What are some ways that you find yourself getting into a creative space?
To a point where you're locked in like let's do this!
My creative zone is super hit or miss lately, especially when I'm still in my 30-day trial of Ableton LOL.
I'm a beginner learning bass music production in Ableton Live 12 Trial on Windows 11 (AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS, 26GB RAM). I have a 13-second spoken word WAV file (44.1kHz, 16-bit, stereo, 1.84MB) that sounds perfectly clean when played outside Ableton, but sounds like a choppy broken phone call inside my project. The project is entirely audio-based: no plugins, no MIDI, no racks, just WAV files on the timeline. The choppiness also shows up in the rendered export, so it's not just a monitoring issue.
Troubleshooting steps taken with no change:
Project has no plugins, no effects, no MIDI; just WAVs. Clean in empty project, broken in main project, broken in render.
Completely stumped.
But they are flippin huge!
Played at open decks and knew they had a CDJ setup, so I was excited to try em out. When I got up there, I realized they were CDJ3000s! Not what I was expecting.
The set went great, had a bunch of people dancing to my wompy hard bass music, even when most everyone else played house.
I have come to realize, I really need a set of CDJs to play on at home, to learn the little nuances you don't get with a controller.
Playing in front of a crowd is really addicting and I can't wait to do it again!
Already planning a few Playlists to use when I land a show gig! 🎧
I've got a FLX4 and really enjoy mixing, so I'm looking into upgrading gear and while CDJs are not cheap, they also seem to hold their resale value pretty well.
Anyway, my goal is to eventually play EDM raves, clubs, festivals and similar events. Not weddings, holiday parties or strip clubs. Although it's important to get paid for my time, that's not the objective. I have a full time job, this is just for me and to do something I've always wanted to, but couldn't because... well, life happens.
Anyway, I'm looking at CDJ2000s & DJM750 as a bare minimum for muscle memory, but wanted to get input from others (besides asking the AI flavor of the week). Are there alternatives that are cheaper & offer the same level of "club gear" fell & experience with it?
What about AIO like XZ or AZ? Are CDJ1000s or XDJ1000s even worth looking at, or are they just too old at this point, layout changed to much or other reasons? $2k is pretty much the budget, hard to justify much more at this point. I plan on keeping the flx4 to use on the go, like at the beach or the park this summer.
I genuinely realize this is probably my adhd tax talking and the newest hyper fixation rabbit hole, but I've learned to live with it & try to rotate out my old rabbit hole purchases to help fund the "new shiny thing".
Where would you upgrade to, from the FLX4, given the budget and goals here? 🎧
Ok, not like it was headlining at Lost Lands or anything, but I got my first 15 min open decks slot yesterday at a bar in Chicago and it was so much fun! 👻
They had an RX2 controller, so it wasn't a huge change from my flx4 and of course the fundamentals translate easily too.
There were like 20 people in the bar when I went up, and it was definitely house music themed, so I didn't go to hard with my music selection but I got some heads bobbin and a couple Yeahs when I did a nice drop. 🤯
I can't stop thinking about that feeling of performing in front of people. All in all, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna enjoy this level of my ADHD rabbit holes 🎧
Now, I gotta get in front of the local bass head promoters to get on some shows as supporting the headliner ... where do I even begin there 👽
I went to my first open decks last night. It was a great show with some super talented artists. They had shows on the main stage, then open decks on the 2nd stage in a closed of room.
Super fun and loved the energy. When i arrived there was only 1 slot left and it was at the end of the night, so i hurried up and scribbled my name up there & proceeded to hang out n enjoy the shows.
When it was my turn to go up, my usb wouldn't read, in fact i brought two and both didn't read. It was well into the night, so anybody willing to help or figure it out was ... not at their clearest mindset 😅
When i got home, i checked both drives and they're both in fact fat32 & mbr formatted, like all the tutorials said to do. I don't understand what went wrong. Shit happens but i want to learn from it so i can be better prepared next time.
I ordered a 16gb sandisk to test, so windows will natively format in fat32 and i don't have to do the rufus formatting workaround. These drives are 64 & 128gb, so I'm wondering if that's the reason?
Confirming again, it's not formatted in exfat, i checked.
Either way, not gonna let it get me down. I'm gonna try n find someone in the area on radiate that's got cdjs to maybe help me make sure everything works as expected next time. 🚀