With its pioneering concept and cutting-edge technology, the platform is set to redefine the way DJs record mixes. Undoubtedly one of the most innovative platforms on the market, DJ.Studio has the potential to become a world leader in electronic music software. 

The brainchild of founder Siebrand Dijkstra, who wanted to find the solution to creating perfect DJ mixes in minimal time – and so DJ.Studio was born. A revolutionary platform that will be just as useful to aspiring DJs as seasoned industry professionals, DJ.Studio uses advanced AI-based harmonic intelligence to create flawless mixes in just a fraction of the time, every time.

Unlike anything that has been seen before, the ground-breaking app allows users to sync their existing library, and seamlessly craft their existing playlist of tracks into a mix all at the touch of a button. Once mixed, users have the option to create a local music file, share it on Mixcloud or YouTube or export it to Ableton for additional editing and mastering.

“I have been passionate about electronic music for more than 25 years and I have been creating DJ mixes for the last 15 years. In that period I used an old legacy application, which unfortunately was only running in Windows and it got deprecated 10 years ago, so it was time for me to build it myself with my team.” – Siebrand Dijkstra

Taking away the time-consuming trial and error track matching process, DJ.Studio is able to give its users more time to get down to the nitty-gritty of mixing – to craft their own transitions and effects in this digital audio workstation designed specifically for DJs.

What we thought…

From testing this software at Data Transmission, we’ve found that the AI will select a good playlist for the mix but we’ve found that in every case we’ve had to move the playlist around to make a better mix, a better flow of the tracks.

We’ve also found that with each track you need to move the start & end point for each track to make the beats sync properly as sometimes the software would pick a start point which didn’t make sense. You still need to be the DJ within the software and still need to understand the concept of DJing to allow the best use of the software. The software still will make a good trainwreck if you don’t know how to DJ and adjust the tracks accordingly.

This software speeds up the process of making a mix and is perfect for those doing Radio Shows and promotion mixes for track releases. It’s a fun piece of software to play around with, we enjoyed trying to get the best mix possible out of it and enjoyed tweaking the settings of each track mix to maybe loop in a track or exit a track in a fun way.

We really liked that as a label we could create mixes for Youtube with tracks from our label as extra promotion for the label’s releases simply and easily. We also created the mix below using tracks from our premieres for the Month of May (above) and it created the YouTube video for us.

From the testing, we found that you could make an hour mix in around 15 minutes from start to finish. We’ve found many real-world places this software would work for us but also you can beat jumping on the decks and have a creative session, every day of the week!

How It Works…

To do this, DJ.Studio has included a powerful and seamless integration with Mixed In Key – one of the industry’s best creative tools for DJing. Using the software’s pioneering Camelot wheel, as well as several other key features, DJ.Studio can offer its users the ability to master the art of harmonic mixing. Boasting the capacity to make over 250 million calculations in half a minute and a professional quality mix in less than fifteen minutes, DJ.Studio has transformed the future of mixing. 

DJ.Studio allows users to import tracks straight from their music libraries, with rekordbox, Serato, Virtual DJ, Traktor Pro, Engine DJ, Mixed In Key, Engine DJ and iTunes all supported in the app.

Whilst this is perfect for those who already have a huge catalogue of music, for those who don’t, DJ.Studio really comes into its own with an innovative YouTube integration. Whether you are an aspiring DJ testing the waters, or someone who wants to use the app to provide mixes for their events, house or dinner parties, or maybe just to listen whilst you work, with this feature anyone can create a continuous mix using their favourite tracks online. 

A cutting-edge tool aimed at everyone from bedroom DJs looking to start creating mixes, superstar DJs trialling new ideas whilst on the go, or radio hosts looking to record their shows, DJ.Studio gives everyone the chance to create seamless mixes in a matter of minutes.

DJ.Studio is available as a one-off licence or a monthly subscription starting from $/€/9 per month. For more information, tips and tricks head to dj.studio

The post DJ.Studio uses AI Technology to help create DJ Mixes appeared first on Data Transmission.

I found it to be very useful when having a muddy mix as snares, vocals, pads and low synth notes can occupy the same spectral space and making way for the snare to cut through simply tweaking a few knobs is amazing.

Another trick is to use it on the kick and bass relation. Sidechain from the kick to the bass and set to apply to below 80hz more or less. In this way the plugin will only duck the lows and the mids & highs will stay clean.

Also bringing pianos to the front of the mix can be tricky mainly when there is another synth playing at the same time, you got the idea, right? Sidechain one to the other, set some of the parameters as the attack, release and frequency range and the magic is done.

There are literally only 6 knobs to twist counting the advanced panel and a lot can be archived with it.

Trackspacer is available at Plugin Boutique for £49,00

System Requirements

Mac OSX:

• 10.9 or higher (64-bit only)
• Big Sur & M1 compatible
• DAW capable of hosting VST or AU, or Pro Tools.
• DAW with sidechain functionality.
• Intel processor.

Windows:

• Windows 7 or higher (64-bit only)
• DAW capable of hosting VST plugins, or Pro Tools.
• DAW with sidechain functionality.

Important Note: This software is 64-bit compatible only and will not function on 32-bit systems.

The post Reviewed: Trackspacer appeared first on Data Transmission.

It is definitely one of the most versatile VST’s in the market. For the last 6 months, Pigments took over my sound design workflow as the possibilities are truly limitless and version 3 is just blowing my mind.

Something you won’t see every day on a VST is a combination of 3 oscillators analog-style engine, wavetable, sample playback with granular synthesis capabilities and now with the latest upgrade the harmonic engine for additive synthesis and a third utility engine.

The Harmonic engine is without a doubt the biggest feature of the upgrade, allowing users to control a combination of sine waves adding up to 512 partials for richer sounds. You can also customise odd and even harmonics and morph from A to B of the wide variety of filter shapes.

The new Utility engine counts with a fourth oscillator and 2 sample-based noise generators. Although the amount of noises is quite large there’s no option to import your own noise samples, which could make things a lot more fun.

64 wavetables were included to make a total of 164 in its library plus the possibility of importing your own.

A multi-band compressor and a pitched delay are new features of the effects section. The Chorus Jun-6 (Roland Juno-6 emulation) and the BL-20 Flanger (Bel BF-20) can bring ease to the “vintage sound lovers” in times of modern sound design. Not only that, Arturia added its own Jup-8 V4’s (Roland Jupiter-6) low-pass filter and either filter 1 or 2 now can be routed to either FX bus A or B.

Extra points to Arturia for adding in-app tutorials plus the video tutorials on their website. I wish every VST had such an easy way to learn them.

For holders of version 2, the new upgrade is FREE but for newcomers Pigments 3 is available here with 50% discount of its original price for £84.95 and you can choose between DriveShaper or Dubstation 2 for free.

The post Reviewed: Arturia Pigments 3 appeared first on Data Transmission.

Steve Darko ‘Midnight Swim’ LP is out now, and sonically manifests the core Dirtybird ethos of hunting down polished, cutting edge productions. Its eclectic mix of genres and styles showcase Darko’s range and aptitude in sound design, proving just how much potential he has as an artist on the rise. 

Beyond his studio endeavours, Steve Darko helps the various sounds others use in their music as a software developer at iZotope. No doubt his intimate knowledge on the technical aspects of softsynths, filters, and more enhances his work as a whole. Curious to hear from a developer himself on the best tools one can use for their in-the-box producing, we had the artist list out some of his essentials.

iZotope Ozone

If I were to only be able to use one plug-in in my productions it would be Ozone. It’s my go-to tool for mastering any track and it really does anything you’ll ever need to do while mastering. The difference between a good and a mediocre master is subtle, but so significant in the impact a record has when it comes out of the speakers. The bread and butter if mastering is the limiter, and Ozone’s is at the top of its class. Also, I highly recommend checking out the Low End Focus module – it can be a lifesaver for cleaning up and adding some extra punch to sub frequencies on the master bus or as a track insert on a kick or kick/sub group – definitely a secret weapon of mine.

Grab it here

Native Instruments TRK-01

I’ve been loving the TRK-01 for making kicks – I used it in about half of the tracks on ‘Midnight Swim’. Before discovering this I would almost always synthesize the sub-component of my kicks on one track, layer them with a sample on another track, EQ each, and run them into a bus with some compression and saturation to glue together the sound. TRK-01 streamlines the workflow to do all of these things and it includes some master bass enhancement and “booster” effects that sound amazing and work incredibly well for making massive kicks that will stomp on a club system. It also comes with a bass engine, effects and sequencers – when using all of these components you can pretty much write an entire, polished techno tune with this just plugin.

Grab it here

Sonnox Oxford Inflator

This plug-in has been around for a while, but I only stumbled upon it recently. It’s perfect for adding some extra body and loudness to tracks without them getting too muddy. My best guess is that there’s some multiband saturation and compression going on under the hood, but that’s kept a secret! You have two sliders to control the effect, which make it simple to dial the settings to taste.

Grab it here

iZotope Neoverb

This new intelligent reverb plug-in makes it easy to explore a variety of reverb sounds and dial in something that works well in the mix and is as subtle or dramatic as you’d like. It sounds super clean and is perfect for adding some space to a synth line or smoothing out a vocal. My favourite feature is the giant blend pad in the middle of the UI that lets you blend between three different reverb engines. Oftentimes I’ll record in the automation of moving the node in the blend pad around with the mouse to give tracks some additional movement. Another nifty feature is the Unmask functionality that compares the input signal to the wet, reverb signal and automatically generates an EQ curve to improve the clarity of the dry signal – this can make a huge difference especially when trying to keep vocal tracks intelligible, but still, sound spacey.

Grab it here

Xfer Records Serum

This is one of the most popular softsynths out there and my personal favourite, but for good reason. It’s an extremely versatile and well-designed synth – you can do basically everything you’ll ever need to do with a click or two right from the front page of the UI. This is crucial for working quickly and staying inspired, which can be hard to do if you’re getting lost diving into sub-menus. The oscillators and filters sound buttery and often get mistaken for some of my analog synths by friends of mine. If you’re looking for a solid all-around synth there are tons of great options out there, but I’d suggest giving Serum a try.

Grab it here

‘Midnight Swim’ LP by Steve Darko is out now on Dirtybird, make sure you check it out and grab it from here

The post Top 5 Plugins with Steve Darko appeared first on Data Transmission.

It detects the scale or chords you are playing and suggests progressions which you can edit to your taste. This detection also works with MIDI and Audio files by drag and drop which makes life so much easier for those who like to get inspired by sample pack’s loops. Just bear in mind, MP3 files are not supported.

After the detection, you need to choose which style/mood of the scale you would like to go with and it is very nice of them to have put what each scale sounds like in words. For example Cm scale: Serious, Sad, Emotional, Sentimental or C Dorian: Jazzy, Bluesy, Rocky, Sophisticated.

You can edit each part of the progression on the Edit tab changing Chord Voicing, Inversion and Semitone to give your own personality to the notes and also Playback Timings and Playback Performances. 

Under the Chord and MOD tabs, there will be Chord suggestions and you can also use the Circle of 5ths as a guide.

This plugin is fantastic for every musical aspect of your track apart from the drums so now you will choose an option under Perform tab depending on which part of the track you are writing. It can be Articulations where you will find the Arpeggio and Strumming mode or Expressions with Performances, Phrases, Rhythm, Bass and Melody. Every single one of them is super simple to use.

Another useful feature is the Key Lock function which allows you to play only the notes in the scale or chord you selected in the beginning. Right next to it the Voice Groupings makes smooth the changes between chords as it group notes in a specific range, and Humanize which applies random velocity, swing and/or timing to each note.

As of in Scale 1 you can Drag and Drop the MIDI created from the plugin to the DAW.

It also comes with lots of cool sounds.

Although you cannot place a VST before Scaler, there are ways to route Scaler to play whichever instrument you want, depending on your DAW.

Final thoughts:

As I am not a trained musician and do not play any instruments, Scaler 2 has been seriously helping me with my melodies as it is so quick and easy to use. Some features go beyond my understanding because it was not just made for beginners but I have been learning a lot while having fun! Surely a plugin worth having!

If Scaler 2 sounds like something that you can help you then grab it from here

The post Reviewed: Scaler 2 by Plugin Boutique appeared first on Data Transmission.

Now let’s talk about the 3 main features:

Smart Chords is truly smart as first you’ll select which scale you are in, then for every note of the keyboard within one octave (it will be applied to every octave you play) you’ll be able to select which type of chord will be played as 5th, Triad, Sus4, 6th, 7th, 9th and 11th making very easy to create chord progressions. The possibility of adding Bass notes and Auto Invert the chords makes it even more fun. To humanize the whole thing a Strum option is available which imitates rolled chords by adding a slight delay to each of the notes.

The Multi-Layered Arpeggiator for me is one of the best features as is much more powerful than a regular arp having 3 arp layers but is still very easy to use.

You can adjust the number of Layers, number of Hits, the Rate, Offset, Pattern Type, Swing and how many octaves up it will play.

And last but not least the Audio effects: A selection of 8 types of effects is available with X/Y control for each one allowing you up to 4 effects at the same time. Keep in mind that to keep the effect on at all times you’ll need to activate the Hold button

Even if you don’t own an MPE controller like me, Roli Studio Player it’s still a great plugin to have with a vast soundbank and is very fun to play with. If you do own an MPE Controller than you’re in for a treat! 

Roli Studio Player usually retails for £79.00 but you can grab it for £39.95 from Plugin Boutique here

The post REVIEWED: Roli Studio Player by Roli appeared first on Data Transmission.

Listening to one track louder than the other is where the problem begins as we humans perceive loud bass and highs as being better and for that, the Level Match is perfect having 3 modes: “Match to Original” which will match to the DAW’s track, “Match to quietest” which will find the lowest of the volumes between your references and DAW’s, and “All to -14 LUFS st” which will match all the tracks to what is the most common loudness for pop songs in streaming platforms. I personally stay on “Match to Original” and “All Tracks”.

“Mirror mode” will play the reference track at the same point as the DAW’s and also opens the option Track Align which enables perfectionists like me to perfectly align the original and the reference track manually or automatically.

“Free mode” gives you the ability to select which point of the reference track you’d like to listen and also create loops.

This plugin not only makes you listen to the tracks properly but it also visually shows you what you need to work on and for that, the “Trinity Display” comes into play.

• Activating the “Level Line” one can easily see where to make EQ adjustments, the more the white line goes down the more the track needs a boost of that frequency and vice-versa.
• Stereo Width” shows how wide is the stereo field but keep in mind that you’ll only see the selected track’s so you’ll have to toggle between them to compare which I hope they’ll find a way to show both at the same time.
• The “Punch Dots” will show how their short term dynamic range compares so if the dots move towards the centre that means the original needs less compressing and if it moves away from the 0dB line the original needs more compression.

A very annoying thing is having to level match every time I put an effect on a channel to be able to A/B test and for that Reference 2 comes with an extra plugin called “REFSEND” which bypasses the entire FX chains to make loudness matchedA/B comparison.

s.

Reference 2 by Mastering the Mix made my life so much easier and absolutely changed the way I mix for the better. 

Reference 2 is priced at £49 on Plugin Boutique, grab it from here

The post REVIEWED: Reference 2 by Mastering the Mix appeared first on Data Transmission.

When I went through both projects I realized that I used very few plugins. I actually used a lot of samples for both tracks. I made sure that every chosen sound is top quality and it fits the vibe. You know what they said. You can’t polish a turd. And it applies to music production more than to anything else. The right sound choice is the key!

Prophet 5 – Arturia – (“Dub Bass” preset)

My go-to bassline. I really like Arturia plugins and Prophet 5 is especially one of my favourites. To be totally honest, I have never been too good at creating my own sounds from scratch. Luckily enough Prophet 5 has some good bass presets and “Dub Bass” is just simply working very well for me. I used it on both tracks on the EP. I would usually tweak only the parameters in AMPLIFIER and FILTER sections to make sure that the bass is fitting nicely to my drums.

Prophet 5 is a part of the Arturia V Collection which also includes some other amazing classic synths. I recommend to check it out.

https://www.arturia.com/products/analog-classics/prophet-v

bx_subfilter – Brainworx (Free plugin)

Simple, effective and for FREE! This little bad boy has changed my entire game when it comes to treating the low end. With just a few quick adjustments, you can bring your bass to life. Apart from fatting up your bass, it also brings a necessary clarity and definition to your low end. You can really feel the difference when you A/B (bypass the plugin). Try it yourself!

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/bx_subfilter.html

Kickstart by Nicky Romero

I am sure that many producers are aware of this famous plugin created by a Dutch EDM star Nicky Romero and Cableguys. But if not, I would definitely recommend to try this one out. It’s possibly the quickest way to sidechain a house track. It’s my obvious choice mainly for sidechaining my bass to the kick. But quite frankly, I also use it on other instruments and especially on the effects or foley running in the background of the track to fill up space for a more organic feel. There are good presets to start with and with just a few tweaks, you will get the result you are looking for!

https://www.kickstart-plugin.com/

Ozone Imager (Free plugin)

Another freebie! Everyone knows that Izotope make some brilliant mixing and mastering plugins and some of them can be also a bit pricy. But luckily enough Izotope have released this “Free instant audio imaging” plugin to easily widen or narrow your sounds. It’s incredibly simple and effective. They are just two parameters inside, “Width” and “Amount”, plus everything is nicely visualised right next to it with three different vectorscope meters to help to check your stereo width and see how wide you are making your sound. Don’t grab it!

https://www.izotope.com/en/products/downloads/ozone_imager2.html

Btw during writing this article I found out that there is an upgrade to the version 2! And it’s still free, so no need to worry:).

HornetSongKEy MK3

A key detection utility that finds the key and tempo of a song or sample in realtime. Personally, I only use it for finding the key of a sample or a track I am working on. I usually try to be mindful in what key I am producing but it’s never bad to do a little check. Especially if you are not a classically trained musician like me. Also, not all samples are properly named and if that’s the case, HornetSongKey can come in handy. It saved me a lot of time on numerous occasions. 

https://www.hornetplugins.com/plugins/hornet-songkey-mk3/

Conclusion:

After making music for almost a decade, I realized that you don’t have to own the most expensive and the fanciest plugins on the market to get the result you really want. Of course, they are top-notch VSTs and plugins which are worth to pay for but before you get stuck in buying everything (I used to do it haha), consider trying some of the FREE available options. Sometimes you will be able to find a magic. And remember, it all starts with the right sound choice.

I would like to know if you found any of the above useful in your production. Don’t hesitate to hit me up on Instagram and ‘Down Together’ is now available on all the platforms – https://rsr.lnk.to/downtogether/

The post Top 5 Essential Tools of Dante Tom’s ‘Down Together’ appeared first on Data Transmission.

Putting aside the knobs that every compressor comes with I’d like to talk about some very interesting features of this plug-in:

There are 3 types of compression styles to add colouration:

• Feedback: More musical as the SSL Bus Compressor 
• Relaxed/Instant: Makes the sound be a bit less transparent with a little bit of pumping on the release (The original Molot operates on this mode)
• LoFi: It enables the gain reduction to be 8 bit and the output signal 12 bit creating a more aggressive type of sound without depth which can be great for instruments that need to be in the front of the mix.

The Alpha-Sigma knob in between Attack and Release sets the attack curve shape so if you’re looking for transient shaping I’d recommend leaning towards Sigma as towards Alpha would bring more saturation to the sound.

SC HP is the sidechain highpass filter with changeable slope the higher you go. This is an excellent feature for applying compression to mids and highs and leaving the lows intact. Bear in mind, it won’t fuck the sound, only the application of the compressor. There is also the option of using an External SC when selecting on the top menu line, but that would fuck the whole signal.

The Input can be processed in various ways as Stereo, Mono, Left, Right, Sum, Diff and Sum diff opening a whole range of possibilities. When Sum diff is ON the “W Threshold” and “W MakeUp” (W = width) appears to adjust the difference between Sum and Diff and to compensate the loss in loudness respectively.

Apart from that the guys from Tokyo Dawn built in an EQ section, a brick-wall Limiter, and a Saturation section which sounds very nice and crispy.

Final Thoughts:

That’s a very versatile plugin when it comes to colouration. With different compression styles, stereo configuration and even dual-stage creativity can go far! Apart from the saturation that didn’t sound very appealing to me as I’d rather saturate with a dedicated plug-in TRD Molot GE is a beast!

You can grab the TRD Molot GE from Plugin Boutique here

The post Reviewed: Tokyo Dawn TDR Molot GE appeared first on Data Transmission.

If you’d like to know more about the original hardware click here

As digital technology develops so does the audio plugins and this one is proof of that not only doing an incredible job at emulating the hardware but also bringing more features to the table which would not be possible in the “real world”.

Let’s start with the heads: Previously on the original hardware the heads were pre-set, now you can modify each one of them to your taste adjusting Volume, Pan, Time (You can also sync with your DAW), a LPF and a HPF activating and deactivating each one of the heads from the white 1, 2, 3 buttons underneath.

Moving on to the “TAPE” we got 3 sections:

• The HISS brings up that flavour of the hissing noise from the tape
• The CAT-IFACTS: 
  • WOW emulates the fluctuations caused by speeding up and slowing down the motor
  • FLUTTER adds some random pitch variations 
  • AGE alters the frequency response, losing high-frequencies and gaining low frequencies. If feels as if the tape was getting older and dustier on the surface.
  • SIGNAL LOSS controls the amount of high-frequency signal that is randomly lost 
• The LOOP GAP: Analog tapes can never be glued together perfectly to make a loop, there’ll always be at least a small gap creating a signal loss which gets repeated by the Heads. The more the depth amount, the bigger the gap. That just adds up to the analog feel of the plugin.

Now let’s modify the MOTOR behaviour with 2 more sections:

• HUM adds low-frequencies switchable between 50hz and 60hz found on the original Copicat. The Auto Mute will automatically stop the humming noise when there is no signal coming in.
• VARISPEED: With this, you can vary the speed of the motor so the times of the heads also vary having a slight pitch effect.
  • SMOOTH acts like an ADSR attack and also controls the slew effect when changing the time parameters
  • MODULATION DEPTH: Amplitude of the LFO 
  • MODULATION HZ: Speed of the LFO

When getting to the MASTER there are some interesting features:

• DUCKING eliminates the need for using a sidechain between the plugin and a vocal for example. It ducks the wet signal when the dry one comes in. In it, you can adjust the speed, the amount and also the target flicking through Stereo and Mid. Would be great to see an update where you can act on both simultaneously.
• GLOBAL TONE is the overall EQ with HPF, LPF, BASS being a Low Shelf and TREBLE a High Shelf.
• FAKE ST applies 5ms delay on the right channel to give the impression of a wider sound (Be aware of the mono compatibility issues that might appear)

Apart from all of the main features, Echo Cat comes with an HQ button to allow oversampling, a Panic Button in case you need to erase the tape suddenly, 77 presets, the option of saving your own presets, a By-Pass button as Power ON 220-240 AC and if you’re having issues with the rendering of the plug-in you can try to enable/disable OpenGL on the top right burger menu. AH! I almost forgot. The screen is resizable!

Final thoughts:

Waves Factory Echo Cat really gave me the feeling of using an old analog hardware. For a producer in-the-box like me, it is an amazing way to get closer to that raw signal. I’m definitely using on my productions from now on.

You can grab the Echo Cat from Plugin Boutique here

The post REVIEWED: Waves Factory Echo Cat appeared first on Data Transmission.