thereverand.com

Site Updates and Tracks

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 03:39:04 GMT

Back Once Again!

It's the renegade master!

New this week; a tracks only RSS feed, coming soon to iTunes. Soon you should be able to download tracks straight from here to your phone or computer. This is very exciting for me, this another one of those things I wanted on the old site but could never make happen. Now it's finally here! Also, not that anyone will notice, but this included a massive update to my attachments system. Again there is nothing in it's operation that would be noticed by the casual user, but when you use the tracks feed you'll be experiencing it's raw awesomeness.

New Tracks!

This time I have a few "golden greats" from my back catalog. And a few new favorites.

Deadmau5 - Slip (Sebastian Leger Remix)

Skrillex - All I ask of you (Trypt Remix)

Kanye West - All of the lights (Inside Out Boy Dubstep Remix)

Notorious BIG vs Miley Cyrus - Party and bullshit in the USA (Hathbanger Mashup))

DOSVEC - Feeling Good (Flo Rida // The Black Eyed Peas // Taio Cruz // Lady Gaga // Justin Timberlake // The Ting Tings // Ellie Goulding // The Cardigans // Edward Maya // Vika Jigulina)

We're Back!

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 01:26:53 GMT

Thats right, after nearly a year The Reverand finally get's around to doing something about his website. When you have an interest set as divergent as mine, it becomes easy to really focus on one or more of them for an extended period of time. In this case I focused heavily on programming and DJing and that was really not a very effective way to maintain a website. So as I settle into what is sure to be some of the bitch ass coldest days of this winter I have endevoured to turn my less than awesome website into an amazing one.

So What's New

New site powered by The Orchard

A great open source CMS that heas really come into it's own in the last year. You don't need to know what it is, you just need to know it makes all of this happen. I have some interesting modules I have built I'll be adapting over the coming months. Stay tuned....

Full attachment list right on the front page

Even before you stopped to read this article yo knew I attached some tracks to this post. Now you can just see the attached files with out opening the whole article. If the files are all you care about then so be it. Plus it gets more tracks fed into the embeded player on the homepage, and isn't that what really matters? Looking back at the old website, it was incredibly difficult to make this work in a predictable way in Wordpress, and even then I had to show full posts to make it happen. In Orchard, this was trivial.

Tip: To keep the music playing from page to page, install exfm for Chrome

MarkDown

A lightweight markup alternative to html. I like it because it's easy fast, easy to write, and has some great offline authoring tools (more on that in an upcoming post)

Enough said.

Enjoy!

This is the part where you listen....

White Panda - Midnight Life (Kanye West Vs. M83)

Rihanna feat.Calvin Harris - We Found Love Alessio Silvestro Remix

Grum - Through the Night Dimsaw Remix

Dancing With Avicii - Avicii vs.The Knocks - Captain Cuts Mix

"Why should I buy a Kontrol S4?"

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:55:29 GMT

An excellent question. I hear this A LOT whenever another DJ sees I use an S4, and they have never come across one before. Immediately I am required by geek with toys code to give the 20 minute sales pitch, which includes a complete breakdown of what everything does as well as a demo of a few of the niftier things it does. If I am having a good day I can actually work the demo into whatever else I am playing. It sounds like overkill, and it is, but Music types are oddly not a techno-venturous bunch. They don't seem to open up to things they don't immediately "get". But once they see it, once they "get it", then they begin to ask questions about traktors capabilities and remapping options, they begin to expand their minds into a realm they may never had entered before.

As much as I like doing the demo, I am not getting paid by Native Instruments to sell their product, so why should I keep this doing these demos?

Things on the Internet about the Kontrol S4 you should see before you buy one!

First this: This is the video that started the whole thing, this was our first glimpse at it:

Originally this video had most of the good views of the controller blurred out.

Then when the S4 was released we got to see this introductory look with DMC champion and all around interesting guy: DJ Shiftee. It showed the ins and outs of some of the features of the then new Traktor S4 software, a special version of Traktor which included features that eventually went mainstream in Traktor 2; Sample Decks and the Loop Recorder.

Mmmmmm S4 Goodness

Now that you've seen these videos I know some of you already have you credit cards out and are preparing to purchase the S4 purely for the amazing software features STOP RIGHT NOW. All the features that were exclusive to Traktor S4 are readily available in Traktor 2, so if all you saw that you liked there was the software I am happy to let you know Traktor Pro 2 can be purchased separately, and for several hundred dollars less than the complete S4 package. If on the other hand you saw a control surface that could suite your needs AND really killer DJ software then let's move on.

I think it important to once again note there were no special hardware only features in that performance. There was nothing there that couldn't have been done with any controller. But the S4 makes it pretty easy. It's well laid out, with quick access to all the needed performance functions. So while you could do it with any other controller, it would have required mapping, and the result would likely not be as elegant as using the S4.

On a side note, I seem to get these a lot as well:

"You don't even need to know how to DJ anymore! Just sync and it does it all for you! Anyone can just step up and do it!"

Bullshit. Were it so easy anyone would do it. Let's be honest with ourselves here for a minute. $900USD is at the end of the day not THAT much money. Traktor's system requirements are not exactly steep. And the time it takes to get tons of music from the internet decreases by each passing day. DJing is a far more accessible hobby than it ever used to be, so accessible literally anyone can try to do it. But to say there are no barriers to being a DJ left with the the removal of several pretty significant skill barriers is still quite a stretch. For one all the autopilot in the world doesn't help if you have no clue where your trying to go. But more to the point of this tangent, even if you don't have to manually cue records or pitch and time match, does that mean you can mix any 2 songs you throw together? NO of course it doesn't. And does it mean that if you utilize these ease of use features you're some how less skilled as a DJ? NOPE. And I put forth this as proof:

Pretty good, but let's see what Craze can do with more buttons and Traktor 2

Even Craze is proud of nailing that one!

So the question still remains: Why buy the S4? Well all matters of theory aside I would say it comes down to 2 simple questions:

Do you want complete tactile control of Traktor? Plenty of controllers will control Traktor, but the S4 is the first one that in my opinion does it well. If your looking for a more general purpose controller I'd look elsewhere. The Kontrol S4 does do midi, but the mapping experience is less than optimal. This controller was really built for one purpose and that is where in excels.
How much do you want to spend to go controllerist? At $899USD you can't really say no if your a budget conscious gear buyer. With the purchase of Traktor Pro 2, there are virtually no controllers that match the economics of it. If the sky is the limit with your budget you could easily get into a lot crazier setup.

I guess the overall point I am trying to make here is simply that the Kontrol S4, won't make you amazing. It isn't going to immediately make your sets better, once you understand the capability of the tool it'll certainly up your game. But that has more to do with you than it, and more to do with Traktor as a whole than just the S4. What it is, is a great controller with full featured software and a great price point,

I'll leave you with this: