Rising star of indonesia search talent 2010....Indonesia have been always renounce for their music industries talent search such group as PETERPAN, DEWA, UNGGU and many more.But recently a new rising star of a Kid which, small in size but yet a huge lot of talent have surprise the whole indonesia nation,He is just under of 10years old but as if have been dancing for more than 20years.YES!!Indonesia have BRANDON DE ANGELO.............
Sunday 13 June 2010
Saturday 5 June 2010
GOOD BYE RAFA...........
Mr Benitez relinquishes his position as team manager after six years and the Board of Directors would like to place on record their grateful thanks for his services and wish him all the best in his future career.
The Board has now asked Managing Director Christian Purslow, with the assistance of Club Ambassador Kenny Dalglish, to begin a formal search to identify and assess potential candidates for the managerial position.
No timescale has been placed on the process and Liverpool FC will make no further statement until a new manager is appointed.
LFC Chairman Martin Broughton said: "Rafa will forever be part of Liverpool folklore after bringing home the Champions League following the epic final in Istanbul but after a disappointing season both parties felt a fresh start would be best for all concerned.''
Rafael Benitez said: "It is very sad for me to announce that I will no longer be manager of Liverpool FC. I would like to thank all of the staff and players for their efforts.
"I'll always keep in my heart the good times I've had here, the strong and loyal support of the fans in the tough times and the love from Liverpool. I have no words to thank you enough for all these years and I am very proud to say that I was your manager.
"Thank you so much once more and always remember: You'll never walk alone."
Tuesday 30 March 2010
T-ara (Korean: 티아라; Korean pronunciation: [tʰiara]) is a Korean girl group from Seoul, South Korea formed by Mnet Media in 2009. Before their debut, there was a high level of interest in the group as they were called "Super Rookies" and had been training for three years prior to debut.Originally a five member group, they released their first song Good Person for the Cinderella Man OST in April 2009. In June 2009 members Jiwon and Jiae left the group, ruining the original plans for debut. The next month, T-ara regrouped to become a 6 member group and released their debut single "Geojitmal" (Korean: "거짓말" lit. "Lies").
Pre-debut
The original five T-ara members were trained for three years, and released their first song "A Good Person" for the Korean drama Cinderella Man soundtrack. In early 2009, Jiyeon was in a collaboration with SeeYa and Davichi for a song called "Woman's Generation", which topped charts.
In June 2009, Core Contents Media announced that Ji-ae and Ji-won left due to differences in music style. Boram, Soyeon, and Qri were added. The group's agency began to release promotional pictures in July 2009 in accordance with the new members. Afterward, T-ara released their debut single "Geojitmal" (Korean: "거짓말" lit. "Don't Lie").
2009: Debut
T-ara made its debut on MBC's Radio Star talk show on July 28, 2009. The music video was released that day. Their first performance was on Mnet's M! Countdown show, where they performed "Geojitmal" and "Wanna Play". Their debut was looked upon negatively by netizens, who noted that it was lipsynched and commented that it seemed like an elementary school performance. The group announced afterward that future performances would be live. A few members of T-ara (Eunjung, Soyeon, Hyomin and Park Ji-Yeon) were in a project group with Supernova, a six member male group for the digital single, TTL (Time to Love). On December 1, 2009, T-ara released their first full-length album, named Absolute First Album. This album had two singles, "Cheoeum Cheoreom" and "Bo Peep Bo Peep", both with music videos.
2010: Gaining popularity with their album
On January 1, 2010, T-ara won their first ever award on the New Year's Day episode of Music Bank. Two days later, they won the Mutizen award on Inkigayo. T-ara also performed at a traditional New Year's festival version of the song. The following week, T-ara won their second consecutive Music Bank and Mutizen awards. The next week, T-Ara won their third consecutive mutizen award, thus winning the triple crown. Later in the month, Core Contents Media announced that Eunjung and Hyomin would take part, alongside label mates, in project group, 'Women's Generation'. Consequently, the group announced promotions for their follow up single, "Cheoeum Cheoreom" (Korean: "처음처럼" lit. "Like the First Time").
In February, the group announce the release of a repackaged version of their debut album, entitled Breaking Heart. The music video for its lead single, "Neo Ttaemune Michyeo" (Korean: "너 때문에 미쳐" lit. "Crazy Because of You"), was released in February 24, 2010. The group commenced comeback performances with Mnet's M!Countdown.
Members
Current
Eunjung
- Birth name: Ham Eun-jung (함은정)
- Date of birth: December 12, 1988
- Appeared in SG Wannabe's "Gashiri" music video.
- Appeared in F.T. Island's "Love Sick", "Thunder", and "Only One Person" music videos.
- Featured in film Death Bell and TVXQ drama series "Dating on Earth".
- Participated in "Wonder Woman" single with Seeya and Davichi.
Hyomin
- Birth name: Park Sun-young (박선영)
- Date of birth: May 30, 1989
- Appeared in F.T. Island's "Heaven" music video.
- Appeared in SS501's "Unlock" music video.
- Appeared in SG Wannabe's "Amazing Breakup" music video along with fellow ex-member Jiwon
- Participated in "Wonder Woman" single with Seeya and Davichi.
- One of the regular casts in KBS "Invincible Youth" (2009/2010)
Jiyeon
- Birth name: Park Ji-yeon (박지연)
- Date of birth: June 7, 1993
- Appeared in SG Wannabe's "My love Crybaby" music video.
- Appeared in SG Wannabe's "Saranghae" music video.
- Participated in "Women's Generation" single with Seeya and Davichi.
- Starred in 2009 drama Soul(Hon).
- Starred in 2010 drama Master of Study.
- Starred in 2010 movie Death Bell 2.
Boram
- Birth Name: Jeon Bo-ram (전보람)
- Date of birth: March 22, 1986
- Released solo EP in 2008 titled From Memory.
- Appeared in Kebee's "Feeling You" music video.
- Appeared in 2009 drama Soul.
- Appeared in Tik Tok music drama with 2PM and Yoon Eun Hye.
Soyeon
- Birth name: Park In-jung (박인정)
- Date of birth: October 5, 1987
- Won Gold in 2005 CMB ChinChin Music Festival competition.
- Former SM Entertainment trainee.
- Original member of Girls' Generation, left due to personal reasons.
Qri
- Birth name: Lee Ji-hyun (이지현)
- Date of birth: December 12, 1986
- Appeared in 2009 drama Queen Seon Duk.
- Appeared solo on the cover of Ceci Magazine in October 2009.
- Modeled for a number of companies before debut.
- Starred in 2010 movie Death Bell 2.
Former
Ji-ae
- Birth name: Lee Ji-ae (이지애)
- Date of birth: August 6, 1987
Jiwon
- Birth name: Yang Jiwon (양지원)
- Date of birth: April 5, 1988
Friday 15 January 2010
DJ equipment For Everyone
Happy New Year guys!Any new ambitions or hobbies your need to try.How about being a DJ for a changed.What?!Have a difficulties in getting DJ euipment?No worries here are the prices and the item description for your choices...GOOD LUCK
Pioneer DJM800 - S$2350.00 each
Features
- Unparalleled sound quality
- 4 digital inputs and digital output
- 61 assignable MIDI triggers
- New onboard multi-effects syncable to BPM
- New color effects
- Optional rotary knob kit for a smooth mix
Features
- Plays MP3s
- Digital jog break effects
- Seamless looping
- Master tempo control
- CD text and MP3 track data display
- Fader start and relay play
Pioneer CDJ 800MK2 - S$1350.00 each
Features
- MP3 playback
- Refined jog feeling in line with the CDJ-1000MK2
- Auto-beat loop capability
- Updated display with CD text and MP3 track data capability
- Increased internal memory points
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Features
- MP3 playback
- Jogwheel feel adjust
- Brighter display with more detailed waveform
- New hot loop function
- CD text and MP3 track data display
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Features
- Multi Format Playback - The CDJ-2000 enables playback of MP3, AAC, WAV and AIFF audio files on CD,DVD-ROM, SD card and USB memory devices.
- Pro DJ Link - New Pioneer Pro DJ Link that enables up to four CDJ-2000/900s to beconnected and share a single music source.
- 6.1” Full Color LCD panel and Graphic User Interface - For displaying song titles, jacket art as well as detailed track information and wave form display of each song so DJs can find informatio nneeded to select a song at a glance.
- Needle Search - Helps DJs instantaneously get to a specific part of a song with a simple touch of the Needle Search pad.
- MIDI - Users can assign various buttons of the CDJ-2000 to trigger other devices, such as DJ effecters and software with MIDI mapping capability.
- Free Rekordbox Music Management Software Included - Both the CDJ-2000 and CDJ-900 turntables include rekordbox, Pioneer’s proprietary music management software that organizes and catalogs a DJ’s entire music library. When music files are imported to rekordbox, the software analyzes each file and prepares them for use specifically with thenew CDJ turntables.
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Pioneer CDJ900 - S$2300.00 each - new model
Features
- Multi Format Playback - The CDJ-900 enables playback of MP3, AAC, WAV and AIFF audio files on CD,and USB memory devices.
- Slip Mode - When activated, Slip Mode silently continues song playback during a loop, reverse or scratch and continues audible playback at the exact time when the loop, reverse or scratch is ended creating smoother transitions.
- Advanced Auto Beat Loop - The CDJ-900 generates a four-beat loop at a touch of a button creating acustomized sound to provide more time for DJs to blend in transitioning music
- MIDI - Users can assign various buttons of the CDJ-900 to trigger other devices, such as DJ effecters and software with MIDI mapping capability.
- Free Rekordbox Music Management Software Included - Both the CDJ-2000 and CDJ-900 turntables include rekordbox, Pioneer’s proprietary music management software that organizes and catalogs a DJ’s entire music library. When music files are imported to rekordbox,the software analyzes each file and prepares them for use specifically with thenew CDJ turntables.
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for the invoice due to custom duties and taxes.
Let me know if you are interested. So i can ask for discount for the item.
HP-8875224
email- J_angelus69@hotmail.com
SPARTACUS:BL OOD AND SAND
Spartacus to Premiere 22 January 2010
‘SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND’ TO PREMIERE ON STARZ ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2010 AT 10 P.M. ET/PT
Aussie Import Andy Whitfield Stars as Legendary Gladiator Leader in the Action-Adventure Drama Series
Lucy Lawless and John Hannah Play Scheming Couple With Cast of Talented Fresh Faces in Channel’s Newest Drama Series
Pasadena, CA – July 29, 2009 – Starz executives today announced that “Spartacus: Blood and Sand,” the network’s highly anticipated original series, will debut Friday, January 22, 2010 at 10:00 pm et/pt. The hour-long drama, shot on location in New Zealand, stars Andy Whitfield as the gladiator warrior hero Spartacus.
SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND’ TO PREMIERE ON STARZ ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 2010 AT 10 P.M. ET/PT
Aussie Import Andy Whitfield Stars as Legendary Gladiator Leader in the Action-Adventure Drama Series
Lucy Lawless and John Hannah Play Scheming Couple With Cast of Talented Fresh Faces in Channel’s Newest Drama Series
Pasadena, CA – July 29, 2009 – Starz executives today announced that “Spartacus: Blood and Sand,” the network’s highly anticipated original series, will debut Friday, January 22, 2010 at 10:00 pm et/pt. The hour-long drama, shot on location in New Zealand, stars Andy Whitfield as the gladiator warrior hero Spartacus.
UK born Whitfield, well-known to Australian audiences but a newcomer to the US, joins a talented cast of seasoned veterans including Lucy Lawless, best known for her role in “Xena: Warrior Princess” and John Hannah, who’s familiar from The Mummy trilogy. Lawless portrays Lucretia, who along with her husband, Batiatus (Hannah), own the Ludus (a gladiator camp) – as well as Spartacus. The couple has fallen on hard times financially and has bought Spartacus hoping his fighting prowess will help them regain their status in the brutal world of gladiatorial contests. In addition to “Xena,” the long-running global hit series, Lawless has also appeared in SCI FI Channel’s critically acclaimed “Battlestar Galactica.”
The world of gladiators comes to life as the Roman Republic’s most brutal fighters clash in the ultimate arena. “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” is an entirely new vision of the ancient legend and will utilize virtual environments giving it a unique graphic novel look and style, along with a fresh narrative approach. Debuting exclusively on Starz, “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” is produced by Starz Media with Executive Producers Rob Tapert (The Grudge, “Xena: Warrior Princess” and “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys”), Sam Raimi (Spider-Man and Evil Dead), Joshua Donen (The Quick and the Dead) and Steven S. DeKnight.
Spartacus is a soldier in the Roman Auxiliary who has been taken prisoner. As punishment for defying a Roman Legate, Spartacus has been sentenced to die in the gladiator arena. But after surviving numerous fights, his sentence is commuted and he has been sold as a slave to be trained as a gladiator. Whitfield has gained acclaim in numerous Australian drama series (“McLeod’s Daughters,” “Packed to the Rafters,” “The Strip” and “Out of the Blue”) and also starred in the feature film Gabriel, one of the highest grossing films at the Australian Box Office in 2007. He just wrapped shooting on the Australian feature, The Clinic.
In addition to Hannah (The Mummy, Sliding Doors, Four Weddings and a Funeral ), featured cast members include: Erin Cummings (“Dollhouse”) as Spartacus’ Thracian wife Sura; Peter Mensah (300, Avatar) as Doctore, Batiatus’ most loyal and trusted slave; Manu Bennett (30 Days of Night, The Condemned) as Crixus, the top gladiator at Batiatus’ Ludus; Antonio Te Maioha (“Xena: Warrior Princess,” “Legend of the Seeker”) as Barca, a big, hulking brute of a man who is Batiatus’ bodyguard and hit man; Craig Parker (The Lord of the Rings trilogy, “Legend of the Seeker”) as Glaber, a Roman Legate, who blames Spartacus for his failed military campaign; and Nick E. Tarabay (“Crash,” “The Sopranos”) as Ashur, a former gladiator who is now the Ludus’ resident bookie.
Executive Producer Steven S. DeKnight (“Smallville,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) is also the series’ head writer. DeKnight just finished consulting on Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse” and will be writing the upcoming eighth installment of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic book series.
Starz’s new “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” series was inspired by the actual slave of the Roman Republic who in 73 BC led a slave revolt that grew to more than 120,000 fighters. Defying the Roman Republic’s legions of soldiers, they campaigned for two years through much of what is now Italy before succumbing to a much larger army. The new series will tell a new set of stories rich in character, action, sex and combat.
Anchor Bay Entertainment will hold exclusive worldwide home entertainment distribution rights to “Spartacus: Blood and Sand,” while Starz Media’s Worldwide Distribution group will handle international television and domestic syndication sales and Starz Digital Media will be responsible for all digital distribution globally.
Wednesday 30 December 2009
DJ in the making
Hi guys..now if you ever think of being a Dj in the future and DJ equipment such as Pioneer CDJ800 or Pioneer CDJ1000 is expensive .and yes they are just because of their brand names...don't be sad,we got a DJ scratching tables thats is way affortable for yourself or as a free gifts.YES!!! its the STANTON C324.Its in the market right and its the best item to get for Christmas.The problem is just that the STANTON c324 doesn't have a USB slot for your pendrive.But we hope in the future this people who design this DJ set do in mind to make one.YEAHHH.I have listed down all of the description and let you decide how good is this DJ turntable is!!
Stanton may well be keeping the DJ world on the edge of their seats with the hugely anticipated SC system, but while we wait for them to pull their finger out, they do have some goodies for us to paw and fondle. One such goodie is their new C.324 CD deck, which essentially updates the C.314 unit with a few new features. I threw it around the skratchlab for a month or so and despite what many of you haters would like to hear, I really liked it.
This review marks a few new features and the loss of an old one. Firstly, the review has a dropdown at the top enabling you to jump right to a section, and at the bottom you’ll find a higher res gallery of all the images in the review as well as a few extra ones thrown in for good measure. And no - you can’t use them unless you ask very nicely or if you’re a company then you can pay me.
Finally, the numbers are gone forever - banished to the skratchlab backroom almost certainly never to return, unless some hard of reading ratings freak starts a petition to reinstate them, which frankly wouldn’t help anyway. Kiss them goodbye.
As for the Stanton C.324 - I was pleasantly surprised with what I found. At first it appears to be like so many other CD decks on the market, but looking beyond the stock me too features, it sports some pretty crazy looping, sampling and sequencing features. The platter gives pretty good performance - not quite the real vinyl emulation that Stanton would have us believe, but Roc Raida and I-Dee seem happy to bust a few moves on them.
It’s an undeniable fact that like Technics before it, Pioneer dominates the CD player market. Indeed, just like Hoover and Sellotape, the brand name has transcended into generic use to describe CD decks in general, much to the delight of Pioneer, but to the annoyance of the DJ community.
But funnily enough, other CD decks do exist. Denon have had very capable decks for years, and so have Stanton. The C.304 and C.314 have been around for a little while now (somehow escaping the skratchworx reviews blender) but it’s the newbie C.324 that we’ve got in for dissection. Essentially it’s the bigger and better sibling - the one who ate all their greens.
First Impressions
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the new Stanton styling seems to be a real love/hate affair. Looks wise it’s a few steps away from the norm - extremely geometric with a mix of straight lines and curves, rather than being an uninspiring black box with knobs. The overall dark monochrome colour scheme is interspersed with blobs of light, but dominated by the bright blue LCD display. In bright conditions, this works well, but where light is lacking, the brightness of the screen begins to overwhelm, leaving the controls hard to see. Once you’re familiar with the unit though, this shouldn’t be an issue.
Quality wise it’s not a lightweight flimsy box but is almost entirely plastic, except for some trim on the platter. The main body appears to be sprayed in a metallic gunmetal colour, that may have the potential to wear off the sharp edges through prolonged use. That said, I’m only saying this based on a small scratch that’s appeared on the side, exposing the bare Grey plastic underneath.
The buttons are solid rubber with a metallic finish. There’s a certain amount of movement in the buttons, but this is backed up with a reassuring audible click that might be annoying to some, but for me means a pressed rather than missed button.
The Platter
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Regardless of the bells and whistles that surround it, buying decisions are often made entirely on the feel of the platter. So much of the DJing experience is entirely about feel so it has to be juuust right or it’s a total non-starter. What Stanton seem to be doing here is giving all users the functionality of a regular jogwheel, but for more demanding hands-on DJ, there’s also a good level of scratchability as well.
Without unleashing the skratchdriver (reserved for mixers), I have no idea how this works or what it’s made from. The platter is rubberised on the edge and has a Lexan feel platter. Essentially it works like any other touch sensitive jog wheel - the whole wheel works as a pith shifting control, but when vinyl mode is engaged, the top face becomes a touch sensitive scratch wheel. Just to be clear for the noobs - touch sensitive responds to the slightest touch, bringing audio to an instant stop. Some other models on the market have pressure sensitive wheels that require a small degree of downward movement to engage the vinyl emulation modes.
The C.324 jog wheel works pretty well in giving users a vinyl like feel. Firstly, it feel heavy - I’m not sure the wheel itself is heavy, but rather some sort of resistance is applied to stop it being a free wheeling nightmare. This resistance however still leaves the wheel very smooth even when pushed down too hard and grounded against the body. To illustrate the resistance, summoning all my scratch strength, I can only get the wheel to spin back 3 times.
The clever bit comes in the vinyl emulation. When you touch the platter, the audio stops dead as you would expect. But when you release, there’s a small spin up just like real vinyl. Imagine using the ubiquitous “aaaah” scratch sound - patting the static platter would give you the same sound as vinyl i.e. “wahwahwah”. But If the wheel is moving even just a little, there’s no spin up and the audio plays instantly making scratching way more natural. As far as spinbacks and pushes go, there seems to be an speed at which this becomes possible otherwise when you let go the audio returns to normal speed. Rounding up the vinyl emulation, you also have full control over the start and brake speed from instant all the way up to an insane seemingly eternal 10 seconds.
There’s an interesting feature - touch rewind. Engaging this enables you to jump to the last cue point just by touching the platter. This “cheat juggling” feature can be used for conventional beat work. And there’s a reverse button as well, should you really feel the need to do that.
I did feel that the wheel felt heavy and faster scratch techniques like scribbles proved difficult. And occasionally, I detected some latency when I had my hand on the platter and scratched. It became noticeable when chirping as this needs good hand to fader co-ordination. Usually releasing and picking up again cleared it up.
In the manual, Stanton use phrases such as “just like vinyl” and “like a turntable”. Sorry, but that’s just PR waffle. For a touch sensitive jogwheel, it’s pretty hot and gives as good a performance as you could expect from such a thing. Yes it can be made to do some frankly wierd things if you spin it fast in all We’re not talking turntablist levels of performance here - if that’s your bag then look elsewhere - but for the more adventurous DJ looking to bust some serious scratches in there, this shouldn’t let you down. Try before you buy though.
The Display
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Hitting you right in the face is the incredibly bright (perhaps a little too bright) LCD display. At 55mm square, it aims to pack a lot into a small space, thus some sacrifices have been made. Dominating the display is the jog wheel indicator, which gives you active feedback of the arbitrary pseudo vinyl marker. To be honest, I never looked at this once - it’s just too vague to be of use, but then again I don’t depend on displays on any units for that type of thing. Some of you may find it useful, but I found it to be a waste of space. I don’t need the display to tell me what direction the platter is going thanks.
Some of the space has been taken up with things that already light up anyway - effects and loops for example, but it’s nice to have a secondary indicator I guess. Pitch and key lock as well have their own blue buttons but it’s also mirrored on the display as well.
The important stuff is in the lower half of the screen - track number, BPM display and time, as well as a scrolling line of CD TEXT or file names (no ID3 tags here people). Time can also be toggled to display elapsed, remaining and total disk remaining as well. There’s also a set of bars that shows the time remaining as well.
To be honest, the screen could be so much better. It’s badly laid out making the info hard to read, and much of the space is filled with info that doesn’t need to be there. The lack of waveform makes this a non-starter for a lot of people as well. Personally I’d have made the display take up perhaps one third of the top space and moved the controls to the other side. I guess it’s a matter of getting used to it really. I did, but it could have been better.
Formats, Navigation and Sound
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MP3 technology initially put audio quality in the toilet. Thankfully due to the rampaging nature of progress, quality has radically improved as has the technology supporting it. There was a time when MP3 was a no-go zone for DJs but that isn’t the case anymore. The C.324 offers excellent playback of conventional and MP3 audio. Speeding up and slowing down still kept excellent fidelity, even on the slowest of drags. It does however depend on the source quality, so don’t blame the C.324 if you try 128kps MP3s encoded 10 years ago.
I tested uncompressed audio as well as MP3 and data CDs and experienced no problems at all. Folders are supported and easily navigable via the “browse” and “folder” butons. The C.324 is intelligent enough to skip empty folders, which can be a blessing or a curse. If for example, you have your music sorted in genre or artist folders, the root folder is ignored and only the folders with music in are shown. So unless you know all your music intimately, finding tracks might be harder than you’d like. You could cheat and add a single track into each root folder to make it show up though so there is a workaround.
To get around the audio, you have backwards and forwards seek buttons. These can be used to step one frame at a time in pause mode or to skip through at speed, especially if spinning the jog wheel. There are also search buttons for jumping one track at a time.
Pitch control is much like all others in this product sector. Coming with a smooth pitch slider with a zero click and LED to match, the C.324 offers a switchable pitch range between +/-8, 16, 25 and 100%, but unlike others offers that range on all formats rather than crippling MP3s to a lower range. One thing to note - the pitch resolution is a somewhat puny 0.1% (senses a huge disturbance in the force centred around Deft) apart from in 100% which has 1% steps. Putting it against a regular analog turntable, I had no issues mixing at all. I’m not exactly a trance jockey and come from a time before drum machines so I’m more than able to lock grooves from real drummers, thus I laugh in the face of digital pitches. A nice addition is that when you move the pitch, the displayed BPM changes as well, allowing you to have greater control when you mix.
One last thing - key lock. Nothing special to report here, other than having a usable range of around 20%. But -100% key lock is a lot of fun and an effect all on its own. Speaking of which…
Effects
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Becoming a standard on CD decks these days, the C.324 has a handful of actually useful ones to play with. You get auto and manual filter, echo, pan, phase, flanger and transformer, and rather nicely you can use almost any 3 at one time (for example echo and flanger can’t), without loss in audio quality (other than the mess you make with the effects anyway). And each is linked to the BPM or can be overridden with the controls. The effects have adjustable parameters depending on the effect being used, but are generically known as the FX time and FX ratio. For example with echo, you get to control the rate as well as the wet/dry.
As previously mentioned, these are tied in to the BPM which is automagically calculated on the fly. Based on my own experiences and different music tested, the C.324 has a quick stab as guessing the BPM, but after maybe 10 seconds gets it just right. You can however tap in the BPM if it just can’t get it’s head around your convoluted 3/4 beats.
Getting the BPM right is crucial to get the best from the effects. While you can control the effects manually, it’s much easier to let the C.324 do it for you. when you start using the time division buttons for example, you can quickly get creative with the effects. And for a bit more freestyling, pressing the “outer jog” button lets you tweak the fx ratio with the jog wheel.
Usually when I look at effects on CD decks, I curse the manufacturer for the waste of time prefader effects, but removing my scratch hat for a moment and simply messing with the C.324 for a while has opened my eyes a little. I’m sure the pros would spit on such things, but for DJ Joe Public, there’s a lot of fun to be had with these. And being able to use a combination of effects is very cool indeed.
Sampling and Looping
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This is where I start to get excited. I have an unnatural love for hot starts - that ability to chop up a track on the fly, be it jumping from loop to loop or simply deconstructing a beat and remaking it button-thumping MPC style is too cool for words. And the C.324 doesn’t disappoint at all in this respect.
Looping is very straightforward: hit the in button to start the loop and out to define the end point. You can also adjust the end point with the jogwheel and fine tune it numerically on the display. Where the loops gets interesting is with the time division buttons. When you make your loop, it assumes a 4 beat loop i.e. 1/1. But with the division control, and assuming that the BPM has been correctly detected, you can extend it to 4/1 or decrease it to 1/4. I find myself quite unhappy with the way this works - firstly 1/4 isn’t anywhere near enough for most DJs. They want to be able to crunch the beat down to 16ths and 32nds. And stepping up or down the scale would have been so much better with buttons for each step so you could immediately jump to 1/4 if you wanted. It’s great to have loops and they work well, but a little more thought would have made them truly great.
One interesting feature is the ability to save loops to the pads - define a loop, hit “save” and then a pad and the loop is stored. But more on this later.
Where Stanton have pulled a rabbit out of their hat is with sampling. Like I said, hot cues are a hoot and I’m one happy bunny when pad thumping. The C.324 allow 4 cue points to be used at one time, either as immediate starts if play is engaged, or as stutters if it isn’t. You can also save the current cue point to any of the 4 buttons as well with the “save” button. Pads can easily be erased as well, freeing you to use them for the next part of your set.
Where it gets really interesting is when using the “sampler” button. Normally, when you hit a pad, it jumps straight to that point and plays right away. With the sampler button engaged, it simply plays the sample over the top of whatever is playing. This includes the existing loop as well, so provided you’ve got the loop just right, you can start beat juggling with one button. And when you add in that you can still engage vinyl mode, you can get pretty crazy on the remix front.
The original sample is unaffected by active pitch control, but you can tweak the pitch and level of each sample while playing live. It’s a little awkward as you have to keep the pad pressed, press the sampler button and then tweak with the rotary pitch and level buttons. So you could beat match 2 different loops if you wanted or simple overlay parts of the same track. The samples are subject to whatever effects you have playing at the time, and when pressing one button it cuts off another.
But wait… there’s more. Not content with pushing the whole cueing and looping feature to the max, they have to to take it one step further and nudge the C.324 into sequencer territory. Assuming you have cues and loops stored on the pads, you can make your own step or realtime sequences depending on your needs. Up to 32 points can be stored and organised in a true step mode (plays loops one after another) or in realtime (records how you press them). There’s a couple of pages devoted to this in the manual but it’s really not as complex as it seems.
Now it would be real shame if these cue points were lost when you powered off, so thankfully the C.324 has internal memory where you can save cues and loops for 500 CDs. This is also true for saving unit presets like always having vinyl mode engaged, a pitch range set or an effect switched on - particularly annoying until I discovered this feature.
Ins and Outs
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Technically speaking, the CD drive is an input so it seems logical to report about it in this section. The big news here is that the C.324 abandons the oh so last decade trayloading CD drives and gives you a much sleeker slot loading device instead. Less moving parts means more reliability as well as a more protected mechanism to boot. Load times are respectable, averaging 10 seconds from insert to ready.
Not much to report round the back - of course there’s line out, but Stanton have added a S/PDIF digital out as well. Does anybody actually use that? There’s also a mini jack to allow for 2 units to relay play as well as enabling fader start for suitably equipped mixers. That is all - move along.
Summary
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When the C.324 arrived on my door step, I had real worries that my previous experiences with the first generation of the deck would see me having a hard time being positive about the new C.324. When I discovered the previous C.series at MusikMesse, my 5 minutes of playing on the stand had me walking away never to return. Thankfully lessons have been learned and the C.324 is a pleasure to use.
Those looking for vinyl like feel may well be disappointed. The platter is good - better than the Numark iCDX but not in the leagues of the Pioneer CDJs, Denons and nowhere near the Numark CDX. The rest of the feature set however is top notch, and the sampling and looping really does make the other decks look weak. It’s hard to get into, but when you do the power of the C.324 becomes apparent. And when you throw in the creative options of the effects, you have a serious piece of work in your hands.
If you frequent particular forums, you can help but have come across a small handful of vocal opponents of the previous (or indeed any) Stanton offerings, and quite rightly so if it is all to be believed. But my experience of the the C.324 has been great - nothing has broken or worked out side of my expectations. Indeed, bar a few glitches the C.324 has performed quite a long way beyond what I had expected. Time will tell if it withstands the regular abuse that DJs meter out on their gear.
Overall, if you’re after a scratchable CD deck, but can’t afford the Denon or Pioneer offerings, the C.324 will prove to be a very viable alterantive, often beating the competition in some areas of use.
Ratings
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Build Quality
For the price, it’s about right. Feels good - controls are solid enough and the platter is smooth.Sound Quality
This is becoming academic these days, but even with 3 effects running and bashing sample pads to death, it holds up without artefacts.Features & Implementation
All bases are covered here and then some. The platter offers good sub-turntablist scratch performance, but the loops and sample go above and beyond the norm.Value For Money
The C.324 comes in for quite a bit less than the competition but offers a more traditional set of features rather than squeezing in heaps of nextlevelness.I Like…
• The price
• The platter performance
• The sampling and loopingBut not so keen on…
• The woefully inadequate time division
• The small display - too much wasteThe Bottom Line
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Once you get to learn all that it has to offer, the C.324 is one hell of a creative ball of fun.
STANTON NEW SLOT LOADING TABLETOP CD DJ PLAYER
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