Ok so I'm one of the very few DJ's I'm sure that plays Serato video 7 nights a week. So I'm sure I'm gonna run into problems sooner then most well last night I had the biggest problem to date.


I was mixing and about 11:30 I was scratching pretty hard and all of a sudden the fader no longer worked. I was doing video and only the right channel on the mixer was showing video. I sent my assistant to Walmart to get me a jewelers screw driver cause I wanted to see if I could fix it. I took the first plate off and found that the cable that was suppost to be attached to the cross fader had fallen off! Lol I reattached it and it worked fine.

The cool part was since I know this system inside and out the crowd never knew what happened I didn't lose one person from the dance floor.

This is how I got through it since the crossfader was just on I started line mixing and when the mix was suppose to happen I would hit the right joystick to the right to instant double the song so there was no lag in the video. It was tricky but it worked.

So if this ends up happening to you now you know how to fix it. It wasn't my mixer I was playing in a different state but I'm putting a small piece of tape on mine as soon as I get home.

nice save and ingenuity on instant doubling....i'll remember this.

video 7 nights a week, wow, i hope youre getting rich.


but finagling a brand new rane mixer should be a piece of cake....

what kind of skillz u got with fixing old broken 1200s?

Here ya go Steel.

www.synergy.chillershotspot.com
Studio 54 Wednesday Night ... Left to right

Michael Toast, Steel, Mad Matt and CB Shaw

steel. the exact same thing happened to me, WHILE recording my demo. it's a 45 minute demo and the line fader for chan 2 stopped working about 30 minutes in. i worked around the broken line fader for about 15 minutes until the video went completely dim and messed up my video capture. most of the cats have seen the demo already but here it is if you want to check it out.

www.vjaswift.com

so i know it's happened to at least two people WHILE performing. Rane may want to consider some better stickum on the ribbon cables.

That Pic from Vegas is Awesome Bro!

A-Swift That is really nice man I really like all the Motion other then the video. What program did you do all that in? I like how you have cool stuff like that but its not cluttered or to much. It looks nice.

a-swift thats cool man!

hmmmmmm ... Conga Shake Video

a-swift, really smooth, but if this is a presentation, cut yourself off when u are not mixing. only pop up right when u are gonna mix, scratch etc,,,or start ripping shit from the start and don't let any song go for more then 30 seconds without u doing something cause u just standing isn't as good as when u are doing something with the mixer. try that it would look better and the audience will anticipate a move or mix etc,,evrytime u appear...

a-swift, you forgot to thank me for telling you to check the ribbon. :)

Damn, nice work a-swift. This is the best demo I have seen, hands down.

a-swift - that's a huge friggin tv u got in back of u. must be a pain to haul it around =P

hey thanks for the advice eye357.

thanks for the props fellas, but obviously this demo was not created to impress other djs.

steel
You could also use the cue fader in this situation to crossfade the video

Need a couple of girls in this pic.....someone might get the wrong idea. lol

no doubt a-swift, don't get me wrong u cool people and u always helping out in here which is great. But you'll have the crowd in awe regardless of which one u present................

u know what would be funny a-swift, during a shoot while u are djing have someone walk up to u out of nowhere with a drink (acting drunk) in there hand and tap u on the shoulder as u are with your headphones obviously in the middle of a mix!!!! look upset and kick his ass off the screen. I hate when people wanna request when u are in the middle of a mix,,,hahahahah

Internal mode saves the day again! I've had to do this many times with just regular ssl because of dodgy turntables/wiring/needles.


hot mix, gonna put it on my ipod. good use of motion graphics..

it's iPhone compatible too! if you have wifi on your iphone or ipod touch, you can see the mix right on the phone!

Nice mix a-swift!

The girls
www.synergy.chillershotspot.com

Now that's a playa pic right there!!

Way fresh mang. If I was a promoter I'd pick you up in a heartbeat. What program/s did you make that in?

which demo demon, mine or steel's?

Yours swift. The holler back transition looks fresh as hell and also how you put yourself in the corner. I'm assuming you recorded yourself at the same time of recording mix, blue screened and threw over mix after but just wanted to clarify if thats what you did and what programs.

Steely's shit is fresh too, I learn so muck from both yall cats. Much appreciated.

Ok, I've actually had this question a couple times so I'll break it down complete for everyone.

There are two recordings. The recordings were done simultaneously and the entire mix was done live, one take, mistakes and all. The mix was cut short because of the broken line fader on the 57, same thing that happened to steel.

Recording 1 - tv out of the macbook pro was connected to a canopus advc-100. that box just converts a tv signal to DV video over firewire. Dozens of tv to DV boxes are out there. The canopus is connected to a Dell via firewire. I also connect the AUX out of the 57 to the canopus as well. Capture on the dell is done with a tiny little program called windv.exe. It just captures DV over firewire and makes AVI file.

Recording 2 - i would have used another Dell to record the DV out of the camera but I dont have the right cable so I had to use my little powerbook 12 inch to record me against the green screen with my shitty little sharp miniDV camera. i know i could record to tape with no laptop at all but i find it quiker and easier to capture DV direct to hard drive instead of recording to tape and transfering to HD later. I also have the sound from the room thru the mic on this recording. this is helpful in getting perfect sync without dealing with the timecodes.

So now I have two recordings. I drag them all into final cut. I lay the music video capture on the bottom, alpha out the screen of the SONY tv in photoshop and lay that on top of the music video capture. Then I lay the recording of me on top of everything. I use a color key filter and some garbage masks in fcp to get rid of the background of the capture of me, so the sony tv and music videos show behind me.

The intro, opening movement and the other motion graphics were done in motion. I did not make them, they are just templates that come with motion. That includes the motion graphic that swings in from the side that says DJ A-Swift and what not. There was nothing done to the audio at all. It's a one take straight mix.

A number of the videos were custom edits that I did but Gwen hollaback is actually a PromoOnly acappella, although I could have easily made it myself.

Rendering a 45 minute video of 4 layers, a few motion graphics and a constat key really tested my patience on a fairly slow iMac.

The whole thing was compressed to MPEG2 for DVD with Apple's Compressor. The web video you guys are watching was made with Quicktime though, using the export to web feature in the file menu. I find the quality is really good on that setting.

I think that about covers everything right?

Yes sir I did the same thing in a different way but mine didn't turn out as good. But to my Knowledge I did do it first so I guess I'm allowed to have it look crappy! lol For those of you who didn't see it here it is. I saw a friend DJ in front of a green screen with ambient video behind him and got the idea to do this. I need to do it in front of an actual green screen still working on that.


www.youtube.com view

Word, thank you fellas.

awww man. cmon steel. you can't say i stole your idea man. i'd been thinking about how to do my demo for a while. i'll admit that the motivation to actually finally do it was after i tried to explain my idea on *how* i thought i would do it.

i actually wanted something a little different than what came out. i wanted a dvd demo that i could drop into the hands of a club owner and they would get up to speed on video mixing and see a demo. i mostly wanted to interview myself and talk about the technology at a high level and most importantly assure them that they can have live video mixing at their location, without buying a bunch of expensive stuff and using the dj equipment mostly at their location already.

maybe the next version will have everything i want. i'm also considering of doing a full blown cheat demo where i don't actually mix any videos live at all. just do an audio mix and add all the videos later,.. since everyone else is cheating too.

I didn't say you Stole it bro I expect people to it this way cause its dope and mine didn't come out any where close to as nice as yours. We all are here to learn from each other and make each other better. All I was saying is I should get a bit of slack cause it was the first time I had ever seen that concept.

thanks for the ideas guys. you've paved the way. i'm gonna take both of your ideas and make some crazy demo now. i'm gonna use the green screen but i'm gonna have a green shirt on too. the audio mix will be done in advance, i'm gonna use steve dub's boner jams, then i'll just lay some videos on top of it. if i don't have the video, i'll just use the paris or kim k sex tape. then i'll just ghost ride the turntables, yeah, oooh yes! then i'll interview myself and say this technology is crazy expensive, but i have it all, so instead of your club buying the gear, just hire me and i'll bring my stuff. yeah yeah.. be on the lookout for the new demo...

just f'n with you guys. props to both of y'all.
i'm trying to get my work to send me to our remote offices in cali and arizona, so hopefully i can link up with you guys and do some gigs while i'm in town.

lol, I seriously need to make a new demo.

steve dub's boner jams lol......

Still think jordan laws using paris hiltons vid for akynele- put it in you rmouth is genius.

Yo steel, I saw you at 54 this past week doing the pioneer showcase, are you a pioneer man or a serato man?? haha great set that night, one of the better ones

Lol I've done that Showcase for the past 3 years why do you think when this whole video thing started I knew what I was talking about so quickly? I will mix videos with the DVJ's and Serato they both get me to the same place. I'm glad you liked it my style is very different from the rest but I like it the best obviously. lol

D-Twizzle what is this office your talking about?

We are putting together a Artist management company for VDJ's hit me up D-Twizzle

dont forget to throw my press kit in there too.

No doubt I'll hit you up with the guys info when he is ready

a-swift - That video demo was awesome

LOL swift the 50 cent/hollaback girl blend was one of the first vid edits i did back in the day. good shit.

it was so obvious, i missed it on my first few passes of figuring out which videos i wanted to make edits for. to date, easily the fastest edit i've ever done.