Vekked

Totally. That was the entire goal of him entering. Brace is a straight up award-winning musician outside of the DJ scene, and after last year he said he might try DMC Online, and I was like do it, but do it YOUR way. He's not just using the fretless fader and Controller One as a gimmick for the battle, that's how he makes his music and performs live. Too many guys try to pander to a "DMC style routine". I think a dude should be able to come in with 1 turntable and a loop station and win if he rips it harder enough.

Haha yea I blocked him. "that was a private message!", well sorry Chris but now you're being a public douche bag. Then he msged me on twitter and called me a coward for blocking him, when the hilarious part is I was actually blocked by him and he unblocked me to start commenting on my statuses. The screenshots I posted even show him saying "I blocked you on my other account, I wish I had you blocked here but I can't figure it out". But anyways... Yes is 2004 routine is and always will be one of the great battle sets, especially of the vinyl era, and he's a dope all around DJ, he's just a dick to me. Doesn't change his contributions or skills, just makes me think he's a loser lol.

haha oh boy, no I didn't see that... at the DMC after party we had already made up and were cool, at that time

bahaha sooo dumb... but as soon as he started bringing Brace into our beef and posting all that "I hate Vekked as a human being" stuff, I was like ok I'm the shit human being? I have literally our only interaction in 3 years where you were pure scum, so if you wanna start airing stuff out in public let's goooo. He has been posting random disses towards me every couple months since not long after I won DMC. He tagged me in a couple, and some were just replies on other people's walls who shared my vid. I bit my tongue, but reading the judging post, and knowing our background, it was pretty clear what his intentions in the post were since it was just him subtly trying to downplay Brace's set while taking jabs at me throughout. Like it's fine to not be feeling the set, of course, but Chris isn't an idiot. He knows he's a judge for the battle, he knows what he's doing airing out his sentiments before the judging is over, and he knows that his opinion carries weight with the public. The initial post even was just sort of an eye roll, but then in the comments/replies he mentions me 3 times saying I'm another example of a DJ who's simple and boring, and I brought down the level of DMC, and he hates me as a human being, etc. And I'm not in the battle/have nothing to do with it aside from being in Brace's crew, so put the pieces together and it's pretty clear that dude is trying to justify fucking over Brace and is trying to cover his ass in case people question "why did Chris put Brace so low??" Him being the only judge to put us bottom 2 in teams last year is one thing, cuz I'm still involved and as shitty as it is I just look at it as "welp, I just have to win more clearly because 1 judge is a write-off", but it's fucking wack that he's moving on to Brace who has never met him or talked to him, just because of our association. That's what pissed me off the most. He can say whatever he wants about me cuz IDGAF, but as soon as his idiocy starts spilling onto my homies, fuck him.

That's how regionals are everywhere. I agree with running it that way though, I think the best DJ that can enter should win, not the best DJ who lives in a certain area. If the person who wasn't from that region wasn't there, presumably a worse DJ would have won, and therefore the quality of the finals is worse.

Oh ya, I'm with you there. I just think like... the answer to that is people entering and putting out dope juggles, rather than trying to make rules against it. You don't want to censor wackness, you want to expose why it's wack. I've been trying my best LOL.

I've never used VDJ but that's really bizarre, if they have a proper timecode decoder then it should automatically follow the pitch of the turntable no matter what's going on. Maybe they're doing some kind of fancy-pants pitch smoothing that physically can't be turned off. That's the ticket, there's stuff going on in the software that is like safety nets for n00b DJs. We kept going through and fixing things one by one but I never ended up actually being able to perform my stuff. Some of the things that were causing my problems were ingrained in the software and didn't have a way of turning them off at the time.

Virtual DJ can't handle basic DVS functions though, so it kind of negates the cool features it has. What ? It handles DVS fine, when was the last time you used it ? It literally handles any timecode ever made ? On top of that i am not tied in to any proprietary hardware, so i can use the RME RPM and have the lowest latency possible via express card Virtual DJ tried to get me to do a performance video on VDJ8 last year over the course of a couple months. I met up with them 3 times and each time I couldn't get through my routines because of numerous bugs like time stretching my sample while scratching/beat juggling, lag between the turntable's analog pitch control and VDJ's, and it constantly fighting my pitch changes when trying to use the PDX 3000 midi platter speed feature. This is with a Virtual DJ tech with me, on the phone with tech support trying to figure it out, so it wasn't anything on my end personally. So in short, I never did a promo video for them because I couldn't endorse software that I couldn't perform my routines on. It has a lot of cool ideas, but no it can't handle relatively basic DVS functions. Granted, the level of precision my routines require is probably quite a bit higher than what most people need, but it's pretty wack if you use it and end up wanting to do a routine on that level and simply can't because the software is holding you back.

No doubt, it gave a lot of guys a chance to shine who weren't necessarily great all around, but were really good specialists. It's easier to make good quality stuff when you don't try to spread yourself too thin. A lot of guys in DMC would do a lot better if they just scratched or just beat juggled instead of half-assing skills they don't put much time into, or seem to even like.

As few as possible. For me the goal of a battle from an organizer's perspective should be to try and make the best circumstances they can for the DJs so the DJs can perform their best. If DJs can't come with their A-game because equipment they normally use is restricted, or they're forced to try to use certain music that isn't what they normally use, or whatever else, then you're going to get bad sets. I think what stunted DMC's growth was having too many restrictions on the setup, and the scene was outgrowing the ruleset. 1200s and vinyl made sense when everyone DJed with 1200s and vinyl, and that's what they used at home. Woody and Rafik were doing some of their best routines in ITF because they could use Vestax decks and weren't limited to 1200s. A lot of the best battle DJs stopped entering because they used Serato at home, and it showed when DMC allowed Serato in 2011/2012 and a lot of the guys who got top 3 in nationals and worlds were guys who came back to battling after not doing it for years. So minimum restrictions/rules is ideal, but maybe categories like ITF might make for more focussed and quality battles. I think Thre3style suffers a bit from everyone trying to be a jack of all trades/master of none. I like good pad drumming, but to me it has to do with DJing about as much as playing the keys does. I can appreciate someone doing a killer synth solo, but if it's a DJ battle they should get any points. Doing live production in a DJ battle is like me entering live producer battles with my DMC sets. So having a different category for live production or something could help, but ideally I would rather the judges just be qualified enough to be able to separate DJ skills from production skills and pick the best DJ.

More money would be an interesting experiment in this context, but unless the judges are unbiased and unaffected by the crowd reaction, which unless its composition is only of people who are well versed in the consumption of those types of routines, I do think the added money could potentionally incentivise people to "play safe" and stray less from proven concepts. I don't think money would change how people made their routines. Judges area already biased, and crowds are already biased, so DJs who are going to pander to what they think will be popular are already doing that. See just about any Thre3style set using a ton of toneplay and purely tried and true club bangers for examples of that. More money would just make more DJs able to justify putting the time it takes to make a great routine and giving up other opportunities/money along the way. It takes so much time/effort to put together routines, and unless you win world titles, the returns are very minimal.

Naw, DMC Supremacy the past few years showed us that if you don't allow Serato, people just won't enter. Making routines with regular vinyl nowadays is way harder than it was 15 years ago, the record/vinyl industry has changed a lot.

Virtual DJ can't handle basic DVS functions though, so it kind of negates the cool features it has.

Interesting. But I feel like people mostly just suck now, not sure what they could do to shake it up. Less rules, shorter rounds, more money for prizes... that's about it.

It's dope! It feels closer to the 56/original 57 than the 62 does. The 62 is another good option if built-in effects are something you're interested in. Also the 62 you can put effects on the AUX input which you can't on the 57mk2. The 57mk2 you can assign different internal effects to each channel though (flange on channel 1, delay on channel 2) whereas the 62 if you have delay running, you can't have flange on the other side, it's either delay as well or no effect. Also the 62 doesn't have upfader swap button, but with the 62, and S9 you can switch the faders internally if you keep them like that 100% of the time (that's what I do). The 57mk2 has better buttons than the 62, and the joysticks are handy for easy sonic flares, or clever mapping because you can midi map a different function to each direction of the joystick which is sometimes nicer than having a different button per function and having to hunt for it on the fly. You also have access to all 8 cue points on the 57mk2 (2 layers), but only 5 on the 62. I use the 57mk2 at home but still perform on the 62 because a lot of my routines are tailored specifically for it. Also, if you decide to pick up the 57mk2 and don't have a link... I have 3, and 1 is new in box, if it makes sense shipping wise from Canada I'd hook you up.

You have to be able to slow the clicks down otherwise you haven't really got the scratch down, just a specific version of it. Just slow it down an extreme amount and make sure your clicks create even note lengths. The only way to get it down is to slow it right down and do tons of reps, if you *can't* do it slow, it means you haven't done enough reps to drill in the muscle memory because there's nothing that physically stops someone from being able to go slow (unlike going fast where we might have physical limitations). Also you just have to try to get past the mentally turning on/turning off thing. In reality every fader click has an on and off portion so if you're transforming or flaring you're turning the sound off one way, and on the other. A click is a click, no matter what technique, and closed fader vs. open fader only affects the very first and very last positions. Everyone starts off distinguishing the 2 types of movements but as you progress and get more combos, they merge into just being clicks regardless of whether it's on/off/open/close/etc. At this point my 2/3/4 click flares and 2/3/4 click transforms feel identical, it's just where the fader begins/ends, the actual movement is all the same. This goes along with unifying your fader movement. Try to do all your scratches the same on the fader whether it's chirps, flares, transforms, etc, and they'll start feeling the same and becoming easier to combo.

Not sure of the name but it looks like 3 click flares in each direction but he's doing a baby on each end. So sort of an autobahn with an extra click in each direction.

Kinda rough all around... I'm not sure what happened but it seems like they had a faulty Z2 and no backup or something? They said condensation was causing the cue buttons not to work. Anyways a lot of technical issues, not gonna spoil the outcome if anyone wants to watch but everyone who placed had what normally would be set-ruining issues... but not when everyone has them I guess lol. Part 1: https://www.facebook.com/ESKEI83/videos/10153600226207444/ Part 2: https://www.facebook.com/ESKEI83/videos/vb.71190092443/10153600339757444

if you're not pinching... you're doing it right

I would say it's curable http://www.digitalvertigo.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=32215&hl=%2Bstage+%2Banxiety

Yea that sounds basically on point, just needs to be cleaner. The reason he's starting/ending a bit differently is because in the contexts of the routine he goes right into it from the right record playing into the stab, then adds the pause on the left to keep it on beat. So he's tripling for like 5-6 beats and adding a beat at the beginning and end to make it an 8 beat pattern so it makes sense musically. But for the raw technique I think you have it. Also as for Rob catching them cleanly, he's not really tripling thaaat fast in the video, it's not slow either, but not crazy difficult to do that speed if you clean up your triples. Are you able to do triples through a beat for 1-2 minutes straight? You should be comfortable enough just tripling for an indefinite amount of time, without even looking (stickers don't really matter for chases). If you can do that at the tempo of the Funky Drummer beat, he is using Reprise btw, then you should be able to do them like Rob. The only tricky part is going straight into them cleanly from nothing, whereas if you do them for a minute say, you can adjust and clean them up if they're sloppy for a couple bars. And Joe is right, in general you want to move your fader over all the way. On a lot of hip-hop beats and breaks that are pretty sparse, you won't hear much of a different, but if you're using something with long notes that go multiple beats it'll sound really sloppy if you don't cross the fader over all the way to cut off the other tracks. If you're doing turbo speed stuff maybe it makes sense not to go the full distance but even for my fastest stuff I still go all the way over.

He's doing basic tripling/chasing but the sample makes it sounds more interesting. I just tried it and if you start on the kick directly after the first stab and just do tripling from there, that's all he's doing. He starts it a bit non-standard, so he starts on the stab on the right, then brings it back to the kick directly after the stab and does tripling through the rest. So typically you would start tripling from the first beat, but he has like a 2 beat lead-in and triples from the kick so that when he does the pause/hit me at the end, it's a full 8 beat pattern and lands on beat when the beat drops. If you're not familiar with tripling (which is the basis of the pattern, so it's pretty key), basically it's chasing except you're doing triple the fader movements between sides. Instead of just going left->right when you switch decks, you go left->right->left->right, and vise versa. If you're chasing in perfect triplets (which is the swing your typical chase or breakdown should have), each fader movement will add a note from the side record it goes to. So you get 3 notes for each time you switch records instead of 1. Total Eclipse and Akakabe are pretty famous for this, and a bunch of guys still somehow win battles doing it today b/c people sucks and juggle worse than 20 years ago.

free da music! music copyright b.s. is getting out of control...

I've come to realize that over the years I've acquired quite a few back up hard drives/externals. I think I have 2 x 1TB, a couple 500ish, and a couple smaller. So probably around 3TB total assuming some aren't completely full. I want to consolidate them so I'm not looking across 6 different hard drives for stuff or losing stuff. Can I get some sort of cloud storage and do it that way? What's the best options for cloud storage for that amount of data? Should I have a physical backup as well? Or is a cloud sufficient?

Blang blaannngg