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Looper's Delight
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> No, I'm hinting at the technique. A typical DJ mixer has a > cross over fader between the two turntables and if you watch > a DJ's hands at work you can see how he jumps between the two > turntables with this cross fader while changing the "source > sound" (moving the disc or replacing > it) on the turntable that is not on-line at the moment. There are actually two styles of crossfaders for two different concepts of using them: 1. The scratch/mix battle approach: This would actually come first in history (and is the concept also linked to Joseph Saddler a.k.a Grandmaster Flash, who is often cited as the inventor of the crossfader). The attenuation of the crosfader over its way is highly non-linear, meaning that it stays close to zero over most of the fader's path, then sharply (but continously differentably) rising at the end of the path. The crossfader is used behaviourally as a click-free three way switch with the positions A:"source 1", B:"source 1 + source 2" and C:"source 2" respectively. There are two things done with that click-free three-way-switch: a) suddenly but click-free switching between two sources, when cutting from one vinyl track to another or back and forth between both. This uses positions A and C. b) When scratching, you usually have your beat running on one set (let's say source 1 in our terminology) and scratch on the second one (source 2). To create rhythmic effects or to mute unwanted sonic effects (such as when reversing, thus allowing the very low frequencies), you quickly mute the scratch deck. In that application, the crossfader becomes a click-free killswitch, without at all affecting source 1; you use position B and C. One example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axJZzeYGb60 In the beginning, you see a lot of application of method a). Skwint always slams the crossfader from full left to full right and back. Then, starting at 1:30 in the scratch action, method b) is applied (source 1 here is the turntable on viewers' left). Here, he moves the fader from full (viewers') right into the center area and back. Method b) is also used when you're only using one source (which makes sense, as here the crossfader only affects one of the two): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQcyLMa716k (e.g. at 2:00) (Thanks to all of you for starting this thread. I really enjoy that video of DJ Skwint!) 2. The blending over approach: In most styles of electronic dance (of the 90s), the muting effect is not that important (as there's no scratching). What becomes important is the possibility to fade between two sources relatively slowly using a constant power contour. (couldn't find videos to document this properly). The crossfader here is used a lot in conjunction with frequency kill and punch switches. Great examples are mixes from that genre like the DJ Kicks series, making proper use of the fact that those production maxis always start of with only a drum beat (contrary to a lot of the sources used in oldskool hiphop, which are mostly old funk, soul and jazz records). > Ableton is one by many that have borrowed this concept. With > loopers we may use more than two sources for cross fading though. Some DJs may do that too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fh7WgI4grk And some even use a looper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzd6kbuxN1k > Sorry that I left out some information, but I'm intending to > keep my posts short and adequate, so people can click a link I, on the other hand, tend to write shitloads everytime... Thanks, Rainer