AGM; Committee for 2010 / 2011 Time To Vote!

The next ShowNight on 21st March 2010 is also our AGM, a chance for us all to get together to discuss the association and vote for the next SEDA committee for 2010 / 2011.

There are six committee positions available:

• Chairman
• Vice-Chairman
• Secretary
• Treasurer
• Membership
• Webmaster

Nominations are currently being accepted and must be submitted to the current Secretary (Brian Mole) in writing no later than 2 weeks prior to the AGM.  The closing date for nominations is therefore 7th February 2010.  You can choose to nominate yourself or put someone forward.  Each nomination received must be seconded by a FULL or Veteran SEDA Member.  Remember, only FULL or Veteran Members have voting rights within SEDA.

Please send your nominations via e-mail to dj@seda.org.uk, make sure you include your name and membership number in the email.

Cheers,
Brian Mole
SEDA secretary

SEDA ShowNight 17th Jan

The Committee are working exceptionally hard to bring you the best ever SEDA ShowNight.  As we’ve already posted above, Clive’s Mobile DJ Show in Lacey Green has already been postponed due to the bad weather but we’ve been praying hard in the hope that Mother Nature takes notice.

Just a reminder that Rik from Pioneer hopes to be there with the brand new CDJ players, the 900 and the 2000 so you can all have a play.  Gary from Denon will also be there to answer any questions you may have about the new Denon kit on display at Namm 2010, the definitive geek-DJ Tech festival in the US of A.

KAM will be there with some new kit, noticably (and hopefully) their new range of lasers including the Ultimate Cluster and the Gobo Cluster.  If you notice, we’ve changed the featured video of the month to show off the Ultimate Cluster which personally I think looks like a fantastic unit, priced at around £199.  It is also my hope the nice man from KAM will bring with him the new KPM200DSP, a brand new 19″ rack mixer featuring 8 on board channel effects.  Probably going to be favoured by Karaoke jocks, it’s a 4 channel + 1 mic channel mixer allowing 4 line inputs and 3 mic inputs.

RCF and Mastermix will also be there to show off their latest products and our brand new guest retailer, RSD Sound & Music will help relieve you of all that hard earned christmas cash you have burning a hole in your wallet!

If buying pre-built speakers isn’t to your liking and you want more control over the look and build of your sound system, Tony Wilkes from Speakerplans and Matt will be on hand to show you some DIY speakers and just what can be achieved with a hammer, saw and some wood glue!

See you there!

Traktor Kontrol X1

Traktor, who are probably best known for their DJ software of the same name, have recently announced their first fully fledge software controller for the DJ market.

Designed for use with any DJ software, although it comes with Traktor LE. Whether you are a DVS timecode or software DJ, you can connect the TRAKTOR KONTROL X1 to a computer and gain instant control of your decks and effect parameters. Robust rotary knobs with a heavy-duty feel and backlit buttons provide precise visual and tactile status feedback- letting you delve deep inside TRAKTOR without having to touch your computer.

The TRAKTOR KONTROL X1 features a total of 30 buttons, 4 push encoders and 8 knobs. Optimised for use with the Traktor software they are arranged in the following sections:

1. EFFECTS SECTION
8 high resolution potentiometers and 8 buttons make up the effect section of TRAKTOR KONTROL X1. This section allows control of all the parameters of 2 TRAKTOR effect units simultaneously. In Chained mode, this means simultaneous control over 3 effects per deck. The effects section buttons are programmed to give direct access to 3 of your favorite effect presets.

2. BROWSE SECTION
One push encoder per deck is dedicated to browsing through play lists and loading tracks. Simply turn the push encoder to find the track you want, and push it to load it into the corresponding deck. Once the track is loaded the same encoders seek through the track, using tempo sync’d beat jumps to remain in time.

3. LOOP SECTION
This section allows for intuitive control of TRAKTOR’s loop function, giving clear visual feedback about the loop status via LEDs. The section offers first level access to auto loops and manual loops as well as loop editing functions such as loop size and loop position, both coarse and fine.

4. TRANSPORT SECTION
This section provides direct access to basic playback controls as well as shifted access to 8 secondary functions for each deck. All buttons for industry standard workflows (Play, Sync, Cue + Cup) are located here. Switch to hotcue mode and you get another 16 buttons for controlling the 8 hot cues or hot loops per track. Plus, the CUP button flashes in time with the deck’s BPM as an added visual mix aid.

You can find more information on their website here

Rob Merralls Garage Sale pt Deux!

Rob’s been busy getting his sack of toys together to deliver to all the good boys and girls…oh..ahh, wrong website.

Rob’s been busy clearing out his garage, getting rid of a load of disco equipment (and a fax machine) to replace with a whole load of new disco equipment which will be for sale in 10 years time.

Have a look at the list (and pics) on the PDF I have kindly provided for you below to see if there is anything that tickles your fancy.

Remember to contact Rob direct on 01634 243262 about any of the items and do not be afraid to haggle.

Click Here to download the PDF.

Plasa 09 – Photos

Just a few photos from my trip to PLASA 09 on Sunday.

 

Second user equipment for sale

Chris Ansell has a lot of DJ equipment for sale, please see this PDF for a complete list.  You can contact Chris Ansell by finding his listing in the find a DJ section for Kent West.

Indoor Fireworks Projector from SEGA

Not content with bringing you news of the latest developments in Bubble technology I’m at it again.

And what treat I have uncovered for you today!!

An indoor fireworks projector!

Called Uchiage Hanabi and being released by SEGA, it comes with it’s own sound effects and you can program your own shows with they 55 effects available.

From what I can tell from the Amazon.jp website you can even draw your own GOBOs!!

Original details from here.

Phil Tolhurst -- SEGA oops I mean SEDA Publicity Co-Ordinator

SEDA DMX Seminar

On Sunday 28 June 2009 SEDA held their first DJ seminar.

The seminar focused on the subject of DMX and aimed to give you an overview of what it is and how we as DJs can use it.

The evening was very competently presented by Will Perkins and his team from Virtual Sights. It was also well attended with over 20 DJs turning up to learn more about DMX.

For more information about the seminar check out this months SEDA mail.

The next seminar we have planned is going to tackle the mysteries of mixing.

Keep an eye on your emails for more details.

Phil Tolhurst – SEDA Publicity Co-ordinator,

Coloured Bubbles at your disco?

As part of my role within the SEDA Committee I monitor lots of different websites for anything in the news that I think might be of interest to the members.

Well tonight I came across a story on the PopSci website that really did think would interest you all!

Coloured Bubbles! – Oh yes that’s right bubbles that are coloured! I knew you’d all be blown away (punn intended!).

But what’s even more cool about them is that they don’t stain clothes!

They’re the future! Watch this to find out more: Coloured Bubbles

The original article can be found here.

The Zubbles Website is here.

There is even a Zubbles iPhone app for all you bored apple additcts.

Could this be another nail in the coffin for DRM?

Dr. Patricia Akester, a Cambridge Professor no less has recently published: ‘Technological accommodation of conflicts between freedom of expression and DRM: the first empirical assessment.’

I’ve not read it, I don’t really have time to wade through 208 pages to be honest. However, trawling the interweb, as Clarkson calls it, apparently the paper concurs with what many of us have already concluded. Which is that DRM actually does the opposite of what it intends to do, inherently pushing people to become pirates as opposed to the heard of placid sheep that we should be.

One of the best examples quoted out there is that of a blind lady who illegally downloads The Bible because the DRM-protected Amazon version she bought won’t allow her to text-to-speech it.

There were also University lecturers who’d had to either limit or pirate their teaching material as they couldn’t transfer it to the right formats for their classes, and daily issues at the British Library when it tries to move documents to new formats for archival. In fact everybody that Prof. Akester spoke with had some problem of their own.

To DRM developers and rightsholders, though, these are just ‘edge’ cases and not worth coding into DRM schemes. Creating DRM that has any sort of security while still accommodating every legal use in every possible market is simply infeasible—though this does lead rightsholders to question the wisdom of DRM.

Shira Perlmutter of global music trade group IFPI told Akester in an interview, “You are not going to get a one size fits all DRM that will deal both with the consumer and the special interests exceptions and, in any case, you do not want to give up a system that works for 99 percent of cases because there is a particular issue with a particular kind of user when you can let the system work and then deal with that user.”

Are rightsholders willing to “deal with users” who experience problems? Some are, but Prof. Akester found that many require a legislative prod before taking any action.

The study confirms what anyone who has ever wanted to rip a DVD to their computer or iPod could have told you: DRM, coupled with anti-circumvention laws, makes pirates of us all.

It’s worth noting of course that the massive lobbying, legislative, legal, and technical effort that underlies all these DRM regimes does so little to stop piracy that it makes you wonder if it is truly worth the effort.

A step in the right direction then but it remains to be seen if the landmark paper will have any effect.

Phil Tolhurst – SEDA Publicity Co-ordinator

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