I just don't like iTunes full stop. It's huge & bloated... And installs loads of crap I don't want. Oh & won't run on Linux, my absolutely bulletproof playout platform
I just don't like iTunes full stop. It's huge & bloated... And installs loads of crap I don't want. Oh & won't run on Linux, my absolutely bulletproof playout platform
Out of interest young Justin.....what playout software do you use on Linux?Originally Posted by juski
I've got to admit to being a bit of a nerd and have "tinkered" with Linux, but haven't got a clue when it comes to DJing software available.
Mixxx. I love it, apart from it not having superb time bending & effects bar a flanger. I keep being tempted to try VDJ but I hear horror stories about it doing inexplicable random things. I got bored trying Serato & besides if I'm gonna be paying for software I want decent master tempo from the outset without spending extra money! I'm still running the older version (1.1.12 or something) of Mixxx though. Oh - and Mixxx is absolutely music only. No video or karaoke support but it supports multiple audio devices simultaneously and timecode should you ever want to do 'real' wicky wicky stuff.
Wedding tonight at a regular venue.
Saw a photographer that I've not seen in a while, so had a nice pleasant chat with him whilst setting up. Couple of videographers there too. Moody looking pair who asked about setting up a tripod behind my booth without saying hello or offering an introduction. They seem somewhat disjointed when I suggested that they walk away, come back and start again with a hello.
Nice people, but a really hard crowd to work. One of those gigs where at the end of the night, you still can't work out if they were an indie bunch, pop lovers, RnB crowd etc. Still, everybody seemed to have enjoyed themselves and I had a pleasant chat at the end of the night with a guest who turned out to be a DJ based in Wales.
Time for a cuppa and a sleep.
Last night was an 80th birthday party for me with photo projection too.
Now, I've done 80th, 90th and even a 100th birthday party before and they were fine...pretty easy actually and the reason why?.... Well, there was a wide age range of guests in attendance.
Last night was a serious challenge for me because (apart from 8 teens...I counted them!) everyone else was around the 70 / 80 mark and it looked like they had been superglued to their seats.
Now, it may have been a challenge but it was also very enjoyable because it was away from the 'norm for me.
I played Rock 'n Roll, Country & Western, Waltzes and stuff that I'd never consider playing usually.
I did get people up dancing and I also got a lot of compliments too.
The party was for the Mum of someone I have known for a couple of years. She's organised live music events in the past that I have been involved in and I'd met the birthday 'girl' a couple of times. When I had my meeting with them a week or so ago it was really sweet seeing the look of excitement on her face as we went over the music.
I was under no illusions that it would be a rammed dance floor last night. No disrespect at all but there were a few wheelchair bound guests and also (and again, no disrespect whatsover), a handful of zimmer frames. I know I shouldn't of chuckled to myself behind the decks (nobody could see me!) but I have never EVER seen anyone on the dance floor with a zimmer frame! Bless her, she looked like she was loving it.
The venue was the local conservative club, a place I'd not visited before and it was like something out of Phoenix Nights....yes, really! However, the staff said they'd also really enjoyed the evening and that the "Music was cracking".
The party organiser couldn't look after me enough and after a hard week of meetings and bookings I decided to join in and so accepted the offer of a drink or two. Blimey...I even had a plate of food (which was lovely but is not like me at all).
She was also very encouraging and complimentary. I asked if everything was ok and she said "They're loving it. They're dancing in the seats!". I got told that by others too during the evening.
One older gentleman (I'd guess aged 80 himself) came over and asked if I had some Daniel O' Donnell. Luckily I did have it and by the time he'd walked across the dance floor and sat back down in his seat the song was starting. He was out of his seat like Linford Christie and on to that dance floor!
I'd done the usual throughout the night announcing that I took requests and I only really had a handful of people come over but I played every single song that was requested and they loved it.
As people left I was waved at and a few came over and thanked me and that was enough for me.
Everyone was happy, especially the birthday 'girl' and I came away thinking that if I could conquer a night like that then I could conquer more or less anything..... well, don't ask me to mix up house or dance music all night because I don't think I could!
One last thing - I did think at one point that if I were looking down on myself I would be cracking up!
The reason being - I didn't get into DJing all those years ago to end up playing at gigs like this. I remember getting the promo of Rage Against The Machine's Killing In The Name Of EP and playing that for a few weeks before anyone was even remotely interested but I loved those days. I don't think I could personally do gigs like last night week in, week out BUT.....at least I know I can so...in the latter stages of my DJ days I may just end up doing more of them....ahem!
Further to the above, I did a 90th party last year for a person who was still an active member of a ballroom dancing club. Half the 100 or so guests were also members of the same club. I was dreading it but he had emailed me a list of their favourite "formation" ballroom dances in advance. Both he and I really enjoyed it. They asked me if I fancied doing their tea dance every Wednesday afternoon! Had to decline because of the day job but could be a way of extending the life of a DJ in retirement.
I dont know Linux--but surely it must be an mp3 compatible play out?
Isnt that what all downloaded music is ( other than Apple I tunes funny files which you can easily convert to mp3)
I have run my Cortex (bullet proof playout ) with i tunes downloads converted to mp3 for 10 years.
I didnt like I tunes much---until I worked out how to use it properly.
Ah well everyone to their own.
Makes sense--but not sure what the gig fee might be--apart from very small?
Or a free cream tea?
Never mind the music--think of the money Gary
Last edited by Excalibur; 14-06-2016 at 07:34 AM. Reason: merged posts
iTunes as a standalone entity on a PC is okay if I ignore all the crap it installs to support it (Quicktime, Apple this, Apple that or other). But it won't run on the Linux OS so I can't use it on my playout laptop. My music is a mixture of mp3, flac & wav files. Re-fixes I do are either flac or wav, cos they generally started life as MP3 (and MP3s of MP3 files are to be avoided if possible - you can only decode & re-encode music so many times before it starts to sound like Sean Paul). Back to my beef with iTunes.. with previous versions - I dunno what it's like now - all I ever wanted was a simple way to put songs on my wife's iPod. I wasted whole evenings trying to figure out how to sync some songs but not others (yeah you'd have thought that just ticking the box would be enough yeah? NO). It became really easy to see why people would just sack it all & buy an iDevice big enough to fit all their music on in one go. Cynical, moi? The only ever portable music player I've ever owned after a Minidisc walkman, was basically an external disc drive I dragged & dropped tunes onto. Unplug it, play the music on the device. No messy 'sync' nonsense.I dont know Linux--but surely it must be an mp3 compatible play out?
Isnt that what all downloaded music is ( other than Apple I tunes funny files which you can easily convert to mp3)
I have run my Cortex (bullet proof playout ) with i tunes downloads converted to mp3 for 10 years.
I didnt like I tunes much---until I worked out how to use it properly.
Ah well everyone to their own.
Ahhh--yes the dreaded sync.
Countless posts on the net.
This WAS a problem until I started to read the posts from the Internet and voila--all became clear.
The golden rules.
1.Make sure your i pod is FULLY CHARGED --if you have an older I pod Classic --we have 3 here. Stupid but it works. Newer models like our 4 new ones no need.
2. Go to app data on your pc/ laptop and under temp files delete everything you can.
3.Reboot main computer as well as running Cr.p Cleaner.
4.Check you have latest versions of I tunes and i pod software.
5.When syncing with a small i pod hard drive make sure you dont try and sync the whole collection on your pc--made that mistake yesterday--just sync within the ipods capacity selecting suitable number of playlists.
If you have a Classic 160gb not usually a issue.
After that everything works fine, I do have one issue with Windows 7 --you have to select not Windows 7 compatibility but an earlier one--Windows Vista
Anyway it all works perfectly for us here
Rock solid for playlists and the odd track that has gone missing on the main playout
Too late now. We were ending up with half synced tracks, some not even that. Even after wiping the iPod & doing one short playlist at a time. Never going back there. Ever.Ahhh--yes the dreaded sync.
Countless posts on the net.
This WAS a problem until I started to read the posts from the Internet and voila--all became clear.
The golden rules.
1.Make sure your i pod is FULLY CHARGED --if you have an older I pod Classic --we have 3 here. Stupid but it works. Newer models like our 4 new ones no need.
2. Go to app data on your pc/ laptop and under temp files delete everything you can.
3.Reboot main computer as well as running Cr.p Cleaner.
4.Check you have latest versions of I tunes and i pod software.
5.When syncing with a small i pod hard drive make sure you dont try and sync the whole collection on your pc--made that mistake yesterday--just sync within the ipods capacity selecting suitable number of playlists.
If you have a Classic 160gb not usually a issue.
After that everything works fine, I do have one issue with Windows 7 --you have to select not Windows 7 compatibility but an earlier one--Windows Vista
Anyway it all works perfectly for us here
Rock solid for playlists and the odd track that has gone missing on the main playout
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