[Mix] Deflekted Sounds Part 2b

New mix available for download

Mix Tracklist

01. Sunny Lax pres. Arcaden -> Suntear (Sunny Lax Remix)
02. Heatbeat -> Vegatron (Element One Remix)
03. Richard Durand -> The Cube (Extended Mix)
04. WandW -> System Overload
05. Woody Van Eyden -> B.O.B (Ummet Ozcan Remix)
06. Santiago Nino & Damien Heck -> Red Sky [ft. Antonia Lucas] (Duderstadt Progressive Dub)
07. Mat Zo -> 24 Hours
08. Signalrunners -> Don’t Look Back
09. Allan O’Marshal pres. Saura -> Claymore
10. Mike Shiver & Marc Damon -> Water Ripples
11. Ferry Tayle & Static Blue -> L’Acrobat (Karybde & Scylla Remix)
12. Paul Allen -> Overload

File Info:

Genre:  Trance | Length: 01:00:40 | Type: Mp3/192k

Download:

deflekted sounds part 2b

[Mix] Deflekted Sounds 2 & 2.5 Coming Soon

Just an update…

In about 2 days or less two new mixes will be available for download and streaming. Stay tuned.

[Review] Native Instruments Audio 2 DJ USB Interface

This is intended to be another short review. This time I’m giving a short overview/review of the Audio 2 DJ USB Interface by Native Instruments.

What’s in the box?

Audio 2 DJ USB Interface

USB Data cable

Beatport giftcard

Driver DVD with Traktor Pro Demo version, KORE player & Guitar Rig 3Go

CD with Ableton Live Demo

Product manual/Warranty Info

Design

Although encased in plastic, the design is pretty solid and it looks like it could take somewhat of a beating. This is probably the one of the lightest audio interfaces ever made. The weight is comparable to that of an IPod Touch.

Pictures

Design

The Audio 2 is design is solid although being encased in plastic instead of aluminum like its bigger brothers.  The channel output LEDs are very bright.

Using the Audio 2 DJ

So far everything went well. Installation was straight-forward and configuration as well. The ASIO control panel is simplistic but is perfectly fine and has a number of latency presets for tuning the performance of your computer/DJ software. Channel A is output 1 & 2 & Channel B is output 3&4.

The good

Solid construction

Portable

DJ software included

Beatport.com gift card included

USB 2.0 bus powered

Channel output LEDs

Channel level control

The Bad

Intentionally left black

The Other Stuff

Extremely lightweight

Conclusion

In conclusion, for the money, this is without a doubt one of the best USB audio interfaces on the market now.

[Mix] Deflekted Sounds – Micro Mix 1

Deflekted Sounds – Micro Mix 1

It’s once again time for a Trance mix. This time around I’ve decided to compact 7 songs into around 15 minutes and in the end I think it was a pretty good attempt. As usual, this mix was done using Traktor and my Numark Stealth midi controller.

Stream from Soundcloud

Tracklist

01. Carrie Skipper – Time Goes By (Super8 Bangin’ Mix)
02. C-System – Close My Eyes (Lemon & Einar K Remix)
03. Andrelli & Blue ft. Hila – Imagine (Mike Nichol Mix)
04. Signalrunners – Corrupted (Original Mix)
05. Ilya Soloviev – Lover Summer (Original Mix)
06. Phillip Alpha – Sudden Changes (Original Mix)
07. Charlie G vs. Vandall – Crossed (Original Mix)

File Info:

Genre: Trance | Length: 00:14:36 | Type: MP3/320K

[General] Slow days

This is looking like a slow week. Lots of work has definitely caught me off guard but not to worry. Coming up the next few weeks are my reviews of Mixed In Key 4.0 & Mixvibes (not sure yet), my tutorial or configuring the Numark Stealth midi controller for Traktor Pro and more mixes.

Stay tuned.

[Mix] Deflekted Sounds Part 1

Deflekted Sounds Part 1

Normally around this time of the week I would finishing up a tutorial or review but it’s time for a brand new mix. This time around, I have decided to use some slower tracks and it turned out fairly well.

Stream from soundcloud

Download:

download mix

Tracklist

01. Dash Berlin -> Til The Sky Falls Down (Vocal Mix)
02. Robimon ft. Tiff Lacey -> Goodbye (Original Mix)
03. Tritonal -> What I Say (Aurosonic Remix)
04. Mike Foyle -> Bittersweet Nightshade (Markus Schulz Return to Coldharbour Remix)
05. Nic Chagall -> What You Need
06. First State ft. Anita Kelsey -> Falling (Extended Mix)
07. Julie Thompson -> It Only Hurts (Richard Durand Dub)
08. tyDi & Dennis Sheperd ft. Marcie -> Somehow (Original Mix)
09. Tatana -> Closer (W/ Andrew Bennet ft. Tiff Lacey)
10. Solarstone & Alucard -> Late Summer Fields (Original Mix)
11. Yoav – > Beautiful Lie (Guiseppe Ottavi Mix)

File Info:

Genre:  Trance
Length: 01:02:29
Type:   Mp3

Questions/Comments

Liked the mix? Then feel free to leave comments and/or suggestions.

[Tutorial] Configuring the Numark Stealth Control for the Complete Novice (Part 2)

Configuring the Numark Stealth Control for the complete novice (Part 2) – Midi Control Types

The purpose of this blog post is to give a quick overview of the various control types without going into too much details.

Midi Control Types

Below is a list of some of the midi control types one will encounter when setting up a midi controller with Traktor.

Direct

Controls of this type function as dials. There is a start point and an end point. Typically, this type of control could be used for things like volume/channel faders, pitch/tempo faders, effect parameter knobs and equalizer knobs to name a few.

Hold

This control type is pretty much self-explanatory. Press and hold to engage a function, releasing will disengage the function. Typically, this type of control could be used for switching to another midi page, resetting effect parameters, or even cue/pause.

Toggle

This control type is pretty much like a light switch. It stays on until its turned off. Press once to engage a function, press again to disengage. Typically, this control type could be used for turning on/off effects, play/pause or anything else like that.

Trigger

This control type causes something the same function to happen each time a button is pressed. For example, a control type of trigger could be used for a function such as dropping a cue point. Each time that button is pressed, a cue point will be dropped.

Output

This control type is used to control the LEDs on the midi controller. This is useful as a way of indicating the status of a midi assignable function. For example, having the effect on button illuminated will automatically let you know that the effect is on.

Things I forgot to mention last time

There are 2 reset buttons, the one in the settings section of the Midi Setup tab will reset all the assignments on any page that is selected. The other reset button is used to reset an individual assignment. There is a drop down box at the top right which allows you to switch pages, this is useful for adding extra functionality to buttons on the midi controller using “modifiers”. In this version of Traktor, buttons used to switch to different midi pages aren’t really called modifiers.

The controller attributes drop down box allows assigning of functions to 1 of the 4 decks or as a focus-based control.

I think that’s it for now, hopefully this information will be useful. Coming up, I’ll go through setting up this controller for Traktor Pro/Traktor Scratch Pro and then onto some of the ways I’m using the Stealth Control.

Questions/Comments

Feel free to comment or make suggestions.

[Tutorial] Configuring the Numark Stealth Control for the Complete Novice (Part 1)

Configuring the Numark Stealth Control for the Complete Novice (Part 1) – Traktor 3.4

Earlier I had done somewhat of a short review/overview of the midi controller. This will be a follow up to that previous post. This time I will be going through configuring the controller for use with Traktor 3.4. In a future post, I will go through the different controller types and configuring the controller for use with Traktor Pro. Following that, I will try to give a few ideas of how controls can be assigned with both Traktor 3.4 and Traktor Pro.

First Things First

After connecting the midi controller, you will need to:

1. Launch Traktor 3.4
2. Open Preferences
3. Under Hotkey & MIDI Setup, select Midi Interfaces and make sure an ‘X’ is beside the controller for Midi In and Out

This is shown below

Configuring the controller

Now that the controller has been successfully connected, it’s time to do some configuring. You’ll have a few options here, you can either download a file containing the midi mappings for the controller or you can do it yourself. This is entirely up to you. As a side-note, it might be helpful to download the midi mapping file from Numark’s website just to get an idea of how things are assigned.

Last week in the review, I had mentioned that the LED for each button has a different midi note from the actual button which makes it retardedly annoying to configure. So, to make less annoying, I’m including a table that maps button to corresponding LED.

*Set controller range to 32300 – 33200; No blend

Mapping function to midi controls is done from the Midi Setup tab. assigning a function is super easy.

To assign a function

1. Click the add button and select the function you want to add
2. Click the learn button and press button you want to use
3. Click the learn button once more to deactivate learn mode

It’s that simple. Now you can perform a function in the software by pressing the corresponding button on the controller.

Here’s what part of midi mappings look like

Hopefully, this has been of help. You may have noticed control types such as “toggle” and “direct”. In a future post I’ll talk about those in some amount of detail.

A few tips

Before I wrap this up, I wanted to leave a few tips

1. Always save your midi mappings as this will make life easier when having to migrate to another computer
2. Make a backup copy of all your settings and keep them on removable media or somewhere safe

Questions/Comments

Feel free to comment or make suggestions.

Key	Control	Deck
A#5	Bass Kill	A
F3	Cue	A
C4	Cue Pause	A
B3	Cue Play	A
F#3	Key	A
D#4	Load Track	A
A#3	Loop	A
A5	Mid Kill	A
G#3	Pitch Bend Down	A
A3	Pitch Bend Up	A
E3	Pitch Fader*	A
D4	Play	A
C#3	Scratch	A
C#4	Set Cue	A
G3	Sync	A
G#5	Treble Kill	A

[Mix] Euphoria PT. 2 & 3

This is probably my favorite Trance mix set I’ve recorded. I call it Euphoria Pt 2 & 3 Reworked. Definitely worth checking out.

Stream it here

Download it here

More mixes will be posted as soon as I sort a few things out.

[Review] Numark Stealth Control Midi Controller

To kick things off, I thought I would post a short review of my midi controller.

This post is intended to be a short introduction/review for the Numark Stealth Control Professional Computer-DJ Performance Deck

It should be noted that this unit is purely a Midi controller and therefore a multi-channel sound card/audio interface will be required.

What’s in the box?

Numark Stealth Control Midi Controller

USB Data cable

Beatport gift card

Traktor 3 LE software CD

Product Manual/Warranty Info

Pictures

Still in boxes

Outer boxes removed

The actual box

Unboxed

Design

Overall, the design is pretty solid and the components are well laid out. The knobs and faders were fairly smooth. The unit is encased in metal but the weight is not that much.

Using the Stealth Control

So far everything seems to be going well for the Stealth until it was time to actually use it. Since I already had Traktor 3 installed I downloaded the .tks (it’s really an xml file with traktor-specific tags) file from the Numark Website and loaded it. Somehow, I did not really like the way the controls were mapped. As a result I had to go in search of a solution and I was able to get help from a member of the DjTechtools forum. In the end, I decided to just map all the functions myself which is fairly easy.

*More on using the Stealth Control in another article.

The Good

Solid construction

Portable

DJ software included

Beatport.com gift card

Pretty cheap (around $210 on Amazon.com)

USB 2.0 bus powered

The Bad

Midi mappings file from Numark’s Website is lacking

Buttons have different midi notes from their corresponding LEDs

The Other Stuff

Some may find the jog wheels to be a little too sensitive.

Conclusion

When all is said and done, this midi controller is a solid choice for a computer-based DJ.