What Has Two Arrow Keys and Mixes Video-SL? My Laptop.

I rarely DJ with videos. In fact, this past Saturday was the second gig ever where I mixed videos.

I use Serato Scratch Live version 1.9.2 (SL3) along with the Video-SL plugin, two turntables, and a Rane TTM-56 mixer.

For my first video gig (a prom), I was worried that I would have trouble fading the videos while mixing the music without a midi enabled mixer like the TTM-57SL. My solution at that time was to use an Akai LPD8 midi controller to control the video fading. It worked just fine, even though there were a few glitches at times with different video effects.

For this last gig, after having problems with my midi controller, I decided to just use the laptop’s arrow keys to fade the videos. To enable this, you just have to check the box next to this option in the “Video” tab of Scratch Live.

Guess what? It was super easy and worked flawlessly. The arrow keys were set to “auto crossfade” when I pressed either right or left. So, as I was mixing the audio, when I was ready to fully bring in the next track, I would just reach up and tap the appropriate left or right key to start the video fading process. So, I just repeated that same process all night long. No glitches, simple, and effective.

If you don’t own a midi enabled mixer or midi controller, and don’t really want to buy one to fade videos with Video-SL, just use your arrow keys!

Tags: DJ, Mix, Music Videos, Rane, Scratch Live, Serato, TTM-57S, Video-SL, Videos