THE PHAT SOLUTION FOR PHUNKY HARDDISKJOCKEYS

HARDWARE: Notebook PCs, or stack 2 dextops in a 19" rack. Connect to a DJ Mixer, and use quality hedphones! Recommended soundcards are cheap AWE64 with RCA outputs, and you need 250MB storage space for music filez. No CDROM is needed, parallel cable can transfer files to your set. A portable CD player is essential to fill in between reboots and software loading. That's tha bazic setup. NOW, if you really wanna kick ass, get a phat compressor module and connect to your mixers effect loop, or directly to output. Any auxilliary sound source like decks for scratching, a synth or even a walkman can make all the difference. Just don't bring too much expensive shit, coz you don't wanna be watching your gear all night if there are Ladies on the premises. So get down with it, and beware that people *will* disrespect you: They're a bunch of baseheads, and you gonna rock this party! SOFTWARE: Use Cubic Player 2.60. It has pitch/speed control and supports all funky formats like MOD, IT, XM, WAV, MP3z and SID! Runs smooth on 486/66MHz machines with no cracks in da soundz(don't drag your dual 1333MHz/Xanadu™ on stage!). For Windows NT, use Goldwave(multiple instances), WinAMP and ModPlug Player.

NEXT: The music. You need all the sounds. In which nutcase you gotta bring ALL your club hits(Shitloads oF MP3z) and top trax, and have a premixed tape or other backup solution ready in case you have some kind of breakdown. Always update your set with new tracks. Classical music is multifunctional. Cut your WAVE files with Ninja precicion! Get some atmosphere/soundeffect CD's and dub with your trax(don't use 8bit samples for this purpose!). --- Better yet: a real person to play the flute is a hundred times more cool than a 5 quid CD with Panflute Moods. Keep a broad selection of styles in all formats, bring your own music and *bring your friends* as musicians. And get some BABE on that mic! Nothing compares to local girls on homemade soundtracks. PERFORMANCE: You may feel the urge to jam, and LiVE is what its all about. The amazing Cubic Player can skip 8 rows back/forward in mods(in addition to a zillion other cool features), but this don't sound great in all tunes, so have some easy looptracks ready. No other program gives you more playback freedom, and if you're good you might be groovin' like a *real* musician. This is the essence of DJing and the reason why live tracking can be so hard: REALTiME CoNTRoL! It's also the reason why insane people start connecting turntables to serial ports and so on... NO good computer scratching technique: RaNDoM skipping/Rythm muting makes cool realtime effects on on WAV files, especially filter sweeps, FX and long vocals. Check it on .ITs with filter sweeps, pitch envelopes and pingpong loops! Apply FX on hard edges or play louder. Feedback is your friend! MIXING: Building a smooth progression is easy, just make sure each song follows naturally, ie. they share a style or concept. For example if you just played BARBIE GIRL, you may well play the Smurfs next, followed by Colargol. If you really need to change style, a good idea is to space out with an ambient interlude(sci-fi/tropical beach/dolphins/rainforest/whatever). Ambient makes for easier transitions than drumtrakks and relieves the dancefloor. --- Use the LED/Freqency Analyzer on beat mixing. If you cant sync your toonz, let one dominate, then make a quick Xfade. If you keep one track at LOW volume, it will blend as atmosphere without really being audible. You can use this for creating weird moods or soundscapes. Dont lose your concentration: On fuck up, do something easy OR play twice as loud! I like the kickass contrasts and dont care much if something goes wrong, just keep playing. ,,, Mix different versions of the same song, Try playing the same track on both channels, then pitch one to 150% and the other to 75%. . CUT and restart, if you fuck up once, do it twice over and people will think it's the new style--- and yes: huge amounts of disrespect is coming your way(I toldYa!), it's part of the game(over).

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