I’ve had a Mixcloud account for a few months, but hadn’t done anything with it until last Wednesday night. Last wednesday I posted my first mix on Mixcloud which ended up being the most popular mix of the day and is currently sitting as the #5 mix on the front page of the site! Listen to the mix below, leave me some feedback on it in the comments, and check out a screen capture of my #1 spot below the mix once you hit play to start listening.
I’ll give another update on my first mix’s progress once it gets close to the end of its week long run. Be on the lookout for more of my mixes on my mixcloud account.
Before I jump in to the topic at hand, why not turn one of these tracks on to listen to before you read on? KillaMC sent me a newer track of his a few weeks back and haven’t gotten around to posting it until now and Damaged Good$ just dropped a new track earlier this week.
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KillaMC – Flow On
I’m glad I fought the urges to buy a Vestax VCI-300 and waited to see what came out of NAMM. The xone:DX is similar to the xone:4D, but it’s built to take advantage of Serato Itch. When compared to the VCI-300 the only thing the VCI-300 does better is the jog wheels. The jogs on the DX are fairly small even as MIDI controllers go, but I’m sure I’ll manage. Everything else about the unit has me excited for its March release. Twenty channel USB 2.0 soundcard, manipulation of all 4 channels in Itch via the two onboard jog wheels, built in FX, inputs for turntables or two line-level devices. In one word, huge.
A twenty channel sound card!? That is insane, compound that with the ability to plug in vinyl turntables or line-level devices (iPods, CDJs, Kaossilators, etc.) and you’ve got the piece of DJ hardware that I’m most excited for this year. Wait, there’s more. Not only is the DX fully Itch compatible, but it is able to be used to control OTHER DJ software. Want to use Scratch Live or Traktor instead of Itch? You got it (although you’ll still have to have the Serato box plugged in to unlock the software). Xone really delivers here with the xone:DX and as soon as this thing ships I’m going to be addicted to the thing. Depending on how well it works as a standalone mixer, the DX may even take its place as the centerpiece of my daily DJ setup. Jump to the bottom of the post to check out a YouTube video demo of the DX that Skratchworx posted.
Hey Xone, it’s your friend Eric. I F@#$ING LOVE YOU!
PS: Rane you better unlock 4 channel SSL even if the old SL-1 box is plugged in. Sure, the SL-1 only supports 2 output channels, but the DX supports all 4.
Get over your Wednesday with some new school funk. Also referred to as funky breaks, nu skool breaks, uk breaks, and so on. All I know is that it’s good and what I’ve got below is free to check out and download.
Basement Freaks [MySpace] – A staple of the new age of funky breaks, Basement Freaks put out the following funk rerub of “Window Shopper” on their SoundCloud page. Don’t have SoundCloud? I’d sign up and follow your favorite artists if I were you. You never know what sneaks onto SoundCloud from your favorite artists that is free!
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Continuing through the freebie finds on SoundCloud we’ve got a free track from Fuzzbox Inc. I’m a fan of the track, but am not very familiar with Fuzzbox Inc. in general. I’ll be on the lookout for more tracks from these guys in the future though.
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Last up I’ve got an entire free EP from Nick Thayer for you. It’s been out for a few months, but it’s worth a look regardless. Check the one of the tracks, Super Too $hort, below and download the entire free EP here if you’re into it. How can you go wrong with some sampling from Mario and some Too Short?
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