So where do i start on the meet

Met up with h_blake and friend in bedford and drove down to the ferry terminal where we got on the stena HSS which is a very cool ferry does over 40knots which is about 70kmph where we met up with Patrick (pca) who is suprising easy to find in a crowd.

After getting to holland we had a very slow crawl to amersfoort since the traffic was crap.

Met up with the empeg gang and others at the hotel and we then proceeded off to a very nice cafe where much drinking and eating took place. i skinned out early due to an overheating bank card.

Day two started somewhat later and more gently then thought it would.

First thing was rob gave us a glimse of what the empeg boys have been up to as far as they could due to ndas etc What i can say is i think they are working on the new generation of flash players. They also showed us a very intresting MP3 DJ concept player based on the car player with a few features that are not to be mentioned as they my be patents in the works.

Basically it is a very new way of looking at mp3s as a way of mixing involving alot of use of seek tool mode that is on the player but greatly improved. There is quite a few more buttons to allow quicker accessing of some features. Also a nice big rotary control oing lots of very clever things.

Then we were given a tour of the rio central which is as good as it looks it was a pre production prototype involving a bit of dodgey plastics work (have soldering iron will make hole). Showed us around the software and all its cool features and discovered it can't be easily brought into europe but technically it will work fine.

The riot was given a qucik spin round the room and is also quite nice the boys also brought along their I-pods from what i have seen i think the riot has the edge slightly.

Next off outside to have lunch and play with cars and stereos. The star car was definatly a bristol ( small car manfactuer in uk that used to build fighter planes) a 6 litre V8 with turbo and an empeg. Sort of a rolls royce with attitude and far more exlusive there really is no other cars like them. I also liked the bright orange M3 thomas brought along.

Rob schofield had the best boot install as always due to the fact it was lunch sounded crap though. He also brought along his remote controlled Mini which was crashed several times. The standard of cars was higher than last year. I made my wireless set up on show.

After judging and lunch we returned inside and patrick was wheeled out as god and he showed us an empeg worth a huge amount of money ( i know how much after the trip on the ferry) featuring a composite video output which he explained how it done and it is incredably complicated involving IDE buses stremingdsplay data to another computer inside the empeg case. Also on this empeg was a remote display hanging off the end of a ribbon cable which has a simply huge range, tested over a hundred meters of cable by patrick when the original spec asked for 1 meter.

Next he showed us the tuner prototype and then discussed what could be done with the extra room on the board and in the communications. Anyone fancy a G meter attached to there empeg or how about a third board that can control other 12v outputs or even possible a boost gauge lined up to empeg all of which are apparently posible with patricks tuner if it is taken to its limits.

After a thorugh brain numbing from patrick it was competion time. The quiz was easyier than previous years and i won then there was the prize giving for distance sound quality, best pro install and best amuter install. The prizes here very good and original (Mk1 circuit board in a frame).

Next it was tech time and patrick got out his soldering iron to put on resistor packs

After this it was off to Robs for a great barbecue and lots of great food and beer ( i still want the recipe for the cheesecake thing and the treacle tart was great for those quick enough to the front of the que)

Following morning was later than advertised again and after everone managed o get stuff together and get out hotel it was convoy time into the town centre for a lunch in a cafe and the it was goodbyes and everyone to head off in there respective directions.

Myself and the empeg guys headed for the same ferry. Rob voisey disappered over the horizon in hugos type R and i followed the A class despite numerous lane changes all the way to the ferry.

A quick trip back on the HSS and then back to the UK and again th type r vanished into the distance towards cambridge. The A class got out of the terminal before us but we manged to catch on the way up the road. However we took the turn off that we thought that was towards cambridge but the A class idn't so either they knew a shortcut or they got lost.

All in all a very good weekend

I am sure better write ups will appear

i still want the recipe for the cheesecake thing

I missed out on that completely due to the queue

However we took the turn off that we thought that was towards cambridge but the A class idn't so either they knew a shortcut or they got lost.

We got lost -- in fact, we not only missed the A14, we even missed the A120 and had to backtrack. Still, we got to see some great large-scale civil engineering work at the new A120/M11 junction, and the traffic wasn't too bad.

Peter

They also showed us a very intresting MP3 DJ concept player based on the car player with a few features that are not to be mentioned as they my be patents in the works.

Rob, what can you tell us ? Visiosonic / Numark have the DMC-1. Is it this type of thing or is it completely stand alone like a Rio Receiver ?

you might of got the wrong end of the stick it is a very cool thing for a DJ not a rio reciever type thing

For mixin and queing up tracks

... and for doing all the things a DJ might do with turntables, without having turntables.

And of course it does it all better

it is a very cool thing for a DJ not a rio reciever type thing

So it must have it's own Hard Disk(s) ... ?

For mixin and queing up tracks ...

Exactly, that's the idea. Does it use a seperate mixer or is it internal to the 'EMPEG-DJ'

...and for doing all the things a DJ might do with turntables, without having turntables.

OK, so there are some built in effects like scratching ...

This is so cool, i've been waiting for something like this for years. Having DJ'd for about 6 years myself, I was begging for something like this instead of carrying my record box(s) everywhere.

There are some great products out there which you can use for the mixing stuff, but they all work with CD's ... some of the newer ones work with MP3 encoded CD's ...

The only thing that comes close is the Laptop + Visiosonic PCDJ + Numark DMC-1 Controller Combination.

Tell me more guys .... !

Yes, it's essentially an empeg, but with an interface so that it can be used the way a DJ uses a turntable (positioning, start/stop, speed, scratching, beat-matching etc). You would have (at least) two of these, hooked up to normal mixer.
It has a big high-resolution spinner that you manouvre to position the song the way you would the turntable (plus that it has extra press-and-spin functions too).
A less Pro-oriented version might have a slightly different interface and using DSP for mixing two streams originating in the same unit.

/Michael

So there are potentially two seperate products ?

A Pro-Based One which might look a bit like this product Pioneer CDJ-500S

And a Home based Product which might look like this Pioneer CMX-3000

Having two audio streams from the same Hard Disk sounds perfect, but it sounds like only the 'Home' product does this ?

With the Pro product, you would need to keep several Hard Disks in syncronisation ?

All this supposition on my part of course, but these sort of products get me real excited (sad I know).

Are these products destined for the production line, or early in development ?

With the Pro product, you would need to keep several Hard Disks in syncronisation?

I guess that with a bit of work the second one could access the first one's disks in a Rio Receiver kind of a way.

Peter

These aren't products - they're concepts. We don't have a customer (yet).

Rob

Did anyone else spot this:

http://www.djstore.co.uk/cgi-bin/browse-no-frames.pl?session=76085679&view=item&item=stafs10k

Very clever, it consists of a vinyl record that has time codes on it, a piece of hardware to work out which part of the record is playing and a piece of software to map the place on the record to a place within a sound file (or set of sound files).

The result of all of this is that you can move backwards and forwards through the sound file, including scratching just by playing the special record they supply on the turntable. A very clever idea...

The hardware even spots when you are playing a record other than the timecode record and if so just passes the actual audio from the record from instead.

Oh WOW, that's clever.

It's one of those completely non-obvious, obvious ideas...

...if you know what I mean.

I wish I had thought of it.

Of course, you still have to lug gigantic turntables to each gig. For those DJs who refuse to give up their vinyl turntables because nothing else "feels right", it's great. But for those who are looking to make their road gear smaller, it doesn't help. A purely digital MP3-based system could have a lot of advantages over a system like that, if only you could convince a the DJ that the vinyl turntables weren't necessary.

If you watch the video clip they have of someone demoing the unit he proudly boasts that the music will even jump if someone bangs into the deck...

music will even jump if someone bangs into the deck

The empeg guys could put a tilt switch in their concept unit

/Michael

Hugo, Toby and I designed just such a system over lunch one day a few months ago... then we found someone beat us to it

I've never yet been able to find anyone that has bought one. I'm not convinced it's actually all that useful.

Rob

Actually so did ours to begin with (jump when you bumped the deck) - I worked quite hard on some code to window the rotary movement based on average recent movement, thus eliminating very small nudges when the wheel has been still for some time.

Maybe I should remove the fix.

Was there not a write-up on this type of stuff (remixing) in WIRED magazine very recently? Including a photo of a laptop-DJ using the turntable gizmos to control it?

Or it is just my flakey memory again..