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Hercules USB DJ Console Reviewed
SpinnerBait writes "Professional DJs and House-Party Beat Masters alike, will certainly be
interested in a new product that the folks at Hercules Audio are bringing to
market shortly. Although you may remember Hercules for being one of the
first in PC Graphics, HotHardware has a review and showcase up that takes a look at the new Hercules
USB DJ Console. This little deck comes with dual mixing pads, for
blending and scratching of your favorite MP3s etc. It also takes over as your main
PC sound system, with full Dolby 5.1 capabilities, when plugged into any PC via
USB."
Like the video cards back in the day?
http://www.virtualdj.com
Quite impressing...
So you're trying to tell me that professional DJs are going to ditch their pair of 1200s and huge collection of vinyl for some shitty little piece of plastic with a USB connector on it?
Sure thing.
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 -- Mathematics is the Language of Nature.
$250 USD makes it a viable alternative to huge digital pads... grab this and a mini-PC and you've got a totally portable solution (minus the speakers, of course). Very interesting. I wonder how many people would give this a whirl...
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
The first (only) time I liked Rap was when I was in 7th grade -- 1983. We used to wear Pink shirts with white colors, razor thin white ties, white patent leather shoes, and gold tie bars (??? some random imitation of black culture, we shopped at the Chess King). The summer before the fad was crew cuts and the summer after the fad was mullets and parachute pants.
Anyway I remember doing camel hops on my BMX down my friend's quarter-pipe in his driveway, and then we went and scratched records on his two turntables, like the local black radio station with 45 minute mixes.
It's wierd that THAT dumb shit we did was what teenagers now think is "just so cool".
I predict early-60's doo-wop and bobby sox will be popular next. Black culture has to run to find something else for us to imitate: Al Jolsen, Elvis Pressley, Eric Clapton, and Eminem are all in the same tradition: white guy imitating black guy.
I wonder if we're going to see an influx of geeky DJ names with this thing. DJ 31337 DJ g33kX DJ h4x I call DJ Wallhack.
The Human Cow - bringing you scrumtrelescence since 1995
How about reviewing a BJ? Cmdr Taco gives a good one
what about mac support? plenty of music people are using macs. oh well.
A six channel, 24 bit USB audio interface for under $250 is not bad at all... Forget the pads, it might actually make a nice audio interface for home musicians. I wonder how well it works with the popular multitrack software such as Cakewalk, Cubase, etc...
They are n't going to do that, but a hell of a lot of DJ Wannabes' would and that's a much larger market than professional DJ's.
Flight simulator on an 8086... If you flew the plane over 65536 feet, you'd come up through the ground again.
Yet another Linux zealot troll. Nothing to see here. Move along, people.
Unless said "professional DJs" are idiots and don't get the point, they actually might.
What matters is what you actually play and how it sounds.
Using SLs and vinyl is like l33tsp33k. It's clever, but there's no particular point to it, and it's unneccessarily difficult.
Do you know how much vinyl weighs? Those things are HEAVY. Not to mention the SLs themselves, which are basically a giant magnet in a box.
FYI: magnets are made out of metal. Metal is heavy.
Jag pratar lite svenska.
Just get M$ Windoze off kazaa like every other person in the world. Stop complaining about the price. Do you really think you'll go to hell if you pirate software?
No you didn't
evanchik.net
be useful to Louis Skolnick and the rest of his gang for their "No on 15!" concert.
"From the L and the A to the MAR!"
In general, I try to stay as far away from USB as possible.
This assumes that either the software that comes with it is usable or that the unit can be made to work with something like Traktor.
I doubt the former, and hope for the latter.
Jag pratar lite svenska.
And miss out on the long days of installing, configuring and troubleshooting the kernel, obscure system libraries and applications which depend on a gigglebillion others things??
THEY WILL HAVE TO PRY LINUX FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS !
I happen to be a digital DJ using Windows. Actually my DJ system is my only machine that runs Windows and I am actively seeking a Linux PCDJ replacement. DJs require that their software run for 5-6 hours at a time without any crashes or lock-ups. Windows doesn't always comply. I know from experience.
Ptelligence
Nothing surpasses the true sound of analog vinyl ! Get the best of both worlds with final scrach http://www.finalscratch.com
This package includes digitally encoded vinyl that sends the signal to your laptop running Linux/Mac OS, and synchronizes your mp3 with the vinyl. It then sends it back into the mixer for mixing.
Coolest toy I have played with in awhile, and it still keeps my sound clean and bad ass playing thru any pair of technic 1200's
Most of the big name DJ's I've seen rarely if ever bother to scratch. These DJ's are not concerned with such, instead they are concerned with creating a smooth flowing stream of music by engaging in the arts such as beat mixing, volume matching, etc.
I suggest looking on kazaa/usenet/etc for videos of any of the following DJ's in action, and one will easily see they are nothing like the american stereotype DJ. (Paul Oakenfold, Sasha, Timo Mass, Paul Van Dyk, etc)
Sunny Dubey
PS: I'm not saying all american DJ's are crap. We've got some good ones like Sandra Collins, Mark Farina, Danny Tenaglia, and such.
News for House Party Beat Masters. Stuff that matters.
This isn't even close to being what a DJ (pro or amature) would want. It's really more of a toy. Only now are we seeing CD tables - like the Pioneer DJM-1000 that are high enough quality to be considered worthy of using. 90% of DJs are still into vinyl. And before anyone says anything about how they are living in the past or whatever - there are several reasons for that. You still have greater control over vinyl - you can touch it and move it exactly how you want, other systems have to simulate that. Also, ALMOST ALL GOOD DANCE MUSIC COMES OUT ON VINYL ONLY!! Go to www.dancerecords.com or www.satelliterecords.com, and see exactly how many tracks are available on anything other than vinyl. Yeah, if you are spinning Top 40 right off the cd you got at BestBuy, or in this case the MP3 you downloaded from iTunes or wherever, and you aren't trying to do anything advanced, then maybe something like this could be a fun diversion. But if you are trying to mix interesting, unique music you are still going to use vinyl. But again, this just doesnt have anywhere NEAR the functionality that a DJ would want. They would be better off to buy two cheap tables and a cheap mixer off of ebay than to try to use this thing. And yes, even amatures usually have 2 1200s and a stack of vinyl.
They don't do Mac?!?!?
They really aren't going to be taken seriously in the DJ world until the release a product that is compatible with Macintosh laptops. I don't know a single DJ who uses a laptop running anything besides MacOS.
I know Mac OS X has trouble with 5.1 sound, but I would think you could get it without too much work by bypassing the normal soundcard. Hell, if it worked well enough DJs would use it instead of their soundcard for digital output. Plus if they had a Mac version they could do away with USB and the audio compression that is necessary to use that transfer method and go straight to firewire.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Lets see... just becuase a cool peice of hardware don't run on linux we should ignore it?
Sounds like a smart move to me...
..that's what scratchpads are for; not just actual scratching, but beat mixing - you still need to be able to slip the record, to get it to drop in at the right moment and to bend the beat to synch up. you sound fairly knowledgable, you should have known that :P
Danny Tenaglia?! Please...Maybe if I had free admission and the club was a block down the street..oh wait, I did and it is, and I still didn't.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
- http://www.finalscratch.com
And an added bonus. It's linux based!"To keep things honest, and unbiased, the DJ Console does have one minor flaw, there is a bit of latency between button push, and software response. Though, this is somewhat expected due to the Consoles USB 1.1 connection to the computer. The resident HH DJ (yours truly), was having a few issues timing his beat matching/scratch/etc due to being accustom to the instantaneous response of actual DJ Equipment and traditional turn-table. All in all, we did learn to compensate for the delay in response and we were back to having fun with the equipment in short time. One question can only be raised here however, as to why a USB 2.0 interface was not implemented during the design process of this console.
Heh, a musical instrument with a latency issue. Oh yes, sure, Pros are going to stock up on these things. Not bloody likely.
Anyway, how's this news? There's like a hundred gimmicy little audio things you can hook up to your PC. Is tomorrow's headline going to be about one of those electronic midi guitars with the plastic strings? I can see the headline now "Yamaha introduces new electronic guitar, Jimmy Page surrenders".. Wait a sec, that's a Fark headline! It's a trap! NSFW!
USB 1.1 on that thing reduces it from a toy to trash, IMO.
"Boo" to the guy who wrote the article, as well. There were no performance benchmarks to demonstrate whether the card impacts frame rates when compared to other audio solutions. That's what I looked at when I bought my last card, I didn't want to go to the trouble of over-clocking my system just to have the wrong accessories eat up whatever FPS gains I picked up.
Final thought on this review:
Moving on to the next series of tests we listened to a various mixture of high bitrate Mp3's ( > 192kps) and audio CD's that spanned various spectrums of musical styles. Initial we tossed in Crystal Method's Tweekend CD due to its great sound range.
WTF? Crystal Method's music has no sound staging or real depth to it. It's just a bunch of clicks and whistles for the raver kids. How about getting out something with real instruments and natural sounds next time, foo. Samples of resampled bits of music with a punchy bass sound ain't depth unless you are 14 and dream about having a car with a big stereo so you can be like the guys in The Fast and the Furious.. And get that glowstick pacifier thingy out of your mouth, dumbass.
Peace out
Stanton created a package called Final Scratch a couple of years ago that basically lets you use your existing turntables to mix digital files (mp3, ogg, etc..). Some said it would revolutionize the DJ market and eventually render vinyl records obsolete. It did not.
You'll find that the high majority of DJs still prefer to use a pair of Technics SL1200s and a mixer. There's a level of control when handling the analog source (records) directly you just don't get with digital gadgets. Not to mention a crate full of vinyl records looks a hell of a lot cooler than a folder full of mp3s.
Digital DJ devices are cute and usefull to some, but to the professional / serious amateur DJ they just don't make the grade.
The horse is dead. Either fuck it or walk away, but please stop beating it.
Linux isn't necessarily going to help you. The problem is your hardware, or more than likely, your software. Of course W2K boxes run for more than 5-6 hours (I never vouch for the old DOS-based Windows... if you're using those professionally, that's your problem). Instead of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, you should probably just troubleshoot what's wrong with your current system. And what's to say that that Linux box with the same shoddy software and/or hardware is going to be any better?
I have a Hercules Game Theater XP (I'm pretty sure it's discontinued) and I can tell you it is the single greatest sound card I have ever come across. It's sitting right in front of me. Optical inputs, USB on the front and back of the breakout box, MIDI ports built in, 7.1 surround sound.
I just checked Ebay, its still holding a $40 value.
Hercules makes great products, and this one looks interesting, although the reviewer notes the company has changed a bit recently. Still, the price tag is a bit high, and his last remark about a lag in button-pressing makes me wonder. And, the review smelled of "Better give good review so I can get more free stuff".
Here's a basic history of rap as I, a 30 year-old white guy, know it:
Modern rap goes back to NYC in the late 70's. "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang dates back to then. Also, around the same time, DJ Kool Herc was the first guy known to use two turntables to cut seamlessly back and forth between songs.
Things picked up in the early to mid 80's, when we saw NYC-based acts like L.L. Cool J, Public Enemy, and Run-DMC. The Beastie Boys became the first white rappers to hit it big. Rap crossed over to young, white America (the MTV generation) mostly thanks to Run-DMC collaborating with Aerosmith on the remake of "Walk This Way" in 1986. Most pre-1988 rap was innocent (and mostly clean) braggadocio of the "I'm cooler than you [and here's why]" variety.
In the late 80's and early 90's, gangsta rap got big with acts like Ice-T, Eazy-E and N.W.A., and later Snoop Doggy Dogg, who were actually gang members/criminals, whose violent lyrics raised the ire of older whitebread America. It was around this time that the whole east coast rapper vs. west coast rapper war broke out. At the same time, Vanilla Ice gave white rappers a bad name.
Around 1994 I felt that most new rap that was coming out was shit, so it is at this point that my history gets sketchy. In the late 90's there was essentially a cavalcade of mush-mouthed, lowlife bastards like Notorious B.I.G., DMX, Ja Rule, 50-Cent, Busta Rhymes, etc, whose already-incoherent words were further drowned out by overly-thunderous bass. Oh, and Tupac, who became quite prolific and released more albums after he was dead than he did while alive. Videos became nothing but pissing contests to see who could squeeze the most whorish-looking women and the most garish Cadillac Escalades into a few minutes of video. The music became secondary because every fucking rapper on the planet was too busy trying to do movies. It was also around this time that we got the highly-annoying Eminem. Oh, and let's not forget shitty rap-rock acts like Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, etc. Yuck.
My iPod has about 400 rap/hip-hop songs on it, and very damn few of them are dated after 1995-- but I still listen to and enjoy almost everything that came before.
It's basic, but it probably works well enough, if anything it is to small and fiddly to work. But the arguments I see here is between digital and vinyl. It's a mute point as most DJ's use both.
There is already a number of professional product for mixing digital music. The notables being the the pioneer cd player series, and final scratch for mp3 play-back. And are used extensively by many DJ's. Often to augment their vinyl setups.
Still vinyl and 1200 setup is still the best playback and mixing medium, and if you are the battling DJ except no substitutes. So why do DJ's atleast partially use mp3/cd players.
1-same reason that tape decks were sometime used back in the day (look up the history of the development of techno and house). Want to test out a new track you've just got a rough cut of, or you got a cool mp3 in you email from a friend/CD in the mail, and want to test it out on the dance floor, it's not like you are going to cut a dub plate for that is it.
2- weight- cd's are lighter than records. Mp3's weigh only as much as the medium they are on. This is a huge deal for travelling DJ's and their backs. Less weight means more tunes they can take with them, which means a more varied set for us, the club going public.
3-theft damage and baggage loss. Theft or damage of rare or impossible to replace records is a real pain, instead back it up as an Mp3 or CD.
4- for a starter DJ Getting a large enough collection of Vinyl can be f****** expensive. mmmm- piracy. Heh I know it's wrong but tell that to a 15 year old aspiring DJ.
So this is the real emphasis here, DJ's are, and will continue to use both vinyl and digital medium. This little box is just the cheap hobby/starter DJ version of this, It will allow someone to develop their skills and use their Mp3 collection, but won't standup to night after night of use and abuse. Just like the stack of cheap vinyl turntables and mixers out there.
The brother of FinalScratch is Traktor DJ Studio. Both can be found on Native Instruments
Traktor gives you all the capability of final scratch but instead of specially encoded vinyl, you control with with any combination of keyboard mouse and MIDI. Plug in an Oxygen 8 or even a $15 DM2 through DM2-midi and you can use "toys" to run a serious gig.
If this thing can send midi commands, and if latency can be fixed by driver settings, this has the potential to be a very useful and powerful tool in Traktor.
This will never totally replace vinyl, but it's great being able to lug around a laptop instead of huge crates of wax. The new version also plays VERY well with my iPod and iTunes.
Runs on my XP, also runs on Mac.
(and I love my Game Theater XP)
I am curious... anybody that has said "90% of all DJs" and "No DJ will..". How many of you are actually paid worknig mobile disc jockeys? I am. The group I work has 6 shows. And all 6 of them are CD ONLY - No Vinyl. Every DJ I know went to CD and got away from Vinyl as soon as possible. The weight alone is the major benefit, not to mention countless others. Scratching? I don't know of any PAID DJ that still does it, and I have never had a client that said "please scratch" at any paying gig. I am sure that there are some parties that might want it. But not from a mainstream mobile disc jockey show. FYI... I am the first DJ in our group to take the entire CD setup and RIP it to MP3. I am now experimenting with PC DJ and DSS to see how good I can get beat mixing with MP3s only. I have found I can do it with just a basic PC and soundcard, and the sound quality is great. Remember: Most paying clients don't want scratching or the highest quality sounds. They want their requests to be played and the DJ to show up on time and keep the crowd entertained. Most of them don't even care if you beat mix or not.
"Action is the thing that escapes most people. Great ideas are a dime a dozen. Great actions are few and far in between.
Hmmm.. It's definitely not a hardware problem. I'm running PCDJ and winamp 2.x as a backup. I'll admit PCDJ (at least the Red version that I use) is not the most stable app out there, but winamp 2.0 is rock solid. Barring an occasional PCDJ mishap, the rest of my problem is directly related to the operating system.
I happen to be running an old windows...and that is my problem. I don't feel like spending the big bucks to upgrade it to another version that *might* be a little more stable. Sure you can make a Win2k box run for 5-6 hours, but can you make sure that it *always* runs for 5 or 6 hours. Any glitch and I'm standing in front of 200+ partygoers in silence waiting for Windows to reboot. My Linux machine has been up for 45 days and only goes down when I tell it to. I'll be anxiously making the switch very soon. I'll let you know how it goes.
ptelligence
He's right.
Most clients couldn't care less about how the DJ does it. Vinyl, CD, mp3... they want their music.
Don't let the audiophiles trick you into thinking that there's more than a niche interest in the "old-school" ways. If the music comes out, and sounds good, it's good enough for 90% of the people listening/dancing.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
I find it quite odd that this is only spec'd to work on a PC with windows considering how many musicians and professionals use Macs. I can't remember how many articles I've read recently talking about how many musicians have migrated to PowerBooks to do all their editing and creative work on the road.
No, but they'll integrate it the right way with Final Scratch. Really cool device that syncs digital media up with your real turntables, lets you manipulate them just like you can real vinyl, and you can watch the waveform at the same time. Oh yeah, and it runs Linux.
Check out Part Time Sucker Radio tonight 7-10pm EST for live Chicago drum and bass on Rewind Radio for some cool cats mixing their own tracks with viynl using Final Scratch. Much cheaper than pressing all your own tunes to dubplates first!
ditch pcdj
get traktor
Here are the issues with the unit as far as I can tell:
:)
1 - Its PC only. Big mistake given the amount of dance music producers who use Macs to create their music. A large portion of users also use Mac laptops using Mac OS X to perform out using Live, Traktor, etc.
2 - Its not preconfiged for Native Instruments' Traktor. This is the premium MP3/.Aiff/.wave DJ software application. (Even final scratch is run off a slimmed down version of Traktor). All the apps that they included only highlight that this product could be strictly for the bedroom DJ who doesn't actually perform/play music in a club.
3 - The USB 1.1 isn't an issue if you just use it as a controller. However, it appears that they didn't use the USB connection on the unit as a USB MIDI interface, but only for Audio transmission. Big Mistake if this is true (given that there are MIDI I/O on the unit itself, it may be that the USB connection DOES transmit MIDI, but the review or the product specs don't really specify).
4 - It needs to be totally configurable as a MIDI interface alone. Most professional DJs using this type of equipment use high end audio interfaces (like MOTU's 828 (firewire), or Emagic's USB interfaces). But more telling is that the unit, if really expected to replace those audio interfaces used by pro DJs, it should have 1/4" ins and outs so a DJ could use it to connect to an external DJ mixer (like a Pionner DJM-3000 or 600).
(i.e. in the above scenario, the cross fader would not be used on the unit, the external mixer would allow for that. For instance, I have a Pionner DJM-3000, fed inputs from my Mac Laptop running Live and Traktor through a MOTU 828. The DJ mixer provides the master output to the house sound system).
5 - Latency. That should be configurable. This is a benefit of using Mac OS X actually. Its core MIDI/Audio system services are pretty top notch - and depending on your system speed, you can achieve very LOW latency numbers. But that would only be relevant if you used this unit as a primary audio interface.
DJs, btw, ARE using tools like Traktor, Final Scratch, and Ableton's Live to accentuate their music options. The only DJs that aren't are really turtablists who play the turntable like an instrument (i.e. scratching, etc.)
But most who are playing music to a crowd that expects to dance, options are what are most important.
The primary draw for these tools is that DJs have massive amounts of tracks, samples, and loops to use at any gig.
Secondly, the prohibitive cost of producing vinyl is a serious contributing factor to going digital. Its MUCH cheaper, faster, and more realistic to create a track at home, burn it onto a CD, or play it out as an MP3 that night, than it is to have pressed on vinyl.
Tools like this one under review are important and can totally work - if designed correctly. But this one seems to straddle the fence between a consumer product (w/ some good ideas, however) rather than a serious contender for the king of DJ computer interfaces.
rob.
aka Robtronik
www.robtronik.com
"Lets see... just becuase a cool peice of hardware don't run on linux we should ignore it?
Sounds like a smart move to me..."
And lusting after something that will not run on your OS is better how? Sounds like an emotional investment that will not pay off.
The early gangsta rappers were not all actually gang members. It's just another front, like the Escalades you complain about.
Dr. Dre was no gangster. Ice-T may have been a street hustler, but as far as I know he was no ganster either.
Snoop has some gangster affiliations, although it is unclear if he just associated with them or actually went out and banged.
The major gangster affiliation was Suge Knight, who is/was a Blood. Suge owned Death Row records.
Tupac was following the pattern of the original gangsta rappers. That is, no matter what your background, put on a hard front. Unfortunately, Tupac believe it too much, he really bought into the thug life in a way Dr. Dre or Ice Cube never did. And he found out where thug life really leads.
Fuck tha Police is a good example of a song that raised the ire of white America. However, it isn't pro-gang, it is just against the systematic beatings that police were handing out to blacks in L.A. at the time (Rampart leading the way).
I agree there was more originality in the early days and less production, but the overall content wasn't all that great either. There was bad with the good back then and there is now. In some ways, no individual band back then was as original as Outkast is now.
Anyway, I find it very humorous you can talk about the entire history of rap and not mention MC Hammer. He was a very polarizing figure and much responsible for the maturation of rap into a commercially accepted form of music. He was even indirectly responsible for large amounts of rap music that were created specifically to diss him. Both his R&B hooks and his enemies' disses changed rap completely. If nothing else, he primed the scene for gangsta rap, which would not have been widely accepted by suburban white youths (always key record buyers) if it weren't for the mainstreaming efforts of MC Hammer.
Maybe it's just me but; isn't this product all wrong.
Problem #1 PC only.
At a time when Mac OSX and Linux have some of the lowest audio Latencies in the industry; and when there is so much more exitement on those platforms what is this company thinking making standard based hardware not platform independent?
Problem #2
Why USB and No Firewire (ieee1394).
Newsflasch Hercules, the industry trend for MP3 music is.... iPod and iTunes, mac or pc.
You can't make a new DJ product that can't control an iPod.
That is just suicide.
All it would take for this product to be forgotten, is someone else to intro a firewire based controler that can connect to one or 2 iPods.
This would be the true killer application.
You have to ride on market successes.
Nothing like this works in a Vacuum.
I saw this on slashdot and I was so excited until I realized what it was. so so oh hum.
Problem #3.
DJ software What *%@#$!!!
Why does it need to connect to DJ software.
It should manage on it's own.
This needs to be able to access and control MP3s and manipulate them the way that a mixer controls sound out of turntables.
Have 2 or more sound sources (MP3s) cue them, play/pause them, pitch shift them, beat match, etc, From the console.
use a simple interface to load all MP3s from whatever platform or external drive, and allow the console to do it's work internally. not in the host cpu.
(this would enable it to control iPods and a bunch of other sound sources.)
hugh....
More poor planing and design.
Typical of Vacuum designed products.
Get with it.
Content + Container; Content = Container; Content â Container... which is the question?
Apart from the pervasive spelling and grammatical errors, the review was extremely subjective and not very detailed.
Probably the single most important thing for an audio device is latency, yet it wasn't measured - and was only mentioned as an afterthought to keep things "honest and unbiased" (thanks for that).
They also seem to think that it's the lack of USB 2.0 causing the latency, when it's almost certain to be the hardware/setup of the host computer that's the major contributing factor (decoding and mixing two MP3 streams simultaneously is not a trivial amount of processing).
Even a low speed USB 1.0 connection has a data transfer rate of 1.5MB/s, which is *ten times* the data rate of CD audio (150k/s). Even given that it's streaming 2x 24 bit streams (CD audio is 16 bit) and that there's control messages from the box to the PC to handle you're still nowhere near a *low speed* USB 1.0 connection, let alone a standard connection (12MB/s).
Anyway, my point is that carping about the lack of USB 2.0 is misguided, and an indicator that the rest of the review can't really be taken seriously.
The actual device looks pretty cool, though.
grib.
maybe
Another thing that would keep serious DJ's from using this is the selection of music. I can't speak for anyone but what I have seen of my friends vinyl collection. I can assure you that 90% of his vinyl is stuff you have never heard of ranging from no-name funk artists to Flamenco. He mainly uses them for the beats, but it's absolutely amazing to see what someone can do with some of this old unknown vinyl. His vinly shopping sprees usually end up in the 50 cent record bin at the local flea market.
So, if you want to simply create a seamless mix tape for your girlfriend this may work fine, but for a serious DJ this would be of absolutely no use.
"The strong will do what they want, the weak will do what they must."
-Thucydides
...there's plenty of great stuff being made today, check Ludacris, Nappy Roots, Trick Daddy, Ying Yang Twins, Missy Elliot, Eve, Sean Paul, Outkast (my personal fav), or just about anything featuring Pharrell of the Neptunes. I'm 32, and I'm a rapaholic.
My blog can kick your blog's ass
Yet another clueless anti-linux troll. Nothing to see here. Move along, people.
Un-news
Hercules is not the company it once was. The original Hercules video card maker went bankrupt and Guillemot (a French pc-card maker) bought the name ONLY, to slap on their products. Prior to buying Hercules, Guillemot had developed a nice little rep for providing the shittiest support possible for their sound cards. Buying the Hercules name for a song was their way of trying to break free of their absolutely craptacular reputation.
You can paint a turd with gold paint, but it is still a turd and that's all Guillemot has done. Don't expect their drivers to work, don't ever believe them when they tell you a new release will fix the problems, and for God's sake don't expect to be able to use the product the way the promotional materials say you can!
You are far better off just keeping your money and looking elsewhere. If you don't believe me, just do a little research on the Guillemot Maxisound Pro and Maxisound Pro 64 cards and just how well they work. (Guillemot just plain gave up on supporting them after a couple of years of bullshit driver releases.)
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I'm a former dance DJ from the '70's & '80's era and maintain the 12 West tribute web pages found at http://home.att.net/~playguitar1/12west.html (warning....special interest). I want to thank all who have posted concerning this subject as you have mentioned many different software and hardware solutions that I have not previously heard of. As for the Hercules product itself, I was in the market for a USB based audio solution anyhow and was about to buy the SB Audigy. Now I will wait and see if this may be more appropriate. I do hope that the maker consider a ruggedized version running on a more trustworthy OS for nightclub use.
I think that you somehow missed the "Windows is very stable and secure if you know even a modicum about what you're doing" decision that the geek community has come to in the past few years. I'm not going to argue if you think that it's questionable whether or not W2K can run for 5-6 hours. That's just insane. And if you think that it costs a "lot" to upgrade from an old DOs windows to W2K, well, I just don't know what to tell you, since W2K costs less than that crappy software you're using. For someone whose business relies on a computer, you may want to learn a bit more before you make any rash decisions, because you still have a lot to learn.
...another wigger geek who thinks he's hip-hop...
"I'll stick with my Technics"...Word.
Get over yourself...
./ & fools blathering just to see themselves type make hatred easy.
There are paying "DJ" gigs where a monkey who doesn't even know how to use a crossfader and plugs in an IPOD into the MIC input of a boombox could get paid.
Then there are venues where the crowd would throw garbage and boo at you for not being able to handle the basics. (crossfading, beatmixing, etc...)
I doubt that you have a following, and that people are able to promote a venue based on the fact that "DJ SLASHDOT TROLL" is spinning. I doubt you've ever produced a track of your own.
Next time you're trying to get some laughs, post your playlist. I'd be surprised if there was anything unique about it.
num_songs=`cat ogglist | wc -l`
echo $num_songs " songs on disk"
LOBOUND=1
HIBOUND=num_songs
RANDMAX=32767
count=1
until [ $count -gt $1 ]; do
BINUMBER=$(( $LOBOUND + ($HIBOUND * $RANDOM) / ($RANDMAX + 1) ))
echo $count " of " $1 " requested songs:"
NAME=`sed -n "$BINUMBER"p ogglist`
echo $NAME
ogg123 $NAME
count=`expr $count + 1`
done
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"Professional DJs and House-Party Beat Masters alike..."
could there be news thats less nerd like?
Nerds have, for years, been the life of the party. If that party involves polish notation, star-trek and secret binary handshakes.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As a occassional professional DJ a few years ago, an occassional professional soundman with my room shaking EV's, co creator of Quicktime Turntablefrom 1997 and as an owner of Final Scratch, I can tell you with fairly expert opinion that the $250 pricetag this new piece of hardware carries puts it smack dab into the "way too expensive toy" category.
Pro CD turntables that accurately simulate the platter of a vinyl turntable are anywhere from US$800-$1500. Technics 1200's (the 30+ year gold standard for dj'ing turntables) run anywhere from US$400-$750 each depending on who you get them from... a excellent mixer will cost you between US$50-$1000 or more.
FinalScratch is $500. It is a professional grade piece of equipment. It is not a toy. It's complex and responsive. It does what you expect it to. It costs that much money because it's worth it.
I dunno about this $250 new item. Who IS it for anyway? Obviously not pros, and at that price you can alternatively buy a console and a few games to occupy your time.
I make these: http://beatseqr.com
www.finalscratch.com is something that was initially developed for BeOS, but when BeOS pretty much died, they ported it to MacOSX and Linux (I think it's a bootable knoppix cd, not sure)
:-)
The idea is that you get a couple of vinyl records, with a signal on that, when picked up by the software, accurately gives an indication of the position in a song. This means you can use pitch control, scratch, and the other usual trick you do on your SL1200's, with mp3's (or other) stored on your laptop.
Fantastic stuff. It's distributed by Stanton, you know, known for their needles.
And hey, it runs on Linux!!
I am DJ myself (almost every weekend on duty) and do mind that this is being promoted as "DJ tool".
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Ok for quick sound effects but vinyl does really rule the place. I use sometimes CD for my vinyl I have recorded to CD (because 500 cd's in one map is the same as 40-50 vinyl records IN WEIGHT). 1 cd carries 8-10 songs (full vinyl record can take up to 30 minutes) - costs around 12Euros (with sometimes only 1 to 2-3 numbers on them) and a CD costs 25 to 40 euros (costly to be audiophile)
The sound sounds warmer, it's easier to handle (if you really master it with your hands) and it has newer and sometimes also better releases (I am into non commercial deep, trance, new age, techno and clubby)...
I don't know about hip-hop/breakbeat etc.. but I guess these roots are also using vinyl so
Next to that a laptop is already a terrible thing to take with you (unless you got space left which is not mostly common in the Belgian clubs/bars)
it isn't only around the mixing with scratching and bells and wistles but also pure mixing on beats, sounds, vocals, volume differences (play with the high-mid-low tones sometimes) - you tell your audience a story
(next to that I have seen there is some delay between the keys and the software which is a really really really bad thing for DJ's and musicians
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Serious DJs learn about the appropriateness of technologies before dissing them.
If a twitchy counterstrike player swears by the responsiveness of his USB mouse, I'm sure it'll do just fine (in terms of event jitter/latency) for interfacing audio devices.
And streaming is a well-solved problem with USB. Quite useful. DMX over USB is even cooler.
So suck on it Dave, suck on it.
- "But it looks like a shitty piece of plastic"
As the popularity of DJing has increased (sales of turntables are higher than guitars I believe), more and more companies are making products which cater to the hobbyist DJ. As such, there will be shitty products, and great products. If you think this is shitty, maybe you're just after high-end professional stuff, and this product just isn't for you.- "USB is no good, it's unreliable."
There's a lot of people who make music that disagree, because there are a lot of music products (MIDI controllers, etc) that are USB. And if speed is the issue, it's a moot point because USB2 is now out, which can support up to 450Mbps transfers.- "You can't scratch!"
Scratching is important only to some hip-hop DJs and turntablists like Q-bert. This tool is not for them. However, it is for almost every other type of DJ, none of whom need to scratch. If you're worried about a lack of tactile response, check out a Pioneer CDJ-1000, it's just as good, and they're now standard in many clubs (well, until the long-awaited Technics digital decks come out).- "Digital is the future!"
Damn straight. Chris Liebing, Richie Hawtin (famous techno DJ) and Aphex Twin all use laptops, with smatterings of vinyl. Why? Well, one reason is because these guys travel a lot. I hear Richie Hawtin has got 18,000 tracks on his laptop. Ever tried to carry 18,000 pieces of vinyl? [True story - I saw Qbert's tour team at an airport in Japan having a fit because the amount of vinyl they'd brought was going to cost them $2000 to get it onto the plane]Digital is more convenient, you can carry more records, provide a greater selection of material for your audience, and that's just the beginning.
- "The audio quality will be no good, vinyl is best."
- "This is dumb, DJs only use vinyl, dance music singles are only available on vinyl."
Firstly, the dance music that you're listening to was very very probably created on a computer using a digital sampler. Even if analog instruments are used, a DAT tape is probably used to get it to mastering. So your source data is digital at some point, and therefore the higher analog fidelity you think you're getting does not exist. The only difference between the audio quality of vinyl and digital is that vinyl playback introduces a pleasing change to the frequency response (i.e. a better bottom end). Simulate that on CDs by fiddling with your graphic equalizers.Secondly, there is another reason why vinyl is still so prevelant, even with all these digital decks around. There's no way to easily copy vinyl without loss of quality. While Britney et al will sell a million copies of their next single, most house and techno DJs will be lucky to sell a few thousand. If DJs, who are infamously poor, can copy tracks with no loss of quality, they will, and that will hurt the artists. Vinyl helps stop this. I'm not saying that's the only reason they still put it out on vinyl, but it's a factor.
- "Use Final Scratch!"
Heh. This is quite amusing to me, because I actually invented a similar system when I was at college, a few years before FS came out. I don't claim to be the first: since then, I've found that a number of people had come up with similar ideas at around the same time. If only I'd had the business sense (and money) to make it a product, I'd be as rich as the FS guys now.Nostalgiac reminiscing aside, FS is now out-of-date (no, I'm not being bitter ;). The Pioneer CDJ-800/1000 and the Technics digital decks provide the same functionality but with a better interface. The only downside is that you can't hook those up to hard discs. If you could, you'd never have to carry CDs or vinyl again.
Blowing "facts" out of your ass again NineNine? No self respecting geek would consider Windows very stable and secure in any configuration. You are simply an anti-Linux zealot who believes that computers are only good for one thing; profit. You have no understanding of the concept that many of us work with computers because we LIKE to.
Now... there are plenty of folks out there who *think* they are geeks, but only know MS Windows. A real geek knows a little about every OS and a lot about the ones that work best for what they need.
If I'm going to have my in-laws or parents use a computer, I'm going to give them Windows and stick them behind a Linux box for security. If I'm going to run a server at home for fun (not profit) I'm going to use Linux or one of the BSDs. If I'm going to do pro-audio/DJ work, I'm going to use the best OS for that task: Mac OS. If I am going to run a mission critical app, it's going to be on a Unix or VMS box (sorry Windows just ain't there yet). And yes, buying into Windows 2K or XP is fucking expensive. At $199 for an upgrade, that's way more than an OS is worth. And $299 for the complete version? That's just ridiculous. Stick the horrid "OS is permanently married to the box) license that Windows XP has, and it's a completely losing proposition for me.
At my house, OS installs are constantly shifting from one box to another because... I LOVE this stuff. If you can't get that simply because of an inability to separate computers and profit motive, that's your own problem. The only other thing I'd use Windows for at this point is to play some games and even there W.I.N.E. is getting better all the time.
Wake up NineNine, you are on the losing team.
Un-news
Sounds neat, but I wouldn't use it for much beyond a toy
--Tim
"Serious" DJs don't like digital toys? I will have to inform Richie Hawtin of this breaking development.
Personally, I am getting sick of the "Analog v. Digital" holy war. And all the people who stick with the party line of "if 1200's and vinyl were good enough in my day, they're good enough for you". Fine. I like them too. I cut my teeth on Denon CD mixers, but the vinyl is definitely "cooler". Too bad it isn't about how cool you look, but about how good you sound.
If DJ A can make a better sound than DJ B, I couldn't care less how he does it. If DJ A plays off of hardrive, and DJ B uses reel-to-reel, a Moog, and the rarest vinyl on the face of the planet, that is nice: extra points for difficulty. Now, how does it sound?
Any REAL audio geek would be happy to see digital devices that make it easier and easier to play with audio. And 90% of the people I know who own 1200s would say the same thing. Whether or not any one piece of gear is "revolutionary" or not is beside the point.
More fun for more people is a good thing. The more people out there making new music, the better. Quit being such a snob.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
I know first hand that this is not the only musical instrument with latency: a pipe organ in a large hall has significant latency if you consider the time it takes from when the key is pressed to when the audience first hear the note.
This means that you have to play slightly ahead of the orchestra, and indeed the conductor... who of course you can only see through a mirror anyway. And the latency stays the same even when the tempo changes, so the fraction-of-a-beat by which you have to play ahead changes from movement to movement of a symphony.
It's difficult - damn difficult - to compensate for this and not screw up the whole performance... a pipe organ's not exactly subtle at the best of times, it's not going to be missed if you're not getting it right. At least DJs have the advantage of headphones so they can hear pretty much what the audience does... an organist has to rely on the conductor (or a headphone feed if you're at a recording session).
Short version is that if they don't sort out those latency issues, I really can't see it's any use to anyone serious. But then as has already been said, it's not anyone serious that this is aimed at.
Sort out the latency and I'd love to try one though...
Matt...
Save the Bottom Line
Wake up NineNine, you are on the losing team.
There's no such thing as a losing team. It's not a fucking game, and it's not a war, and it's not a religion. They're different products. That's it. They're fucking consumer products, first off, so get a grip. I don't hear people talk about a winning team when they're discussing the Triscuit vs. Wheat Thin wars.
No self respecting geek would consider Windows very stable and secure in any configuration
Hey, I'm not gonna argue with you. It's like arguing with a blind person that yes, the sky really IS blue, and not yellow.
If you love switching OS's, that's good for you. I have a life, so while you're drooling over installing OS's, I'm getting laid. Have fun!
OSes are NOT comsumer products. Computers ARE consumer products. OSes are something a user shouldn't have to deal with unless they want to. I am NOT a consumer.
If you love switching OS's, that's good for you. I have a life, so while you're drooling over installing OS's, I'm getting laid. Have fun!
What a coincidence. I like getting laid often too. And I do a boatload more of that than I shift OSes. Besides, it's not like it takes that long to install an OS these days... if you KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. Now if you're a moron, it might take you hours to install and configure an OS. But I wouldn't know about that. You, on the other hand, probably have a very intimate knowledge of what it's like to be a moron.
Un-news
You're such a fucktard. Why do I bother?
You don't usually. That's why I bother. If you always responded to me, I think I'd get bored and move onto another target. Anyway. If you are so damned convinced that an OS is a consumer product and that people shouldn't be having wars about it, then you should also stop trying to start wars by saying that Windows is better than Linux. It's not like I go around blabbing that Linux is better than Windows everywhere. I only do it when someone makes the opposite claim. If you don't like Linux, fine. Don't use it (which I'm sure you already do [not use Linux that is]). But do you have to try and disparage it and open source and free software at every turn. There's something that obviously bothers you about it enough for you to make a big deal about it. If you phrased your pro-Windows sentiments like this, "Well... I like Windows. It does what I need it to and works well for me. I don't have enough time to really learn what I need to know to use Linux. So while it might be OK for some people, it doesn't work for me. I'm not saying it's bad though." then I'd have less reason to follow you around /. from time to time and badger you. That is a respectful and diplomatic way of approaching the issue. It tends to be my view in the opposite direction. I like Linux as it does everything I need it to do for me. Windows limits me in a lot of ways since I really don't have the time to try and learn Visual C and can't afford to buy all the software needed to craft my own stuff. I'm not saying it's bad... it just isn't right for me. On the other hand many of Microsoft's practices are BAD in my opinion. So much in the same way that you dislike Richard Stallman and the GNU project, I dislike Microsoft.
BTW. How's the credit debt going? Maxed out any cards within the past year? Just wondering because you were raving about how easy it was to get credit and how stupid the credit companies were.
Here goes a slightly better review of the product. But beware, its from babelfished french tomshardware http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl? lp=fr_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tomshardware.fr%2Far ticleav.php%3FIdArticle%3D451%26NumPage%3D1
btw, rading a comment about usb 1.1 not beeing fast enough is wrong. even version 1 can easily carry multiple audio streams.