Gizmo

http://www.residentadvisor.net

Given that the boss of DJ Tech is Italian, I suspect Italy will be pretty well stocked.

I suppose I should have said perfect acceptable in the context of this thread.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/different-from-than-or-to My English sensibilities feels that "different to" sounds perfectly acceptable, but I probably would use "ly". Informative video too.

I wish there was some consistence in rulings. The Apple vs Samsung war seems to yield different rulings depending on the country. In some respects, it's like Ford suing all car manufacturers for copying the idea of the Model T. But in others, it seems to be more about the ultra fine print and nuances of patent law. I'm actually glad that in the music industry, the choice of mobile device is quite clear, otherwise I'd have to try out all sorts of different devices to make a balanced decision. While my choice of computer is Apple and not likely to change, there are some Android devices that are really nice. That said, if mobile devices weren't used in music, I'd have a basic phone that made calls and sent texts and no tablet device at all.

As long as it doesn't have step in the name. I was thinking Hip Hop.

I do see parallels with Hip Hop and Djing, especially the commercialisation of it. Time will tell if DJing goes down the same commercial route, where some kid with a few gimmicks gets picked up and becomes the DJ equivalent of Souljah Boy or Justin Beiber. I feel that what we're seeing is a different thing though. Technology has impacted across all walks of life. Everyone is a journalist or a photographer because of the internet, DSLRs and now smartphones. And the previous generation gets up in arms about them not learning the craft or going to university etc. There is more stuff to wade through than ever, and its growing exponentially. I think this is happening to DJing right now - I've seen it happen so many times before, and you just cannot stop it. But cream always rises to the top, and in the sea of dross, the good stuff still gets noticed more. It's an interesting time to be a DJ. So much cool stuff to play with and so much music too. Knowing the attention span of people these days though, perhaps DJing will become passé in a few years.

I feel that your point comes back to the wider culture and societal issues I mentioned earlier. It's never been easier to be a DJ, and to get your stuff out there. DJs have always been shit but that doesn't stem from sync, nor does reliance on sync excuse a bad mix or create a good one. Right now we have a mass of fresh blood - way more than ever before and they're all posting their amazeballs stuff up online for all to see. Some will never improve because beyond the sync button, they will never "get" DJing. The future however holds masses of good DJs who have learned the craft beyond locking beats. Skills will rise to the top. So while we're going to have to put up with a lot more lower quality stuff, the future looks a lot brighter. There will be a wealth of good DJs in a few years, proportionally more than ever before.

Crunkstep? Southstep? I hope and pray that the next wave of Rap turns up the BPM and brings back some funk.

You just rather proved my point that the sync button doesn't make people into a DJ overnight. Everything that's wrong in new mixes is not down to the sync button - they've just thrown tracks together, beatmatched them thinking that's enough and then screwed everything up because the mix, the EQ, the effects, the track selection is all wrong. That's not the sync button's fault. And manually beatmatching that mix would not make it any better, most probably worse in fact. Sync adjusts BPMs to match, and if you're lucky lock them on beat - the rest is down to the DJ. Your calculator analogy is slightly flawed. You cannot use a calculator without first understanding maths. You cannot use a typewriter without being able to read or write. But you can beatmatch 2 tracks by pressing a button. The complexities of maths and language are somewhat greater than moving a pitch fader too. Kids know that to lock beats, they have to use pitch to adjust the speeds. But there's a button for that, making beatmatching redundant to them - they have no need for it. But you'll always need to know how to read, write and do sums before using modern tools to make it easier. And you'll always need to learn the much bigger craft of mixing to be a good DJ. I never said don't learn beatmatching. It's just in the digital age, it's something that has a lot less relevance. At the noob end, the vast majority of kids will be spinning heavily quantised digital tunes, where the beat is most likely fixed from beginning to end. This is why sync is nothing more than a time saver to them. For those spinning older music... well they'll have to do it manually, and the sync button is an unused feature. But should we deny it just to make life harder for new DJs? Should we expect them to do something that has no relevance to them? Sync or not - they all still have to learn the other 99% of what DJing is all about, but that isn't what beatmatching is. I just don't get the selective hatred when DJs are using a plethora of tools designed to make their life easier or just to do things that couldn't be done before. BPM counter? I'm sure that like me you've sat with a deck, a pad and pen and a stopwatch. Do I advocate kids manually measuring over using the software? Never. And key measurement - my ears were the guide as to whether something worked or not. But somehow software gets a pass because harmonic mixing is just easier and gets better results. These are fundamental skills too, so how do they differ from sync? I struggle to rationalise how people can honestly think that the sync button is the all encompassing skill of a DJ, as if the crowd are euphoric because of the skilful way that the DJ has moved the pitch control to lock 2 beats together. The sync button doesn't wipe out the years of music buying, practice and legwork that goes into being a great DJ. The sync button doesn't fill a floor or make your mixes amazing. The sync button does just one thing - the rest still has to be learned. You cannot be a good DJ without all the other skills. The sync button does not make you a good or bad DJ. That's down to skills. I'm done on the subject. I will never be swayed from my opinion, and most likely those who oppose it won't either. So I'm off to do something more fun.

You're dumping a whole lot of blame on the sync button there Steve. As I just wrote on DJWORX, syncing is not mixing. Bad mixing has been happening since before the digital age. The issue of moaning DJs isn't to do with syncing either - it's to do with the digital age making music more of less free, controllers being way more affordable and smaller, and kids not having the overheads of families and mortgages that more established DJs have. It's also more to do with changes in culture, where people go out to get pissed and have a much lower quality threshold than ever. And the recession has closed more pubs and clubs than I can ever remember. So the digital age has brought a slew of young DJs with little outlay lowballing clubs to get gigs knowing that the club owner needs to keep overheads down, who in turn keeps the drinks cheap and music playing. It's not the situation for all clubs or events, but the issue is a lot bigger and more complex than the automation of a simple task.

Agreed. Sent me some records for no reason whatsoever.

I don't know about valuable, but this is priceless to me. Professor BX did a review of Custom Records in Minneapolis. This is one of 2 copies of an actual skratchworx break that BX put together and had cut to a couple of 12" picture disks, as well as this 7" coloured vinyl. BX kept hold of it for a few years and got some stellar signatures, and I've added a few myself, but these are the ones I can make out: 2 Tall DJ Flare A-Trak DJ Disk DJ Qbert DJ Netik Rob Swift Mike Relm DJ Big Wizz DJ Z-Trip D-Styles Grand Wizzard Theodore DJ Shiftee ... plus a few I'm not sure of. See if you can make them out. Like I said, I have no idea on value. In reality, it's probably worthless to anyone right now. Give it a few decades, and that might be a different matter.

And to add to this here rather than Facebook Matt, and backing up what Chris says - the ITCH installer was iffy to say the least. Grab the very latest ITCH installer at try that. Does ITCH operate properly? Can you play tracks and see LED output on the unit? Hit some FX and cue buttons - can you make the buttons light up even if you can't hear anything? Are the EQs set to normal? Aside from no output, does it appear to be operating correctly? Can you try it on another machine? Did you buy it new?

I call fix. The judges got it wrong/were his friends/were told by DMC or most probably all three. I didn't even see it or hear it but I know this to be FACT. Did I do it right? Or should I save it for the finals?

What I cannot understand is how any nation sets any stall whatsoever in political voting in a meaningless song contest. Does anyone genuinely believe that the likes of David Cameron have some sort of hotline to the judging panel and are feeding votes to them like it matters? This being the case, it would appear that we're about declare war on most of Europe.

I just flicked through 3.5 hours of it on iPlayer. Hell of a production, but can anyone tell me the point of the Eurovision Song Contest? Right now, it seems to be about countries quite literally scoring political points, and also humiliating others into hoping that they don't win because they're broke. Russia? WTF? I also found it odd that Norway came last. That was a decent, if predictable pop pulp song. I liked Denmark in a retro Dawson's Creek way. I wonder what political storm would have happened if Greece had won? Sweden - I understand why it won. Slick and hitting the Calvin Harris hands in the air europhoric sound square on. It's the one track that you could imagine coming out of every radio in the world. Jedward - they just needed wings on those outfits. I wonder if Ireland will always sent them to Eurovision as some sort of sacrificial lambs? Just an awful thing to watch, let alone skip through as I did in the name of research.

Is it just me, or is the Streetsound Nu Electro stuff just bloody awful? I've bought vol 2, 3 and 4 on vinyl for old times sake, but didn't break the seal. Just heard the vol 4 tracks on iTunes - so glad I didn't break the seal now. And don't get me started on how bad the Reunion DVD is. A word of advice - if like me you were brought up on Streetsounds Electro, don't try and reminisce by getting the new stuff. This stuff is really not fresh at all.

I don't know if it counts but there was that covers album - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_tha_Beginning...There_Was_Rap I loved the Def Squad's cover, and the video too. Haven't heard the rest though.

The TTX1s weren't great and did have a motor issue which they fixed and renamed to TTX. But since then they've been on the whole fine. I have TTX1s that had the motor problem, but since it was fixed, they've been great. And I'd buy another pair as well.

I lol'd at people trying to keep dancing when he juggled. This program has disaster written all over it. Perhaps that kind of complusive cannot look away type disaster though.

Being Apple centric, I make use of the cloud for iPhone backups as well as doing it locally. But I have separate time machine backups for my iMac and Macbook Air. The power goes off on a regular basis here and fried one Macbook without a decent backup. Not letting that happen again.

Do I need a pointy hat?

That last video made me sad.

My Electros are pretty mashed. It would be good to have the whole set on CD. The recent Streetsounds reunion DVD was awful though. I guess Morgan is trying to squeeze every single drop of cash out the brand while he can.