DJing Software.

It's all about the equipment

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PitchTheWoo
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#31 Post by PitchTheWoo » Wed Mar 15, 2006 1:21 pm

Yea, the BPM counter is pretty good. I've found it to be no more than about 6 BPM off from what I count, but then I don't know it's algorithm. I do my counting towards the front of the song where I think people tend to decide to dance or sit. JRMC probably takes into account an average of the whole song or something, and man, some of those rhythm sections sure tended to wander.

Oh, and the only other common JRMC beat counting mistake is to be off by half... easy to just edit the value to double it when doing your sanity check.

Cheers,
Jeff
Here's the beat to hep ya...

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Bob the Builder
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#32 Post by Bob the Builder » Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:44 am

After a lot of talking about this program (J-River Media Center) I decided to give it a try out.
In general it seems not too bad. However it does not come up to some of my very basic requirements. The basic problem is it’s incompatibility with AAC file format. Yes it is able to play these files but that is about the extent of it.
For anyone using iTunes with AAC files you might as well forget about Media Center in its current setup. It really baffles me that a software company is not even trying to attract people from the biggest market, i.e. the iTunes / AAC user. Yes you can get it all to work. But for the ordinary user, they are not going to go through all the hassle.

I have to say I started off using my trial down load on the wrong foot. I had forgotten that Media Center had been on my computer when I bought it, in its 30 day trial format. My 30 days are well up, so on my current computer the only way I can use the program is to pay for it. I’m not into paying for something before I know what it can do. Luckily I have access to a second computer, so my 30 day trial began.

I installed the program that worked well, and started it to search the computer for all the media files on it. It took about 5 minutes, all, but my few thousand AAC file appeared. I found that real odd. I had to go into the options and change the default setting to be able to see AAC files. I started the search again and the AAC files were found. The only problem was that most of the tag information was not showing up. Media center is unable to read the Comments, grouping, BPM, and rating tags of AAC files. Media Center is also unable to encode AAC files. It appears from reading the Media Center that J-River at the moment doesn’t want to pay for the rights to use AAC files properly. This would add about $10 to the purchase price of each product.
I would have thought with a tag problem like this that it would be easy to fix with a back door system. If is very easy to export all this tag information from iTunes by using play list exports. I.e. txt files. You can create a txt file for you entire library containing all the iTunes database information using a wildcard smart play list. However Media Center, don’t seem to have thought about this, and it does not allow you to import this basic from of play list.

If you are an iTunes user using AAC files, this is what you are going to have to do to make a smooth transition from iTunes to Media Center.
1 – Ensure you have a lot of free space on your hard drive, i.e., equal to the total AAC file size plus some.
2 –In iTunes, Go to Edit, Preferences, Advanced, import.
In Import Using – change the setting from AAC Encoding to MP3 Encoding.
In settings, change the Bit rate to what ever is your desired bit rate.
3 –Back in the iTunes Library select all your AAC files, Right mouse click and select “Convert selection to MP3”. This could take a very long time depending on how many files you have. Your new MP3 files will have what ever bit rate you put in the previous step.
4 – You can now import these files into Media Center and all but the ratings will appear in the file tag information.
5- To transfer your ratings create 5 play lists in Media Center, called 5 Star, 4 Star, 3 Star, 2 Star and 1 Star. Open up iTunes and create smart play lists of 5,4,3,2,& 1 star play lists.
Highlight, drag and drop the files from iTunes smart play lists across to Media Centers rating play lists. You can then manually into the play lists in Media center, highlight all the files in the play list and select the required rating.

Personally, I didn’t jell with the user interface. I found things difficult to find. Graphically I found it trying to show too much. It made it confusing and hard to see what I was looking for. On comparison to the graphic interface of iTunes and Media Center, iTunes is much easier to find your way around.

I do like some of the add on tasks that Media Center can do, in comparison to Winamp or iTunes.

Obviously liking or not liking a software program can be a personal thing. If I was starting from scratch with digital music, I believe Media Center would be a real go. Unfortunately as I’ve got some hangovers from AAC and iTunes it makes it real difficult for me to transfer over to Media Center.

Brian :D
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Allen
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#33 Post by Allen » Thu Mar 23, 2006 1:26 pm

I went ahead and downloaded the J-River Media Center and have been using it. My general setup for djing is my ipod hooked up to my laptop via usb, then setting my ipod to manual update so i can play songs directly off of it in iTunes. I would like to do a similar setup with Media Center and here's a few thoughts.

I apologize if my phrasing is a little weird, I didn't get enough sleep last night.

Things I really like:
  • It can detect my ipod, play and copy songs off of it.
    [*when detecting my ipod as a mobile device it gets all the ratings for my music that i have set previously.
  • Support for multiple sound cards and zones.
  • Some skins on the interface don't look too horrible.
Things I didn't like so much or confused me:
  • My BPM ratings that i have done for about half of my collection do not show up when i read music off my ipod. I've tried looking in all the fields that show up in Media Center but cant' find the number anywhere. Any ideas? If i remember correctly it could read the bpm if i imported the songs into media center just not if i left them on my ipod. I might be making up that last part though.
  • I have to set my ipod to hard drive access mode to detect it in Media Center
Other thoughts:
I had the foresight to know i didn't want to encode my music in AAC so all my music in in MP3 format. It's generally just a bad idea to rip things in proprietary formats. I don't fault Media Center for not wanting to include it.

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#34 Post by Nate Dogg » Thu Mar 23, 2006 2:28 pm

I would just invest in a portable hard drive, not use the iTunes and iPod for DJing. It will be simpler that way.

I have an iPod and I use iTunes to buy certain music. That is about it, I have avoided becoming too reliant on iTunes for things.

With hard drive space being so cheap, having songs stored redudantly is not a big deal. I keep all the songs I might want to play as a DJ in folders (completly separate from iTunes) and all of it is in MP3 format. MP3 tags can get complicated as it is, let alone mixing Apple and their proprietary technologies into the mix.

As for my J River Evaluation, it is still going on. Still have not DJed a gig with it yet. Perhaps on 3/30 I will. Not as easy to use as WinAmp, but a lot more features, takes a while to get used to, get set up the way I want. Probably will end up being my default player while DJing. I am probably going to stick with WinAmp for listening to music around the house.

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Lawrence
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#35 Post by Lawrence » Tue Mar 28, 2006 5:07 pm

Personally, I didn’t jell with the user interface. I found things difficult to find. Graphically I found it trying to show too much. It made it confusing and hard to see what I was looking for. On comparison to the graphic interface of iTunes and Media Center, iTunes is much easier to find your way around.
You can change the graphic skin (interface) of the JRiver Media Center player. There is a skin that looks almost exactly like I-Tunes, with only the background colors being different. You can also customize the view to eliminate or add whatever fields you do or don't want.

I am trying JRiver, too, and generally like it much better than WinAmp. It allows you to preview through the multiple zone feature, where you set up a different "zones" and associate them with different sound cards. Setting up the alternative zone for cueing was fairly easy, and it is easy to change between the two so that I get a full window to search, not the half-window recommended by some WinAmp users. Indeed, they specifically mention in the help file that it was designed to allow DJs to preview.

One thing that has been odd with the multiple zone method of cueing, however, is that the volume control on the panel does not always correspond with the zone you are in. Thus, if you don't pay attention, you might inadvertantly turn the volume way up on the main system when you are browsing in the preview zone and trying to turn the volume up on your headphones.

The other programs I have seen that simulate a DJ dual-CD player, with a cuing button, would avoid this problem.

However, the library searching features (smart and dumb playlists, search by genre, artist, album, BPM, customized comments, etc.) gives me exactly what I want from a DJ program.
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Lawrence
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#36 Post by Lawrence » Tue Mar 28, 2006 5:21 pm

I had the foresight to know i didn't want to encode my music in AAC so all my music in in MP3 format. It's generally just a bad idea to rip things in proprietary formats. I don't fault Media Center for not wanting to include it.
I don't know why people would purchase a huge library of songs with limited transferability, even if you absolutely would never illegally trade or transfer music to others. Just the simple transfer from one computer to another (changing computers, or laptop to desktop) rules I-Tunes out for me. It can be done, but with so many limitations that it is not worth the bother when MP3s are just as good quality and more widespread.

My limited experience with protected music files makes me aboslutely HATE them, and not for the reasons you might suspect. It makes personalized mixes and legal tranfers (work to home or vice-versa) MUCH more difficult.
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#37 Post by PitchTheWoo » Wed Mar 29, 2006 2:16 am

Lawrence wrote:One thing that has been odd with the multiple zone method of cueing, however, is that the volume control on the panel does not always correspond with the zone you are in. Thus, if you don't pay attention, you might inadvertently turn the volume way up on the main system when you are browsing in the preview zone and trying to turn the volume up on your headphones.

The other programs I have seen that simulate a DJ dual-CD player, with a cuing button, would avoid this problem.
Hi Lawrence,
There is a setting which will give you what you want. Right click on the mute button (to the left of the volume slider). The resulting context menu has items for volume up/down/mute, as well as System Volume vs. Internal Volume. You will want to chose Internal Volume. System Volume means the volume as set by your windows operating system... how loud your beeps are, etc. In this case, all zones would share the same volume as the system overall, and the slider in Media Center controls it. Internal Volume is the volume as set within Media Center, independent of the system volume, and it is zone specific as well.

Cheers,
Jeff
Here's the beat to hep ya...

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Lawrence
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#38 Post by Lawrence » Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:13 am

There is a setting which will give you what you want. Right click on the mute button (to the left of the volume slider). The resulting context menu has items for volume up/down/mute, as well as System Volume vs. Internal Volume. You will want to chose Internal Volume. System Volume means the volume as set by your windows operating system... how loud your beeps are, etc. In this case, all zones would share the same volume as the system overall, and the slider in Media Center controls it. Internal Volume is the volume as set within Media Center, independent of the system volume, and it is zone specific as well.
Yes, I found that. I don't think that was the problem. The problem was that, in the system or internal mode, the volume bar would actually control the opposite zone. In the system mode, it would control the opposite sound card: the external card when I was in the cueing zone, and the internal card when I flipped over to the main zone. (I verified that by checking the system volume controls for the two cards as I did it, which would change when it was set in "system".)

The gist is that they were reversed in both the internal and system settings. I initially thought that the volume control could only control one zone (the "active zone" in the zone manager), but then I went to the active zone and the volume controlled the other zone. It was really, really odd.

I did fix after screwing with those system vs. internal settings a few times, although I'm not sure how I did it. Perhaps my screwing with it changed or reset the default volume settings so that it was no longer reversed. But it was really an odd, patch-work fix.
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PitchTheWoo
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#39 Post by PitchTheWoo » Wed Mar 29, 2006 12:17 pm

Wow, that is bizarre! I've never seen that reported on their Interact Forum. If it's reproducible though, please report it. they are awesome about bug fixes. I'm glad it has cleared itself up after your tinkering though.

Cheers,
Jeff
Here's the beat to hep ya...

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wheresmygravy
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#40 Post by wheresmygravy » Fri Apr 21, 2006 10:40 am

I have just started playing with JRMC and I must be doing something wrong on the BPM detection. It will rarely go above 160bpm (yes, I do have music above 160 BPM) , the fastest it detected any song was 171 BPM. In general the problem seems to be that it cuts the BPM in ~half. But I did see a version of Ben Webster's Cotton Tail at 69 BPM.

And it is not just on faster music. It even detected Indigo Swing's "How Lucky" at 62 BPM.

Any insight?

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#41 Post by Skippy » Thu May 25, 2006 8:55 pm

winBPM....

hehehehe, I still prefer to do my BPM counting to semi-old fashioned way. I've recently gotten an upgrade to JRMC and am yet to test out the "analise" function.

I'll run it over something the will definitely be over 200bpm and see what sort of results I can get.
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#42 Post by dogpossum » Wed May 31, 2006 6:15 pm

Long time reader, first time poster...

I've been DJing for a few months using itunes on my ibook, and have finally decided to up the complexity-levels of DJing by using headphones to preview songs.
This, however, means adding another media player to my set up (hence the complexity). As I'm a mac person, I can't use JRiver or winamp (though I'd like to be wrong on that point), and I've not been entirely happy with DJ1800 (for all the reasons Reuben mentions in the laptop thread - small screen/lots of clutter, dumb playlist options, etc etc).

What I'd like to be able to do:
- preview songs using my headphones (therefore having two points of output - to the sound system and to my headphones)
- keep itunes as a search/library tool
- use a sweet playlist stituation like the one itunes uses (ie I can drag-and-drop to it from my library, yet also rearrange songs in the list)...
- perhaps play from this new player, rather than itunes, so as to avoid the whole 'accidental double-click' issue

Is there anyone else using a mac to DJ who can offer a useful media player alternative, please?

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#43 Post by CafeSavoy » Wed May 31, 2006 7:30 pm

You can drag and drop from itunes to dj-1800 unless the songs are on a usb drive. it works with a firewire drive though. you can have itunes and dj-1800 going to different outputs. another, more pricey option, is to use traktor dj, but you would have to get an external soundcard with two outputs.

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#44 Post by 1flygirl » Wed Jun 27, 2007 6:41 pm

I was using BPM Inspector for my Mac, but it stopped working with the new itunes updates. Any Mac users out there with a similar program that they could recommend?

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#45 Post by OneTrueDabe » Wed Jun 27, 2007 11:22 pm

1flygirl wrote:I was using BPM Inspector for my Mac, but it stopped working with the new itunes updates. Any Mac users out there with a similar program that they could recommend?
Rapid Evolution from MixShare.com is often considered the best free BPM -- AND KEY! -- detector. You can also use it to suggest what other songs "fit" the one that's playing, based on tempo, key.

Like most applications, it does a good job, but is sometimes "half" off. Fortunately, if you know your music, it will be easy to spot which songs need to be fixed. "It's telling me The Jive Aces play at 110BPM... I think not!" :-D

If you're willing to pony up a few (~$60) bucks, Mixed In Key is another top-notch piece of software. I'm a pauper, though; I haven't actually tried it.

FYI - The same company that makes Mixed In Key also makes Platinum Notes, which attempts to "heal" [their word] sub-quality MP3s. (Purists, kindly disregard this option.)

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