Are macs better than pc for djing with? Plus, Laptop DJs, list your spec

both Live 5 and Traktor 3.

Live is more of a production tool but if you want perfect mixes, use it
Traktor is great but labor intensive. can be much more spontaneous with Traktor but it has limitations.

I dont' experience any glitches or performance issues. my friend with faster G4 laptop can analyze/stripe/warp tunes faster due to his machine importing and rendering slightly faster, but it's not a huge deal.

not sure why the style of music matters? i could mix classical or hip hop with both applications with the same amount of work.

Twitch, what's the spec on your laptop?

Is there a Mixmeister equivalent for the mac? I much prefer the layered waveform approach to the 'two decks' style of Traktor.

Approx how much is a decent mac laptop thingy? (I know I can google this but if anyone has the figures to hand that'd be great.)

Oh STFU

>>That Mac guy in the commercials is a smug, condescending fuck. But everything he says is true.

Nope!

Affectian, I'd get used to Ableton before rushing off to mac! Hell, if it's all stable on Windows I'm tempted to say don't "fix" it.

Macs aren't all gold though, been there, done that, still bitter.

it's a 1.67ghz g4 powerbook with 2gb ram and a 120gb hard drive. i actually think apple's build quality has got worse and worse over the years (hopefully the next generation of intel machines will address this). this is my 5th powerbook and it is by far the worst qualityone i've had and also the only one that has freaked out if it is too hot or if there is too much bass vibration in the booth. maybe i got a lemon?

Is there a preferred, reliable USB or FireWire introductory to intermediate mixer out there that would be good enough for first honing (i.e., tooling around at home and house parties) then perfecting this craft (playing out)?

i have one of the new intel macs and it is super fast (2Ghz core duo + 2GB RAM). i also have a powerbook. but i use windoze (1.5Ghz/640MB RAM) + traktor to mix because i am lazy and my macs are used for other stuff. i am curious about ableton, but i am generally pretty happy with traktor. sometimes its limitations are annoying; other times i dig its relative simplicity. i think traktor is on sale right now too.

the powerbook is hot the whole time though, and with 1.5ghz and 1.25gb ram, i didn't expect to see the beach ball anymore:/

And unfortunately the Traktor special offer finished last Sunday - there's still a few left at £80 (as opposed to £200ish) if you look around though.

no, that's not it. it also very occasionally does this really weird audio glitch thing where it sounds like it is being put through a space echo for a few seconds (hysterically this often causes people to freak out on the dancefloor as they think it's something i'm doing, while meanwhile i am in a state of total panic praying it stops soon!). there is definitely a bug in there somewhere but i can't really afford to be without it to have it put in for repair.

Its the new version of Mixmeister, a version they created specifically for live stuff. Its main feature is that its a VST host for effects and you can sketch their effects non-linearly. Basically, you can draw directly on the waveform how you want the effect to apply.

It can also save multiple "tweaks" to a file, including pre-set loop points, effects, volume markers, intro/outro points. You can render down your favorite edits, but you can just do it in Fusion, save it with a 30k tweak file, and not have to keep multiple copies of the same track.

It also has some limited ability to detect non-standard bpms, so it can save you the work of having to quantize things by letting you shift the bpm graphically, measure by measure (or even beat by beat), and it'll then take the data and deform the next track to fit into that.

I'd recommend you use a soundcard if you can - internal soundcards sound like crap over a big system, regardless of whether they're on a Mac or PC. Also, a soundcard is obviously your only option if you want to run more than one stereo channel out to the club's mixer. I use a crappy old M-Audio thing at the moment, but I sometimes take out my studio soundcard if I know I'm not playing a dive.

Controllers are a bit more of a personal thing. It really depends on the way you like to mix and what the crowd expect. I alternate between using a Faderfox LX2 and a M-Audio Trigger Finger, and have different setups in Ableton for both. The Faderfox is wonderful if you know you're going to be playing in a booth where space is very tight. It packs a lot of control into a very small space. On the other hand, I've found the Trigger Finger forces you into a more entertaining performance. Bashing on the pads to trigger clips and effects looks way more impressive than mousing around and tweaking tiny sliders.

This is probably a question for another thread but I'm wary of getting involved in Ableton as I've heard it's complicated to use. I don't like using Traktor, or anything with the two-deck approach, I'm a huge fan of the layered approach of Mixmeister (currently using MM Pro 6) - how easy will it be to pick up Ableton and make marvellous noises?

And for all other MM users out there, what are your favoured plug-ins? I was, and still am, flabberghasted that there wasn't a built-in EQ with MM Pro 6 but I found a plug-in that does the job (despite looking pretty nasty) - if anyone wants it, let me know and I'll YSI it.

for the record, i don't really understand the appeal of traktor without a headphone cue. i used it for a couple of my college radio shows, but then got serato and felt better.

I use ableton with a numark dxm01-usb mixer, which lets me have a cue channel. plus the only time it goes analog is on the final output.

sometimes i also use an evolution MK-249C midi keyboard as well, using the knobs to tweak effects on the output.

I find this setup to be great, just like using a normal turntable setup, only i don't have to worry about the timing (cause ableton does it for me). I'm able to get a lot more creative with my mixing PLUs it takes up less space.

And without having to worry about the timing, I can be AS DRUNK AS I WANT and still play a set that sounds good.

the only time i'd consider using turntables again is at a house party when you're playing track for track.

Nope. I just dived into the demo and ended up getting hooked. Grab the demo, watch the tutorial, and play with it. I found it to be pretty user friendly, intuitive, and extremely functional.

ok, so here's a very amateur tech q, which i figure you guys can help with so i don't have to go to scary audiophile forums: at our wedding, we want to dj with a macbook pro. we'll be hiring speakers, mixer etc (if you want to help me with the technicalities of that, please do! thread here: Wedding DJing - equipment question - please help, DJs of ILX! ). anyway, we don't need anything super-loud, but is it going to sound completely shit if it's just an analog input into the macbook line out? if so, what else would i need - some kind of external sound card? or would using optical leads be better (i gather the optical out is more of a "line out" in some sense)?

but is it going to sound completely shit if it's just an analog input into the macbook line out

if you just plug the macbook output into the mixer and the mixer into the pa and it will sound fine. i messed about for ages with external firewire / usb sound interfaces but to be honest, never really noticed much audio fidelity difference. i'm sure other people will argue otherwise but i've booked countless live laptop artists who just go from the audio out and it always sounds fine.

thanks stir, that's exactly what i wanted to know - i do always love it when i ask something on ilx, and someone whose opinion i respect gives me a helpful answer within a few minutes!

The bulk of people who notice a difference with external breakout boxes are using a PC. The fact remains that Apple's sound card is well-built, properly grounded and shielded, and this counts for a lot even tough it only costs a little.

By contrast, my PC (and I have a pretty top-flight PC laptop, though a few years old) ships with a shitty built-in sound device that picks up tons of hum and interference from the surrounding electronics (like I can "hear" my computer working) and worse, it shares the main processor to do the heavy lifting of sample rate conversion so it can very easily glitch audibly or inaudibly depending on processor load, which is unacceptable.

Hance, I use a firewire 410 box, with 2 headphone outs and 8 analog outs. Which would be fun if I used it to DJ with ableton or serato, but frankly I'm just way too busy to spend time pre-mapping the beats of digital tracks, and I have way too many records to spend time recording them. Yeah, I shouldn't even be on this thread.

http://www.platinumnotes DOT com/

anyone had any dealings with this? sounds like it's promising impossible things - making crappy mp3s sound good. and i'm instantly suspicious by this:

"You can load your collection into "Analyze and Process Songs" window, click a single button, and you'll get new 320 KBit MP3 files that sound great for live performance."

yeah making 320kbp mp3 out of a 64kbps mp3 will give an mp3 that sounds similarly crappy but takes up more space.

anyone used this program or got any thoughts on it?

NI, sounds like complete bullshit to me. It's called lossy compression for a reason: the information is gone.

Doesn't really count as "laptop DJing" but I'm making an ambient mix using Audacity on my now-ancient G5 iMac. Surprisingly fast/easy.