A jog wheel may be good for cuing up a song but the top does not serve much of a purpose after that. So why not double assign it to another function that works when you hold down a shift key? Its a logical conclusion but finding something that actually works well with the jog wheel’s pitch bend type message is another story. Last week I may have found something that fits perfectly.
The Unified Fader Fx Theory
I stumbled upon a great task for the jog wheel that expands on the fader-fx mode I created for the vci-100se. This technique combined with my existing methods for the line faders are a part of a bigger concept I am calling the “unified fader fx theory” 🙂 – more on that later, for now lets show you how to assign your jog wheel to a beat-mash effect. This tutorial will work for just about any jog wheel out there but will require Traktor to really do it right.
the 3 wise men
The vci-100 jog wheels and many others send out 3 messages we are interested in and traditionally they are assigned in this way:
- note on – Scratch mode on
- CC values above or bellow 64 – Move the deck playback position fwd or back (scratch)
- note off- Scratch mode off
We want to assign them in a different way.
- note on – Effect Button 1 (Beatmasher on)
- note on – Effect Knob 1 (Effect Mix)
- CC values above or bellow 64 – Effect Knob 1 (effect Mix) Rotary 3Fh, Sensitivity @ %8
- note off- Effect Knob one (effect mix)
So this means that when you grab the wheel it engages the beat masher at that point in the song and turns it to 100% effect. Scratching the wheel back and forth then blends the mashed signal in and out of the song and letting go of the wheel turns the beat masher off again. Combine that with the Pitch fader set to “bet mash length and you have a combination of 2 traditional controls re-used in a consistent musical way, the foundation of my Fader fx theory.
Its on!
Cause we are always oh so kind around here at Dj TT. I have made a TKS with only these assignments on midi page 3. So merge this TKS with your current one and then you will have this function on page 3. Those that own the vci-100SE can download the latest TKS here which also now has this feature and many, many others.
The Demo
Download basic TKS
http://djtechtools.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/jog-fx_scratchtks.zip
Instructions on merging TKS files