#madflip

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Customer Bio: DJ MooseHead

Every once in a while we receive emails from our customers thanking us for the support we provided them. Here is one that stood out. Frank Mazzuca contacted us because he wanted to get his son a DJ Controller that is great for beginners but still fully functional for Professional gigs. He spoke to one of our Pro Sales Representatives, Scott Magno, and they both agreed that the Mixtrack was the perfect product.

"I introduce to you DJ MooseHead. Moose is my son's nickname at school. First gig was a major success...just wanted to share the love.

Frank

PS: he loves his Numark gear!"

The best part about this story is that Marcel Mazzuca aka DJ MooseHead is only 13!

DJ MooseHead with his Numark Mixtrack

DJ MooseHead Set Up If you have any great stories like this to share with us, please send them to our Marketing Manager, Ariff Glick, [email protected] and you might be featured on our blog.

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I Wanna Be A DJ, How Do I Get Started? Part 1

I get asked all the time "How do I become a DJ?"  I love having this conversation because I love being one.  Sometimes it happens when I'm in between mixes in a loud environment, and sometimes it happens on this blog or on our You Tube Channel.  Either way the answer is quite simple.  "Become What You Already Are".  You are already a DJ to some degree.    It might sound Zen-like or Utopian but it is true.  You probably have a favorite song or you've compiled a play list to listen to or even to share with a friend.  If you have ever made a mix tape for a special occasion or for a significant other or for yourself then you're already closer to being a DJ than you think.  Here are the first things to consider when your journey begins. MUSIC Decide what you want to play and start your collection.  Start with what you already have and build upon it.  Without dating myself (accurately anyway), I bought records in vinyl form the old fashioned way.  I watched 120 Minutes late on Sunday nights and made a list of what I liked.  I went to the local record store with my list and bought what they had and asked Eric to order what they didn't have.  Rinse and repeat every week.  My intentions back then were to compile a collection of cool tunes so I could record my favorites on a cassette and share with my friends who wanted to listen to it.  These days you have many resources in which to listen to and purchase good music.  DJs will post their Top 10's on sites like Beatport in order to give you an idea of what's hot and you can almost always purchase the tracks directly from the site.  There are also a multitude of music blogs that exist to keep you up to date on new releases, remixes and the artists and DJs that are making the hot tracks.  So in essence you want to get educated on the music and the people that create it, decide what you want to play and buy it, build your collection and finally, prepare it for presentation.  You can then start to develop ideas of how you want to program your mix based on what you want to accomplish.  This process is ongoing especially if you want to stay current and get gigs.  At the end of the day, it is really all about the music.  No matter what.

BYOG - BUY YOUR OWN GEAR Period.  No matter what it is, professional, intermediate, or beginner, new or used.  You can learn to play on anything, but I strongly encourage you to invest the money, great or small, into owning some sort of DJ set-up.  There is a process involved in deciding exactly what to buy, and we can certainly help here at Unique Squared.  But, a Jedi one does not become without his or her light saber.  It's paramount to have the gear at your disposal so you can get used to the mechanics and tolerances of your equipment in order for you to develop your skills.  It doesn't have to happen over night, but it has to happen in order to become a true DJ.  Do some research for there are many options.  I started with a Gemini mixer and 2 Technics SL-1210Mk2's.  I purchased the mixer at an Air Force Base Exchange and I ordered the turntables from a Navy Exchange catalog.  Yup, I served in the Navy.  Nuclear Field.  Anyway, this was a standard DJ set-up in the late 20th century and it was perfect for me at the time.  I use a controller now but the layout is directly based on the very set-up that I started with a long time ago.  Two turntables and a mixer.  The point is I bought the gear and I learned how to use it because it was always at my disposal.  Then I learned to love it and I never looked back. LEARN THE BASICS Crawl, walk, run, fly.  This can be defined in many different ways in term of DJing.  I follow a basic guideline when I give lessons.  Without getting into great detail here's my nutshell version: 1.  CRAWL - Listen to a lot of music but especially the music you want to mix.  Count 8's, 16's, and 32's.  Listen for intros, verses, bridges, choruses, builds and breakdowns. Listen for the mix when you listen to other DJs.   You have to develop your ear in order to differentiate between 2 tracks.  All of this can be done before you even touch the equipment. 2.  WALK - Learn your mixer.  Learn your turntable or CD player.  Learn your controller.  Learn how and where to plug in RCA, XLR, and 1/4" cables.  Press every button, turn every knob, slide every fader.  Learn the tolerances of your cross-fader, channel fader, pitch adjust, jog wheels and turntables.  Learn how to cue and monitor each channel on your mixer.  All of this can be done before you put on a record or load a track. 3.  RUN - Mix two tracks.  Every one has their own way of doing this, but this my favorite.  I would match two records of similar BPM on the  turntables so that they were already beat matched and no pitch adjustments were needed.  My student would then practice throwing each track on the first beat to get used to the feel of the record and turntable and monitoring through headphones.  After they become comfortable with that, they could slowly bring in the mix, adjust the EQ, and slide the cross fader to the incoming track.  I would then speed up or slow down one of the tracks so that they would have to listen to match snares or hi-hats and adjust the pitch in order to match the records before bringing in the mix.  Rinse and repeat. 4.  FLY - Inevitably, everyone wants to learn tricks.  Only after becoming comfortable and confident in a basic mix can one attempt scratching or EQ filter sweeps.  Mixing tracks that have complimentary keys is also an advanced technique that can be implemented after hundreds of mixes and an accurate musical knowledge of one's record collection.  We've all seen some incredibly creative things that occur behind a good DJ's turntables and once you have the confidence and experience it is time to fly. NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE Yes, I know it sounds like a cliché, but it is my mantra when it comes to DJing.  This has many meanings when it comes to DJing.  When it comes to learning how to mix it is important to understand that you will become frustrated on occasion.  Don't give up because you WILL get better.  If you are learning to mix on what one may consider to be substandard DJ equipment then you will be happy to know that once you get the hang of it you will probably be more accurate when you finally get the proper gear.  It is a labor of love as I've said before and the fulfillment that you get when you've practiced and practiced and finally start seeing the result is truly amazing.  Nothing Is Impossible in technical terms relates to what you do when you mix.  You can express your music in so many different creative ways if you can break down musical boundaries and be inventive. So you wanna be a DJ?  Great, you should.  Everyone should.  I respect the art form and I respect any one, beginner or professional, that does it.  Why?  Because I love music and there's music out there that one of you is going to play or mix that I haven't heard yet and it's probably incredible.  In the weeks to come I will share my views on what it takes to be a DJ.  In Part 2 I will go into more detail about making and uploading mixes, promoting yourself, gigs and gig etiquette, and creating your own business.  Stay tuned.  Cheers! Check out Part 2 here.

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Numark NS6 Demo on The Mobile Studio @ WMC 2011 | Unique Squared Mobile Studio

During our time at this years' Winter Music Conference, we were able to finally get our hands on the Numark NS6,  courtesy of the folks over at Numark and Mike Hoska. The NS6 uses Serato Itch and allows for 4 deck simultaneous control of your mix.  Couple that with an array of blazing hot effects, advanced looping functionality, and a highly responsive and accurate control surface and you have a definite game changer in the DJ Controller market.  We will do an in depth demo and review when we receive our very own.  Until then, put on your seat belt and check out the video. For more information, check out http://blog.UniqueSquared.com. Be sure to follow us on Twitter for updates on where the bus is going next! Also follow UniqueSquared on Facebook.  

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Pioneer DDJ-S1 Review

At long last we have a Pioneer Serato Itch controller in the DDJ-S1. We reviewed it's predecessor, the T1 Traktor Controller, and had a fun time with that beast so we knew a little of what to expect. The quality of the Pioneer Pro DJ products are considered to be the blue print by which other DJ product manufacturers strive to emulate. We were excited to see the DDJ-S1 arrive at the shop and quickly opened it as if it were Christmas morning. Check out the video below: It maintains the same features of the T1 controller, the laptop dock, large CDJ style jog wheels, and the needle drop touch strip. You have 5 hot cues that coincide with those in Serato Itch and the FX section allows you to easily select and tweak the 12 outstanding effects within the software. You can select 2 effects to each channel, both to one, or to the maser output. The browse area with a nice bigger scroll knob and dedicated crate and file buttons combined with the alphabetical search on the needle drop strip allow for near flawless navigation of your music without ever having to touch your laptop. The line faders and cross-fader are of the same quality you expect from Pioneer's DJM series mixers and you can adjust the cross-fader directly on the controller itself and in the Itch software if you want an even sharper curve for the turntablists. Overall the S1 played and felt very comfortable and accurately responded to every nudge and tweak when we ran it through the demo. The S1 by far would be the best controller if you're transitioning from the standard CDJ and mixer set-up. Check out the video and stay tuned for our own Unique Artist DJ Smiles S1 demo coming soon. Cheers! Transcript:

Hi this is Scott Magno DJ MadFlip here with UniqueSquared.com and yes it has arrived, the Pioneer DDJ-S1, let’s have a look.

Right out of the box this is a great looking controller, it’s going to give you master outputs, both balanced and RCA. It’s going to give you two microphone outputs, XLR ¼ inch on one, ¼ inch on mic two.

Now the mic 2 input also serves as an auxiliary input with the RCA here. So if your software goes down, plug in an MP3 and boom!

EQ right here, volume control, to keep the party going. Alright, so we’ve got the CDJ section of it, jog wheels, nice touch sensitivity, rotation LED’s.

Transport section, great Pioneer quality that we’re used to. And we also have five hot cues on there, that coincides specifically with Serato Itch, that’s the Pioneer edition of Serato Itch, really nice.

Loop in and out, you also have your auto loop roll section right here, really nice to get that glitchy stuff done. Even cooler that you’ve got the slip mode function, where the track continues to go even if you punch in one of those glitchy little snare rolls, you don’t look like a rookie, you look like a really cool DJ.

So now we’ve got the needle search section right here, this means that we can scroll through touch pad, go to that build, go to that break down, there I am, ready to go.

It also serves, if you hit the shift button, as an alphabetical search for your software. Another reason why you don’t have to fumble through your laptop by using the laptop dock. That’s really nice and it makes you even quicker.

Alright, so moving on to the mixer section, good Pioneer DJM quality. You can adjust the crossfader here for your turntables, make it a little sharper. EQ, mids, highs, lows, you’ve got your trim knobs a little bit smaller. If you’re in a dark place and you need to find it, there it is.

Alright, so your effects section, you’ve got 12 different high quality effects on Serato Itch. Bank A, bank B. Select those to either both A, one on A one on B. I can also select those on the master and also on the mic if I want to put some delay onto my shoutout. Really nice.

Now, scrolling through your tracks is really easy on the Pioneer DDJ-S1. You’ve got the browse section here so you can go through, back button. And I can go to my crates and my files automatically too right there. Really nice layout.

If you’re a DJ who’s used to having turntables or CDJs and a mixer and you were thinking “I might need to switch to a controller” then this might be the one for you because this is virtually the same as having a pair of CDJs and a high quality DJM mixer.  So yes there it is the Pioneer DDJ-S1.

You know Pioneer is high quality, Serato Itch one of the most popular DJ softwares out there, we’re looking at a winner, I love it.

If you have any questions or comments about this I’ll be happy to answer them personally. Don’t forget to check us out on Facebook, on Twitter, and on the UniqueSquared.com blog. I’m Scott Magno, DJ MadFlip. Be you, be unique, at UniqueSquared.com.

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Traktor Scratch Pro 2 Review

By now you guys know that I am an advocate of Native Instruments Traktor Scratch software.  I fell in love about 3 years ago at the 2008 Winter NAMM show thanks to an amazing demo by Dynamix and Hapa from Scratch DJ Academy in Los Angeles.  I was a Serato Scratch Live user and was pretty happy using it for my gigs, but I didn't know that almost all of Europe was using a superior DVS for DJing.  After seeing this demo it was a no brainer.  I wanted cleaner and louder audio, the ability to record my sets, playback recorded audio from a mic on the fly, and have the ability to use my midi controller to tweak incredible effects and set loops.  I had to switch to Traktor Scratch Pro.  Native Instruments has an innate ability to anticipate the needs of the DJ by providing a pallet of brilliant effects and functions that truly inspire DJs to play at a level beyond the capabilities of any other DVS system.  They've listened to feedback from loyal users and even haters to continue pushing the limits of DJing, elevating their product to it's new inception: Traktor Scratch Pro 2. Customized For Your Protection The Traktor Scratch Pro 2 system comes with the new Audio 10 interface.  We can do a complete review on this alone but I'll sum it up like this: 10 ins/10 outs, seamless integration of 4 turntables plus 2 other audio devices, midi sync for those extra audio devices, mic input, 24-bit / 96kHz Cirrus Logic® AD/DA converters, AND it's louder than BOMBS! So what are the major differences from TS Pro to TS Pro 2?  Native Instruments S4 users have already been reaping the benefits of the new T2 software to some degree and the now TS Pro 2 has added the same abilities and a few extras. TRAKTOR SCRATCH PRO 2 features an intuitive software interface, as well as TruWave frequency-specific colored waveforms for a new experience in mixing.  I can choose layouts to define my waveform highs and lows, kicks and snares.  This somewhat mirrors the Serato Scratch Live or Itch layout but goes even further with the ability to choose your color scheme. Thanks to Auto Detection and configuration for NI audio interfaces, you can set up in seconds, while TRAKTOR AUDIO 10’s Direct Thru function makes switching DJs in the club a breeze. The SoftSync feature adds a new level of tempo-awareness to TRAKTOR SCRATCH that expands your mixing options when using vinyl control. The intuitive looping and cueing functions have been enhanced with the addition of Sample Decks, making live remixing and re-editing a cinch. Grab and layer your own loops, use the library of included loop content or fire off one-shot samples such as the included scratch sounds. Record from any channel via the Loop Recorder and add dynamic layers to dramatically heighten your mix. While each Sample Deck can add up to four simultaneous samples or loops to the mix, the Loop Recorder allows DJs to capture audio from various sources on the fly and drop it back into the mix at any time, opening up creative techniques far beyond conventional DJing. When other DJ's see me using Traktor they always ask if I've ever tried Serato.  I say that I have but that I really like the layout of Traktor more, and that it allows me to organize my music better.  Then I show them all of the things I can do using Traktor that aren't possible with Serato.  They are usually left with the same look I had at that demo in 2008.  Priceless. With all due respect to Serato, Traktor is just a better fit for me and I encourage you guys to give it a spin if you haven't already.  Check out our video and let us know what you think.  Happy gigs! Transcript:

Hey I’m Scott Magno, DJ MadFlip here with UniqueSquared.com. Today we’re going to talk about Traktor Scratch Pro 2. This is going to come with the new Traktor Pro 2 software which is banging.

Now not only are you going to have brand new high res, colored, truwave, waveforms, we’re also going to have the ability to layer and sample with awesome sophistication.

And we’re also going to have some cool new effects, a bunch of other stuff, let’s check it out now.

If you were familiar with Traktor Scratch pro before, first off you will see the colored, truwave, high res waveforms here. That is really nice to go in and personalize your color mode.

If you look at that, I’ve got it on spectrum, I can go ultraviolet or infrared, the X-Ray, but I’m going to go with the spectrum, I like a lot of different color in my life.

So, that is nice also with the waveforms. You know I’ve got some cue points set up here, I’m going to run just a little bit of audio. Now I can zoom in on that cue point there, and I can zoom in much further than on the previous Traktor Scratch.

So if I really want to get the front end of that attack on that, I can go super Dr. Science, and I’ll lift that cue point out, and I’ll make you a little bit closer right there just so I can be more accurate. So there it is, it’s moving really fast there.

So if I zoom out you can see now, so you get the idea. I can be right there on the edge of the attack on there. Ok, let’s go to the different layouts now.

I’ve got it set up in the essential layout here. It’s going to be two decks here, and then with the use of the controller I can control decks C and B for my samples as well.

I’ve got my Do Work mix right here, I like to see everything, my EQs, everything, my effects. And then the browser, so I can just quick browse through all of my tracks there and then the last one, this is my favorite, Mad Flip Prime. This is when I’m going to use just primarily the turntables and effects.

But the point is you can customize all of this, make your own, and it’s really nice to be able to have a customized workspace.

Ok so, what else do we have here? If you look you actually have, those of you who are used to using Serato, we actually have the rotating turntable here. This also serves as your check for your calibration. And if you need more room you can hide that right there, which is kind of a nice feature as well.

Alright, let’s talk about some of the cool effects now. Native Instruments has always had some incredible effects. I’m just going to run through some of my favorites. I’m going to go ahead and set a loop there and show you some effects.

This is the beat masher. That’s one of the new effects. This one Mulholland Drive is kind of a nice filtery thing. You’ve got the auto bouncer, and ramp delay, tape delay. I’ve got this set up so I can apply three effects at once. You can get some nice tricky things. I’ve always loved the flanger flux just to give you a little more flavor. Real nice.

So we’ve got some all new effects, some nice waveforms there. The ability again to do four decks on Traktor. Those of you that are familiar with the S4, you’ve been familiar with these capabilities, but now Traktor Scratch Pro 2 allows you to have that on turntables or CDJ, another timecode set up and a lot of good improvements on that.

Alright, there it is Traktor Scratch Pro 2, it is amazing. This is certainly my weapon of choice. If you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments and I will answer them personally. Thanks for following us on our blog, on Twitter, and friending us on Facebook. This is Scott Magno, DJ MadFlip. Be you, be unique, at UniqueSquared.com.

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MadFlip Mixtape with Auralex Mudguard | UniqueSquared.com

Inside the Unique Squared Mobile Studio, we have all kinds of gear to be able to record, tweak, and play away to your hearts' content. However, if the environment in which you have all that gear doesn't provide ideal acoustics -- it's all for naught. Enter Auralex Acoustics. Auralex provides us with the most ideal blend of sonic engineering, visual aesthetics, and placement options to use their acoustic foam products. The Auralex MudGuard is an excellent way to minimize excessive room ambience and eliminate external noise bleed. You can imagine that if it's such a good fit in our mobile recording studio, the home studio set-up would benefit from this greatly. Check out the video below to see the mind-blowing revolutionary effects of the Auralex MudGuard. A big thank you goes out to Auralex for providing us with their top notch quality products and expert assistance during our design and installation process.

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Using The Numark NS6 With Traktor Pro 2: Yes, Please!

This mapping may not work with the latest version of Traktor.

We finally got a chance to use the acclaimed Numark NS6 Serato Itch controller with Native Instruments flagship Traktor Pro 2 software, and the results were quite good.  Thanks to a foundation provided by Numark and a heavily tweaked re-fix by our resident marketing manager and controller mapping stud, Ariff Glick, we came up with a mapping that suited the NS6's layout nicely with Traktor.

THE SCOOP ON MAPPING

The NS6 is basically a midi controller with sliders, knobs, and buttons that are assignable to virtually any function that your software requires.  Traktor has a controller manager within the preferences where you can do this.  You can download our .tsi file and import it to the controller manager.  Please keep in mind that this is just one version of many possibilities that can be used and you can definitely create your own mapping to suit your particular layout and playing style.  If you are well versed with Traktor and have midi-mapped controllers before then this will be an old hat for you.  If you aren't, not to worry.  We put together a basic template and video tutorial so you can get up and running in no time.  We have included a link below of our mapping with the NS6 drivers included for good measure.

SET-UP

A. This is how you set up the NS6 with Traktor if you HAVE NOT already set up the drivers and/or installed ITCH 1.8.1.

Make sure the correct NS6 drivers installed on our computer. We also included them with our .tsi file below.

Plugged the NS6 into your laptop and turned it on making sure the power adapter is connected, then opened up Traktor Pro 2.

Import and apply the .tsi file.

Open Preferences

Select "Import" at the bottom

Open the file called "UniqueSquaredTP2NS6Mapping.tsi" (sorry it's so long)

Make sure you select the box "Audio Device Settings" so that it is checked and click "OK"

In the controller manager you will see that there are 5 separate mappings that correspond to every function in Traktor for the NS6.  Select "Numark USB Audio" for the In-Port and Out-Port.

B. This is how you set up the NS6 with Traktor if you HAVE set up the drivers and/or installed ITCH 1.8.1.

Plugged the NS6 into your laptop and turned it on making sure the power adapter is connected, then opened up Traktor Pro 2.

Import and apply the .tsi file.

Open Preferences

Select "Controller Manager"

Under Device select "Add"

Select "Import"

Open the file called "UniqueSquaredTP2NS6Mapping.tsi" (sorry it's so long)

In the controller manager you will see that there are 5 separate mappings that correspond to every function in Traktor for the NS6.  Select "Numark USB Audio" for the In-Port and Out-Port.

You now have the NS6 controlling Traktor Pro 2 with relative ease.  Easy enough, right?

LAYOUT

The strawberries taste like strawberries, the snozberries taste like snozberries!  Right?  Well, almost. This particular mapping was for 4 decks and almost everything translates flawlessly.  The EQ knobs, crossfader, line faders, cue points, jog wheels, sync, pitch adjust, browse, transport and loop section work as the NS6 and Traktor is normally laid out. The most noticeable difference is in the Effects section and the Filter adjust.  In Traktor you have 2 ways of setting up your effects, single (advanced) and group (chained). On the NS6 you have an effect activate (on/off) button, parameters knob to adjust, effect select knob, and a wet/dry fader. We decided to map the Trakor effect in group mode with only the first effect active since the physical layout restricts more than 2 effects per deck to be active.  This allowed us to map the software perfectly to the NS6 .

NS6 Traktor Pro 2 Effects Section

We then mapped the filter adjust to the "strip search" section on the NS6 because it made the most sense. The filter can be adjusted using the strip and turned on and off using the "Bleep / Reverse" button, the red light indicator meaning it's "on."

NS6 Traktor Pro 2 Filter Section

Again, you have complete freedom to choose what works best for you and this worked well for us.

THE VERDICT

It was relatively easy to get everything up and running on the NS6, but keep in mind this controller was designed for Serato Itch and there are some features that we did not map to the controller.  For instance, we did not set up any of the record features like the internal mix recorder and the loop recorder.  Is it possible?  Absolutely, but we did a basic set-up just to show what is possible.  The other noticeable difference was the jog wheel response when scratching.  It was very good, but we found that the jog wheels were more accurate when scratching in Serato Itch.  Overall we were very pleased with the performance and response and we highly recommend using the NS6 with Traktor even if it's just as an alternative to Serato Itch.  Check out the video and please feel free to leave us any comments or questions so we can help.  Thanks again to Numark for the foundation of this mapping and also to you all for requesting this particular video.  Cheers!

THE FILE

Unique Squared NS6 Traktor Pro 2 Mapping

  Video Transcript: What’s going on? This is Scott Magno DJ MadFlip here with UniqueSquared.com. Hey man, we’ve got NS6 by Numark working with Traktor Pro 2. You guys asked for it, we wanted to show a video of it, so let’s check it out, we got this done. Alright, so the first thing you want to do is go to our blog and download this particular mapping. Go ahead and save it to your desktop or something and once you're in Traktor, go to your preferences, you’re going to go to the controller manager too here, you want to add and then down to import and import that setting from the desktop here. Once you do that you will find that decks C and D, decks A and B, the platters, the loops and browsers, and also the mix and main section all for Numark USB audio device. Select that, make sure your port is on Numark for in and out and you should be ready to rumble it up. Alright, so now we’ve got that up and running, and you can see the layout that I have here. We’ve purposely made it super wide, that way you can see every knob and every slider on all four decks. You don’t have to have it that way but for visual feedback we wanted to go ahead and show it like that. Ok, so starting off you can see that we have line levels for all of our decks here. You’ve got EQ and all of that working, and our platters, we’ve got that going right here. Our pitch adjust. So all of that is pretty standard, you can see we have it all working. We can even go into our files here, browse and load into each deck like so and switch that deck over, so we’ve got all four decks loaded as you can see everything is up and running. There are a couple of things that I wanted to tell you guys about our particular mapping. The NS6 has two effects that you can choose from and from those you can have the effects parameter and also the amount of dry/wet of that effect that you have. So that is what we have, you also have the effects select. So we mapped it like this, with a chained selection within the effects, but in that chain you will see that we have no effect on our second and third effects for each side. Now, we did that because we didn't get deep enough to map this for an advanced effect because we wanted to show, basically, a very elementary level setup just to get you up and running. Of course, you guys can modify, this particular mapping and customize it however you need to. That’s the beauty of Traktor Pro 2, it’s just always been that way where you can kind of just customize it yourself. So, those effects are going to be here, I can select through my different effects. Right, and then I can turn that effect on and off on the NS6, then I can control the parameter of that effect, and also the dry/wet will be with your NS6, FX mix slider. So, let me show you guys that that’s working, go ahead and put that loop on. So, I can select effect A, pick a different effect. Alright, so you get the idea. The effects work, our looping section works just fine. The last thing that I wanted to tell you guys was the filters. Now, the filters on Traktor are usually going to be controlled with a knob. In this, we have in mapped out to the strip search. If you guys can see that, we have each filter on a strip search. It’s kind of our best option for that particular, I know it will take a little bit to get used to, maybe you guys can find a better way to map that, and feel free to share it with us. Alright, so we have got the TSI mapping for this available to you. So, just check out the description below and we will have a link to our blog where you can download it for yourself. If you have any other questions just leave me a comment here and I’ll be happy to answer it personally. This is Scott Magno, DJ MadFlip. Be you, be unique, at UniqueSquared.com.

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5 Reasons Why You Should Use Kontrol S4 With Turntables

I recently had the pleasure of using my Kontrol S4 in tandem with Traktor Scratch Pro 2 with turntables for an awesome gig at Halo Lounge in Atlanta.  Here's my list of why it was so awesome.

1. Easy to hook up No need for additional gear or accessories.  You would normally require an Audio 8 or Audio 10 interface, and multi-core cables or additional RCA cables in order to use Traktor Scratch Pro.  Simply plug both turntables directly into inputs C and D and you are ready for action.  No sweat. 2. Flexible input options You can select which decks or sample decks the turntables will control by going into Preferences, then Input Routing.  Here you can select either turntable for decks A through D, track play or sample play.  Brilliant. 3. Easy to switch back Use the drop down tab on deck A or B to select track or sample deck and then scratch control.  After you get a good timecode signal you are now rocking your turntables in Traktor Scratch with all the functionality of the S4.  If I wanted to switch back to the S4 jog wheels I simply press the play button next to the absolute and relative turntables and I'm back on the S4.  Vice versa to switch back. 4. Scratching on vinyl I switched from Traktor Scratch to the S4 and never looked back, but now I have the best of both worlds without any additional hardware.  There is really no substitute for scratching on the real thing. 5. Free upgrade Yes, there's still time to get the Traktor Scratch upgrade kit free with the purchase of your new Kontrol S4 through August 23rd!  You will be glad you did.  Seriously. Check out our website for more details.  Cheers and until next time, happy gigs!