Be The DJ...... Literally!

Are you a serious music lover? A clubber perhaps? Did you ever want to make people dance to your mix of tunes? Well, the time is now! Introducing the Pacemaker. A new revolutionary twist to being dj'ing. Slightly bigger than an Ipod, and for good reason, it is the ultimate dream come true for clubbers and djs alike. Long gone are the days of carrying flight cases of vinyls or bags of cds. This baby packs all your tunes in it's 120gb hard drive. No need to bring the players and mixer as well as it is a complete dj system in itself. It has a dual player and a crossfader for when you want to mix..... anytime, anywhere.... literally! It's time to be the dj!

Features:

Mixing functionality

• Dynamic beat detection – 0.1 BPM precision
• Cue – auto-cue at track start, and set cue point.
• Change Pitch – alter speed and key of track ± 100%
• Bend pitch – momentarily alter speed of track.
• Crossfade – set the line out and/or phones blend
  of the two channels.
• Loop – set loop, split loop from end-point, split loop from
  in-point, exit loop, re-enter loop
• Audio effects – single parameter: hi-cut/lo-cut, two-parameter: roll, echo, reverb
• Kill All – reset and relaunch audio effects.
• EQ – 3-band equalizer; treble, mid and bass frequencies
  -26 to +6 dB
• Normalized sound – globally normalize all tracks’ volumes
• Gain – pre-amplification volume -26 to +6 dB
• Reverse play

P-switch

• Press upwards to access features like pitch, looping, filters, effects and reversed play, through the alternate function of all input areas.
• Press downwards for headphones control, as the crossfader switches to control the channel blend in the headphones, and the headphones volume is adjustable on the touchpad.

Display

• TFT display
• 262.000 colours
• 166 ppi screen resolution

Rewind and forward

• When pressing the P-switch, the rewind button sets the in-point of a loop, and the forward button the end-point.
• To adjust loop in and end-points, press the P-switch upwards and either of the directional buttons, then adjust the desired point on the touchpad.

Channel 1 and Channel 2

• Press left button to control channel 1, press right button to control channel 2. Full mixing functionality is available for both channels independently.
• Pressing the P-switch upwards allows for toggling between time played and time left indication in the display.

Crossfader

• Set at maximum left, channel 1 is alone in line out, set at maximum right, only channel 2 is in line out, and set in the middle, both channels are at the same line out level. Any variations hereof are of course possible blend options.
• Press the P-switch downwards and the crossfader switches to control the channel blend in the headphones.

Play/pause

• The play button behaves like on any other audio player, but when in Mix Mode, the pause is ‘stuttering’, allowing you to search and find the appropriate place to set the cue point.
• When pressing the P-switch upwards, the play button reverses the play direction.

Cue

• The Cue button sets the starting point for the track and can also be used to create effects. When pressing the P-switch upwards, the Cue button enables exiting and re-entering a loop.

Touchpad

• The touchpad allows you to bend a track, change EQ values and gain levels.
• When pressing the P-switch upwards, the touchpad allows for controlling and setting pitch values, filter parameters and audio effect levels.
• When pressing the P-switch downwards, the touchpad allows for controlling the headphones volume.
• The touchpad is also used to navigate the track library and the device settings.

Settings

• The Settings button lets you turn on and turn off the device.
• When turned on, the Settings button gives you access to the settings menu.

Kill All

• The Kill All button resets all effect values to zero, and lets you relaunch effects to latest values per track and channel.

Input and output

• Line out connector, 3.5 mm stereo
• Phones connector, 3.5 mm stereo
• USB 2.0 connector, for data transfer

Power and charging

• Power connector, for optimal charging. Pacemaker charges from empty to full in about 120 minutes; for up to 18 hours of playback time or up to 5 hours of mixing.
• USB, for alternative charging.

Hard drive

• 120 GB

Audio formats supported

• MP3, M4A (AAC-LC), AIFF,
  FLAC, WAV, Ogg Vorbis, SND

Mac system requirements

• Mac OS X v10.4.4 (Intel) or later
• USB 2.0 port
• Pacemaker Editor for Mac

Download the Pacemaker Editor for Mac

PC system requirements

• Windows XP and Windows Vista
• USB 2.0 port
• Pacemaker Editor

Download the Pacemaker Editor for PC

Ways of setting the Pacemaker up:

The Interface:

The Interface is quite simple and easy to use. An hour would be sufficient enough for you to at least understand the basics. Here is an outline of the Pacemakers interface.


www.pacemaker.net/device


The Manual:

If you get lost, there's always the handy-dandy manual.


www.pacemaker.net/device/manual


Tutorials:

We all need this once in a while.

www.pacemaker.net/device/tutorials


Pacemaker Editor:


www.pacemaker.net/download



Store:

If you've decided that you really must absolutely have it, then what are you waiting for? Come on over to the store and kiss your moolah goodbye!


www.pacemaker.net/store



I hope I've helped you enough. Hopefully, I can party to your mixes one of these days. Cheers!

Introduction on How to Be A Dj

Welcome to the introduction on how to be a dj. I remember back when I was a lot younger, my sisters would take me to parties so that our folks would allow them to go out. Needless to say, I wasn't particularly excited about it. But as I got to go out on more and more parties, I started to take notice on this one person behind the decks. How was he able to do what he did with the music he was playing? It felt like he had the power over these people at the party. He was like a god! I've always had a liking for music but to manipulate it the way he was doing it blew my mind. I wanted to be like him right there and then. I would always try to stay near the dj's booth and see what he was up to. It was fairly easy to understand what was going on. He had two turntables, a mixer and his headphones. He just changed the music from one deck to another and back again. But the more I understood what it was he was doing, the more it became complicated. So many things to do at a given time.

Fast forward to 1997, I was cruising around town on a weeknight having had nothing to do and I ended up in a friend's bar and that was where I had my first taste of Dj'ing. I had a friend who was learning from the resident dj then and I came up the booth and asked if I could try it myself. Yup, it was a disaster. But it just challenged me more and I ended up visiting the place everyday for like the next two months or so and the rest is history.

I hope my short story can inspire a lot of people to try it and you will see how truly amazing it is to be a dj.

Now on to what you really came here for.....

There are some classifications on djs. We have the Club DJ (which is what I am), the Radio DJ, and the Mobile DJ. Club djs are the ones you see in clubs and bars. The Radio dj is the one we hear on the airwaves and they rarely do live mixing though I know of some Radio djs who are also club djs. Then we have the Mobile djs, these guys are the ones you see at weddings and private parties. Most of the time, these guys own the system being used at the events too. Although I mentioned Radio djs, I will cover the Club dj and the Mobile dj since I am not a radio dj though I do understand how they work.

Like I said earlier, the most basic setup a Dj can have is two decks, a mixer and headphones. Basically, you use the decks to play the tracks and you use the mixer to either fade a song in or fade a song out. Your headphones are used for cuing the next track. To explain how a dj mixer is used, I have a picture of a Pioneer DJM-300. It's a basic two channel mixer. The two faders positioned side by side are called the upfaders and they control the volume of deck a and deck b respectively. The horizontal fader is called the crossfader and it enables the user to do fading with just one hand. The knobs one either side of the upfaders are the Eq and Gain knobs. The Eq has three frequencies namely the low, mid and high. The Gain knob is used to adjust the volume of a particular track to match the output volume of the other track being played. Other knobs are the Master Volume, which dictates the mail or house volume. It also has the headphone cue button to switch from decks a and b.

This is part one for now and I hope to see you again as I update the site and hopefully I can get you to learn as much as possible. Cheers!