Sunday, March 31, 2013

TED Talk

So right now, I am pretty nervous for the TED talk for a multitude of reasons, time being the main one. Since Hassan and I are obviously 2 people, we have twice the amount of stuff to say, with the same amount of time. Therefore it is going to be difficult to tell personal stories that relate to just one of us as "ain't nobody got time for that". Instead, we are going to have to talk more about us together, and our experiences together in order to conserve time. Also time becomes a problem for us because in order to show our product of DJing we need to take up at least 2 minutes of the talk to physically DJing. Since DJing is more of a progression between slow and fast songs, it is difficult to simply change so rapidly. DJing is all about timing, and letting songs play their course with a build, a drop and a mid section. By simply playing parts of the song to save time, the audience will not have the same effect. Also, being that we have accomplished so much during the 7 weeks, it is going to be very difficult to show all that we have learned in a 2 minute span. There is a lot of musical jargon, and terms that are not familiar to the common student, and we are going to need to take the time out to explain these things to them. Again, TIME is KILLER.

In order to resolve this problem, Hassan and I are going to have to layer speech over the music so that way we can explain what we are doing in real time. This is going to take a lot of practice to get the timing right, but I think this can conserve time, and make it easier to understand what we are doing.

Another huge problem is that the audion isn't a party, and we DJ for parties. Our worst fear is that we play music and people just sit there and give us blank stares. We learned how to DJ a party, so we can't simply change our passion for the audiences taste. Hassan and I flirted with the idea of getting people up on stage and dancing, but we decided that that would possibly be more awkward as the "dancing" students wouldn't know what to do. However in order to avoid the awkwardness, Hassan and I are trying to play songs that people are familiar with, so they atleast bob their heads instead of giving us a stare.
Hopefully if we accomplish these tasks, we can make it less awkward for students as again, it isn't a party. Being put in such a tough predicament is frustrating, but I hope that we produce a product that will make everyone think about music, and DJing

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Remixing

Sooooo it's spring break! Which for this project means a lot of time that I can spend DJing with Hassan as we have a lot more free time. When I say more free time I mean the later we can stay up video-chatting on Google+. Without any school to worry about the next morning Hassan and I have been video-chatting until 1 or 2 AM almost everyday this break to work on DJing. Now the question is how productive are 2 teenage boys at 2 AM? Well, if I'm being honest, not really, however when we do focus for 20 minute bursts we really get a lot done. On the first night we hit our eureka moment when we finally understood how to use cue points to our advantage. Instead of simply using cue points as a quick way to move through songs, we decided to use them to remix a song. By simply fooling around with the tempo, pitch and cue points we ended up with a really 'sick' way to remix the song, Ball So Hard by Hucci.

After about an hour of, "EWWWWWWW, THAT'S SO SICK," we finally came up with a finished product, recorded it, and now the remix is in my I-Tunes library as "Ball So Hard Remix By DJ Yush & DJ M!nor. Simply writing our names down as the artists to a remix made me so proud us as we finally were able to understand DJing so much so that we could create a remix.

Being that it is spring break, there have been parties where Hassan and my friend Jacob have been hired to DJ. Since I am considered their "DJ in training" I tag along, and have actually seen a lot of action on the turntables lately. On Saturday, Hassan and I were given the opportunity to DJ together as Jacob wanted to take a break, and we actually kept the party going. It felt really good to actually DJ at a party as Hassan and I were in really good rhythm together. Being able to finally display my skills at a party was gratifying as all my hard-work seemed to pay off. The crowd was into it, and it was really just a lot of fun to share my talent with a bunch of people I usually wouldn't talk to. Afterwards, a lot of the kids came up to us and gave us compliments for a job well done, and then we even got hired for another gig this Friday. This party should be really good for Hassan and I to practice our DJing once more, and learn how to understand/pump up a crowd. I have researched about how to understand a crowd and it is really and artform. There are so many different factors that go into it, but the main thing is to be flexible. According to a source from howtofastdj.com, it is imperative to pay attention to everything the crowd says, and does. Using the information the crowd gives you through speech, body language, and requests is essential to understanding a crowd properly. According to the site, a DJ knows when a crowd is into the music when:

*People bopping their heads or tapping their feet to the music.
*Dancers swaying in chairs or next to tables.*Crowds of girls slowly making their way to the dance floor.*People getting closer to the designated dance floor.

These are essentially signs saying that you are doing a good job. On Friday, I can hopefully recognize and listen to the crowds wants and needs to get these results. 

Here is a picture from last Saturday:

Also be ready for possibly a live remix to Ball So Hard by HUCCI during our TED Talk! It would help to listen to this song prior to see the difference between the mix and remix so please listen to the song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUu0KIvTe44





Monday, March 18, 2013

VLOG

MY VLOG

Just a note about my resources: It has been really difficult to find resources in writing as it is very difficult to  explain DJing in writing. Instead I have been watching a lot of videos, and listening to mashups, mixes, etc. Watching others DJ allows me to see what I have to do in order to be like them. Thus videos are the main source of my resources

Scratch Addiction

Ever since I got my own DJ equipment, I constantly have the urge to go and mess around with them. They are so addicting! From the day I got the turntables, I just come home from school, get my grub on(because DJing is no fun on an empty stomach) and then go to my room and DJ. On Thursday, I had a precalc test the next day, and I really needed to study for it, but still I came home, and DJed for an hour. Although DJing is a huge distraction for me, it actually allows me to cool off, and relax after a long day at school. This project seems to be making its way into my daily routine, and I don't even think of it as work, but rather a hobby, and something fun. When my sister came home from college and saw me DJing she said, "So I guess this is your new Xbox," and in a sense she was right, as before I used to play Xbox to relax, but now I DJ. My addiction has become so rampant as I often find myself scratching on pieces of paper in class.

So with all this practice and addiction, the question is: Have I gotten any better? Although it is difficult to track my progress when it comes to scratching, I do feel that I have improved. After watching several scratching videos, I recognized that most DJs use something called "samples" to scratch. Samples are essentially short 5-10 second sound bytes that a DJ can loop(play over again). Before learning this I was just scratching just on regular songs. The difference between scratching on a sample and a regular track is that regular songs have a lot of unnecessary bass and noise that doesn't translate to good, clean scratches. In samples, which are meant for scratching, all the unnecessary noise is taken out, so there are clean scratches.

As scratching is one of the main components to DJing, I had to do a little research as to how to scratch besides just moving my hand forward and back. Turns out there are several types of scratches, like patterns of sorts. According to this wiki, there are several kinds of scratches. I have used this website to learn how to do different scratches as it clearly maps when to go forward, back, loud, and cut off the record. This page really helped me learn different scratches as now I have learned the baby scratch, the scribble scratch, and am now working on cut and stab scratches. The latter are much more difficult as they require the control of the crossfader(the thing in the middle that changes from one deck to another). Since this means that both my hands have to actively be moving, it is really difficult. Hopefully after some more practice I will master these scratches.

Overall, I have spent a lot of time working on my scratching abilities, and after I master some more basic scratches, I hope to move on to effects, and then go back to mastering transitioning. Hassan and I have our work cut out for us as we are still unsure about the TED talk, but we will be meeting several times over spring break to map this project out, and hopefully have a crazy performance for our presentation.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

NEW EQUIPMENT

I decided to order some DJ equipment, new speakers and a subwoofer!!! Finally, they came yesterday!


Saturday, March 2, 2013

Today Hassan and I FINALLY met up after I was simply craving to DJ. We started out by watching several tutorials about how to scratch, and then we came up with this...

LINK TO SCRATCHING VIDEO (<--- CLICK)



My overall impression of our scratching is that we kinda over-scratch. Instead of dropping in the occasional scratch we just kinda did it all the time. Less is more when it comes to scratching so I think we definitely need to dial it back. Other than that I think we understood the basics of the scratching, and produced a somewhat decent product. As with everything in DJing, you have to practice. So I think with a little bit of practice, we can say that we understand scratching.

Hassan and I also talked today about the fact that our original idea of a 1-2 minute mix didn't really make sense as it wasn't going to show how we actually progressed. Since all the music we were playing was already remixed by another DJ, all we were really doing was transitioning from one song to another. So instead of simply making a 1-2 minute mix, Hassan and I have decided that for our TED talk we are going to talk about an aspect of DJing and then show it rather than having a big mix where our techniques wouldn't really be highlighted.

Overall, it was a really fun day as Dj Minor and I were going HAM on the turntables and were scratching up a storm(maybe too much scratching). While one of us was scratching the other would start free-styling, obviously Minor Problem killed it while I was kinda just saying whatever came to mind. I think at some point I rhymed lemon with hemming... I guess I wasn't cut out to be a rapper.

Anyways, here is the name of the song we mixed too!

Changes by Stewrat
http://stewrat.bandcamp.com/track/changes-2


Friday, March 1, 2013

Bum day... turned to learning

Today was a day filled with mixed emotions. Originally, Hassan and I had planned to meet at his house after school to work on our mix, tackle BPM(beats per minute), and perfecting our transitioning. Throughout the day I was really excited to get back on the turntables and see how my research may have helped my understanding of music. Unfortunately, Hassan and I were unable to meet due to a family conflict... UGH. So instead of DJing for the majority of my afternoon, what did I do? I slept.... (which was really needed as this week of school was brutal) However once I woke up, I didn't know what to do with myself. I could either parooze Youtube for a bunch of cool videos, I could start Les Miserables (Once again, UGH), OR I could combine homework and videos into researching DJing techniques and styles. So for the about three hours, I spent flipping through "How to DJ" videos, and seemed like the information was pretty dry and overall very generic. The standard, "Get your equipment, cue up music, and practice" was said in almost every video and I felt like I wasn't really learning anything. I didn't have the equipment because it was at Hassan's house, which means I couldn't cue up music and practice. Although I have the software, Virtual DJ, it is extremely difficult to mix without the correct setup and equipment. So that was my struggle of the evening...

However after about an hour of aimlessly roaming Youtube in search of an informative guide, I finally found one! It was essentially a video about how to transition from a fast paced song (High BPM) to a slower song (Low BPM) in a way that doesn't simply fade in and fade out of a song. Instead of just turning off the volume of one song in order to transition into a slower song, which doesn't really work because the BPM doesn't match, the video essentially loops the slower song so that it seems to have a higher BPM. Once the slower song is looped really quickly, it seems to have a faster BPM, and then you can just turn off the loop, and that way you can make transitions from high BPM to low BPM very seamlessly. Previously in the original mix Hassan and I made, we had a lot of awkward mixes mainly due to different song tempos. By using this mixing style, I think we can eliminate the awkward transitions and instead go from high to low BPM seamlessly.

Here's the video, and although he messes up at the end, this tactic can be really useful for DJing. Unfortunately I couldn't find this on Vimeo, so if you are in school be sure to go home and watch this because it is really interesting.


The reason why I have done most of my research so far through video is that it is very difficult to understand DJing without actually seeing it happen. There are a lot of moving parts, and jargon that I find it easier to watch videos and then replicate it in practice than to read an article where I don't know exactly what to do. 

After my long day of DJ researching, I was craving to mix some music, so I busted out Virtual DJ and just started fiddling around with the software, getting to know it, and discovering some features. I now understand effects like BeatGrid where essentially you can create a beat and then press the effect, and the beat will play through the music. (Once again explaining music through writing is very difficult and next time I film I will be sure to have a video of that) However once I was DJing on my computer, which is once again a frustrating and difficult task, I realized that I REALLY wanted my own set of turntables so that I could practice, and hopefully use my DJ skills in the future. After doing a bunch of research on different DJ sets that were below $200, I narrowed it down to two that really interested me. 

1. Numark Mixtrack PRO - $164.99... Probably my top choice as it is cheap, is compatible with Virtual DJ and it is the same as Hassan's so I am already familiar with the equipment. 




2. Hercules DJ Controller with "Touch" and "Air" Controls- $149.59... Cheaper of the two, not compatible with Virtual DJ so I would have to reteach myself the equipment, but the looping and effects on it are much better as there is "Magic Looping" which automatically creates looping effects for you to use. Also there is an effect that you can place your hand on a sensor and move your hand away or towards it in order to control effects, however this only works with the program it comes with, DJUICED, and I don't think I want to backtrack and relearn a DJing software. 



Overall today was a bum day that turned into a learning day I finally understand BPM and transitioning. Hopefully tomorrow Hassan and I will meet up, or I will order my own turntables so that I can practice. Other than that, here is some more music that I have been listening to these past few days:

TURN UP THE VOLUME AND MAKE WAY FOR SOME CRIZZLY

Way We Ball- Crizzly
https://soundcloud.com/crizzly/way-we-ball-crizzly-remix-by

Snap Back Swag- Aj-Hernz (Crizzly Remix)
https://soundcloud.com/crizzly/aj-hernz-snap-back-swag

Lost Woods- Crizzly Remix --- This is basically the Zelda theme song remixed, it's pretty cool!
https://soundcloud.com/crizzly/lost-woods-crizzly-remix









COOL BLOGS

If you have the time you should definitely check these blogs out.

iPhoneFanboyBlog.blogspot.com (Iphone App Development)

peartisapunkpalmerisagod.blogspot.com (Album Collab Blog)
                                                                                         
http://radishgrowinggenius.blogspot.com (RADISH GROWIN' Blog)
http://sundrew.blogspot.com/ (Carnivorous Plant Registering Blog)
http://pressforpaint.blogspot.com/ (Spray Painting Blog)
                                                                                         
http://equestri-anne.blogspot.com/ (Horse Riding Blog)
http://streetdancein7weeks.blogspot.com/ (Street Dancing Blog)
http://sebastianm-gifted-genius-project.blogspot.com/ (Glasses Blog)
                                                                                         
http://calmbone.blogspot.com/ (EP making)
http://jennamakesfood.blogspot.com/ (Cake Baking)
http://quadroflcopter.blogspot.com/ (QUAD)




While you guys are reading these great blogs I suggest listening to a music producer by the name of SPVCE. SPVCE plays really chill music that are all pretty much instrumentals with some background vocals. Overall great contemporary beats that are solid reading music. Check him out too!


I suggest scrolling down to all the albums and checking out those and not the top albums because the top ones have raps over the beats. My favorite albums are, Trees, Basement Files, Progress, and Baasic. Enjoy!