CDJ2000 can handle them all with great performance, reliability, and confidence. It enables playback of MP3, AAC, WAV and AIFF audio files on CD, DVD-ROM, SD card and USB memory devices. For displaying song titles, jacket art as well as detailed track information, the CDJ-2000 has a unique 6.1�

Full Color LCD panel and Graphic User Interface so DJs can find information needed to select a song easily at a glance.

1 rMX-1000 remix Station

The RMX-1000 Remix Station gives every DJ the ability to personalize their mix by creating and adding multiple remix effects. Along with the onboard multi-bank rhythmic sampler, the RMX-1000 has four remixing functions:

Isolate FX, Scene FX, X-Pad FX and Release FX. Also included is Pioneer’s Remixbox and RMX-1000Plugin VST/AU plug-in software.

Light up your creative genius with the Beamz Pro interactive laser controller. Use laser beams to control any DJ, production or lighting application.

1 DjM-900nexus mixer

The DJM-900nexus is a high performance 4-channel digital mixer designed for today’s professional DJ performers. The new DJM-900nexus offers a multitude of new features that includes a variety of onboard effects including Sound Color FX, Beat effects, and all new X-Pad. Other features include increased sound quality and direct laptop connection to enable any DJ to perform to their utmost potential.

Double phase LED

Dual-barrel mirrors cover large areas with a bright blast of color beams. The double barreled dynamo is powered by two state-of-the-art CREE 10-watt Quad Color LEDs that create thick, twin beams of light in a variety of eyepopping color combinations. Each of the Double Phase LED’s high-output LED sources has four different color LEDs (Red, Green, Blue and White) inside. All color mixing is done within each LED lamp prior to output, which allows this amazing unit to produce a smoother blend and generate a wider spectrum of blazing colors.

1 hDj-2000-K headphone

The HDJ-2000 is Pioneer’s premier professional headphone.

Featuring lightweight magnesium construction and high flux magnets, the HDJ-2000 represents the best in sound quality, comfortable fit, and durability.

Whether you’re playing live or working in the studio, the HDJ-2000 will meet all of your headphone needs.

unique galaxian gem LED

A 2-in-1 effect that combines LED moonflowers with Galaxian lasers to create a lightshow that is simply out of this world!

The two moonflowers, which sit on either side of its laser, are packed with a total of 46 5mm RGBW LEDs (16 red, 10 green, 10 blue and 10 white).

These LED sources produce a multitude of brilliant red, blue, green and white beams. The laser part of this effect produces hundreds of razor-sharp green beams, which dance around the room in smooth, precise movements, driven by high-quality 1.8° stepper motors. The laser is also a breathtaking “Liquid Sky-type” laser effect when used on its own.

Just drop your business card at the Expo registration desk.

Drawing made & winner announced Aug. 16 at DJ Expo.

You must be present to win.

6 Month SubScription to either Express

Audio or Express Video via pooL, promo only’s Digital Delivery System Promo Only provides weekly and monthly delivery of the newest promotional releases direct from the record labels. Conveniently categorized to offer you the music best suited to your needs, our CD, DVD and multiformat digital bundles provide the industry’s widest selection of clean edits, remixes and exclusive Intro Edits at professional-only subscription rates. For computer-based convenience, data discs and direct digital downloads are also available.

www.djtimes.com/thedjexpo 1.800.YES.7678

20

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

In the DVS World,

Digital Accessories

Sometimes the Extras Make All the Difference.

Here’s One Writer’s Top 10.

By Paul Dailey

#2 – Laptop Stand: Griffin Technology Elevator Laptop Stand Stable, functional, stylish, and easy to set up—the Griffin Laptop Stand is everything you could ask for in a portable solution. The stand is made of greatlooking brushed silver metal, thick rubber pads and clear plastic connectors that give your laptop a “floating-on-air” look. Very cool stand, which comes along to every gig. (www.griffintechnology.com) #3 – Keyboard Overlay: KB Covers (For Traktor Pro) A leader in industry keyboard covers, KB has options for every major audio and creative program from Logic and Ableton, to SSL, Illustrator and Traktor. The overlay makes it possible to skip the use of a mouse (and for some simple tasks – a controller), and get to the advanced features of your program by using the keyboard. Made from thin, durable plastic, KB Covers free your mind from having to remember shortcuts. Great inexpensive addition to your set-up. (www.kbcovers.com) #4 – Controller: MIDI Fighter Classic My current set up includes two Native Instruments X1 controllers and an older Faderfox—so why exactly do I need another controller? Quite simply, the MIDI Fighter is in a class of its own. Made from high-quality components like Japanese arcade buttons, it has a thick rubber case, assembled by Ean Golden and his DJ Tech team in San Francisco, and is supported by a portal full of easy-to-use mapping—MIDI Mapper is a game changer.

You can select from a long list of options, colors, and cases to customize the 4x4 grid until your heart’s content. And as good as the final piece looks, it performs even better. Quick edits, cuts, drops, loops and special macro commands allow you to twist

#5 – Powered USB Hubs: Plugable USB Hub Controllers, sound cards, effects units, and other MIDI devices mean many digital DJs need more power than their laptop can reliably provide.

Plugable has the solution in their no-frills, no-nonsense powered hubs that simply work—every time. (www.plugable.com) #6 – Laptop Skins: 12inchSkinz & Fake Make As you probably know, there are lots of places to get “skins” for your laptop. But with so much invested in my machine and knowing that it represented a choice that would be part of my promotional window on the world for years to come, I wanted to be sure I chose wisely. In the end, two companies stood head and shoulders above the rest.

Based in Tulsa, Okla., 12inchSkinz specializes in customized skins for laptops, CD players, controllers, turntables and slipmats. Jared “DJ Kartel” took my logo and returned to me a skin that blew me away. Printed on thick, durable, vinyl (not sticky labels like so many others), it was gorgeous to look at, easy to read and installed without any bubbles or hassles at all. I have no doubt this skin will look great long after I retire my MBP. (www.12inchSkinz. com) The other stand out here is Fake Make, a Canadian-based company with some serious street cred. It turned out a skin based on an old Run-DMC logo that was printed on a gorgeous glossy label with rich, vibrant colors and a classic hip-hop vibe. Fake Make also produces record labels for control vinyl and mixer covers. Both companies are headed by DJs, which gives the first-hand knowledge of what you need. (www.fakemake.ca) #7 – Cable Tester: Hosa Cable Tester Hosa is a well-known name in the industry and their CBT-500 cable tester includes the ability to test XLR, Phone, Phono, speakON, DIN, Ethernet and USB cables—truly an indispensable addition to every DJs bag of tricks.

Hopefully, you won’t need it often, but when you do, it is a lifesaver. (www. hosatech.com) #8 – Customizations: Chroma Caps From the creative folks at DJ Tech Tools come Chroma Caps, performance-engineered knobs built to customize your controller, mixer, etc., by adding a splash of color and smooth, thick, squishy caps you won’t be able to stop tweaking out. Every night a DJ asks me where I got these. (http://store.djtechtools.com/chroma-caps-knobs-and-faders.html) #9 – Covers/Protection: Deck Saver Keeping dust away from your gear has long been a battle, and doing so while keeping your set-up covered with towels or table cloths was nearly impossible. Enter U.K.-based Decksaver to protect your gear, while keeping it easily accessible and looking great. Made of thick, see-through polycarbonate, Decksaver is designed to fit perfectly over nearly every brand of turntable, CD player, mixer, controller and effect unit you can think of and safeguard your investment in style. (www.decksaver.co.uk) #10 – Software: Mixed In Key I have been a proponent of harmonic mixing and the Circle of Fifths for years. Back in the day, I used to play my synthesizer along with new tracks— to note the key and help me keep my sets sounding smooth and musical.

In considering my transition to Traktor, the thought of cataloging the key of 20K tracks was daunting. Enter Mixed in Key to tackle the chore with speed and efficacy. In the list of things I use when deciding which track to play next, there are a lot of things ahead of which key it’s in. But as a fast and easy way to gain a new data point to help with your choices, Mixed in Key is a valuable tool. (www.mixedinkey.com) n

AUGUST 2012

#1 – External Hard Drive: ioSafe Rugged Portable (500 kb/1tb) For the Digital DJ, it all begins and ends with data—not just music, but metadata (cue points/loops/samples), which allow you to truly take your sets to the next level. After all the time spent building a collection, editing tracks, setting cue and loop points, harmonic keys, etc., most DJs leave it to whatever is on sale at the local office store for protection. For true professionals, in my opinion, there is now a clear leader of the pack and only one company that matters.

A Cali-based company, ioSafe is the recognized leader in disaster-proof storage, and their Rugged Portable line is reliable, attractive and virtually indestructible. You can drop them 20 feet, immerse them in water, leave them in a frozen car, and back over them with your truck–and they will survive. And if they don’t, ioSafe offers $5,000 of data recovery services for free. They are not the cheapest drives on the market—but that kind of peace of mind is priceless. Highly recommended. (www.iosafe.com)

and tweak your sound to the breaking point—with ease and style. A truly essential new addition to my setup. (http://store.djtechtools.com/midi-fighter.html)

DJ TIMES

While I have been a club/party DJ for nearly for nearly 30 years, it is only recently that I made the jump to a Digital Vinyl System (Native Instruments’ Traktor Pro), finally ditching my book of CDs and bag of vinyl.

Like most of you, my transition started with the basics: a new computer, soundcard and software. But over the last 12 months, I have been adding bits and pieces to construct what I feel is the right tool-kit for the job, including doubles and triples of every power cord, adapter and wire—filling a bag that makes me wonder if digital DJing really is any “easier.”

Along the way, I have made lots of good purchases and a number of questionable ones, all working towards the goal of having the best-in-class accessories at my disposal. That was the impetus for this article—to compile a short list of the must-have (or must-consider) additions to a well-considered digital DJ’s gear bag.

This list is by no means comprehensive; it is simply what I consider to be the most indispensable accessories in my collection—from comp a n i e s w h i c h I fe e l a re t h e b e s t i n t h e i r c a t e go r y. H e re we go :

21

Highlights from America’s Best DJ Summer Tour Presented

by Pioneer DJ & DJ Times

Report From The Road The early portion of America’s Best DJ Summer Tour Presented

by Pioneer DJ & DJ Times took us to four major cities. After kicking off at Detroit’s Hart Plaza for the Movement festival, which presented 10 ABDJ nominees, we went to San Francisco’s Ruby Skye for a hot set from Bad Boy Bill and to Minneapolis’ First Avenue for another by SovietPanda. Then we hit Baltimore’s Ft. Armistead Park for the Starscape fest, which hosted nine noms.

As always, DJ Times was there to collect ballots for the DJs, giving voting fans a chance to win a slew of prizes—like Pioneer gear and a trip for two to Las Vegas for the ABDJ Closing Party/Award Ceremony on Oct. 7. It all looked like this:

1

1 Manic: Starscape’s late-night crowd. Ashley Suszczynski 2 Detroit Winner: Kevin Rapley & his Pioneer headphones.

Brittany Somerset

2

3

4

3 Minnesota Nice: SovietPanda with fans at First Avenue.

Denis Plaster 4 Mainstage Man: Josh Wink in Detroit. Paxahau 5 On Mic: Dillon Francis at Movement. Paxahau 6 Vote & Win: First Ave fans cast their ballots. Denis Plaster 7 B’more Beats: Kill the Noise at Starscape. Ashley Suszczynski

5

6

7

8 Weekend in America: Wolfgang Gartner at Starscape.

Ashley Suszczynski 9 On Beat: Derrick Carter gets his groove on. Brittany Somerset 10 Mushroom Jazz: Mark Farina at Movement. Brittany Somerset 11 Woo-hoo! Crowd Surfing in Detroit. Paxahau 12 It Takes 2: San Fran fans at Ruby Skye. Javier Ovalles 13 Them Girls: Diplo with friends.

Paxahau

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

8

22

14 Massive: Movement crowd at the Red Bull stage. Paxahau 15 Starscape: Bass Face in Baltimore. Ashley Suszczynski 16 Frisco Beats: Bad Boy Bill at Ruby Skye. Javier Ovalles 17 Daytime DJ: Carl Craig in Hart Plaza. Brittany Somerset 18 Starscaper: DJ Dan in Baltimore. Ashley Suszczynski

16

9

12

13

17

14

15

18 11

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

10

23

Summertime Blues

By Jeff Stiles

While Other Industries Take the Season Off, DJs Are Using the Summer Slowdown in Increasingly Creative &

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

Lucrative Ways

24

When asked how he endures the annual summer business doldrums, Mike Fernino of Music in Motion Entertainment in Seymour, Conn., responds by asking, “What summer doldrums? Connecticut is an oceanfront state, so summertime is an absolute season here for us.

“In fact, summer is one of the busiest times of the year for us and, just like the ice-cream man, it’s the time for us to make our money. If anything, all of our preparation should have been done over the wintertime, to get ready for our busy summer season.”

It’s been said that as the long and hot summer wears on, it can also wear us down. We can become lazy, allowing our minds and bodies to relax.

DJ TIMES

While there’s nothing wrong with taking it easy, too much daydreaming can cause us to lose focus on our long-terms goals.

What can mobile DJs do to stay sharp during our “off-season”?

Fernino says that he spends his summer slower-times tinkering around with his systems.

“We’re upgrading our computer equipment,” he says, “streamlining the customer area, making the forms load faster, trimming the fat, slashing the monthly expenditures, cutting back on hours by implementing faster and more efficient procedures, and maximizing the return on the time we spend working around the office.

“All this so that when we clock out, our cell phone doesn’t ring with a problem that needs fixing—it’s ringing with an invite to a barbecue!”

Down in Pennsylvania, Steve Croce of Silver Sound Disc Jockeys in the Philadelphia area says his group uses their downtime to seriously improve upon and invest in new server hardware that hosts their company’s website.

“This drastically speeds up and streamlines the client-side interface our customers use to build their reception and special event agenda, bridal party information sheets and playlists,” Croce says. “We also recently improved our ability to offer our existing customers additional services like uplighting, monograms and Photo Booths by following Jeff Bezos’ [of Amazon] lead and making the customer experience much easier, user-friendly and inviting.

“We’re following up on our springtime efforts of re-establishing old friendships with facilities that tapered off in referrals due to a lack of communication. And then we’re doing a lot of small company picnics and social events to help squirrel away some nuts for the winter.”

Back up in New Jersey, Gregg Hollmann of Ambient DJ Service in East Windsor claims a key part of his summer is spending a week in Atlantic City at DJ Times’ DJ Expo, where he looks forward to soaking in some continuing education, enjoying a little “summer-doldrum” relaxation, and getting a chance to enjoy some downtime with friends and colleagues.

“By the end of a long, hot summer, our business has been running on all cylinders since May, with many Saturdays sold-out,” says Hollmann, who says he personally oversees 20-plus gigs per month.

“The Communion season is particularly brutal, and due to our company’s diversification of services [weddings, teen dance, kids parties, bars/clubs, etc.], we’ve also enjoyed a high volume of weekday work.

“While most of these jobs are in our home market of Central New Jersey, this summer’s schedule will take us to New Haven, Conn., for an event affiliated with Yale University, and to Atlantic City for a dance competition after-party expected to have 700 guests.”

While the demands of operating the business during this busy season often leaves Hollmann with limited time for strategic planning, he has recently been able to put in place some initiatives he hopes will generate benefits that will extend into the autumn and beyond.

“We just purchased a wireless game show system from DigiGames, and have been very pleasantly surprised by the high demand from bars for karaoke,” he says. “Patrons love interactive entertainment, and we hope to achieve similar success with trivia, which will also be marketed to corporate clientele for the upcoming holiday party season.”

Ambient DJ Service also recently invested in a high-output dry ice fog effect (the Chauvet Nimbus), and Hollmann says they are actively marketing this new amenity to both wedding clients (“Dancing in the Clouds effect”) and to teen groups (“Ice Fog Parties”).

And, of course, the summertime is ideal for updating staff with additional training, whether they’re using new equipment or learning new music or simply getting a refresher course so their entertainment skills don’t get stale.

“The current topic that our staff of music mixologists is brushing up on is that of Latin music,” says Hollmann. “Recently, we held a staff meeting at Chateau Madrid, sharing our top picks across sub-genres like salsa, merengue, bachata and reggaeton—all while enjoying genuine Spanish/Portuguese cuisine and enjoying a glass of sangria.

“After all, a knowledgeable and proficient staff keeps referrals flying in!”

AUGUST 2012

“All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.”

– Samuel Taylor Coleridge

25

MAKING TRACKS STUDIO…HARDWARE…SOFTWARE… Minitaur: A bangin’ analog bass synth.

MOOG MINITAUR:UR: LOW-END VALUE

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

By Phil Moffa

26

The Moog Taurus, released circa 1975, was one of the first synthesizers whose focus was producing wall-shaking bass frequencies. It did not feature a traditional keyboard. Rather, it was played with foot pedals in the style of old organs, freeing up the hands to play lead and chords. The original Tauruses are not exactly compact studio pieces.

Enter the new Moog Minitaur module, which has the same low-end range and architecture of its predecessor, but in a small desktop format with lots of modern conveniences.

The tiny wedge-shaped unit measures less than 9-inches across with 17 silver and black knobs, plus four illuminated buttons on its front panel. Synthesis begins with two voltage-controlled oscillators that are selectable between sawtooth (like the original Taurus) and square wave.

I found the square wave to have a fatter sound and would always set at least one of the oscillators to be a square. A simple mix section with two knobs gives volume control to the VCOs. VCO 2 can be tuned +/- an octave from VCO 1, whose pitch is determined by a MIDI note or CV. I usually leave it tuned down an octave for the subs.

An LED blinks to indicate incoming MIDI data and remains steadily on when receiving MIDI clock. On the front panel is a very small knob with a flat head screwdriver indent for fine-tuning both VCOs about a semitone. Keeping in mind that this is a true analog synth, sometimes they require this adjustment.

The only large knob on the panel controls the filter cutoff. This voltage-controlled filter, of course, is the classic Moog 24dB/octave lowpass with adjustable resonance, and it sounds just as good as all the others that came before it.

The back panel sports an input, so any source can be run through it, which can be a good move to give soft synths and other digital signals much needed warmth and analog flavor. Following the VCOs are two ADSR envelope generators, one for modulating the filter and one for the amplifier. The 3-knob design features one knob for both the attack and sustain and the middle knob handles both decay and release. An illuminated button determines whether or not release is functional.

A 3-knob modulation section provides a MIDI-syncable LFO with the simple destinations of the VCO and the VCF. Finally, a glide knob and button give access to portamento.

The back panel has a decent amount of connectivity for a small unit.There’s a single, mono ¼-inch input and output, and an 1/8-inch headphone output. Both output volumes are set by the same VCA knob on the front.

For users with a more complicated and perhaps modular setup, there are

Teenage Engineering’s OP-1: Synth engines, FX and LFOs.

CV-controller inputs for pitch, filter, volume, and gate. There is a single MIDI input and also the very useful USB MIDI connection. This can be used to send notes and other controller data from a DAW, but also gives instant and easy access to the powerful Minitaur Editor software.

This standalone application gives you a graphic of the front panel on your screen and any knob-turning you do on the synth corresponds to the screenshot, while knob turning you do on the screen can change the sound of the Mintaur.

Patches can be stored and recalled easily. This gives you soft-synth functionality, but the sound of analog. It can be very helpful if you decide to set the synth up outside of arms’ reach. Most importantly, there is a second screen for the “under-the-hood” features that would normally only be available through MIDI CC messages that would require an open manual and a lot of patience.

This includes fine tuning VCO2, note sync of the VCOs, enhanced glide and LFO features, input level, MIDI settings and many more. This simple application really increases the value of the Minitaur.

Probably the most inexpensive way to get a new analog Moog synth into your arsenal, the Minitaur presents a great solution for those in need of a killer bass module. With the filter open, there’s even potential for a lead, provided you don’t travel above C5 (octave above middle C). And when the filter is down low, you get a beautiful, round, and smooth bass signal you’d expect from a Moog. It doesn’t get too nasty—for that, you will need external processing.

With the inclusion of both the editor software and an analog external input, the Minitaur is a great value at $599 street price.

If you have any questions for Phil Moffa or Making Tracks, please send them to djtimes@testa.com.

SOUNDING OFF PLAYBACK…PRO AUDIO…PROCESSING

By Mike Klasco, Tony Russell & Wesley Bryant-King This month our Bay Area duo of Mike Klasco and Tony Russell handle Peavey’s Impulse 12D active speakers, while Denver DJ Wesley Bryant-King puts the Gemini CDJ-700 media player through its paces.

Peavey Impulse 12D

The Impulse 12D from Peavey Electronics is a portable, 39-pound, amplified speaker. The combination of light weight, 1,200-watt amplifier and 12-inch woofer with ribbon tweeter all in a molded enclosure is ideal for mobile DJs. Also, if you are looking for a monitor speaker for venue where the sound system is intense, the Impulse 12D is an ideal choice.

The woofer is professional grade with cast-aluminum frame for roadworthiness. The molded enclosure has ribbing on the backside of front baffle for stiffness, and the woofers features a high-energy neodymium magnet for saving a few pounds over the lower-cost ferrite magnet.

The IPR switching amp provides

line—lots of options with these speakers. To top it all off, there is an “optional expansion module” access panel, so there should be lots of other fun stuff to use with your Impulse 12D. In this DJ’s opinion, this lightweight unit ($799 MAP) is a great-sounding speaker and a contender for the throne of “best mobile-DJ speaker.” Now Peavey, how about a matching, lightweight, high-power Impulse-Series subwoofer for those bigger jobs?

Gemini CDJ-700

A few years ago, it might have seemed plausible to look ahead at an imminent future where computers and digital DJ controllers took over, and few would be interested in the venerable CDJ deck—which have been fixtures in the DJ booth since the mid’90s. Alas, that’s not quite how things have played out.

Indeed, there seems to be as much demand today for CDJs—aka “media players”—with a range

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

POWERED SPEAKERS & A MEDIA PLAYER

28

1,200 watts and it’s another sophisticated design technique that allows Peavey to deliver high output with low unit weight. This plate amplifier is stationed on the rear of the enclosure and has two input channels and a line output, with a mix of I/O options—combination XLR-¼-inch jacks, RCA, and install-ready Phoenix connections. Input channels 1 and 2 also have mic/line source switches and gain controls.

The amplifier also includes Peavey’s effective DDT anti-clipping speaker protection—so, simply put, if the speaker gets overcranked it won’t crap out. Another popular, time-tested Peavey innovation included here is a fieldreplaceable basket, which the company has done since the 1970s. If you happen to blow a speaker, all you have to do is remove three screws, put on a replacement basket, put the screws in and you’re back in business. (If you’ve ever gone through the nightmare of re-coning a speaker, you’ll realize how cool this is.)

The Auto-Off function automatically shuts off the power when it no longer detects a signal, while the Line Out allows multiple units to be daisy-chained.

Tony Russell’s Road Test: We all have our favorite active speakers, don’t we? Maybe a pair that have come through in a pinch time and again?

When I consider 12-inch powered speakers, I revert back to my old standbys. I bought a pair of these units (from another well-known manufacturer) more than 10 years ago and they’ve never let me down. I even watched one unit bounce down a flight of stairs after it slipped out of my hand—no problem, it still worked!

You might ask why I bring this up now—well, it’s because I found a speaker that holds its own with my longtime powered-speaker choice. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, though, because Peavey has built an empire on reliability.

The 12Ds sound great! They use a ribbon driver that’s based in Peavey’s Versarray line array ribbon and, for sound quality, this is a bonus—no honk! The highs are awesome and the mids and lows also sound great for a 12-inch speaker cabinet. They also are a lot lighter than the other 12-inch, self-powered speakers I’ve tried and that’s big for anyone who plans to use them for mobile gigs.

The Impulse 12D also comes with a wide variety of inputs and two channels (“DynaQ”), which allow you to customize the sound and bass, and both XLR and tip-ring-sleeve outputs—oh, and Phoenix inputs and outputs. Bottom

of manufacturers still turning out improved models with advancing capabilities.

Among them is Gemini DJ. This New Jersey-based company (part of the GCI family of brands) has long been known for producing capable DJ products at attractive price points, and the subject of this review, the CDJ-700, is no exception.

First Impressions: Unboxing the CDJ-700, my very first impression was, “This is a big deck.” Dominated by a massive jog-wheel platter that practically begs, “touch me,” it has a footprint of comparable DJ media players. Still, I found it a bit on the bulky side—although I confess my judgment is skewed a bit by the limited space available in my home studio where my DJ gear lives between mobile gigs. (Your mileage may vary, of course.)

When you fire up the unit, you’re welcomed by a bright, color LCD screen, front and center. When the deck is in active operation, many of its various buttons are backlit and equally bright.

The CDJ-700 has features that are representative of what many DJs expect out of a deck: an ability to play audio CDs, as well as common digital audio formats on SD memory cards, USB-based storage devices or CD-Rs. In addition, its USB “B” connector and a connection to a PC turn the deck into a MIDIcontrol surface, and allow audio output to be routed to the computer as well.

In short, it bridges the world of old (spinning audio CDs) and new (utilizing digital-audio media, while providing control functionality).

Both the SD memory card slot and USB “A” slot are located on the top, upper right, for easy access. The USB “B” connector and audio outputs are on the back surface, as one would expect, along with the standard IEC 60320 C7/C8 connector for AC power—common enough to be an easy replacement if you need one, or to keep extra power cords around. (I always like having one set of cables in my home studio, and a separate set in my mobile box.)

I was pleased to see that the CDJ-700 reads all four of the common file system formats for connected digital storage: FAT, FAT32, HFS+ and NTFS— providing for great compatibility with different types of media, not to mention host computer systems (whether Windows or Mac) that might be writing the various media you intend to use with the unit.

Set-Up & Use: Setting-up the CDJ-700 is no more involved than connect(continued on page 42)

POWER TO THE PEOPLE Yamaha’s new DXR/DXS Series active loudspeakers offer superb high-definition sound and class-leading sound pressure levels— in compact designs that provide a level of versatility and value unmatched by any speakers in their class today. With the perfect balance of raw power and innovative speaker technologies, you can depend on DXR/DXS Series speakers to deliver the full power of your performance at prices that everyone can afford.

2-way Full-Range Loudspeakers: DXR8, DXR10, DXR12 and DXR15

• Output Levels up to 133dB SPL with 1100W of power • Intelligent onboard 3-Channel mixer with flexible IN/OUT connectivity • Versatile design for front-of-house sound, monitors, instrument amplification, rigged applications and more

High-Power Subwoofers with Built-In DSP: DXS12 and DXS15 DXR8

• Output Levels up to 132 dB with 950W of power • Powerful D-XSUB DSP processing with NORMAL, BOOST or XTENDED LF settings • Compact, efficient and acoustically optimized band-pass type enclosures

DXR10

DXR12

DXR15

DXS15

Sound interesting?

Download the PDF brochure at 4wrd.it/dxrdj4 or scan the QR code.

Then get an extremely impressive demo at your local Yamaha Live Sound dealer.

DXS12

MOBILE PROFILE CAREERS…INNOVATIONS…SUCCESS STORIES

DJ’S DUAL ROLES SHAKE UP CHICAGOLAND

By Tim Kearns

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

Chicago—It was on February 7, 1998, after his bar mitzvah party, when Ryan Levin knew what he wanted to do with his life.

“I wanted to be a mitzvah dancer,” he says. “And I approached the owner of the DJ company at my party, and he told me to contact him when I was in high school.”

Flash forward to 2000. When Levin contacted the owner to tell him he was available to dance, the owner invited him to a tryout.

“I went there to see 40 others trying for the same job,” he says. “They were older, better looking, and better dancers then I was. I said to the guy that I’d give DJing a try, so he put me on the schedule as a DJ assistant, carrying the equipment inside and out before and after the party.”

At these weekend events, Levin would watch the DJs and wish it were his turn. Less than a year later, his wish came true. “One of the company’s MCs got upset with his DJ and let him go,” he recalls, “and hired me to be his DJ. He took me under his wing, gave me his music case, and told me to memorize it.”

One year later, this MC quit the company and started his own business.

Levin, then 17, joined him. “I quit a very established company to be with a guy who took a big chance with me,” he says.

In 2006, this MC took Levin on a road trip for a wedding—the first time Levin grabbed the mic and became an MC. “I introduced the bridal party,” he says, “and I nailed it. I looked cool, calm, and collected. It was this moment when I knew entertaining was my life’s calling.

30

DJ/MC Ryan Levin says he heard his calling early.

about me starting the company during school, was that my teacher left the teaching field and became my accountant.”

And what separates Levin from the competition?

“Every owner in my area is an MC,” he says. “I was the DJ for the best MC, so right off the bat, I felt like I worked with the Michael “All the other companies send a DJ, MC and dancers. I combined the roles, and knew Jordan of my industry.When it came time to do my own events, I didn’t need anyone telling me what to play. I that when I started my company I could charge less by cutting back on an MC.” knew how to program a party. All the other companies send a DJ, MC and dancers. I combined the roles, and “So I guess the real reason why I became a DJ is because I was afraid of the knew that when I started my company I could charge less by cutting back on dancing competition and I thought it would be the easier way to keep busy and an MC. I figured I’d play all the music, make the announcements, and hire other have steady work. But behind the DJ booth I practiced my dancing, learned new MCs to dance at my party. I also figured by me entering the industry, every moves, gained some rhythm, and gained the confidence I needed to become the party I book leaves someone else’s employees available to work. I prefer to entertainer I am today.” work with the best of the best, and why not hire the best, if they are available.”

The entertainer he is today is the sole proprietor of Chicago-based 4Sure With most of his bookings being bar/bat mitzvahs, Levin’s gotten to the Entertainment—a company he originally started while in college, as part of a point where it’s a rare floor that refuses to fill up. “It’s about confidence,” project, with the idea of DJing at bars and clubs while still doing private parties he says. “People book me because they like what I deliver, and I never have a for his employer. problem getting people to dance and have fun. There are parties I can just play One Thursday night, while Levin was DJing music, never pick up the mic and the floor is at a bowling alley, the manager approached full. There are other events where I have to him and asked if he could do a Bat Mitzvah. go on the floor and get people involved. I’ve “I knew I was trained by the best, so of learned over the years, play ‘A’ song after course my answer was yes! He told me his ‘A’ song and the people will move to the budget was only $1,800.” groove. As long as I play what the people Levin called his boss and told him about want to hear, the floor will be full. the event; his boss suggested Levin take “Also, I never give up until I get the results the party on his own. “I didn’t ‘know’ it was I want. At mitzvahs, you have to remember: time to be on my own, but I knew since he they are only kids. And at weddings, inebrigave me the OK, I was going to run with it. I ated adults are just like kids. People come to did find out later, the bowling alley charged a party to celebrate, and it’s the DJs duty to more than the $1,800, but it didn’t bother make sure the celebration picks up! That’s me. This was the most money I ever made the best business plan I can think of.” in a short time period, and the coolest part

Control at your fingertips VCI-380 PERFORMANCE CONTROLLER

jam packed with creative performance modes Powerful and creative, the VCI-380 opens the

and take a new approach in manipulating

door to limitless possibilities of controllerism.

music. Designed hand-in-hand with Serato,

Mix, scratch, cue, effect, sample, trigger,

VCI-380 is bundled with ITCH, providing an

loop and slice. Every feature of the VCI-380

arsenal of musical craft tools with perfect

is optimized to enhance the DJs performance

integrity, straight out of the box.

featUres - 2 Channel USB MIDI controller for Serato ITCH - Built-in 24Bit/48kHz audio interface - 2 x 8 Performance Pads with Velocity & Aftertouch - 5 performance modes (Hot Cue, Auto Loop, Slicer, Roll, Sampler) Serato Itch

For more information on getting your fingers on the new VCI-380 email or call: A division of Jam Industries Ltd

info@AmericanMusicAndSound.com | 800.431.2609

www.vestax.com

BUSINESS LINE SALES…MARKETING…SOLUTIONS…

By Joe Molineaux

As DJs, each one of you are experienced and have the skills necessary to move people out to the dancefloor and motivate them through verbal cues and music to “get down.”

But when it comes to the development, growth and operation of your company, how many of you have the skills to “Get Down To Business”?

The following is a baseline and some thoughts to help you grow your business to the next level—which I’ll be covering in a seminar at the DJ Expo—set for Aug. 13-16 at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, N.J. Get Going: To move forward you need to first realize that you, as the business owner, are the only person that can make the decision to take the steps necessary to reach your business development goals.

What are your goals? Do you desire more money, more fame, bigger venues and more bookings, or to increase the number of employees? Whatever the reason for wanting to grow your business, it is up to you to take the first steps toward reaching those goals. Someone always has to get the party started and in the case of growing your business, it is you.

Get Advice: There are always options and different strategies you can use to help you achieve success. A good thing to do is seek out and talk to people with the knowledge and experience as well as the willingness to share it with you. Whether you choose to use established programs like the Small Business Development Centers or SCORE, specific trade associations and publications, the web, or tap into best practices shared by the leaders in the

industry, you want to collect as much advice as possible, then seek good advice.

The difference between advice and good advice is similar to what songs you could add to your musical-event mix and those that you actually play. As with songs, when you hear good advice, you will definitely know the difference.

Get Planning: For over a dozen years, my work has included helping people write business plans. Most of the people I’ve worked with struggle in this area. They feel they don’t know where to start or are afraid they have weak writing skills. Some confuse the concept of “planning” with “predicting” the future.

Just as we do not know what the next big music trend or artist will be, there is no real way to predict how your business will or will not grow. However, you possess the ability to develop ideas, strategies and to map out where you would like to see your business in the next few years.

Do you want to go from a single to a multiop? Or perhaps you have your mind set on a few steady club gigs or perhaps breaking into a new market? Everybody should have a plan, even if it is as simple as knowing who you will be playing for this weekend. The trick is to write it down.

Write down a little description about your company as it looks today, then what you want it to be at a future date. Next, write what type of DJ you are, then write down what kind of DJ you want to be. Then write down what markets you are now in and then what markets you want to be in.

Lastly, write down how much you are currently earning and then what you realistically

want to be earning in the future. See a pattern here? That’s Business Planning 101.

Get Together: If you are a regular attendee to the DJ Expo, then you already know how powerful and important it is to spend time with others in your field. DJs by design are usually a creative group of people with a common love of music, performing and entertainment. Brainstorming and good ideas abound at industryspecific gatherings.

The ability to learn from each other—whether in formal settings like the DJ Expo sessions or during brief conversations on the Expo show floor—is worth the time and travel to attend these events. It’s about staying connected. Like your equipment set-up that allows you to DJ, if all the connections are not made properly, your system, and in this case your business, may not work.

Get Growing: Activity breeds activity. It can be that simple. However, if it were that easy you would already be as successful as you want to be and you probably would not even bother reading this article. Growth comes in many forms, and the real success you achieve is based on a measurement that you set for yourself. Whether it is more gigs, bigger and/or better venues, a larger company or just more money, realistic growth is within your reach.

Tune in and turn up your company to the next level. Be a part of this session at the DJ Expo in Atlantic City and let’s “Get Down To Business”!

Joe Molineaux is Director of the Small Business Development Center at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.

DJ EXPO LESSON: GET DOWN TO BUSINESS

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

Write down a little description about

32

your company as it looks today, then what you want it to be at a future date. Next, write what type of DJ you are, then write down what kind of DJ you want to be.

GEAR AUDIO…LIGHTING…STUFF

Royal Family

Shirley Template

American DJ 6122 S. Eastern Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90040 (800) 322-6337 www.americandj.com

iDJTemplates www.idjtemplates.com

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

The Micro Royal Galaxian is a blue and red mini laser effect from American DJ. The unit projects 200 different laser patterns with beams that rotate, change and move to built-in programs in either Auto or Sound Active mode. User controls change the colors, control the rotation and trigger the blackout function. The Micro Royal Galaxian is fan cooled and comes with a dual hanging bracket, as well as a multi-voltage power supply.

34

The iDJTemplates app was designed to help mobile DJs with introductions and party planning for events of all types. The app features templates for weddings, Sweet 16s, mitzvahs, anniversaries and corporate events that the DJ can email to clients so they can begin planning their event with forms that are iPad-compatible. The iDJTemplates REV360 protective iPad case works in conjunction with the app as it spins 360 degrees, making introductions hands-free. iDJTemplates is available through the iTunes app store.

Out With the Old/In With the Numark

Out of the Starting Gator

Numark Industries 200 Scenic View Drive Cumberland, RI 02864 (401) 658-3131 www.numark.com

Gator Cases, Inc. 18922 N. Dale Mabry Hwy Lutz, FL 33548 (813) 221-4191 www.gatorcases.com

The 4TRAK controller for TRAKTOR DJ software is a fully-independent full-channel mixer that lets users work without a computer. There are RCA inputs on each channel, as well as four line-level inputs with two switchable to phono and two switchable to mic, allowing users to connect to external sources like turntables and MP3 players. The controller also features the 12-knob FX Kommand Console, which features four detented filter knobs for each channel, as well as time division controls to track BPMs instantly.

Gator Cases’ G-PA TRANSPORT comes in two sizes to hold different types of compact PA systems.The G-PA TRANSPORT-SM fits the Fender Passport 150 and the G-PA TRANSPORT-LG fits larger systems like the Passport 300 and 500. Featuring a thick plywood frame covered in highdenier nylon covering, the G-PA TRANSPORT comes with thick interior padding, as well as a removable foam divider for use with the Yamaha STAGEPAS system. It also has a large external pocket, thick webbed side carry handles and a retractable pull handle with wheels.

AUDIO…LIGHTING…STUFF

Hold the Phones Pioneer Electronics 1925 E. Dominguez Street Long Beach, CA 90810 (310) 952-2000 www.pioneerdjusa.com P i o n e e r ’s H D J - 1 5 0 0 headphones are outfitted with low-resilience urethane memory foam ear pads, a moving headband and magnesium alloy hinges that allow the earpieces to swivel up to 45 degrees and flip 180 degrees. The headphones come with a single-sided detachable cable, as well as 50mm drivers, copperclad aluminum wire voice coils and a compact carrying pouch. Deep silver and black chrome versions are available.

GEAR

Like 2 Peaveys in a Pod Peavey Electronics 5022 Hartley Peavey Drive Meridian, MS 39305 (601) 483-5365 www.peavey.com

The IPR 1600 DSP and IPR 3000 DSP from Peavey are the first power amplifiers to include Waves MaxxBass psycho-acoustic processing, which uses psycho-acoustics to calculate precise harmonics and create the effect of deeper low frequencies. The IPR 3000 DSP provides 1,490 watts RMS per channel, while the IPR 1600 DSP is rated at 900 watts RMS per channel. The amps also comes with an intuitive setup wizard that lets users set EQ curves, delay speakers, crossover, high pass and low pass, among other features.

GEAR AUDIO…LIGHTING…STUFF

Korg Values

Learn By Roto

Korg 316 South Service Rd Melville, NY 11747 (631) 390-6500 www.korg.com

Chauvet 5200 NW 108th Ave. Sunrise, FL 33351 (800) 762-1084 www.chauvetlighting.com

The Korg MP-10 Pro Professional Media Player features two independent media song players that play both MP3 and MIDI files. It comes equipped with a 120 GB internal hard drive, as well as a motorized 60 mm crossfader for mixing, pitch shifter, a time stretch and an advanced vocal remover. Its internal sound engine uses the same Enhanced Definition Synthesis found in the Korg M3 Music Workstation. Additional features include two XLR microphone inputs, two USB host connections, a color TouchView display and composite video output for displaying karaoke lyrics.

The Rotosphere LED is Chauvet’s redesigned mirror-ball simulator that Chauvet says “is a true substitute for the traditional mirror ball and pinspot duo.” The Rotosphere LED projects tri-color LEDs through 124 lenses, creating multicolored beams that fill the room as the unit spins 360 degrees in both directions. It creates customized light shows via either four channels of DMX control or built in, sound-activated programs that “spin and change color to the beat of the music,” according to the company.

GROOVES TRACKS…MIXES…COMPILATIONS

“M” MEGAMIX u I:Cube u Versatile Part artist-album/part mix, this bumpin’ groovefest seems to touch on any EDM sound that gets you moving. Loopy disco bits and goofy effects run alongside rough-and-tough rhythms—it’s all woven with perfection, offering up a unique experience. And check the sinister groove of “Lucifer En Discotheque.”

– Jim Tremayne

Flori Carlo Lio

RICHARD SEN PRESENTS THIS AIN’T CHICAGO

u Various Artists u Strut

Darius Syrossian

With a decidedly deeper vibe, all four tracks are unique and working. We especially like the dirty deep-house vocal “Do What You Do” by Blackhill & Mark Storie—it’ll be a crowd favorite. We also like the funky and gorgeous “Feel For You”

by Jon Kong & Chris Andy.

I:Cube

– Phil Turnipseed

Boy 8-Bit

“SUNSET ON OCEAN DRIVE” EP

Subtitled “The Underground Sound of UK House & Acid, 1987-91,” this 2-CD effort zooms you back to the much-fetishized days of dank warehouses, sweaty bandanas and “get right on one, matey!” Whether it’s for the wafty, soulful grooves of Baby Ford’s “Crashing” or the full-on fantasia of Exocet’s “Safety Zone,” this one’s worth the trip.

– Jim Tremayne

u Floska u Turquoise Blue

Cool new EP that features several cuts that vary in style, yet have an alluring smooth tech-house vibe to them. The standout cuts here are the two “Losing My Mind” mixes. The original has a soulful, deep-tech feel that’s dirty and haunting, while the Nico Purman remix brings a muscular bottom and a sick dark production.

– Phil Turnipseed “WE MOVE BY NIGHT” EP

u Boy 8-Bit u Fake Blood Music

“TIME FOR A CHANGE”

For this release, Boy 8-Bit employs a strippeddown, instrumental approach, opting to let the guttural basslines and broken beats of “We Move

By Night” and “Just Before Dawn” speak for themselves. But the deep-house experiment of “Midtown” is easier to wrap your head around.

– Chris Davis TOOLROOM CLUB TOOLS, VOL. 4

u Various Artists u Toolroom Records The fourth installment of this series continues with another stellar selection of club tracks.

u Tomson & Benedict u we_ctrl The Manchester-based DJ/production duo looks to make some noise Stateside with this soulful club banger. Together they drop the bouncy feel-good “Switch” with its summertime vibe.

Benedict’s “Automatism” is a cool underground groover, but it’s Tomson’s “Time for a Change” that gets the nod here. The cool vocal samples, smooth, dark, tech-house flavor and wicked chord work make this a pick hit.

– Phil Turnipseed

Floska

PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE VOL. 2

u Carlo Lio u SCI+TEC

This wicked new continuous-mix comp from Dubfire’s SCI+TEC imprint features Lio’s deep, dirty, techno—a style that will definitely get some attention. Both sets run about an hour or so and feature tracks from Dubfire, MiniCoolBoyz, Steve Parker, Reset Robots, Electric Rescue, Zoo Brazil, Mr. Lio and several others. The beats are banging, the mixing is flawless and the selection is stellar. Great set all the way through.

– Phil Turnipseed

“OPEN UP MY HEAD”

u Josh Money u Sludge Records This bulldozing dubstepper kicks right in with huge basslines, driving synths, and rolling vocals, then progresses with long, coiled, reverberated, bottom-end madness. A dubstep winner.

– Jen Shapiro

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

Download

Corner

38

Each month in this space, DJ Times digs through the virtual crates to give you a quick sample of the plethora of extraordinary tracks available exclusively on legal download—care of our favorite nextgeneration “record” stores (e.g. Beatport, iTunes, etc).

“Lucy” (Original Mix) by Flori [secretsundaze]: If you weren’t sure if it was summer yet, this lazy, breezy deep-house number is sure to remind you. With its atmospheric pads, bouncy percussion, and big sub-bass, this would be perfect for your next pool party or as the opener to the coolest DJ set. Found at beatport.com.

“Butt” (Original Mix) by Jeff Moore & Jamie Lie A Kwie [EC]: Some producers take themselves way too seriously—not the case here. As you can imagine by the title, we have a hysterical, stoner tribute to the backside. A simple bass-heavy house beat drives the track forward, while the effected vocals keep you thoroughly entertained.

Found at beatport.com.

“My Side Project (Original Mix) by Darius Syrossian [Mile End]: Get you’re heading nodding. This is some filter-house-era throwback stuff with a funky loop and a kick drum that rocks your soul. Add some in-your-face claps to a full low end and you’ve got a mid-set floorfiller. Just don’t ask about the tuba. Found at beatport.com.

– Robert LaFrance

MARKETPLACE

For advertising rates and deadlines...

Call 800-YES-7678 x507

SUPPLIES Before You Rock The House, Let Us Rock Your World.

I DJ NOW Delivers Everything You Need To Work The Crowd.

ALL NEW! Mobile DJ Booths, Towers And Stages • Durable lightweight construction • L.E.D. ready

Wireless Up Lighting • Auto master/slave operation without extra cables • 8 Hour Battery

Freedom Strip And Freedom PAR Battery

List Price: $419

299

$

Starting at

List Price: $1049

599

375

$

Powered

Rentals Available

Under 16” Tall, 12-Inch Weighs Only 46lbs!

Self-Powered Ultra-Compact Subwoofer • Dual XLR Stereo Inputs/Outputs • 700 Watts • 126 dB max SPL

$

•

ZXA1SUB

Open 7 Days

Queens (718) 762-0100

Long Island (631) 321-1700

181-24 Horace Harding Expy. (L.I.E. Exit 25) Fresh Meadows, NY 11365

1015 Sunrise Highway West Babylon, NY 11704

1-800-355-7746 © I DJ NOW. All rights reserved. Limited time offers. Prices subject to change without notice. Not responsible for typographical errors.

Ad Index

IDJ_DJTimes_4.125x4.375.indd 1

4/26/12 1:48 PM

IDJNOW • Red DJ • 4c, 5” W X 5” H • Ad Runs in DJ TIMES 6/1/2012 • 631-585-1100 x 7460 Company Pg

American DJ

CIV

American Music and Sound

31

Beamz 3 Blizzard Lighting

08.13 08.14 08.15 08.16 MON

TUE

WED

2012

THU

36

Chauvet 33 Denon

9

Dixie Dance Kings

38

Electro-Voice 5 Gator Cases

35

Hercules 7 JBL Native Instruments Peaceman Productions

CIII 12 -13 11

Pioneer CII

DJ TIMES

AUGUST 2012

Rane

40

37

DOUBLE YOUR LEADS, SALES & PROFITS

For advertising information, please phone Jon Rayvid at 516.767.2500 ext. 507 or email at JRayvid@testa.com.

Thunderball 27 Ultimate DJ Giveaway

18 -19

Yamaha 29 While every care is taken to ensure that these listings are accurate and complete, DJ Times does not accept responsibility for omissions or errors.

REGISTER TODAY WWW.THEDJEXPO.COM

IN ITS 22ND YEAR

Compiled As Of July 11, 2012

National Crossover Pool Chart 1 Katharine McPhee Touch Me 2 Gotye F Kimbra Somebody That I Used ...

3 Nicki Minaj Starships 4 Jennifer Lopez F/ Pitbull Dance Again 5 Katy Perry Wide Awake 6 Rihanna Where Have You Been 7 Afro Jack And Shermanology Cant Stop Me 8 Katy Perry Part Of Me 9 Lauren Hildebrandt F/ Basstoy Devil 10 Madonna Girl Gone Wild 11 Kylie Timebomb 12 Toni Braxton I Heart You 13 Flo-Rida F/ Sia Wild Ones 14 Rita Ora How We Do (Party) 15 Chris Brown Turn Up The Music 16 Usher Climax 17 Carly Rae Jepsen Call Me Maybe 18 Kerli Zero Gravity 19 Kelly Clarkson Stronger 20 Swedish House Mafia Greyhound 21 Michel Telo & Pitbull Ai Se Eu Te Pego 22 J. Dash WOP ( Remixes ) 23 Paulina Rubio Heat Of The Night 24 Hayla I’m Free 25 Right Said Fred SexaHolic 26 J. Dash Transformer 27 David Guetta F/ Sia Titanium 28 Pitbull Back In Time 29 Kwanza Jones Time To Go (Remixes) 30 Jamiroquai White Knuckle Ride 31 Dj Pauly D F/ Dash Night Of My Life 32 Kelly Clarkson Dark Side 33 Madonna Nash Dirty Little Secret 34 Alex Clare Too Close 35 Nervo You’re Going To Love Again 36 Jes & Ronski Speed Cant Stop 37 Bimbo Jones F/ Ida Corr See You Later 38 Caroline Lund Come With Me 39 Scissor Sisters Only The Horses 40 Norka Miracle

National Urban Pool Chart

Columbia Universal Republic Universal Republic Epic Capitol Def Jam Robbins Capitol Blue Plate Interscope Astralwerks Inot Atlantic Columbia Jive RCA Interscope Citrusonic RCA Capitol Columbia Stereofame Universal Halya-Dauman Promark Stereofame Capitol RCA Innovation EMG G Note RCA Mad Charm Universal Capitol Planetjes Robbins Lund Universal Angel Eyes

1 Chris Brown Turn Up The Music 2 Drake+Weekend Crew Love 3 Tank Next Breath 4 Wale F/ Lloyd Sabotage 5 Ca$h Out Cashin Out 6 J. Cole & Missy Elliott Noboyd’s Perfect 7 Young Jezzy F/Ne-Yo Leave You Alone 8 Jennifer Hudson F/ Rick Ross & Ne-Yo Think Like A Man 9 LoveRance F/ 50 Cent Up 10 Travis Porter Aww Yea 11 R. Kelly Share My Love 12 Brandy+Monica It All Belongs To Me 13 Fatman Can’t Get It Right 14 Usher Climax 15 Kendrick Lamar F/ Dr. Dre The Recipe 16 Toni Braxton I Heart You 17 Nicki Minaj F/ Chris Brown Right By My Side 18 Pitbull Back In Time 19 Rihanna Where Have You Been 20 Future Same Damn Time 21 Fat Joe F/ Chris Brown Another Round 22 Dj Khaled F/C. Brown +Rick Ross+N.M Take It To The Head 23 Jay-z & Kanye West F/ Frank Ocean No Church In The Wild 24 Ophishal American Way 25 Tyga F/ Lil Wayne Faded 26 Crooked I F/ B.O.B. Every City 27 T-Pain F/ Ne-Yo Turn All The Lights On 28 Flo-Rida F/ Sia Wild Ones 29 Trey Songz Heart Attack 30 T.I. Love This Life 31 John Legend F/ Ludacris Tonight(Best You Ever Had 32 Beyonce Dance For You 33 Anthony Hamilton Pray For Me 34 Elle Varner Refill 35 Jill Scott Blessed 36 Wale F/ Rick Ross & Meek Mill & T-P Bag Of Money 37 2 Chainz F/ Drake No Lie 38 Nicki Minaj F/ 2 Chainz Beez In The Trap 39 Kanye West F/ Big Sean&Pusha T&2Cha Mercy

Most Added Tracks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Nervo Rita Ora David Guetta F/ C. Brown & Lil Wayne Kelly Clarkson Speakers Jenna Drey Caroline Lund Alex Clare Sir Ivan Swing 52 Vs Alistair

You’re Going To Love Again How We Do (Party) I Can Only Imagine Dark Side And Her Too Summer Night In Seattle Come With Me Too Close La La Land Color Of My Skin

Jive Universal Atlantic Warner Brothers Epic Columbia Def Jam Epic Interscope RCA Jive RCA SOW RCA Interscope Inot Universal RCA Def Jam Epic Terror Squad Universal Def Jam Megablast Universal Treacherous RCA Atlantic Atlantic Atlantic Epic Columbia RCA RCA Warner Brothers Warner Brothers Def Jam Universal Def Jam

Most Added Tracks Capitol Columbia Capitol RCA Capitol Audio 1 Lund Universal Peaceman Cutting

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Kanye West Usher F/ Rick Ross A$ap Rocky Nas Travis Porter Superstar 9000 Ft. KaLeo Melanie Fiona F/ J. Cole Leah LaBelle Kendrick Lamar F/ Dr Dre Brandy F/ Chris Brown

Cold Lemme See Goldie Daughters Aww Yea Turn The Lights Off This Time Sexify The Recipe Put It Down

Island/Def Jam RCA RCA Island/Def Jam RCA Super Ent. Universal Republic Epic Interscope RCA

Reporting Pools ✦ Dixie Dance Kings - Alpharetta, GA; Dan Miller ✦ Lets Dance / IRS - Chicago, IL; Lorri Annarella ✦ Masspool - Saugus, MA; Gary Canavo ✦ OMAP - Washington, DC; Al Chasen ✦ Central Ohio - Columbus, OH; Fred Dowdy ✦ NW Dance Music - Shoreline, WA; John England ✦ NY Music Pool - Long Island, NY; Jackie McCloy ✦ Pittsburgh DJ - Pittsburgh, PA; Jim Kolich ✦ Soundworks - San Francisco, CA; Sam Labelle ✦ Next Music Pool - LA, CA; Bob Ketcher

Looking for these titles?

You can hear them and buy them at www.dancekings.com.

Just click on the links in the chart.

DDK has limited memberships available for qualified DJs in the US. We service CDs and MP3s in dance and urban formats. Feedback and membership dues required. 770-740-0356

45791

Dada

(continued from page 17) Engblom: And bananas. Bananas are slippery, you know.

Cornéer: Like when you slipped in Vancouver. Stefan climbed up on the table and slipped on the banana peel and fell down and hit his head on the glass table. Those banana peels can be dangerous.

DJ Times: How about remixes?

Engblom: We just listen to the track and get ideas from that.

Cornéer: It depends from track to track. Sometimes when the vocal is really interesting and strong, we start with the vocal, and when the vocal is really boring, we just skip it and start with the bassline and something like that. So it kind of depends on what song we’re remixing. But if it’s a vocal that we both like, we usually start with working around the vocals somehow.

DJ Times: Tell me about the Sausage Fattener. Are you guys coders as well as producers?

Cornéer : We’re working with these developers in Sweden, a software company. We just bring our ideas and our concept and they explore it into code.

Engblom: They come to the studio, we listen to it and we’re like, “No, this doesn’t sound right,” and they know what’s gonna happen and it’s like evolving thing. It’s not like they look at our chain and they come back and say, “Here’s the finished product.”

It’s more back and forth.

DJ Times: Will there be a version 2.0 at some point?

Engblom: No, the Sausage Fattener is perfect. (laughs) There’s some small updates and bug fixes, but it’s perfect.

Cornéer: No change of any recipe.

Like a good sausage, don’t touch that.

DJ Times: What clubs or festivals seem to have worked the best for your sound?

Cornéer: I would say yesterday at Coachella was amazing. Yesterday was one of the best festivals that we’ve ever played. The energy was just amazing and it was so packed, people couldn’t get into the tent.

Engblom: And everybody basically jumped. That’s a really good feeling. But that said, we’re also like when we go to small college towns and it’s just 1,000 people at a club that stand in front. That’s also amazing because you get so close to them and you can see their eyes and how happy they are, you get the energy from that.

Cornéer: So close that they come up and steal your vodka. Happens all the time. (laughs) No, it happens!

When we bring it on stage, they start looting our alcohol. Then we have to kick them off.

DJ Times: Any big thing people should be aware of?

Cornéer: Yeah, we’re gonna release an album. Early autumn. We’ll see. We’re working on it right now, so I mean, we’re gonna have a few singles leading up to the album during the summer, too, so we’re gonna release a lot of music, actually in the near future. And we actually played the brand new single for the first time yesterday at Coachella.

Engblom: And I think we finished it 10 minutes before in the car, literally just bounced it from Ableton.

Cornéer: That was last-minute.

Engblom: But that’s the fun stuff, to be just going from 10-minute production before the show and then play it in front of I don’t know how many people it was. It’s just a special feeling doing that.

DJ Times: Any guests on the album?

Cornéer : We don’t work that good with other people. People don’t like us—I don’t know why.

Engblom: Maybe it’s because we treat vocals like instruments, I don’t know.

Cornéer : Maybe it’s because we smell. Maybe it’s because of the barbecue sauce smell in the studio.

Maybe that’s why people don’t wanna hang out with us.

Engblom: That’s actually true. n Cornéer: It might be that.

Sounding Off

(continued from page 28)

ing the various cables as desired (primarily to your DJ mixer) and power, and turning the unit on. Obviously, if you intend to spin digital audio files, you’ll need to put MP3, WAV, AAC or AIFF audio content onto compatible media. And depending on how long your unit might have been sitting in your audio retailer’s inventory, you may wish to see if there’s a firmware update available.

During my evaluation period with the CDJ-700, Gemini did, in fact, release new firmware for the series.

This new release—4.1—includes bug fixes, along with improvements in performance, extra polish in some areas of operation, and better granularity in BPM and pitch calculations (they added an extra decimal point).

The update process, when one is available, couldn’t be simpler: download the update from the Gemini website, unpack it onto a USB key or SD card, insert that in the deck, and power it on. The unit will find the update automatically and confirm that you wish to apply it. The whole process is done in minutes.

Using the CDJ-700 will no doubt feel quite natural indeed to any DJ accustomed to using media decks. All the buttons are where you expect them to be, as is the pitch slider. It’s

just a simple matter of picking the audio source/operating mode from the four buttons on the upper-right: CD, USB, SD—or MIDI, which places the deck into control surface mode.

Speaking of these buttons, one of my few complaints is the speed at which selections register. In my testing, they seemed almost to hang between selections—a bit aggravating when I happened to touch the wrong button while trying to select a source and cue up the next track.

As expected, the CDJ-700 provides looping functionality, cue points, and a selection of simple-but-effective on-board effects—all of which function in the same manner as comparable media decks you’ve probably used before.

It might sound ridiculous, but probably my favorite aspect of the CDJ700 is that big, beefy, 8-inch diameter jog-wheel platter. I’ve DJed with jog wheels as small as 2-½-inches (built into digital controllers), and various other sizes across a range of hardware. But the big platter here reminded me just how much I actually use it while DJing, and that… well, bigger is sometimes better. Gemini has also succeeded in giving it a nice tactile feel and response, and the platter can be adjusted to deliver the resistance level you prefer. In any case, it actually justifies the big footprint of the unit on the tabletop.

Conclusions: With street prices around $500 to $600 each, the Gemini CDJ-700 packs a lot of punch at a price point that will make a lot of DJs’ wallets happy. With all the features you’d like expect, and everything positioned as you’d expect it, getting down with the unit is intuitive and easy for old timers like me—while giving newcomers a totally authentic experience from the start.

Audrey Napoleon: As the Name Implies…

DJ TIMES 42

Just never doubt who’s in charge.

Audrey Napoleon, Next Month in DJ Times

Photos by Gretchen Lanham

C’est impossible!

AUGUST 2012

A Napoleon complex?

KEITH SHOCKLEE As a founding member of Public Enemy Keith Shocklee has been defining and defying musical genres for over 30 years.

“The future is the past! We’re taking new music to the streets in New York… it’s how we did it before Public Enemy and it’s happening again today - very organic and powerful.”

Keith and his mobile DJ’s, Power5, trust their PRX600 speakers to deliver devastating grooves night after night.

“PRX’s bang hard! We record on JBL LSR4300 monitors and when we perform live our PRX’s sound identical, just ten times louder.

And, at 3:00 am after the smoke clears, their lightweight is heaven.

JBL is the bomb!”

Photos by: James DeMaria

Learn more at jblpro.com/prx600 Check out Keith at keithshocklee.com

POWERFUL. RUGGED. VERSATILE.

© 2012 Harman International Industries, Incorporated

PERFORMANCE YOU CAN TRUST