This time around I’m going to be looking at the most promising control tone software for apple’s iOS device line – specifically, the iPad. Since my last review, I’ve come to the conclusion that the iPad is my new favorite DJ tool. I don’t think it’s ready for primetime, week after week rigors of an active working dj – but for a backup solution, nothing even comes close. If you keep an iPad and a couple cables in your gig bag – I’m positive any DJ worth their salt could keep the party moving throughout any gear malfunction.
So, let’s bring it back a notch, I know you saw me mention something about control tones. JUST WHADDAHECK IS A CONTROL TONE ANYHOW!?!??! Well, simply put, a control tone is a static note. When you put that static note into an audio playback device (vinyl on turntable, cd in cdj, control tone app on ipad), a host of tactile manipulations of that static note become available. Each DJ application uses a different control tone though, for instance, Serato Scratch Live uses a 1 kHz control tone. That ‘wikka-wikka’ scratching noise you hear sometimes when a dj cues up a song right before a mix is in reality merely a rhythmic modulation of a particular frequency specific to his/her dj software. The magic really happens after that tone gets sent through the audio interface and the current relative frequency is used to accurately control the speed and direction of the playback of a digital audio file.
ToneTable, at a glance, is immediately obvious about what it’s primary goal is: to emulate a turntable. Aside from a marginally useful, but interesting chromatic keyboard panel, It really is nothing more than a play/pause button and pitch controls. That is a benefit to the app – it doesn’t do much, but what it does do – it does well and it’s rock solid. It has a few nice features added in like custom colors and a re-sizable platter. ToneTable aims to be a replacement (or backup) for your DVS control tone setup – and in most every way, it can be just that.
The biggest criticism I have with this app is the method for pitch adjustment. If you are used to turntables or cdjs, you know that a quick pitch bend can be achieved without looking down at the deck. you can more or less ‘feel’ the beat lock in as you nudge the song forward, or pressure it back down. It’s hard to ask a app like this to have that tactile feel, but their process is all wrong. To open up the pitch bend controls you have to first toggle them on screen, then you have plus and minus buttons (with non-adjustable curve control) to bend up and down the song. They should really be making use of the large, multi-touch screen apple provides with the iPad to give some kind of gesture command with the pitch, such as a 3 or 4 finger drag. Another great feature would be to allow internal song playback from the iPad, in case your computer crashes, it’d be great to have a little playlist inside the app to bring up a few tracks while you restart your machine.
+ Stability for hours and hours
+ Customizable interface
+ Instantly compatible with Serato, Traktor, MixVibes, and almost every DVS DJ software.
- Uninspired pitch controls make mixing less fluid than traditional setups
TraxPad is a simple dj application that provides excellent visual feedback and responsive, intuitive controls. You can load an internal playlist, see a track overview, cue to a point in the track, pitch bend and pitch adjust. The controls are easy to learn and offer a smart degree of control, making great use of the full range of the multi-touch screen. For instance, I found the pitch bend and pitch adjust easy to manipulate without needing to ‘learn’ it. It just feels natural when you play with it for a few minutes. Sadly, there is no implementation of track BPM, not even the percent of the adjustment.
However, TraxPad fails in in one major way as a control tone application, there is no audio cueing to speak of. that is, you can’t scratch. the only thing you can do is play, pause, and pitch adjust. That might be good enough for someone accustomed to jumping around with a bunch of preloaded cue points via their laptop software, but it really isn’t easy to work with tracks on-the-fly. Another strange decision is the orientation of the playback direction of the track on screen. It’s opposite of the Vinyl/CDJ/DVS ‘upscroll’ of the waveform. This app flips that around and instead the waveform scrolls downward, making cueing a little awkward, even more so because you can’t hear the playback while cueing – you just have to line up waveforms visually. It’s as if you are mixing on turntables that are spinning counter-clockwise.
+ Intuitive multi-touch playback + pitch controls
+ Big use of the full range of the iPad’s screen
+ Track overview
- No BPM adjustment percentage display or BPM sort in the playlist
- No scratching, if using a control tone – you’ll rely heavily on cuepoints
Flare Scratch comes from the same developer that brought us Baby Decks (highlighted in my previous review). Flare scratch drops the 2-deck internal mixing and instead focuses on the scratch dj crowd. simple break records are included, and if you can get past the ugly GUI and ‘alien’ button controls, you actually have a very responsive and fun little scratching time-waster app.
I spoke with the author of the app who merely added the control tone mode on a lark, a sort of easter-egg, but it actually functions quite well. The level of precision you get from cueing with this app is unmatched. I really liked the ability to zoom the platter in for ultra precision. I can’t really recommend this app for control tone use for a few reasons though. The needle is a huge annoyance. I realize this is a turntable and we are trying to emulate the functions of it – but i found myself constantly inadvertently moving the needle and stopping playback of the control tone. really annoying. I guess I could just flip it around and use the other side to cue with, but what about spinbacks? and It shouldn’t even be there in the first place. The same sort of problem came with the record zoom feature. I would end up toggling it when I didn’t want to and it would throw off my cueing.
All and all – if Async wants to push forward with a control tone app (which they should, since they have the best platter responsiveness of any dj apps) they need to make the screen and interface clean and polished. I don’t like the ‘alien’ look or the minimalistic pitch controls. The buttons should be big and immediately indicative of what function they are mapped to. Here’s an example of what I mean: See that button in the bottom right of the screenshot? there’s no way of knowing what the hell that does without pressing it. what about the other buttons? what sort of arbitrary symbols are those? the whole app could use a professional overhaul.
+ The best platter tracking and precision
+ Upload your own control tone for compatibility with any DJ software
+ Play songs internally from the app
+ app directly interfaces with itunes library for easy access
- Obscured usability due to ugly GUI
- Needs iPad specific layout
Summary:
Looking back on the apps – I really wish there was a combination of all 3 to make the perfect control tone app. If it had the GUI of ToneTable, the pitch controls of TraxPad, and the precision of Flare Scratch – you’d have a serious competitor to CDJs at a fraction of the cost. But I guess it’s hard to complain because none of these apps even approach the cost of cdjs or turntables. For the cost of one set of control vinyls – at the very least you can get a reliable backup solution that take literally no space in your bag. I’d recommend ToneTable to anyone requiring professional control tone manipulation, but any one of these apps could save you if you break a needle or the cdj dies or *roll-eyes* you forget the power cable… again. That’s actually what makes the iPad so convenient for a working DJ – the battery will last for ages so you don’t even need to pack a charger for it.
If you’re a DJ and own an iPad, get a control tone app – notably ToneTable – you won’t regret it.
by: yeahdef date: July 22, 2010 at 12:23 pm category: news. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
This has been held back for quite a few months now – and with FUR’s tour about to ramp up, I thought it would be a good time to unleash it. I think it’s one of my best remix jobs so far and I really hope you feel that beat hit you. if you like it, hit me up. if you hate it, tell me.
by: yeahdef date: July 17, 2010 at 7:58 pm category: news. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Dubstependence Day is a celebration of all things bass and dubstep july 2nd @ haileys.
It costs $2.
the djs are ill, the system is boom, the drinks are cold:
RED EYE (BARCADIA / D MAGAZINE BEST DJ 2010)
BLIXABOY (FEAT. ON MARY ANNE HOBBS / BEATPORT CHARTING)
YEAHDEF (BEST DJ 2009 DALLAS OBSERVER / 2010 NOMINEE)
FUZIONMUSE (R4WR, DubTerrain.net)
FIVE EASY PIECES (http://fiveeasypieces.tumblr.com/)
INDENTONDANCE DAY is a celebration of homegrown electronic music july 3rd, also @ Hailey’s.
BANDS:
Name Droppers
Kashioboy
Florene
DMG$
Fur
DJS:
TommyL33Jon3s
Yeahdef
We’ll also have FREE POP ICE FREEZE POPS and FREE MARIOKART 64 on the projector.
its FREE to get in until 10pm and $5 after that.
I hope that clears up any questions. if you still need answers – hit me up on tweetland @yeahdef
i drew both flyers.
by: yeahdef date: June 29, 2010 at 2:39 pm category: news. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
This has been on repeat all weekend in my heaphones. SOOOO RUDDDEEEE.
I thought I’d pass it along your way as a warm up for DUBSTEPENDENCE DAY on July 2nd.
Still waiting on a full quality of this – but I suppose this version will do since the last one that was floating around was a radio rip and the dj was shouting all over the intro.
stuff like this needs to be heard more… i mean come on – the lyrics are perfectly aligned with the beat and drops – dotted i’s and t’s crossed. i can’t help but juke back and forth when i have this pumpin out the CRV on the way home from work. btw, my akuma hits hard.
by: yeahdef date: June 21, 2010 at 10:59 am category: news. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
If you’ve spent any extended period of time talking with me about music, I’ve probably mentioned chip music once or twice.
It’s AMAZING.
I don’t have any other gigs to promote this week other than my regular 90s/80s weeklies @ haileys (which rule), so i thought id just drop a few chip gems on y’all to scratch my bloggin’ itch.
seriously, great stuff all around… all released in 2009 through the HVSC
by: yeahdef date: June 16, 2010 at 3:54 pm category: news. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Tonight I’m playing for the first time ever in Ft Worth. Seems long overdue – but I imagine it will be just about what I’d expect. The promoters thought it would be a good idea to give out cases and cases of free Joose, which if you don’t know is one of the absolute worst alcoholic concoctions known to man. It seriously tastes like some crossproduct of model airplane glue and Ed Hardy armpit sweat. its awful… but hey! the kids like it!!! Should be a pretty aggressive night musically, though, as we have some varied high energy styles represented across the board. Much thanks to Steven Molina (Mount Blood) for hooking up the gig.
If you’re in the area, you have 5$ in your pocket, and are at all interested in what i like to play besides 80s and 90s throwbacks week after week – please come check out my set. I can’t tell you how happy I am with the set I put together – It’s really really space-station-blast-off-hyper-that’s-no-moon-type-ish.
Liechty out.
by: yeahdef date: June 4, 2010 at 1:06 pm category: news. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Going to be a busy week for old joey round these parts. Starting Tuesday, I’ll be @ Haileys for 90s night (free pizza). I’ve heard at least 3 or 4 people telling me they were going to show up in full teenage mutant ninja turtle regalia, so we’ll see how many nun-chuckin’ / bo-staff welts I aquire. Wednesday marks my return to the Ghostbar @ the W hotel in dallas. Hoyotoho is playing. Me and WishFM will be holding down the music all night. Thursday I’m back at Hailey’s club for 80s night – and if you’ve attended recently, you know just how much its swollen back up. Back again Friday for the 3rd Dentstep event. Very happy to have Mike Townsend (broken teeth / soundclash) and Jimmy B (trashcanpunch.com) out to rep Dallas’ particular brand of dubstep all night. Last, but not least – Flesh Faces @ Dan’s on Saturday is going to melt your face off. Stoned Men have a huge, raw sound – combined with Jeff the Brotherhood and Heavy Cream from Nashville TN, this will be a good place to sip a dark beer and get my brain blown out on the weekend.
Hollar at me 80DEF-9YEAH on the txt msg or @yeahdef on the twitter. RSVP to the event by clickin on the links. I gotta get through these events before summer school starts! lets party while we still can.
by: yeahdef date: May 24, 2010 at 9:35 am category: news. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
When the iPad was first announced, I immediately balked at the blatant disregard of some obvious features. ‘Where’s the front-facing camera and usb connectivity? and 4:3 aspect ratio???’ I said to myself, as i threw my hands up in the air whilst watching the live blog from the keynote unveiling. ‘Well it can’t do flash, and it can’t video conference… but what are the applications to the dj community?’ I thought. After some time spent on the serato forum watching the debate flare over the device, I sat back and compared it to other touchscreen dj systems currently available.
There’s been direct comparisons to JazzMutant’s Lemur controller – and in all honesty – the iPad already trumps said device, with a much more palatable price tag. So for now let’s forget about that obvious correlation, and focus on the purchasable iPad-only DJing applications currently available. Meaning im not going to review controller apps / wifi midi apps.
We all have seen the exploits of some so-called iPad DJs riding the wave of a tech trend gimmick, but if you take a second look, the iPad has what it takes to contend as a critical piece of the ‘working-dj’ arsenal.
Let’s compare…
SONORASAURUS REX:
At first glance, Sonorasaurus Rex is the most feature packed. It’s GUI is slick, so slick in fact, it appears to be modeled purposefully after the Jazzmutant Lemur. I doubt the resemblance is unintentional – Pajamahouse studios probably wanted to make that known. Silly names aside – Pajamahouse has the widest feature set available. DJs get all the familiar eq and transport controls in a fat-finger friendly layout, not to mention 6 effects (1 per deck, non-chainable). The effects seem somewhat unusable though, as any direct adjustment of the effects instantly cuts the post audio until your finger comes to a rest on most of the effects. They are also not linked to bpm, so it takes a great deal of guesswork.
One critical feature which makes it a standout app, is waveform scrubbing. unlike any other dj app on the ipad – Rex allows the dj to insert and set precise cue points on each track, manipulated by scanning through either deck with a finger. combine this with a engine built for low latency, lag-less controls – and you have a stable app that allows seamless transitions over and over again. another obvious feature that everyone else but Rex left out is the ability to sort large playlists by BPM – a simple idea, but when you have 100s of songs in a playlist – and 20 seconds left in a track – you might need that extra organization to get your mix in quickly.
+clean, polished interface
+precise cuepoint control with waveform scrubbing
+library management is fantastic and sortable by bpm
+headphone cueing ‘split mode’
+modest price tag
+tutorial mode explains each function
-batch waveform building for a few hundred tracks takes hours
-effects aren’t very useful / not linked to bpm
-iphone / ipad versions are sold separately
BABY DECKS:
The most simple, traditional setup. I think anyone with half a brain can jump into this app and kill a few minutes playing around with that ‘wikky wikky’ sound. Baby Decks marketed it as a toy, but with some polish and more features – I think this could turn into a decent ‘serious’ dj app. I’ve mixed a few tracks through with simple blends and encountered no problems, but without itunes file sharing support, eqing, or cue point management, its kind of hard to recommend this app for use anywhere but your bedroom. probably would be really fun at a house party with everyone taking a turn. Sure I had fun nerding out with some tranform scratching on their included break records – but $25 dollars? I consider that a little steep.
+traditional layout is inviting to just about anyone
+excellent sound quality and deck control
+actually possible to do some half-way decent beat juggling
-lacks cue points and eq-ing
-uploading 1 track at a time makes large dj libraries a pain, not worth the effort
-high price is a turn off for the feature set
DJDECKX:
Those familiar with cdjs might want to take a look at djdeckx. The gui is, well, ugly. its functional and intuitive, but damn did the ugly stick beat this thing. the sad thing is that this has some of the best pitch control available – bending the sliders up and down provide very smooth and accurate adjustments, unlike some of the other apps which cause some nasty stuttering or ‘dirty-ness’ to the adjustment. It’s been bashed on the app store reviews, but I don’t think its deserving of a lot of the comments, i think most people expect this to be a kin to Baby Decks – and are upset when they cant scratch the decks. as a simple song blending tool – i think it works. Its difficult to do long transitions, but anyone halfway familiar with a dj setup could probably pull it off if they knew the bpms of the music. I found it a strange design decision that it is firmly stuck in ‘split mode’ where cueing is done in the right channel, and the master mix is pumped out of the left channel. There is no ‘help’ manual. the cue point management is awful, to the point where you are probably just better off not bothering with it.
+great pitch controls
+waveform creation (although kind of tiny and hard to perform visual cueing)
+eqing sounds fine
-bpm input should be a tap, not a full keyboard type-it-in-if-you-know-it process
-cueing system needs a complete rethink – its unusable and illogical
-button lag makes precise mixing a chore, but fading track to track is a no brainer
TREMOR:
It’s an eyesore, but for someone who NEEDS 4 deck mixing in an iPad app, I guess this hypothetically could do it. I’d be very surprised if the user could actually perform a decent mix with this app though. the cross-fader is admittedly unique – its an x-y fader corresponding to 4 decks by its relative position on the screen – cool! never seen that one before – it however is unusable as blending with it constantly causes stuttering audio and staggering fades. As for other design decisions, It’s hands-down the strangest application available. Lining the bottom of the interface are an array of pre-installed samples ranging from the theme to the children’s show Barney, to Southpark TV show samples, to airhorns. It seems childish and unnecessary to say the least. why would the developer think we want that? along with that – the developer chose to include internet radio streams assignable to one of the four decks. this alone is just bizarre – i can’t imagine ever djing somewhere and deciding to pull a lossy, buffering internet stream into the mix.
They have little else to show but graphical mockups of their app – but it seems like they have a good concept of what we want in a dj app. I really hope they integrate some form of visual cueing aid and waveform scrubbing though – it appears they have overlooked it. At the moment though – Sonorasaurus Rex 2.0 is the clear leader – in fact, I don’t think i would trust any of the other apps at a gig. Since the 2.0 update, Rex can indeed hold it’s own as a viable dj app – and certainly worth the money. if you have an ipad and you’re a dj and you want to experiment with the possibilities, or have a cheap backup rig – Rex is an easy choice. if you want to play around with scratching – give Baby Decks a try. Or you can do what I did and try them all – just write a review and the developers will just hand out promo codes to you!
It looks like the time is just about right for these kind of experimental interfaces to take off into mainstream usage. Let’s hope they aren’t treated with the same prejudice as CDJs were upon their introduction. They really do have a lot of potential – I hope some names like Serato or Native Instruments jump on board and makes an interface with the ipad – that would be a great nod to the future.
I kinda wish iPad djing would take this direction though, making use of a hardware mixer instead of touchscreen faders. How awesome is this setup?! Who wants to start a iPad app company with me and make this!?!?!?!
by: yeahdef date: May 18, 2010 at 2:33 am category: news. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Here’s a quick smooth hip hop mix I did checking out some capabilities of the xone:dx from allen and heath. I really like this unit – some really dope sound quality and beat grids in serato is amazing. Yeahdef – Smooth Hip Hop Mix May 2010
I have a huge post coming soon. sorry about the lack of updates. stay tuned.
by: yeahdef date: May 16, 2010 at 10:32 pm category: news. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Does this sound like you? “the radio sucks. clear channel? more like communist channel… am i right????” yada yada yada blah blah blah — say what you will, anti-radio hemp-cereal-eating bro, but some of the stuff on the radio right now is golden! young moolah baaaaybee! Im going to be selecting my favorite illuminati-approved mass-market choons @ haileys tonight for cinco de mayo with or without your blessing.
best of all — its totally free and we have 1.50$ drinks.
doors open @ 10pm
by: yeahdef date: May 5, 2010 at 6:56 pm category: news. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
When the iPad was first announced, I immediately balked at the blatant disregard of some obvious features. ‘Where’s the front-facing camera and usb connectivity? and 4:3 aspect ratio???’ I said to myself, as i threw my hands up in the air whilst watching the live blog from the keynote unveiling. ‘Well it can’t do flash, and it can’t video conference… but what are the applications to the dj community?’ I thought. After some time spent on the serato forum watching the debate flare over the device, I sat back and compared it to other touchscreen dj systems currently available.
