Report: Remix Hotel New York Day 1

Jun 28, 2008 1:34 PM, Lori Kennedy

Remix Hotel NYC 2008 started off with an onslaught of attendees waiting to get their tweaky, twitchy little fingers on the latest gear from the hottest manufacturers in the industry. It's like a gadrillion degrees here in the city, with superthick humidity. But alas, it was nice and cool inside our venue, the SAE Institute of Technology—New York. Allow me to regale you with some highlights, Remix Lori-style, from Day 1.

Vestax showcased its VCI-300 DJ controller with dual-action turntables. Turns out Vestax has teamed up with Serato, sharing its technology to come up with a dedicated DJ USB MIDI/audio system. I had a chance to fiddle around with the VCI-300 running Serato Itch software, and it was a blast. I tried my hand at manipulating the Junior Boys track "Like a Child." Although I won't be booking DJ gigs for myself anytime soon, it was fun to fiddle around with this hardware/software combo, especially because I freaking love that song.

Next up for my eager fingers was the Denon DN-HS5500. Touted as "two decks in one," this nifty machine allows DJs to have two complete turntable configurations that feed off the same hard drive (of which you can connect as many as four). You switch between decks just by pressing a Layer button. The direct-drive motor and spinning platter had a nice, solid feel. This thing can also be used as a MIDI controller and can run any MIDI-compatible DJ or VJ software. Very cool.

I also had the chance to listen to PowerFX's Sweet Ann Vocaloid2 library. Sweet Ann was, well, pretty frigging sweet. This voice-synthesis software is pretty easy to use: Just type in the words you want Ann to sing, select a melody and then hit Play. You can even change pitch, vibrato and expression. I made Ann whisper sweet nothings into my ear, and it was pretty trippy. She even has her own MySpace page for crying out loud; check it out here, where you can hear Ann do her rendition of Patsy Cline's "Crazy." PowerFX will release Sweet Ann's counterpart, Big Al, this fall.

As the afternoon turned into evening, I heard some crazy-ass fat beats coming from the Rane/Serato room, so I had to check it out. Who was creating this glorious noise? Turns out it was DJ Scratchator, who happens to be the official DJ for Busta Rhymes (who, by the way, recently sat down with Remix for a chat for an upcoming issue of the mag) and the Flip Mode Squad. Watching him spin was pretty amazing. For his finale, he played us an exclusive Busta Rhymes with T-Pain track, cutting it up while it spun. Frickin' sweet.

See what you missed? Man, that was only a smidgen of all the audio-science goodness going on. I haven't even talked about the panels yet. What are you waiting for? Get your sweet buns down to RHNYC Saturday and Sunday. We can't wait to see you there!

Want to use this article? Click here for options!