After extensive experience with unconventional DAWs like Reason with its virtual rack and Ableton with its clip launcher interface, I was hesitant to return to what I consider to be the boring way of doing things – dragging around clips on a timeline, cutting and pasting without a distinctive edge [...]
Most DJs are already familiar with Novation, the company behind the extremely popular “Dicer” midi controllers. In addition to Dicers, Novation also has a healthy offering of other midi controllers including the Launchkey, Impulse, Twitch mixer, and Launchpad. Recently, the Launchpad controller was used as inspiration for an iPad app [...]
If you saw my last tutorial, you now know how to create an alien-sounding, vulgar, authentic dubstep bass sound! Hooray! Now that we've got the basic synthesis down, it's time to turn to something that will make your tune the talk of the town and the envy of the masses: [...]
When you review as much DJing, production, and performing gear as Crossfadr does, there are pieces that are good and serviceable and there are others that make you go “Wow, who invented this?!” – in a good way, obviously. Cerwin-Vega’s P-Series P1500X and P1800SX powered speakers fall into this latter [...]
Mastering is an important but over overlooked stage of production. Shaping the dynamics and optimizing the audio will give your tracks that professional sheen. It’ll also help them sound their best when played back on a wide variety of different speakers and headphones. If you want people to enjoy your [...]
If you’re a producer of any kind of electronic music, particularly Hip-Hop, the Akai MPC name will be instantly recognizable to you. The looming beige monolith has held pride of place on the desk of any notable producer you’d care to mention. But bulky and expensive hardware devices all took [...]
The Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, a USB 2.0 interface with eight mic preamps, is the latest in a new generation of audio interfaces designed to specifically work with computers. Focusrite claims it’s the USB 2.0 complement to the Saffire PRO 40; however, while the Scarlett 18i20 includes many decent features and [...]
The Vestax PBS-4 is a tool for broadcasting captured audio live onto internet streaming services. It’s ideal for producers of internet radio shows or for webcasting live performances online. Web-based video streaming sites like UStream and Justin.tv offer quick and easy video streaming services, but capturing those performances, editing them, [...]
In many cases, some of the new DJ and production tools featuring iProduct integration have been little more than a perfunctory capitalization on the popularity of the mobile market. It’s not too often that a product comes along which uses an iPod or iPad to do something not ordinarily possible [...]
The Presonus StudioLive 16.0.2 is a compact and comparatively cheap mixing console and interface that packs a variety of well-considered features. The niche of the “Live mixer / DAW interface” device has not become so common that manufacturers are auto-piloting through and just copying their competitors. There’s still a lot [...]