The DJ Groove

Making Music with FOSS - The opensource way

We love to introduce our community to new people and share how they are using open source tools, ideas, and methods to create things in new ways. Adam Drew, resident Red Hat rock star, is doing just that. Adam is making music with the power of open source. Many people in music production are unaware that free and open source software options exist for them. Instead, they opt for non-free solutions by default, because they don't know, don't care, or they just don't believe that there is an entire world of free and open source software available. And the open source software for music production is often as good as—or better—than the non-free alternatives. Join our Open Your World webcast on April 20 to hear Adam Drew talk about how he went from being an Apple Logic Studio user to producing his music completely on open source software. Then learn about the challenges, learning curve, and details of how you too can make the switch.
Speaker: Adam Drew, Technical Support Engineer, Global Support Services
Adam is a Technical Support Engineer for Red Hat's Global Support Services specializing in clustering, storage, and file systems. When not working on enterprise storage Adam can be found writing and recording music, writing for his blog, maintaining his FOSS Audio Kbase, programming, and experimenting with graphic design and digital painting, all on Free & Open Source Software. Adam lives in Raleigh, NC with his wife and three cats.

Will DJs trade laptops for iPads?

For DJs, the transition from vinyl to today's digital rigs has been a tense compromise between control and convenience. Year after year, a new crop of DJ software and USB gear attempts to fuse the responsive feel of vinyl with all the conveniences of digital audio. Invariably, these digital DJ rigs end up being too expensive, too messy, or downright gimmicky.

Read More of this Story at CNET

Crate and Barrel holds an Ultimate Wedding contest

For those of you future bride and grooms, Crate and Barrel is now holding a $100,000 Ultimate Wedding contest to give you the wedding of your dreams.

Enter Crate and Barrel's Contest

What Happened to SuperDance?

SuperDance in the suburbs of Chicago was one of my favorite places to shop for vinyl. Meet Aaron and many other awesome DJs. Some people have been asking me, "what happened to them?" but since I now live out in California, its been hard to stay in touch with the Chicago scene.

Here is their explanation from their MySpace page:

Big thanks to all our customers for supporting Superdance Records over the years. We wish the store could have continued. Unfortunately technology has taken huge leaps in the DJ industry allowing digital music to take the lead. There are very cool things happening in the DJ industry. Our hope is that those who bought and played vinyl will never forget what it's like to touch a record. We still believe every DJ must experience playing with vinyl before he or she can call themselves a true DJ. Vinyl will always be apart of our history. The customers allowed Superdance to have a 15 year run. We appreciate your support!! Electronic music will only get bigger from here.!!!

Receive $5 Credit at Amazon MP3

You can now receive a $5 Credit with Amazon MP3 when you purchase a minimum of $25 worth of product from their Music CD, Audio/Video, Camera, Photo & Video, Office Products, PC or Wireless stores in a single order!

James Burchfield: Sound stylings by a human beatbox

Check out this video where Human beatbox James "AudioPoet" Burchfield performs an intricate three-minute breakdown -- sexy, propulsive hip-hop rhythms and turntable textures -- all using only his voice.

Troubleshooting M-Audio Firewire Distortion Issues

If you ever pick up an M-Audio Firewire Sound card, you might become one of the no-so-lucky customers that experience distortion when playing music through iTunes or WinAmp. There are numerous recommendations on the internet that may not work for everyone.

Here were my symptoms and what was happening to me:

While playing an mp3 in iTunes, any large data transfers like syncing your iPod at the same time may cause distortion. Shutting down iTunes and iTunesHelper.exe sometimes helped but required a reboot most of the time.
While copying large amounts of data from an external hard drive, my M-Audio Sound card would disappear from the Device Manager completely. Re-scanning for hardware didnt work so rebooting was required.
If at anytime any of the above occurred, the same problem existed within WinAmp.

Various Recommendations from the internet:

Adjust Quicktime settings
Rollback Quicktime and/or iTunes
Turn off the EQ within iTunes
Turn off the Sound Enhancer within iTunes
Update drivers for M-Audio Firewire series
reinstall firewire card drivers.
etc, etc

After days of troubleshooting, I determined that it was basically a problem with either the M-Audio Firewire sound card or the Firewire bus itself. Since my Dynex firewire expansion card was brand new from Best Buy...I figured it were the sound card drivers. Nope. Even the latest sound card drivers didnt fix it.

My Solution/Fix:

Return that P.O.S. Dynex Firewire expansion card
Replace it with a card that had the Texas Instruments (TI) Chipset.

Voila. Problem fixed. Yea it costs a little more when it has a TI chipset but you get what you pay for and when you need stability for DJing, Studio Recording, Mixing, or Video editing via Firewire, using a name brand card with a reputable chipset manufacturer will be beneficial. Why would you put yourself through the stress of trying to perform live with a possibility of distortion?

Scratch on your Nintendo DS using ProteinDS App

The Nintendo DS has been used as a music player but the Protein DS application (currently in beta) impressively allows you to scratch audio files.

40 DJ Business Cards Ready-To-Order

We now have a total of 40 DJ Business Card designs available in our catalog!

See the new DJ Business Cards

Business Cards and Stationary are NOW ON SALE! Create your customized *DJ* business card or stationary ONLINE in less than 5 minutes! If you need *DJ* Business cards, Night Club Business Cards, or any other profession, this online business card builder can provide you with over 10,000 business card designs. Customize your business card design online and have high-quality prints in about 2 weeks.

To check out the online Business Card Designer and view more Sale prices, click below:
Online Business Card Builder

View the DJ Business Card Selection

American Audio Introduces the SDJ-1: DJ From an SD Card

American Audio has introduced two new pro audio units that let you carry your music around on an SD card: the SDJ-1 dual SD player; and the Q-SD, a 19" 4-channel mixer combined with an SD player. Both units have built-in SD slots that allow them to read MP3 files directly from SD cards without any external drives, additional software, computers or separate MP3 players required.

Read More about the American Audio SDJ-1