Sometimes I really wonder why I even try to garner some respect as a DJ. With people making such silly games out of scratching and Dj-ing and not even including DJs in the promo, this is getting really stupid right now. Anyway, so Numark has debuted a Scratch deck controller for a DJ game and it looks like - what else, a Guitar hero-esque controller, only it look like a turntable and not a guitar.



Well, I guess the argument that it will make DJ-ing more popular does have a point. But yet again we see that rappers get more importance in the promo and this is a game ON DJ-ing for crying out loud! I mean serioulsy people, put Q-Bert, Mix Meister Mike or even Asian Hawk on the promos! Why do you start with Jay-Z and Eminem? Anyway, ranting aside, the game might be promising and it will let non-musical people enjoy the art of Dj-ing. May be kinds will buy more turntables than ever before.
We shall see.

Here's the promo video (yeah well, it is animated and all, what do you expect to see? This is no Metal Gear Solid Or Final Fantasy  :P )

NUMARK AND GENIUS PRODUCTS REVEAL SCRATCH: THE ULTIMATE DJ VIDEOGAME CONTROLLER FOR XBOX 360® AND PLAYSTATION®3

Designed by Leading DJ Technology Manufacturer, SCRATCH DECK Gives Players an Authentic DJ Experience Like No Other

Cumberland, R.I. (May 27, 2009) – Numark Industries, the world's leading manufacturer of DJ technology, and Genius, Inc., released today the first images of the videogame controller for Scratch: The Ultimate DJ for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system. SCRATCH DECK will be showcased for hands-on play at a special event in Los Angeles on June 3, during the week of the videogame industry's most high profile trade show, the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo.

"For decades, Numark has been developing turntables, DJ mixers and digital DJ controllers. We know what professional DJs demand, and we used that knowledge to produce SCRATCH DECK," said Adam Cohen, Director of Business Development, Numark. "It was critical that we deliver an authentic DJ experience to gamers, whether they be experienced DJs or players who have never put a needle to vinyl."

SCRATCH DECK combines two essential elements of the DJ and hip-hop experience - a free-spinning, touch sensitive turntable with a crossfader and 5 Akai Pro MPC-style drum pads. The turntable allows players to add their own style and manipulate the songs in real time, while the MPC-style drum pads give players the opportunity to perform and customize tracks by triggering samples using the very same pads that are the cornerstone of professional hip-hop beat production. Samples can either be pre-loaded into the game using 60 unique battle records that will ship with the software, or players can record and upload their own samples using a compatible USB microphone.

In addition to the features created by Numark, SCRATCH DECK also contains standard game controls found in music rhythm games. The turntable features a realistic surface that feels remarkably similar to a vinyl record. The drum pads and the crossfader also deliver an authentic and realistic music production experience. Left-handed DJs will appreciate that SCRATCH DECK is designed for use in right or left-handed configurations.

"Being involved with Hip-Hop for so long, Numark has consistently been the standard for innovation and leadership in computer DJ controllers, their quality is second to none," said Quincy Jones III of QD3 Entertainment. "We are very excited to partner with them to deliver the most authentic DJ experience for gamers and look forward to letting gamers and Hip Hop enthusiasts get their hands on the controller for the first time at E3."

Scratch: The Ultimate DJ combines free-form DJ tricks with great rhythm game play similar to top-selling rhythm games. Scratch: The Ultimate DJ is set in distinctive urban environments and will feature songs from the biggest names in Hip-Hop. Scratch: The Ultimate DJ, featuring the Numark SCRATCH DECK, will be available in Fall 2009.

About Numark Industries

Numark Industries is the global leader of professional DJ and audio equipment, and is recognized for providing progressive breakthrough technology. Since 1971, Numark has designed and delivered innovative products and numerous music industry "firsts." For more information, visit www.numark.com; images are available at http://www.numark.com/media.

About Genius Products

Genius Products, Inc. (GNPR.PK - News ) is the owner of Genius Products, LLC, a leading independent home-entertainment distribution company that produces, licenses and distributes a valuable library of motion pictures, television programming, family, lifestyle and trend entertainment on DVD and other emerging platforms through its expansive network of retailers throughout the United State

The battle for supremacy amongst the various Dj softwares is heating up now as Serato ITCh finally has the NS7 and Native Instruments has released a point upgrade for its Traktor Pro. Other than these two, there are varioud other softwares that are constantly vying for some attention (and failing miserably).

These would include Virtual DJ, MixVibes and a host of other wannabes. The MixVibes line actually has some potential but Virtual Dj is seriously... it looks to me like they have chosen to be a toy software and they will forever remain that way.

Compared to them, Deckadance has been around only for a while and it is already creating waves in the Dj-ing world. The folks and Imageline sure did some research before they made this because one of the pet peeves od digital Djs was that integrating a great software like Traktor into something like Live would be mind blowing. People came up with ways to do it but then it was only sound routing and it wasn't very efficient.

Out came Deckadance - with the capability to host VSTs and runs as one as well. This opened up a whole new side Djs had been craving for. But it is not easy to become something like Traktor Pro or SSL overnight. So Deckadance has been in beta and then out of Beta and people have been looking at it with expectations of it becoming much bigger. All in all, it is really very promising.

So with this upgrade, Deckadance has changed few things and fixed a few more. This version has a new time-stretch/compression technology and also has batch processing of tracks for reduced CPU load while you are mixing. It now has a manual beat grid mode which is a must for mixing complex beats.

There are versions for both Mac and PC and the pricing model look sreally tempting to say the least. Deckadance Club Edition ($179US) and Deckadance House Edition ($99US) are are being sold at Image Line's Web shop with a  20 percent off. An offder that endson June 20, 2009. Deckadance House Edition lacks the the DVS timecoded vinul/CD transport functions which the fully-functional Club Edition has.

Here are some more features that have been added in the new version: -

• Added native support for the Vestax VCI-300 controller. Other natively-supported MIDI controllers include the Vestax VCI-100, Korg Zero4, Allen & Heath Xone:3D, DJ-Tech Kontrol One, Stanton SCS-3D, Hercules DJ Control Steel, EKS Otus, Omnitronic MMC-1 and DJ-Tech DJM-202
• Option to switch between the old and new sound engine by the improved interface of the setup panel
• Improved seek waveform that shows the start and cue points
• OpenGl render engine for Windows
• Unicode support for playlist/browser items
• Beatgrid move via mouse over the waveform
• Improved DVS engine when elastique time-stretching is disabled, etc.
• Fully compatible with Open Labs DBeat portable DJ instruments 

So yeah, you can do pretty much a lot of things with the BCD3000 MIDI controller. This is just a quick round up of the major things I do in Traktor 3 with the BCD.

Jumping right in now, you can set up the mapping so that once you hold down a key (ideally on your laptop keyboard because the controller is always short of keys), you switch to a different MIDI mapping page (Traktor allows for 3 in total). On this new page, you can map everything differently.

For example, I use my left jog wheel to browse up and down the browsing tree, use one of the EQ kill buttons to select the tree item. Then I use the right one to select the tracks and then i use the two side by side EQ kills buttons above it to put the highlighted track on either the left deck or the right.

You can also use your keyboard for shortcuts and I am sure you do but there are few ways you could make it better. As a digital Dj or a Live PA act, you need to remember a lot of shortcuts so it would be best if you mapped corresponding symbols. Let me explain this : -

For example i use the ',' and the '.' buttons to cycle through my channel effects. Why? Because when you see the buttons, the first thing you notice are '<' and '>'; being a human being, it makes it much easier to remember which buttom does what.

Here's another idea. I am sure most of you have played computer games and I am sure at some point manyof you have had to use the typical "AWSD" keys as movement keys. Well these can be brillian when you map them to your deck as deck selection. With the movement thing burned in to my head, it is easy to remember that 'a' is for keft and 'd' is for right. Also, when I hold down the shift key and press either 'a' or 'd'; the selected track is loaded to the corresponding deck. So this is pretty easy.

I have got many such shortcuts litterred around and these kind of associations help me remember my keys.

So that's brings me to the end of my chattering on and on about the BCD. If you have things to add, do mention it in the comment. If I have enough ideas, I will add another post to this series, with your names of course!

Keep it controlling it! (yep, I still haven't figured out a catch phrase!)

So getting back to the topic, I also use my BCD 3000 plus Traktor setup to scratch the hell out of the poor thing. It is quite abusive actually but I did a brieft stint as the DJ of a Nu-Metal band that covered stuff like Slipknot and had some originals too. So there, I had to scratch.

This would really amuse a lot of DJs out there but believe me - I could not afford the turntable+mixer setup and make my own battle records even if sold all my possesions. So I had no choice really and love to scratch! Rhythm is strong in me.

So I used the Jog Wheel and the cross fader and some how made do. It wasn't too bad but forget two-click or three click flares with these things! Heck, some say even DVS is not as good! My personal jury is still out on that one!

So to do this, you need to set up the thing just right, but the problem is that when you get the proper accuracy, you absilutely must have a low acceleration or else it all goes for a spin, literally! So i set up my left side jog with 1% acceleration with about 70% sensitivity for scratching and the right had more accelertation for giving me a proper one round spin when I hit it properly.

This took care of my scratching needs for a while. But then I realised that I need a sharper curve on my crossfader (yes, a stroke of genius!) so had to adjust that. Well for this you need to adjust the curve from the panel instead of the drop down menus on the mixer corners themselves because it did not work for me for some reason.

To do this, look for the panel called 'Master'. If it is not there on your set up, look for it by right clicking and pulling up the panels menu. Once you are there, you will see the little bar you drag with the CFC on it. Drag to the extreme right (your right) for the sharpest curve and vice-versa.

One thing to have in the mapping is the shift element which makes your controls do more things. More about this in part 3!

Hey people, back here again with something that is pretty close to me. I have been using the BCD3000 since one or two months after Behringer brought them out. And it has been an absolutel pleasure working with it.

I am not saying that it has stellar performance but given the price, it delivers as it should. Now I know Traktor has brough out the new fangled Traktor Pro and all but I just wanted to put in my two cents onthe now covered under marketing Traktor 3.

They (Native Instruments) released the Traktor 3 up to version 3.4 and it was a very stable system. The BCD3000 compliments it perfectly because the BCD itself is as simple as it gets with the MIDI I/O. My only hang up with the BCD is the audio routing, which is somewhat weird!

Coming to the point, there are actually a lot of things you can do with the BCD3000 even though it is slightly limited. The first you need to do is to get rid of the Traktor lite that it comes with. You absoilutely need to have custom mapping in order to get the full potential out of your MIDI controller. And it is not that hard to do either.

Now I know a lot of people have problems with the BCD's lights not going off and on with the events in the software, but this is easily addressed. You see, the events such as play/pause and cue are sent via MIDI to Traktor and Traktor understands what it has to do. But the lights are not Traktor's business because Traktor Does not KNOW about it. So what you need to do is to map the lights in to traktor to get them working.

Will need to keep the BCD manual handy for this work because it has all the channels you will need for the custom mod. Note down the MIDI note names and codes and set up Traktor to send out MIDI signals when something is done. So, if you want the led adjacent to the play/pause button to light up everytime it is supposed to, you map the event exactly as you have mapped your buttons but instead of choosing toggle, you choose 'out' and instead of using learn mode and hitting the button, you look up the corresponding MIDI code for the light and enter it manually in to Traktor and voila! There you have it!

More in the next post, stay tuned!