2:35
DJing from a tablet
On YouTube this video is called Ipad DJ demo - DJ Delboy AKA Delimentary Tips N Tricks - Video 1 - Ipad DJ Apps
What this lesson teaches
A guest spot - DJ Delboy, soon to be Delimentary - filmed the month the first iPad launched, and he dates it himself on camera for anybody watching in the future.
So read it as a document as much as a lesson.
What he demonstrates
Two apps.
A sample and stab app - pages of sounds, drops, samples and hits, each on a button, played in time over a record. Everything at the touch of a button, and - his emphasis - visual as well as audible, so the audience can see something happening.
And a novelty band app that lets you reconstruct a particular record from its component loops.
The prediction
His forecast: this will sweep the universe in six months to a year, and will revolutionise DJ performances over the next couple of years. If you can afford the spondoolies, get one.
How it turned out
Half right, which is a good hit rate for a prediction made in the first month.
Wrong about the specifics. Neither app is a going concern, the hardware is three generations obsolete, and tablets did not become a standard item in a DJ booth. The thing that actually happened is that the functions moved into the equipment and the software - sample decks, pad banks, stems - rather than onto a separate screen beside it.
Right about the direction. A grid of pads that fires samples, stabs and loops in time over a record is now on practically every controller and in every program. That is exactly what he is doing here, two years before it was built in.
And right about the reason
The part worth keeping, because it is about performance rather than technology: the appeal is that it is visual. The audience can see a hand hitting something and hear the result, and that reads as playing rather than operating.
That has only become more true. Whatever the equipment, the parts of a set that a room responds to as performance are the parts where the connection between a gesture and a sound is visible.
Why it is worth keeping on the site
Because the catalogue is a record of a decade of DJ equipment as it happened, and this is what the start of the tablet era looked like to two DJs in a room in May 2010 - enthusiastic, specific, and more right about where it was going than about what would get there.
Contents of the video
Alright guys, DJ Delboy here, well he's over there actually not me, aka soon to be Delimentary and this is tips and tricks number one. Over to you sir. Okay guys we're going to show you what is clearly going to be something that sweeps the universe in the next sort of six months to a year. The iPad gets launched this month, we're in May 2010 for those of you watching in the future. And I thought there's a thousand things you can do with this but we thought we'd just show you one or two. First of all is the crafty cuts against the grain iPad app and these are very simple just push button things that you can do with it.
I'll show you how we use it in a live situation in a minute, but you've got pages and pages of really cool stuff here to use. Everything at the touch of a button and it just makes your performance really exciting and visual. So we're just going to go through some stuff that we might do in a live situation and then we'll show you the Daft Punk app which is really cool as well. So that's how you sort of see it running with a beat. And as I say, there's pages and pages of stuff there, sounds, stabs, bass drops, samples. And so we'll come out of that now and we'll find the iDaft app, and this is the number two one. Yeah, you get a choice of using either Technologic or Harder, Better, Faster. So we'll go into that one and you can just literally replicate the entire song so here we go. Let's turn this up a bit.
So you get the picture but this is really going to revolutionise DJ performances over the next couple of years and if you can afford the spondoolies then get one baby. Nice one. Alright, tips and tricks number one from DJ Del Boy in the house. Practice and enjoy.
This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.
