Wednesday, April 29, 2009

da Marksman: "Took a trip to Jollibee in Queens, very disappointed"

Posted by: da Marksman

So, I decided to go to Jollibee in Woodside and man was I disappointed. First of all, they had no Tocino. I ordered the Spaghetti combo which included chicken. The spaghetti tasted like Ragu and not no muthaf*ckin Jufran! The chicken looked like something you got at Kennedy Fried (NY based Fried Chicken)but tasted worse. Overall, a bad experience. I'll be back next week.




Sunday, April 26, 2009

Drake on Joe Budden TV

Posted by: da Marksman

So, Drake is getting heavy airplay in NY right now and honestly, I'm feelin' this dude (pause). Everyone's comparing him to Cudi, but I think Drake is better lyrically. The only problem I see is that Lil Wayne put him on the map and I hate Lil Wayne. Oh well, hip hop is not dead after all. Shouts to Joe Budden TV.



One of my favorite songs from Drake right now. "Unstoppable featuring Lil' Wayne and Santogold" (Minus Wayne of course)

More pics from Mazatlan, Mexico (Week 1 Day 4)

 

 

 

 
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Pic Highlights from Mazatlan, Mexico (Week 1 Day 4)

 

 

 

 


went to downtown mazatlan which is the old town part of the city. visited the cathedral, town square, and their famous old style market. then went off to the golden zone which is where the beach resorts are located at. had lunch, ate some more fish tacos, drank some tequila and pacifico beer, and soaked in some sun. gonna try to do some snorkeling or scuba diving when i get back here this week.
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Brian Orakpo is our top draft pick for the Redskins



I'm really excited that we drafted the top defensive college player of 2008, Brian Orakpo, plus we got him lined up with this year's top NFL free agent acquisition, Albert Haynesworth. Our defense is gonna be a monster. Can't wait.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Woohoo!!! Serato Scratch Live 1.9 is finally here! Can't wait to try it out at my next gig.



This is a new cutting edge version of Scratch Live that introduces many new features including the SP-6 Sample Player, LiveFeed, Loop Roll, enhanced History, native Pioneer MEP-7000 support, Show Album Art on Deck, Key tag support, and many other bug-fixes and improvements.

New Features:

Rane SL 3 Support

Scratch Live 1.9.0 supports the new Rane SL 3 hardware.

SP-6 Sample Player
Play up to 6 samples simultaneously with different playback modes.

Live Feed
Stream your Microphone or AUX input straight to the virtual deck.

Loop Roll
New looping effect where the playhead jumps back to normal time when you release the loop.

History
History keeps a comprehensive record of every track played, during every gig.

Custom Crate Columns
You can now have all crates and playlists share the same column view.

Pioneer MEP-7000 Support
The Pioneer MEP-7000 gains Scratch Live plug-and-play support.

Show album art on deck
Displays the album art for each loaded track next to the 'track info' display near the top of the screen.

Key Tag support
Key tags are now read from MP3 files and displayed in the 'key' column in the library.


New Features in Detail:

Rane SL 3 Support
Scratch Live 1.9.0 supports the new Rane SL 3 hardware. More information on the Rane SL 3 can be found here: www.serato.com


SP-6 Sample Player
The new SP-6 Sample Player adds six extra audio players that can be triggered with the computer keyboard or a MIDI controller, turning compatible Rane hardware into a high performance sample player.

- The SP-6 can be set to output audio through either the Left or Right deck channel, or through both (Mix), using the L, M or R buttons at the right of the sample player panel. On the Rane SL 3 the Aux channel can also be selected.

- There are four trigger modes:
Trigger - The sample is played each time you press the trigger on the sample.
Hold - The sample only plays while you hold down the trigger on the sample.
Single - The sample plays when you press the trigger on the sample, and stops when you press the trigger again.
Repeat - The sample will continue repeating when it reaches the end of the sample. This can be activated for each of the three above modes.

Keyboard Shortcuts:
Z, X, C, V, B, N - Trigger sample 1 - 6.
Alt/Option - Z, X, C, V, B, N - Stop sample 1 - 6

- The Sample Player uses the first saved loop (in loop slot 1) for the sample if the track has a saved loop set. If the track does not have a saved loop, the sample will play from Cue Point 1 to the end of the file. If Cue Point 1 is not set the entire file will be played. If the "Repeat" button is on the sample will loop continuously while it being played.


Live Feed
Brand new in Scratch Live 1.9 is a groundbreaking feature called LiveFeed, taking live external audio and placing it directly on a Scratch Live virtual deck, all in real time.

- When you have your Rane hardware connected you will have new searchable LiveFeed tracks in your library. These are called "Livefeed - Rane SL 1", "Livefeed - Rane TTM 57SL..." etc. If you load a LiveFeed track to the virtual deck, that audio stream will be streamed straight to the virtual deck. This lets you do some cool tricks with the a live microphone or instrument input, or even play the output of an ipod straight onto a virtual deck.

- There are also gated versions of these tracks in your library that only stream when the audio goes over the gate threshold.

- Needle dropping while using LiveFeed will bring the playhead to the "now" time.


Loop Roll
Loop Roll is a new looping feature that lets you activate a loop on any track with a valid BPM (just like autoloop), but when you release the Loop Roll button the playhead jumps to the position where it would have been if you hadn't looped. That means you can get crazy with loops, stuttering or glitch effects but the track stays in time.

Keyboard Shortcuts
Use Alt + Ctrl + 1 through 0 to trigger with the keyboard.

- You can MIDI assign individual Loop Roll lengths by 'Ctrl + Alt + Click' on the autoloop buttons when in MIDI assign mode.

- You can assign a MIDI knob to select an autoloop / loop roll length. You can assign a single MIDI button to loop roll or autoloop with the selected length. The MIDI select knob is assignable on the MIDI panel at the bottom of the screen when in MIDI assign mode (next to the autoloop and loop roll buttons).
You can also assign these controls to the TTM 57SL control surface.

- The autoloop and loop roll lengths now go down to 1/16th and 1/32 beat loops.


History
The History function now keeps a comprehensive record of every track played, during every gig. This replaces the old "Review" feature and is a real time saver for professional DJs who need to log their sessions.

- To view your session history, press the 'history' button between the 'browse' and 'prepare' buttons.

- Tracks are only visible in history if they have been 'played'. You can view 'unplayed tracks' by turning on the 'show unplayed tracks' checkbox in the history panel. You can select a track and 'mark played' or 'mark unplayed'.

- You can double click fields in better review to edit them. Double click the session name (it is set to the date of the session by default) to give each session a name.

- You can export sessions from you history to 'txt', 'csv', or 'm3u'. To export, select a session in the history panel, choose an export format and press export. The status bar will indicate where the file has been exported to ("History Export" in your ScratchLIVE folder).

- Recently played tracks are marked green in the history panel and your library, this can be reset by pressing the 'clear' button at the bottom right of the history panel.


Custom Crate Columns
There is a new 'custom crate columns' option on the library tab of the setup screen. This option will be off by default. When this option is on, crate columns behave as they do in versions before 1.9. When the option is off (default), all crates and playlists share the same column view.


Pioneer MEP-7000 Support
The Pioneer MEP-7000 gains plug-and-play native support, joining the popular Pioneer CDJ-400 as a Scratch Live control surface. Control CDs are not required, and song data is shown directly on the MEP-7000’s displays. Simply plug and play and Scratch Live will detect the MEP-7000.
Quickstart guide: serato.com


iTunes Library Changes
- The iTunes library is now collapsible in the crate selector window. Click on the triangle icon next to the iTunes library playlist to expand and collapse the iTunes Library.

- When you uncheck 'read iTunes library' all tracks marked with the iTunes icon are removed from your library unless the track is in a Scratch Live crate.

- Tracks that are in the iTunes library are now not marked with the iTunes icon if they are already in the Scratch Live library, but they will still show up in the iTunes playlists as normal. These tracks also are not removed from the Scratch Live library when you untick 'read iTunes library'.

- You can also drag tracks from an iTunes playlist or the iTunes library onto the "All..." crate to mark it as permanent in the Scratch Live library. You can also conversely drag a track from an iTunes playlist or the iTunes library onto the 'iTunes Library' playlist to mark it as an iTunes track.


Files Panel
- Renamed the 'import' panel to 'files'.

- Moved the 'rescan ID3 tags' and 'relocate lost files' buttons to the 'files' panel - You can now drag a folder from the 'files' panel onto 'relocate lost files' to search through that folder.

- You can now drop individual tracks onto the 'rescan id3 tags' button to scan only those tracks.

- You can now cancel 'rescan ID3 tags' by turning off the button while it is scanning.


TTM 57SL firmware update
- This version of Scratch LIVE contains an update the TTM 57SL Firmware v3.11 which features:

* soft (clickless) FlexFx routing
* the ability for the AUX input to be muted in the mix when using the new "Live Feed" feature


Show album art on deck
There is a new option on the display tab on the setup screen called 'show album art on deck'. Turn this option on to display the album art for each track next to the 'track info' display near the top of the screen.


Key Tag support
Key tags are now read from MP3 files and displayed in the 'key' column in the library. You can turn on and off the key column with the column chooser menu in the library.


Controllers

- The fine pitch adjust sliders are now available for MIDI assignment when in MIDI assign mode.

- The Denon HC-4500 now uses the "range / pitch/key" button to be able to toggle between a +/-8% and +/-16% pitch range.

- Pressing the 'back' button on the Denon HC-4500 while in the crate window will now expand/collapse crates.


- Fixed the autoloop controls from not working on the Numark DMC2.

- Fixed the Numark DMC2's +/- pitch display symbols from being reversed.



Miscellaneous Changes and Bug Fixes:

- The 'build overviews' button is now 'analyze files'. For some time now this button has done more than just "build overviews", so we've changed the name to make its function clearer.

- You can now open the 'column chooser' menu by right clicking on a column in the track list.

- Dragging tracks out of Scratch Live onto MacOS X Finder now copies the files instead of moving them.

- Track gains that are excessively loud are now ignored (for example, track gains that have been incorrectly set by iTunes).

- Video track associations are now stored in the tags of the audio track so the association will persist through a track database rebuild.

- Fixed a problem with some Quicktime files (MP4 video files for example) where cue points in the XML metadata could be overridden by empty cue points in metadata stored in the file itself. The XML metadata will always take precedence over internal metadata.

- Files, Browse, History and Prepare restore their panel sizes when coming from a fixed sized panel such as the sample player or hardware panel.

- The pitch bend controls have been moved to below the internal mode pitch slider (- and + buttons). Ctrl + Click on the Pitch Bend buttons also performs a pitch nudge (ie. the pitch bends and then stays). This is also MIDI assignable (Ctrl + Click when MIDI assigning).

- There is a new global 'autoplay' option (at the top of the screen). This replaces the old individual 'auto' mode buttons on each deck.

- Fixed AAC / video files from rebuilding overviews constantly.

- Fixed flickering of popup menus on windows (eg. the column chooser menu).

- Changed the way auto-bpm works to not overwrite an existing BPM value if the calculated value is not close to the existing tag, or a multiple of the existing tag.

- Changed overview behavior so that they are always rebuilt from scratch if they are being built on the deck. This is to ensure that correct auto-bpm and auto-gain values are calculated.

- Fixed bug where sometimes on startup parts of the 'whitelabel locked files' message box would be in the top left corner of the screen if you have locked whitelabel files.

- Added a warning when editing multiple tracks' color tags.

- Changed 'auto bpm' to be on by default.

- Slightly changed the layout of the virtual decks. The pitch and pitched BPM are now larger and more readable.

- Fixed bug where if you had a ".ScratchLIVE" folder the message "Backing up your Scratch LIVE folder..." would appear in the status bar when manipulating crates.

- Changed file analyzer so that the button turns off and the progress bars disappear after 3 seconds.

- Fixed bug where the file analyzer count wouldn't reset after analyzing all files.

- Fixed the MIDI assign controls from flickering or having parts of the MIDI assign rectangles overdrawn when in MIDI assign mode.

- Fixed bug where certain unicode ID3 comment tags could not be read correctly.

- Fixed bug where if you tried to set the color of a track at the bottom of the track list window, the color chooser menu would fall off the bottom of the screen.

- Fixed bug where the gray borders surrounding the loop buttons were often redrawn on top of the track list window when disconnecting hardware.

- Fixed the 'resize window' icon (mac only, bottom right corner) so that its background is always the correct colour.

- Fixed bug on French keyboards where you couldn't use autoloop with the control+option+6 keyboard shortcut.

- Fixed a crash on exit that could occur with the offline player.

- Fix for crash on exit if you have an empty crate file on one drive and the same crate file on another drive.

- Fixed a crash or instability that could occur when using a CD player in absolute mode.

- Fixed OGG files with an incorrect length from causing an application lock-up or playing garbage when analyzed or played in Scratch Live.

- Scratch Live now detects and fixes a certain type of corruption in the library database which led to symptoms such as new files not being properly added (re-scanning tags on startup every time), tracks constantly needing overviews rebuilt, and crashes.



Known issues:

- The Pioneer MEP-7000 needs to be connected to your computer before running Scratch Live for correct operation.


Running more than one version of Scratch LIVE:

Installing this version will by default overwrite any previous version you had installed, however it is easy to have more than one version of Scratch LIVE installed if you wish.

If you have an important gig coming up, you might like to stick with the version you know until you are comfortable with 1.9.0.
Here's how to do it:

Windows Users - before installing, find the ScratchLIVE executable (by default it is in C:\Program files\Serato\ScratchLIVE, and rename it - for example call it ScratchLIVE 1.8.3.exe. When you install the new version, the old executable will not be deleted, and you can choose which you want to run by going into that folder and double clicking on the executable. You can still do this if you have already installed version 1.9.0 - just rename the executable to ScratchLIVE 1.9.0.exe, and then reinstall the version you were previously running.

Mac users - before installing, rename the existing application file as above (like "Scratch LIVE 1.8.3") - you have to be admin to rename it. (If you aren't admin, you can copy it to another location, and then rename it.)


Backing up your data:
Before you make any changes to your Scratch LIVE setup, including installing a new version, as a general rule we highly recommend that you backup your data and your music files. The easiest way to backup your data is to simply copy your Scratch LIVE folder to another location on the drive:
- For the drive that contains "My Documents" (or your Home drive on Mac), just copy the ScratchLIVE folder which is in "My Documents\My Music\" to another location on this drive. Alternatively make a copy of the folder where it already is and rename it by adding the date to the folder name so you know what's in the backup.
- To back up the database and crates from an external drive, copy the _ScratchLIVE_ folder (which is in the root of the drive) into another folder on the same drive.

Downloads:

Mac: serato.com or scratchlive.net
Windows XP and Vista: serato.com or scratchlive.net (unzip and run setup.exe)

As with all releases, we highly recommend that you try this new version at home before playing out live with it!

Documentation
Scratch Live operators manual for SL 1 owners: www.serato.com
For SL 3 owners: www.serato.com
For TTM 57SL owners: www.serato.com
For MP 4 owners: www.serato.com
3rd party Controller Quickstart Guide: www.serato.com

Thursday, April 23, 2009

New contributor for my blogs, check him out!


I recruited a new contributor for my blog. Mark aka da Marksman is now going to be a regular contributor to my blog. He currently works at Monami Entertainment (Music management company for Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliot, and Jim Jones) and has a lot of interesting things to say. Stay tuned for more.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

I had 3 beers yesterday at this bar in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

 


let's just say, i felt great yesterday, haha. met a dude at this same bar, who is a working percussionist in LA. talked about jazz and funk breaks. exchanged info and he's gonna send me some breaks he's done with his band. awesome!
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I checked out Land's End at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico yesterday

 

 

 

 


Land's End is at the southernmost tip of the Baja Peninsula where the Pacific Ocean and whatever other body of sea meets. It has the famous arch, lots of different awesome rock formations that were carved into fantastic shapes by wind and sea, pelican & sea lion colonies, and lots of caves. Pretty cool!
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Pics from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico (Week 1 Day 3)

 

 

 

 
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Sunday, April 19, 2009

And away we go...goodbye LA, hello pacific ocean

Ok, leaving LA now. Time to start the cruise. See u guys in 3 weeks
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Dinner at 8 oz with neran and quix

Burgers really great. Been a good day for food in LA. Wonder what's next? Yogurtland?
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Saturday, April 18, 2009

Mmmmm first time eating fish tacos

Berragan's is awesome mexican food. I love it.
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Friday, April 17, 2009

DOWNLOAD DJ Geometrix's long awaited latest mix CD: MY BITTER SWEET 16 | DJ Geometrix's 16th year anniversary mix



DJ Geometrix's latest mix CD, "MY BITTER SWEET 16"
now available for digital DOWNLOAD

If you want a CD copy of his latest mix CD, please email your mailing
address to geometrix@djgeometrix.com and we will send you a CD copy
sometime in mid-May when DJ Geometrix returns from his tour.


[DOWNLOAD]http://drop.io/mybittersweet16

[ZSHARE]http://www.zshare.net/audio/58785262328e9fde/


DJ Geometrix is the celebrity guest DJ on Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas from April 19 to May 10, 2009 | On Tour in the Mexican Riviera



DJ Geometrix is going to be out at sea between April 19, 2009 until
May 10, 2009 as Royal Caribbean's celebrity guest DJ on their Mariner
of the Seas
cruise ship, courtesy of Scratch Academy. He will be
DJing at various nightclubs and parties inside the ship while it sails
throughout the Mexican Riviera 7 days a week for the next 3 weeks.
Departing from Los Angeles, CA, the ship will sail to the following
destinations in Mexico every week: Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and
Puerto Vallarta. Geometrix will be back home after May 10th to resume
his weekly residencies at Washington DC's top nightclubs. Please
visit www.djgeometrix.com and subscribe to his blog for daily updates
from this experience.

Pics of my CD Release Party & B-Day Bash from ULTRABAR April 10, 2009

 

 

 

 


More pics @
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113976&id=594266210&l=96729ca660
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Thursday, April 16, 2009

Pics from DMC 2009 Fairfax Regional DJ Battle -April 14, 2009


DJ Webb from Florida got 3rd Place


Tyhandswell from MD got 2nd Place


As One from Rockville, MD won 1st Place, gonna represent the DMV in the US Finals this year


the whole DMV All-Stars crew (DJ I-Dee, DJ Oz, DJ Geometrix, Tyhandswell, As One, & DJ Impulse) with the one and only Christie Z Pabon from DMC USA
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More pics on my facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=113892&id=594266210&l=ef43cae056

More details about the event and the results of other DMC regionals at www.turntablistnetwork.com