DJ booth upgrades.

With so many talented DJ’s and producers at Spirit, we’ve upgraded our DJ booths with new equipment and functionalities so students can better learn, plan and perfect their mixes.

Allen & Heath booth

Front and foremost there are now four decks! We’ve installed 4x Pioneer CDJs; 2x CDJ2000NXS2 and kept the 2x CDJ2000NEXUS units that were already in this facility. All are now mounted in the furniture, rather than on any stands. This updated layout is less cluttered and improves workflow by having all of the equipment next to each other.

All four decks are linked via ethernet and USB, so one USB stick can be shared between all four, and all four can control decks in Traktor and Serato.

Vinyl capability

Old and gold, there’s still the option to use vinyl in the facility. If you want to use vinyl records, use phono inputs 1 & 4.  The turntables are connected directly to the mixer, rather than routed through the Rane audio interface, so you will no longer need to toggle the through mode in System Preferences. They’ll work without powering the computer on or changing any settings.

Digital Vinyl System

Potentially one of the biggest revolutions in DJing, we now have a Phase Digital Vinyl System in the Allen & Heath booth. Technology allowing you to control Traktor and Serato with turntables; mix your digital collection of tracks using turntables without needles. Endorsed by the likes of Jazzy Jeff, Z-Trip and Skratch Bastid. The cabling and software is all set up you just need to sign out the Phase DJ system from reception, plug-in (phono inputs 2 & 3) and play!

Pioneer Booth

This facility showcases the industry leading Pioneer DJ equipment, now featuring a club-standard setup with a DJM-900NXS2 mixer and four CDJs: 3x CDJ2000NXS2 and 1x XDJ100. The stands have been removed so now all of the DJ equipment is all positioned in the furniture for improved usability. Audio from sets can be recorded through Ableton on the Macbook Pro in the facility.

Film

We all know video content is important so we’ve installed a Blackmagic ATEM and 2x GoPros in both facilities so you can record/stream video sets. There are two camera angles, one overhead and side-angle from the left hand walls, you can switch between angles using the ATEM while recording a set. The video quality is 1080p and 60fps; allowing you to film professional quality video sets on a state-of-the-art equipment set up.

To record a set simply plug in a USB stick into the back of the ATEM and press record.

Booking a DJ booth

To help everyone get the most use out of the facilities as possible we’ve reduced the credit values to:

Allen & Heath Booth – from 20 credits per hour (on-peak) to 15 credits per hour

Pioneer Booth – from 20 credits per hour (on-peak) to 15 credits per hour

We hope these changes improve your sessions in the DJ booths so you better practice and record your sets. Make sure to read through our Studio Etiquette guide when using the facilities, and please don’t spam the cue buttons!