January 23, 2011 – A new year, a brand new product review! Audio-Technica was kind enough to send me a set of their DJ headphones, the ATH-PRO700. I’ve been itching to try out a good set of headphones since the ones I’ve used to mix and listen with for the past 10 years, have begun disintegrating.

Because I check my mixes with a couple sets of in ear monitors, one of them being the Ultimate Ears Triple-Fi I reviewed last month, I haven’t been in a rush to replace my old headphones. When the ATH-PRO700′s arrived, however, I was eager to see if they would be a good replacement.

It helps to know that the ATH-PRO700 has been categorized by Audio-Technica as for DJ’s. As I’m sure you know, DJ’s are pretty rough with their headphones and need something that can withstand the punishment of gigging professionals. When I picked up the ATH-PRO700′s I was surprised by their weight. I normally look for the lightest set for comfort but I was surprised at how beefy these headphones are.

The headband is especially thick and feels like it could take a bullet. The closed ear capsules both fold and rotate completely which means that the headphones are easy to store (they come with a vinyl bag for storage) and are more likely to rotate than snap when put in an awkward situation; definitely a plus. I’ve heard that some have had issues with the swivel portion of the headphone cracking, but since I haven’t had the headphones for that long I can’t comment on that; they seem pretty well-built to me so far. The ear cups isolate the sound well, but a bit more foam would be nice as. For me at least, they pressed on my ear a bit.

The audio wire only comes off of one side which makes it more convenient to wear, especially when monitoring each ear separately. It’s a decently thick gauge, with an eighth inch stereo plug (a screw-on quarter inch adapter is included). The cord is sufficiently long for personal listening, but you might want an extension if you’re the dance-while-dj’ing type.

Ok, so how does this set of cans sound? Super bass flavour! These things have a tonne of bass, and pretty decent treble as well, although I found the mid-range lacked a bit of clarity. The ATH-PRO700 also get plenty loud, and with the good isolation from the cup design (although it could be improved even more with increasing the padding size as I stated before), these things are great for a noisy club environment.

The soundstage was distinct, though not as wide as I would have liked in some situations. Would I use these to mix on? Probably not, as the frequency range is boosted for a DJ’s ears. I would definitely use them to reference on when creating dance or hip hop music. These two genres are what the ATH-PRO700 are clearly designed for and while classical music might not sound great through these, dance and hip hop do.

The bottom line is that DJ aren’t necessarily worried about the same things as an audio engineer or audiophile; they want a loud, and great sounding set of headphones and the ATH-PRO700 delivers on those counts. DJ’s also want something that is rugged, and the ATH-PRO700 seem to be pretty well built. As some others have had issues with the headphones breaking, I will update this review if anything happens to my set, but so far they’re working out great. With a very affordable street price of around $115, I’d definitely check them out if you’re in the market for a set of headphones for dance and hip hop.

Audio-Technica ATH-PRO700

August 16th, 2010 – I’m a big fan of Native Instruments. I like their FM8 and Absynth instruments, and I have a fairly large Kontakt library. One of my next purchases will be Maschine, and I like Traktor Pro quite a bit. Well, today brings exciting news because they’ve finally released their own standalone controller, the Traktor S4 system.

It’s a hardware controller with a built in audio card (no doubt using their line of very well regarded audio cards), containing an effects section mirroring the Kontrol X1, high-resolution platters (using some fancy pants magnetic tracking system), and a special version of the Traktor software. Not only that, but while the hardware runs off of an AC connection, it is able to run in emergency mode off bus power, with lowered headphone output, and dim LEDs. Pretty snazzy! You’ll also be able to connect your Traktor control vinyl (for those who will use the S4 with a traditional turntable setup) in a forthcoming update.

The software has some new features, like replacing decks C and D with 8 loop decks with volume, filter, and syncing for each. That brings me to an interesting side-note about the S4: it was designed in concert with Ean Golden of DJ TechTools. Ean and the community at DJ TT have been extending the mappings of Traktor Pro for years, making gear like the Vestax VCI-100 a force to be reckoned with.

With Ean Golden and Native Instruments, the Traktor S4 must be something special. Of course, awesomeness doesn’t come cheap; the Traktor S4 system will be available this winter for a grand. It’s already got me salivating. I must review one!

Traktor S4 via DJ TechTools

June 28th, 2010 – Remember when I said that I’d learn how to use Ableton Live by doing a mash-up that I’d already done in Logic? Well this weekend I sat down with Ableton and warped some tracks. I liked how easy warping was to perform in Ableton (I haven’t yet installed Logic 9 to try the Flextime as a comparison), although when I sped up the track 25% (something I had done successfully in Logic), it sounded like crap. I think it had something to do with the priority Ableton puts on performance over fidelity, especially as it seems to do the calculations on-the-fly, rather than destructively like Logic and other tools.

Producer/DJ CJ Milli suggested that I use Audacity and speed up the track, and then re-import into Ableton. Jon Tidey from AudioGeekZine suggested offline plugins within Reaper and Protools. I think I’ll speed up the track in Logic and re-import it into Ableton. I may have to re-warp the track but that shouldn’t take long now that I’m know what I’m doing. Hopefully the fidelity will be decent, and I’ll be able to try out some of the cool tricks I’ve seen Ableton folks performing.

My question to you is, how do you deal with audio that needs to be stretched a fair bit and still retain the key? Do you have a favorite technique? Do you use specific software?

June 27th, 2010 – Numark has announced the impending arrival of the MixTrack DJ MIDI controller. Having reviewed the Vestax Spin and using it quite a bit, I can’t help but see the similarities between them. Like the Spin, the MixTrack has a touch sensitive platter and like the Spin’s twin brother the Typhoon, the MixTrack ships with Traktor LE.

While the layout is similar, the platters on the MixTrack look to have the “vinyl feel” surface that most of their controller line (like the NS7) has. One of the biggest difference between the Spin and the MixTrack is that Numark’s controller does not include a built in soundcard. Although you would be able use the soundcard in your computer, you will need at least a 4 channel card to pre-cue tracks.

Of course, since the MixTrack is expected to have a street price of $149 dollars, you could easily pick up a great audio interface for the money difference between the Spin and the MixTrack. Something like the Echo or Audio2DJ; you can use your internal soundcard for cueing. Whether you want your audio interface built in, or you want a separate one, is up to you.

I’d be interested in checking out the MixTrack to see how it compares to the Spin. From a controller perspective, it seems to be pretty evenly matched, but it will be the actual feel of the materials and action of the faders, platter, and buttons that will be the big decider. It’s pretty cool that the price of controllers is coming down so much. I’m looking forward to seeing where the products go from here.

Numark MixTrack via GearWire

June 25th, 2010 – Okay, now why didn’t I think of this before? Following yesterday’s post on hacking an SM57 for easy drum miking, comes another slap-on-the-forehead easy hack. I’m sure you’ve come across a broken set of headphones that sounded fine, but something broke like the strap, or a deteriorating foam ear cup.

Last fall, I wrote about how my set of reliable headphones were deteriorating badly. It turns out that finding a cup in the correct size is nigh impossible since my headphones aren’t exactly a well-known brand. Well Villinus from the DJ TechTools community has come up with a brilliant hack to fix a broken set of cans.

Using a set of earmuffs meant for the shooting range, Villinus took the drivers out of his old set of headphones and modded the sound-attenuating earmuffs to accept them. Not only does he save on new headphones when his old set sounded fine, using premium earmuffs means that the sound attenuation is excellent. This works out especially well for DJs. Good thing I kept my old set of headphones around, now I can get to fixing them!

Villinus Headphone Hack on DJ TechTools

June 15th, 2010 – I was out at a gig a couple weekends ago and although I brought a laptop stand, it didn’t work out that well for the environment I was in. One of the problems with playing out is that you can’t always control your environment. In this case, having a smaller footprint and having my laptop raised more would have helped out immensely.

There are several companies that make good raised laptop stands (Stanton’s Uberstand and Griffin’s Elevator coming to mind) and if you’re serious about gigging, it’s important to get a professional solution that you can trust. However, I’m in a cheapskate kind of mood today and figured I’d look up what DIY raised laptop designs are out there.

I stumbled across a post on The Closet Entrepreneur with a few designs. There are downloadable cardboard templates, and there are even repurposed Ikea stands. While some of the designs look somewhat unstable for heavy use, and other are aesthetically-challenged, you may find something useful for your own setup.

The DIY Cheapskate Laptop Stand

June 4th, 2010 – Novation, maker of the Launchpad and series of nifty MIDI keyboards, has just released the Dicer, a mini-MIDI controller that’s designed to be a trigger for your DJ software. While it’s Serato-certified, you can also map it to Traktor and others. The Dicer bridges the gap between the pure vinyl spinners, and the new cue-point juggling style of controllerists.

The interesting part though is not necessarily the device itself which is admittedly nifty and affordable ($99 for a pair), but the backstory behind it. Ean Golden of DJ TechTools fame invented it and over on DJ TechTools he has a post explaining why he came up with the concept and how the device came to be. The best part is the picture of his cardboard “prototype”.

Novation Dicer via DJ TechTools

April 14th, 2010 – J Dilla was a legendary hip hop producer, who unfortunately passed away from illness in 2006 at the young age of 32. During his career, he produced tracks for De La Soul, Common, Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest and many more. Because of his long fight with the blood illness TTP, he died leaving a huge debt. Unfortunately his family are not bearers of his estate and there is quite a bit of controversy surrounding it.

Because of this controversy, it has been difficult for his surviving family to release music he had created before he died. In an effort to honour his legacy and bring some money to his mother (who is straddled with the debt of his medical bills), Stones Throw Records in partnership with Serato is releasing the J Dilla Donut Shop vinyl. It contains two records, each of which has one side of songs, and one side of Serato control vinyl.

On top of that, there are three previously un-released instrumental versions of songs included, as well as donut-themed slip mats. It’s a very cool set that I’m sure will be snapped up like mad. You can pre-order the set at the link below. I’ll definitely be picking up a set.

J Dilla Donut Shop

March 26th, 2010 – DJ TechTools is a great online community for DJ’s who use MIDI controllers, whether they be mix DJ’s or controllerists. While many who visit the site are seasoned veterans who moved to MIDI controllers from vinyl, there are many who visit the site who have never DJ’d before and don’t know the basics.

In an effort to educate these newcomers, DJ TechTools has begun a series of tutorials on DJing essentials. The video embedded below illustrates five basic ways to mix together two songs. I’m looking forward to where they go in more complex tutorials.

DJ Essentials- 5 Mix Techniques

March 19th, 2010 – Do you have some dirty records laying around that aren’t sounding their best because of all the contaminates? Well surprisingly you can use wood glue to clean them up. The process involves spreading wood glue over the entire surface of the record (not including the label), and waiting for it to dry. At that point, you peel off the glue and it should have grabbed all the dust, grime and oil off the record. You can check out the technique in the video embedded below. Looks like it works pretty well.

via Lifehacker