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Clownstyle

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Posts posted by Clownstyle

  1. On 3/1/2022 at 5:33 AM, Mista_Ed said:

    despite the barrage / torrent of abuse he got on his webpage from all over the globe, I had the pleasure of being singled out by good old George Smooth and blocked from interacting on his Facebook page lol

    one of his family members had commented how "they were really proud of him" ….and all I said was,  "you really shouldn't be."

    guess it must have hit a nerve? 

     

     

    Woah.. I just went down a whole rabbit hole and watched the full set which is actually still up on his Facebook page (along with all the comments I had fun reading)

    I must have missed this at the time not being around scratching / competitions the whole serato / modern era has passed me by 😅

    @Steve that YouTube clip you posted is one of the worst bits. So robotic.

    I actually don't know what's worse. The fact he faked the performance or the terrible tunes / stage show.

    • Like 2
    • Haha 1
  2. Bringing this thread back for 2021 like 😎

    Being as my deck is working again I've been trying to get some cuts down and realised I use the twiddle method for 2 click flares. Just seems easier, although I'm finding it hard to do a chirp flare combos using that method so also been learning the other way (wrist style) and it's a lot harder.

    It was fun looking through this thread though and seeing some names from years ago.

    • Like 2
  3. My man @zidercommando came through and repaired my turntable. Even added midi support using his mod shown in the video.

    I'd almost be back in business but had to order a new power supply for my Rane TTM56 - Must have lost it in the house move - A costly mistake :(

    I wonder if my M447 is still in good order, it's been sitting around in the loft for about 5 years. I checked eBay and prices for replacements are astronomical. I'll possibly go with a Tonar replacement if worst comes to worst. I'd consider buying something better but money is pretty tight right now.

     

    • Like 1
  4. 8 hours ago, mfsop said:

    I was in the same situation a few years ago. Getting a second hand PDX online seemed a bit risky to me, because I know quite a few that developed issues. I ended up getting the Reloop 6000 for about 200€ each (including cartridges). I never felt that it was inferior to the PDX and there are some things I actually like more (cleaner looks, pitch settings). Look around to find all the Hanpin Super-OEMS: the Reloop is only one of many. On top of my head: Synq, Omnitronic, Stanton 150 - I believe there are a bunch more that are all the same thing.

    Regarding Serato: Which mixer do you use now / are you satisfied? Either getting a dedicated Serato box or a different mixer could be an option.

    Thanks dude that's some helpful info. I've been looking for the Reloop 6000 but can't seem to find any stock.

    I've still got the Rane TTM56 I used years ago.. I hope it still works. It's pretty solid and has been kept in nice condition.

  5. 13 minutes ago, TBearOne8III said:

    I got a used pair of Numark ttx's. If you still like the straight arms for better tracking while scratching, I say go used pdx or ttx. unless you can find some stanton str8150's.  other than that, the reloop rp-7000 mk2's look pretty good.  I think thats what the Beat Junkies use in their school.

    Thanks dude. The Numark ttx's look exactly like an old Numark CDX I had a few years back I'm not sure I like the design but I'm sure the motor was pretty solid in the CDX.

    reloop is probably more than I would like to spend sadly, I was hoping to get something cheap 2nd hand to decide if I want to spend more in the future.

    Can you recommend anything like serato? I'd like to manipulate sounds that I don't have on record - This is what I used the CDX for although it was a pita to keep burning CDs

  6. I'm in the market for a new turntable after my Vestax PDX2000 gave up the ghost a while ago.

    What's a good option right now? I've been out of the scratch game for so long I'm probably pretty behind the times.

    Is purchasing an old PDX2000 a good option, or is there something else I should look at? Ideally I'd like to be able to use something similar to serato - Again, you might need to fill me in as to the best option here :)

    Look forward to seeing your suggestions.

  7. On 5/25/2021 at 9:46 PM, Deft said:

    I wanted to come back into this thread and say how awesome this album is! My most listened to album of the year so far, the fact my wife and kids dig it too must surely mean it has some immense crossover potential? Hope you are happy with it @Clownstyle. I've started playing it off Spotify instead of my Bandcamp version to make sure you get the streaming mega bucks.

    Dude! Thanks so much, that means a lot to me :)

    My Mrs likes it too.. but I think she's rather biased and was pretty much forced to listen to it for the past year while I made tweaks and whatnot 😅

  8. Hey guys,

    I managed to dig one of my decks out the loft recently. Unfortunately it's not working (and I think I remember why now)

    Decided to open it up in case it was a fuse/switch. Turns out it's probably something a lot worse...

    It all comes flooding back to me know. I'm pretty sure the tracks on what I can only think is the power transformer had become scorched so we tried to solder some wires to bypass the tracks (ghetto fix)

    Does anyone have any idea what the part is I've highlighted and if I can get a replacement?

    >> Click for pics <<

  9. I totally feel you on this subject. Over the years I've gone through phases where I've been creative then stopped, then came back to it wondering why I ever stopped. It was this whole start / stop thing for me spanning many years, and then there's finishing projects.. most of my stuff never leaves the project phase so finishing off a few tracks recently was my retribution.

    I find when I go in with the intention of making something it always sounds shit. I joked with my mate recently that most of my stuff is made at 2am.. stoned and basically noodling because I'm bored - my best stuff is made when I'm not intentionally doing anything. I'll fire up my DAW and just mess around on the keyboard - This then leads onto other things. If I come across something I like, I build on it.. Sometimes it still leads nowhere and that can be frustrating, but when you're really enjoying it and in the moment that's when the creative process is most fun for me.

    It depends how you're making your music but I find having a template for the initial track really helps - for me this is having all my channels in my mixer already hooked up and with some basic FX sends already in place that I just throw in a VST and noodle on the keyboard. It takes seconds to load that template and its my go-to starting place these days.

    I also work in IT and working from home (while I enjoy it) is really bad for me creatively - I've been in front of the computer for 8hours already. My desire to sit in front of it rapidly diminishes when I've finished work - More so working from home (like being in front of another computer doesn't count) I never felt this way while I was working in the office.

    I think you need to concentrate on making things fun, relaxed and not something you feel you have to do.. Also remember that although the time spent might not always give you some amazing track that time is never wasted.

     

    • Like 3
  10. On 3/15/2021 at 8:17 PM, JHouse said:

    Were there any tutorials that stuck out to you in terms of mixing and mastering? My friend is making some dope ass beats, but the M & M is awful. I think if he gets this down, his beats and tracks will be pro.

    Hey dude, It was very much a case of trial and error but a good friend of mine was learning the same stuff as me which helped massively.

    There were so many videos on YouTube I'm finding it hard to pinpoint one particular video, but I'll have a go.

    Some of the stuff in this video was really helpful:

     

  11. On 3/10/2021 at 7:05 PM, djdiggla said:

    Way cool man. You gonna do a physical release?

    Never thought of that, although this was a project to actually get something finished as I have too many projects that never go anywhere. It was an experience doing the whole mixing and mastering process - because most of my beats never make it that far.

    Working on the next thing now, which hopefully won't take me as long.

  12. 6 hours ago, Deft said:

    Really enjoying this (about 6 tracks in)- I'm always up for a bit of synthwave. Really nailed that sound.

     

    2 hours ago, Steve said:

    Yeah, this is good shit man!

    Thanks guys, really appreciate you checking it out 😄 Glad you like it!

  13. I still have a CDX in the loft which seems to be in a non-working state. Last I remember I drunkely switched the red switch on the back that goes between different voltages (still to this day do not realise why I did that) so possibly something fried. It still spins around but alas there is no sound. Maybe I'll dig it out and check.

     

    Did this project go anywhere or is it now scrapped - Sorry skipped a few pages :unsure:

  14.  

    That's really interesting shit, man - I totally never realised that his association with Ruck was connected to D's parting with Thud Rumble (I always figured it was royalties-related, like it appeared to be with Flare).

     

    For whatever it's worth, you don't come across as siding with him at all, JB. In amongst all the other shit that surrounds any discussion about him, there has to be an acknowledgement that the Ruck is clearly one of the best to ever do it. I generally assume that goes without saying, but it's also very much worth saying, too, just to make sure nobody gets it twisted.

     

    At the time when Asis was around and before, he was doing things that very few people were capable of. The thing is, though, I was very fortunate, at that time, to live within half an hour of one of the few people in the world who was without question his equal on the cut and who also happened to be one of the most humble, approachable and genuinely good people I've ever met or could ever hope to meet (RIP Dave Dee Swift). That probably had some bearing on how much or little I was prepared to listen to Ruck's bullshit.

     

    Irrespective of that, though, the thing is - all that stuff is very relevant to the Ruck as he was back then, but who he is these days is a very different thing. Whereas before he was involved in trying to build the scene, spread knowledge and encourage others to increase their skills, all he seems interested in now is being outside of it yet still firing shots. That's entirely his prerogative, of course, but people would have taken a lot more notice of the Ruck who was running the OX label than they are this dude who calls himself Scratchgod whilst making electrosynth pop records.

     

    It's dope you mentioned Dee Swift because he was the answer to aliaS back in the day. The piklz site was total chaos, early internet, mud slinging, everyone was using multiple aliases and Dee was like the white knight who could actually step to all the Rotten Apples of the world. It was funny back then and now all that's just considered played out trolling. Also, the internet scratch scene was HEAVILY USA centered and there was a lot of culture clash in the late 90s early 2000s. You guys from the UK don't take boasting the same way as we do in the US. Motherfuckers can't do anything in sports these days without pausing and doing the Thriller dance or some shit. I mean, hip hop is also kind of founded on that shit.

     

    Anyway, from my perspective Nicks came out of left field with the shit he was doing and nobody was even really expecting it. You could see a that monolithic "ahhh" movement divide directly after Nicks started dropping files (this was the very late 90s, maybe very early 2000s). Now, he doesn't get all the credit by a long shot but it's easy to underestimate the musicality be injected into the scene if you didn't see the shift. At that time, all that was being talked about/posted was the next new clickity-clack shit. Ric was like "fuck that, its music". And it was not just with "scratch music" but with the scratches themselves taking a turn towards musicality. Everything became more musically oriented when before it was almost 100% technically oriented. You could litterally hear the effect it had on lots and lots of DJs. D-Styles, Mike Boo, Excess, Toadstyle, and others pushed everything in that new direction and we're still seeing the effects of that now. I can see how if you weren't into it back then you could miss that. It seems really obvious now, but at that time in the late 90s it was almost like everyone had forgotten the 80s and were just scratching robots.

     

    I'm very big on giving credit where it's due though. If anything has progressed in the last 10-years it's battling. Ritchie deserves daps for his contributions.

     

    Flare was a beast. He could also be a dick when he wanted to. It doesn't change the fact that he changed the landscape of scratching forever.

     

    QBert did all sorts of fucked up shit on the boards back in the day. I think he figured out he couldn't afford to do that anymore as he got more established and Ric would call him "fake humble".

     

    And yo Rockwell, that's right, Dave and Short did an interview for Turntable Radio and danced around the issue to an extent, but Dave said Q and Yoga didn't like the fact that he was associated with the Ruck and he didn't want to be restricted so he bounced. I'm SURE money was also an issue. Notice how the Clifford's Mustache 12" came out on Thud but Phantaz came out on Beat Junkie Sound. Short bounced at the same time. Yoga supposendly put all the backing behind Q and D and Short felt like they weren't getting the credit they deserved. They've obviously smoothed all that over.

     

    Steve makes a point though about the difference in size now. I would say 2005 was the tail end of things in the US. If you went back to 1998-2000 or so EVERYBODY seemed to be picking up turntables. 15 years ago I would meet another DJ and instantly feel the need to take that person out because it seemed like everybody was jumping on the bandwagon and fake. By early 2000 a lot of DJs weren't even touring the US anymore and went straight to Europe. These days when I meet somebody who cuts it's like "ok you scratch, lets get up!" I'm not sure scratching/battle DJing can afford to infight like we used to. It's almost like we need to stick together to prevent extinction.

     

    I can see how if you weren't watching all that go down, you can look back and see things differently. We lost a ton of info to the ages I'm sure. Back in the 90s Q was getting credit for being the first to use effects pedals with turntables and that's totally wrong. And what about Doc Rice? That guy was the first one I can think of to do a tutorial on scatch technique. Before that it was either listen and figure it out or you had to know somebody.

     

     

    This thread makes me smile in a nostalgic way.

  15. Only time I ever use EQ's is to rolloff the bass so the mix doesn't sound too muddy.

     

    A lot of the time I hear people not mixing in key, which can sound really awful. I find a lot of people I speak too don't actually know what this is :)

     

     

    Harmonic mixing or key mixing is a DJ's continuous mix between two pre-recorded tracks that are most often either in the same key, or their keys are relative or in a subdominant or dominant relationship with one another.

    The primary goal of harmonic mixing is to create a smooth transition between songs. Songs in the same key do not generate a dissonant tone when mixed. This technique enables DJs to create a harmonious and consonant mashup with any music genre.

  16. What have you lot owned on there?

     

    I've had:

     

    me and my bro use to play on our Atari 1040 ST (4MB RAM!) and lost many hours to it. Still have it at my parents and maybe worth a bit now.

    Yea I used to have an Atari ST.

    Also Had:

     

    Commodore Vic 20

    Sega Megadrive

    Playstation 1

    Playstation 2

    Dreamcast

     

    Still have an Amiga 600HD that I have setup in the spare room... Retro.

    But now I run all the games from an internal CF card, no more swapping floppies.

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