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Serato Basics

Finally, the time has come for our world things that's places like way wait, wait, you know, over there, yeah, it's, early morning and seattle. I want to welcome everybody to creative live on the music and audio channel. My name's, true consul men and I'll be hosting today's course super excited to have deejay haba in the studio today. This guy's, super talented he's worked with so many talented people. I said yesterday he shared the stage with michael jackson work with stevie wonder and he's, the brand ambassador in the d j coach at scratch academy. Yeah, yeah, and we have an awesome day yesterday. We had an amazing this. This is totally a new course, though. This is intermediate advanced deejay techniques, right? Yeah. So what we're gonna do is going to take a little bit of what we did yesterday. Uh, you know a lot. We're going to a little bit of a review from yesterday, too, but you were going to take it one step further today or a couple steps for the today. I don't know about ever...

ybody out there, but my head was a bit blown yesterday with all the stuff that we're doing in here, and even from this side of it was just really cool to see the light bulb going off, they were on the online audience and here in the studio it was really, really cool to see people engaging, and it was so cool to get to use some of this gear, we're going to talking a little bit more about this gear. Yep. And then just advanced techniques. Yeah, I mean, we're going to cover a lot today and throughout the entire course of the day. I mean, we're covering everything from, like, strategy inside of, like, software deejay software working on effects loops q points, file management. Ah, we're working on some business stuff too, like figuring out, you know, kind of off the decks outside of the deejay rig. Like what you can do some some tips and strategy for what you can do to kind enhance uh, what you're doing is a deejay, so yeah, I mean it's going to be a good one. We'll take it away, man. Woman cool how's everybody doing out there there's good. Awesome. Cool. So, as d j d conn I mentioned my name is d j happe. It is absolutely my pleasure to be here for the five of you who are in studio welcome you guys were getting hands on in here for everybody at home, we're going to do several different exercises we're going to start today by looking at a software called cerrado d j s o if you happen to have that if that's on a computer of yours at home, it might be a cool thing to open up the program and follow along if not, I'm sharing my screen with the people at home said you guys can see exactly what I'm doing throughout the day, you know I'll be giving some homework and stuff like that as well things to really chew on later on when you go back and watch er this session, you'll be able to stop and pause and deacon could tell you more about that later, but well it's going to be able to provide some different files and some good like practice material for you guys to so aa lot in store for today and let's get it started so one of the things that I like to do when I start like a class for sure is we've got two new students here in studio so definitely want to get quickly I d j names from you on just really quick just to go around the horn let's get d j names that everybody just said we warm this room up a little bit so deejay fellow house castro twins astral twins and I think it's the two you are actual twins so one of you's astral the other ones twins how this works. Nice. Okay. The astral twins in the house. A deejay duo. Nice marshall logan in the house and I can't can't forget d j d con who's here managing the chat as well. The other half of astral twins. All right, dean martian dean martian in the house. Cool. So let me make sure I've got all your names on the board. Pastoral twins is lewd is not able to make it today. Or maybe he's on his way is twins with an s two ends and an s spelling counts men spelling definitely counts on and we're going to get actually, you know, all joking aside, like spelling really does count and, you know, when we start talking later on about, you know, what's in a deejay name and branding and things like that like that parted gets really important people misspelled my name all the time and, you know, I don't take it personally, but obviously, like, you know, if you add a letter you take out, you know, uh, if you spell my name hopper h o p p e r like, different thing is going to come up if you're looking for me so it's definitely all in the spelling and make sure you're not afraid this is a little prelude but make sure that you're not afraid to correct people like if if your name is misspelled or what not the last thing you want is like your names on this huge billboard and it's misspelled um on sweet so let's jump right into some software stuff and uh you know, for you guys here out of curiosity or any of you using cerrado deejay or had ever used that yes you are cool are using cerrado deejay using scratch line scratch like actually used cerrado I'm not currently using it bill but I've messed around cool cool anybody else in here mr around with it? Okay, cool. Are you guys using any other deejay software record box record about t j's and record box? Okay, cool. Um marshall logan not yet. Hello? Um pier twenty j virtually here sweet. Ok, cool. So we're going to talk about surat o d j today right now we're also going to touch on some stuff inside of tractor a little bit later. A lot of this stuff though, is it's less about the actual software and it's more about the function. So a lot of these programs are very, very similar on and it's just about like really, I think understanding the function and this button might be here in surat o d j and it might be hidden in a tractor or it might be here in virtual deejay or something like that so functionality though it is all the same really quick for just make sure everybody's on the same page I'll give you kind of ah brief history as I know it when it comes tio deejay software um the sort of the way I learned I learned back in the mid to late nineties and so I mentioned this yesterday that like, at that time, pretty much for the most part djs that we're playing and pro djs and things like that we were all pretty much using vinyl records like that was the main medium often say just to simplify it that in order to d j you need two things the music of some kind whether that be on a record, whether that be on a cd beyond a thumb drive as it mp three file or away file on your hard drive on your laptop. Either way, you need music of some kind, and then the second thing you need is you need some way of manipulating that knittig so you need, like, some sort of control device, so you need either a controller, a turntable, a c t j a mouse you know you're you need some way of controlling the music so my rig appear right now looks crazy, I've got two turntables they're plugged into this brand new pioneer sc that has surat oh built into it but ultimately like what we're talking about here is being able to manipulate your music so um as I was saying like it used to be pretty simple in some ways like you take records put a needle on the record have that plug into a mixer and there you are you're often running um and obviously had some advantages and had some disadvantages that big disadvantage was you were limited to what you could play right? So you were limited to the records that you own in some ways that was a bit refreshing now in hindsight looking back at it because sometimes having too many options is not a great thing um so we met I mentioned this yesterday as well which was my stance is it would be better to have one hundred records hundred songs that you knew really well that you knew inside and out as opposed to having like, one hundred thousand songs that you kind of don't really connect with so anyways point being isn't you know there was this technology that was created which is brilliant in that you could play mp three's on a vinyl turntable by using a control vinyl or control cd that uses time code so the idea of like the software is that it there's a there's a time code that's on this disk and as the needle is reading the record it's saying all right, we're now at a minute and one second in on the record, therefore, we're one minute and one second in on the mpc three and it's talking back and forth through a usb cable and that's basically the idea behind this, it started with a program called final scratch, which was sort of ahead of its time. Then this company out of new zealand cerrado created this software called scratch live, and it became it seemed to be a little bit more stable and the timing was better and they hit this sort of wave, especially here in the states where the people were really like that's interesting, I'll try that out at the same time sort of media was changing mp three's, we're becoming more more common and more, um, and better quality files were out there instead of like the whole napster generation of, like, small, small files, so we're going to talk a lot about files and things like that later on in the afternoon there's a lot of information around that, too, like the difference between an mp three and away file. What is bit rate like things like that? We're going to start talking about that this afternoon to so let's jump right into it, you can see my screen, ok, this looks crazy, there's four decks oh sorry let's go back tio we're going to do that in a little bit all right, sweet um uh let's go back to this let me make this a little bit simpler up here in this corner right here I've got two and four this basically changes the layout so now I've got this pared down to basically two decks I'm using this piece of hardware that has the ability to control four decks so this can get a little complicated I'm going to start by just controlling two decks so let me actually eject both of these real quick okay and real quick overview I've got my two decks I've got my right deck here my left at here obviously uh as always you can read you should be ok drag song here's you take a song and drag it right there and then it loads up thea track on the deck um now a few things that you'll notice here are um I've got my way forms here so that's going to read the way and now on the bottom you can see the way form how it zoomed out seeking and sort of see the full length of the way form you can actually change the zoo mike resumed in pretty close here right now but I can change that by hover with my mouth and I hit plus or minus it'll zoom in for zoom out quick little command here there's um they're shortcuts for all of these functions inside of the software, the quick way to get all of your functions to same. I know howto see the list of functions well, the configuration or something on the setting, it's actually even simpler there's this little icon here that's this I information button, and that will bring up in entire list of, like, keyboard shortcuts. Now, I don't recommend trying to memorize all of these because you won't use all the functions, and this is actually a good point. Is that, like, I'm not going to cover everything inside of this software? It would it would take probably a couple of hours for us to go through everything in the software I'm going to focus on stuff that I think is relevant for the general audience, and then we can, you know, feel free, though they go back in this, um and look for things that you use. So the other thing, wouldn't you click that eye is every time you cover over something, it will give you information about, um, the different pieces of the software. So there's actually really, really cool feature inside of this program? Um, for instance, here I'm zoomed onto the main way form display, you can see the shortcut plus and minus for zoom. Zooming into the way for him. So I just I just talked about that and that's what that does cool. So any time you have a question on, like, my one, if there's a short cut for that, if you zoom over, you'll find that now really quick. A lot of these other software programs have similar shortcuts um tractor, for instance, uses some of the same short cuts, the same key commands, however, one of the really cool things inside of, like a program like tractors, you can customize what those key commands are, so instead of trying to memorize like, oh, plus and minus is the zoom in and zoom out for the way form, you could create some other sort of short cut inside of a program like tractor, and I don't mean to flip flops so much between the different software's, but on we're going to focus mostly on surat o d j but like I said at the top, they all are very, very similar, so I'm going to sort of constantly make reference to some of the other software that's out there. You guys using record box, amusing record box three point oh, the new versions actually three point oh two or there's a new version just came out cool, right, sweet, um in that version, in that piece of software with record box, now you're able to actually see two different decks. So in that way, it's kind of similar to this. All right, cool. Um, let take that information thing off, okay? Now, the big thing here, we actually do this, I'm going to disconnect from the controller really quick. So this is the actual player mode. So if you were to go and download this software, which you can find this at cerrado dot com s e r a t o dot com, you can enter in your your email, signed up for the newsletter and can download the software even without having owned the hardware. The interesting thing about suraj o is that they're giving you the software for free, but you need to have the hardware that is compatible to even be able to play something. So if you don't have hard where you're not connected to hardware, this is what you'll see, so you'll just see this screen with one deck, and this is a great piece of ah software to be ableto like manage your playlists and manage like your music without having tio be connected up. Obviously you can't deejay off of just this because you only have, then one player, you won't be ableto to thank you something up, but while we're in this offline mode, you're not going to be able to hear the audio, which is fine, you don't need to hear it, but, um, you'll see that I can I play tracks so I can play tracks I can set q points, which we're going to talk about that now, um, and I can set loops and I think sort of really just prepare out my set, prepare what it is that I'm going to do, so you know, well, I think we're going to do here is talk a little bit about q points, but as we do that I'm gonna marry what we were talking about yesterday. So for those of you who were here yesterday, we broke down a song and essentially mapped out a song. Um, we're going to map out a song today with now the software and you being able to see exactly what we're doing so as a quick review, and for those of you who are joining us for the first time today, this would be a good dose of this as well, guys who are here in studio who were here yesterday, what is the first thing that we need to know before mixing two songs together, tempo, very good tempo tempo, okay, so tempo and howto there's a three letter acronym bpm. Okay, good. So beats per minute, right is what we really have to focus on. You guys remember the range that I suggested yesterday? Four plus or minus four in terms of b p m so if a song was ninety five beats per minute the which what's the range than that should mix with that ninety one to ninety nine. Okay, very good. So tempo tempo is the first one. So actually that's let's, take this step by step here. So I'm actually really excited to play this for you too. Oh, um, let me connect back to the controller just so you can hear it. All right? Um, this actually is a friend of mine. Um, who most of you probably know her work? Um, a robber by the name of m c lyte um, is she sent me this record yesterday and I'm so happy that we're able to use this in this demo. It's actually really dope record? Um, I'm going to play this record and this's the instrumental ugo we'll play this record, and the first thing you'll notice is when I load up the deck. Couldn't is the first time I'm loading this song into cerrado, so it ran an analysis we talked about this yesterday and I had a hard time spelling the algorithm uh which I should still go back and look at as they said spelling counts right? So I should get that right um I put the song in cerrado and the first thing that it did was it ran an analysis on dh it has been determined that b p m of this is ninety five now that's what cerrado got but let's make sure that that is in fact what the bpm is. So how can we how can you find the tempo? What are some ways that we would talk about isha counting or using a tapped so he said counting or using a tap tempo right? So I'm gonna use the tap tempo today just to be ableto teo double check with that is we said yesterday I think you had an apple in your phone right? You a cz as the mixer, right? Ok, so so some pieces of hardware will actually have like a tap tempo function in them you khun tap things out on the actual you'll be able to tap things out on a control or possibly on and what a tap temple is doing is it's just averaging out your taps ok, so let's try this on me I'm going to do it watching on another piece of gear over there um let's start this so this may be something with this intro here that throws off the, um the algorithm so this is why it's also really important for us to tap this out. Records called dear john class for this in a little bit, okay, so I'm gonna tap out every one of these beach here. So ana beatus and how did I define a beach yesterday? A beat is ahead. Not good, so I know you've got to feel like you're back has pinned against the wall most times, but a nose times you remain open those minds that get, you know, we gotta move with no face, no, dear, I assume with everything you've been through is just the church and I want to tap it out the key sam is not thirty seconds or so at least creates because it's gonna average on my tab of only tap it for, like, eight seconds it's not a really good example of that is you know what you want to do? So you want to be jack straight down? Would you have before your doors, even though I'm saying ninety six miles? So what? I'm passionate out, so, you know, ninety five, ninety six, they're both pretty close within the range keep in mind that like and guys who were here yesterday remember that I said this that the bpm is not meant to be this like exact thing because ultimately like what we're talking about yesterday was manual beat matching being able to not rely so heavily on that sync button I'm gonna be ableto like know that this is this tempo this is this tempo around that the's should then work together let me try it you know and so this is less about this being exactly ninety five point six to five and this being exactly ninety five point six two five so that then now they go this way you know, the best thing I think about music is it kind of needs to have this like human element to it otherwise it can sometimes be a little bit too sterile if it is that way so let's call this ninety we'll call this ninety six because that's what I tapped out if you want to change the tempo here's a really easy way to do this you know actually just click on the track and change this to ninety six are you sure you want to edit his tag be grids maybe edited? Yeah sure let's do that case it'll feel then edit this the new version of cerrado deejay actually has a beak graded in it so it will grid out um what that means is it's setting a mark for every beat that be grid is like basically the most important piece of this because everything that you do from there setting a loop um setting on defect is all going to be related to what that beat grid says so what? I'm going to tap this out actually one more time and the way that I'm going to do this is I'm going to do it on the software so we'll show you a different way to tap out using the software so if this is plain click on the v p m even no one's getting you want a better a better read races situation got you wish for been elation kind of kind of three kind of farm without maybe it's hard for street okay with this is the way I got it right here this is the way right here to edit the grid so let's go back this actually, um come back to the beginning here and this becomes a little bit more like for those who have ever used like a a d a w or a program like able to live or something like that this becomes a bit more like that thiss this version of surat o d j has this functionality where is like scratch live does not scratch live doesn't really work off the grid it's a little bit more simplistic in that way um all right, so if I turn off women turn this off at it through they've changed that function. Okay? All right, cool. So let me go back to beginning here so actually, what I did do here is when I tap this out because I moved it to ninety six it did move the grid so I'm gonna have to then go back in and, like, reset the grid so I'm gonna have to, like, go and reset the mark or someone to clear everything out right here on my set the one here and now there's my one that's actually said, I know you've got to feel like you're back has pinned against the wall most times but you know, you see how the heat is actually hitting with no snow it seems like it's hitting exactly right on those beats right there so it was probably some is not to make the same mistakes of four victims and the chaos the world creates it needed a moment mistaking your mental about an opponent oh, now, now, now, when you look at it now it is a little bit on let's do this. Um if I were to go back here, let me clear this off I'm going to change this back to ninety five let's, change us back to ninety five and let's use what they, uh, what's karate gave us here and now these line up a little bit better, so this is the one part this is the one part that has become a little bit more technical like with now having a b cred and now we're in about a secret is that like what I was saying about like it being fairly close now it's like it almost has to be exact if you're going to use if you're going to use from the functionality within this this is a new feature inside of surround a deejay and there's actually like brand new releases of this software so you know, for guys like myself and you who I have worked with cerrado scratch live for so many years this is now a new function inside of that for anybody else that's out there that you've been a cerrado scratch live user for for a while it's going to be a little bit of a process to get you teo get used to this new version of this software so um I mean and a lot of this is good it's like all new enhancements but let me let me go back and they check this and make sure this is on here okay? So I'm going to go back in and I'm gonna set the grid again then clear this set this now let's check and make sure that it's on you for you know you've got to feel like you're back has been against this pretty good so far yeah you remain open those minds that get you nowhere. Gotta move with no fears. No, dear. I soon could down playing you down a bit. E o great. You don't even know what's getting what you want. So you so looks it looks pretty good. Yeah, all right, so now what we can do is let me let me explain a little bit why that would be why this needs to be on. So I'm going toe kind of jump ahead here, and I'm going to set a loop so and actually it's make this a functional thing, okay? Um, cola, and actually, before I do that, I'm going to save this grid. So that way it's it's locked in him and save this grid cool. So now it's all there and now what you'll notice here is that, um, I've said the one to be the one of this. So I've kind of get ahead for all of that intro stuff that doesn't have a beat, and I set that one from there. I've saved the grid now it's locked in.