iPod DJing, is great, as it allows you to DJ with out a bulky laptop, this however doesn’t mean that you can do away with a laptop altogether, after all, an iPod needs iTunes and a laptop to organize and load music from interestingly DJ programs can be quite pricy and not all are compatible with iTunes or the iPOd, the DJ1800 however was creative with this in mind, and allows you to work with iTunes and DJ at the same time, making it the perfect DJ software for iPoD DJs, its a strictly Mac affair with makes it all that much more iPod friendly, and has interesting functions lik Pitch lock, which allows you to alter tempo with out affecting pitch. It comes with the flexibilty for two out put mode, 1. via the head phone port and a secondary out put, or via a multi channel external sound card, the DJ1800 is also compatible with various MIDI controllers so you can Dj from your laptop, a fully documented plugin API means that for any tech geeks out there, you can create your own plugins and controllers, making ti possible to convert an iPod or an iPhone into a controller for the DJ1800.
Specifically for the iPod, the iTunes libary is fully integrated into DJ1800, there is also plug and play support of any iPod, like-wise for the iPhone, or iPod Touch, perhaps most significantly the DJ1800 allows you to save mixes, StartPoint, AutoGain and BPM values to iTunes and therefore your iPod, iPhone and iPod Touch. You can find more information on DJ1800 here.
One of the great things about the iPod, is that when you create a smart playlist in iTunes, it gets transferred to the iPod, this helps greatly with planning sets, categorizing music using formats other than album, artist and genre, and in the case of iPod DJing, categorizing music by BPM.
Creating and iPod smartlist in iTunes is really simple. And allows you to catagorize music based on a variety of criteria. for the purposes of arranging music on the iPod for DJing, you first need to find out the BPM for each track in your iPod music library. Once your iPod music has got the BPM you need to open up iTunes.
In iTunes, go to file >> new smart playlist
a window opens where you can “match the following rule”, here you have a series of drop downs that correspond with the various info columns that are related to your iPod music collection.
In the drop downs select BPM as the criteria to categorize your music with. In the next field you can choose various parameters, here you want to select ‘contains’ or ‘is’ as the qualifier, in the last field, enter in the BPM number. If you want further customization, you can click the + button and add other perameters, this can help if you want to get really specific in your Playlists. The window will close and you’ll see a new playlist in iTunes, labeling the play list is also very important, the best way to label is to order it as follows *BPM 123 by adding ‘*’ all the BPM playlists will appear together on your iPod, ‘BPM’ obliviously sets that the tracks are arranged by BPM and the numbers show the BPM.
If you have a large collection of music this can be tough, but once its sorted, everything is very organized and any new music will automatically be sorted into these smart playlists…pucker.
When it comes to getting these smart playlists onto your iPod, its just a case of plugging in your iPod and syncing your iPod with iTunes.
iPod DJing is still very new to the world of DJing, and certainly the potential of using an iPod for DJing hasn’t been fully explored by DJs most people still see the iPod as an MP3 player, but when you consider an iPod is a small ’simple’ computer then you can begin to see why a device as small and portable as an iPod could be a real asset for DJing, point to note, the Pacemaker is the next step in iPod DJing, and whilst its great, its expensive and a totally different machine, this is really about exploring the iPod as a product range and its function in DJing.
Capabilities: the iPod can play, fast forward, rewind and pause music, as you would expect from any music or MP3 player. The jog wheel is fantastic and one of the control features that sets the iPod apart from other MP3 music players. The iPod software and computer software iTunes are both also very strong in their offering, certainly from a Programming and set planning perspective, and really for any iPod DJ, this is the key focus, after all the iPod isn’t a DJ tool, not, at least, in its current state. Another key strength of the software and one that supports the art of programming a DJ set is the ability to create playlists.
Limitations: The iPod whilst being fantastic with heaps of storage, is first and foremost an MP3 music player, so to Dj on an iPod requires a degree of playing around and working around these limitations, hopefully these will get addressed as the appeal and attraction of DJing grows and a big enough market devlops for DJing on an iPod to justify Apple making a DJ compatible DJ iPod. Another iPod limitation is that there is only one output, so there’s no way to use your headphones to adjust your track whilst another is playing out, for DJing this also a bit of a downer. But lets be realistic, the iPod is an MP3 player, in the same way that a CD player, cassette player or Turntable are music players, basically, despite all their functionality, the iPod is a player, and to use it for DJing, you need to give it some leeway.
Benefits: DJing with an iPod has massive advantages, for one, you can you entire DJ music collection in your pocket, its also fantastic for DJing on the go, and for mobile DJs, its a great backup, saving you space and the curse of the DJ back (backpain from carrying vinyl), if you add to this that DJing on an iPod is still in its infancy, and really the full potential of DJing on an iPod is still being developed, you’ll be ahead of the game. On top of all this, as the iPod is digital, it means you can broadcast your music quickly and easily accross the web and with certain iPod accessories, you can record sounds and music to your iPod, and potentially use them in set literally straight away. All this means that despite some serious limitations, there are solutions to over come them, and the full potential of DJing on an iPod is still yet to come.
Now there are two ways to approach iPod DJing, depending on your budget and how flexible or innovative you want to be. 1. if you have some budget, the easiest and most conventional way to get into iPod DJing, is to get an iPod DJ unit, you can find units like the Cortex Dmix-300 for pretty good prices, and these iPod DJ units are literally like DJing with two decks and a mixer, with jog wheels that control each channel from a single iPod. alternatively 2. you can get two iPods, setup the music with the BPM format mentioned here and get a mixer, if your looking for portability you could look at a micro mixer.
Essentially, DJing on an iPod is fantastic fun, it allows you just as much if not more flexibility as any other form of DJing and allows you to carry your entire collection of music in a unit the size of a cigarette box.
iPods benefit for having their own software, in the form of iTunes. Whilst this is great for organizing your music on your iPod. In order to DJ with an iPod, you’ll also want to have some additional software, and while your at it, so DJ software on your computer as well (1. cause its fun and 2. to help support your DJing on an iPod).
Here are some very useful software that will help you to both organize music in a DJ -able format and help with you DJ on your iPod.
YamiPod 1.6 - This allows you to make backups of iTunes, one of the inherent problems with iTunes is that it only allows an iPod associated with that specific iTunes to sync, your mates iPod would sync and you wouldn’t be able to transfer their music to your iTunes, naturally this was put in place to prevent pirating of music. YamiPod is an open source iPod program that allows you to back up your iPod, so if your tracks are on your iPod and you end up with a new computer and a new iTunes, you can still transfer your music across quickly and easily with your iPod. To add to this, you can edit song information, import lyrics, read copy and edit playlists. One unique feature is the ‘repair iPod’ feature which allows you to restore the database of music on your iPod.
iTunes BPM inspector (when you get to the site click more and scroll down), this is a fantastic tool that helps you calculate BPM, which for any DJ is useful and to key your music organized on an iPod for DJing, this is invaluable. This works by tapping out the beat. Beatunes is another iPod software that does this as an automated process, however, whilst its good, there can be times when the BPM is not measured accurately, usually when the music is very complex with no obvious beat.
Beatport.com - beatport offer a download of their DJ software which is really a cut down version of Traktor, the great thing about this is that Beatport are great for downloading music for your iPod and they specialize in DJ music.
These iPod and iTunes compatible programs will help you to iPod DJ and keep your music in order.
The software for an iPod essentially organizes your music, however if you plan on DJing music on your iPod, you’ll need to consider the limitations and features of iTunes and the iPod and use these to your advantage. Good organization helps when you DJ. Lucky for you here is a decent solution for anyone looking to DJ with an iPod.
First, before moving any further there is one key aspect that needs to be considered: an iPod and the iPod software doesn’t yet allow you as a DJ to alter the pitch on its own, whilst there is DJ equipment that allows you to alter pitch, the iPod itself and iTunes doesn’t currently have a feature to do this, after all this would requre the software to edit the structure of the track. there is however a slight work around, we’ll look at that later.
To organize music on an iPod, you need to look at iTunes. An iPod, stores music naturally in groups, these are as follows:
Artists
Albums
Songs
Genres
Composers
(and podcasts and audiobooks, but we won’t need this)
If you are using the iPod to play music, then usually using the Album group is fine. Now, for the organization.
You can get tools that help you to identify the BPM (Beats per minute) of tracks, these include: beatunes for iTunes on Mac and this manual application, there are loads out there. now once every single track you have has BPM, you want to create Playlists in iTunes, the easiest way to do this is to use the Smart Playlist set the limit range, ie the BPM, now the groups in the playlist section of your iPod contain tracks by BPM.
Next, if you wish to setup other playlists on your iPod, you want to make sure they are allocated a number, by labeling the BPM related playlists as BPM 130, and your normal playlists as 1. xyz when you search through playlists on your iPod you’ll find the BPM playlists grouped together.
With in the playlist, iTunes allows you to dictate the order of your tracks, this is a great opportunity to think about how to order your tracks.
With this your iPod, now allows you to select playlists based on BPM, album, song, artist, and genre. when you are organizing your music, make sure that you enter this information into iTunes.
