FTA Mods: Making a DJ case with integrated Neutrik audio ports

This is where it all started...

I had plans to buy a new to me "compact" DJM-909 load it and my decks into a coffin and start my new weekly on air residency (more about that later). As you can see from the photo the USPS had other plans (more on this topic later as well).

With "Plan A" out the window I scrambled to come up with a solution. I would be in need of a quick, simple and safe way to transport my gear. While surfing the web I found these series of images by Soulsonica. For starters hat tip to him for this sick build, however his posts on DJ TechTools, Inthemix, and Djforums were void of details. But they gave just enough information to get the ball rolling for me.

 

A few days later with packages from Amazon and Full Compass arriving at the studio, we were in business. 

Shopping List:

2 - Neutrik 3-Pole Non-Locking Female XLR Chassis Connector with Nickel Housing and Silver Contacts

4 - Neutrik  XLR-M Connector with M3 Mounting Holes

3 - Neutrik  Reversible USB Gender-Changing Adapter (Nickel Finish)

2 - Cables 12 ft. Velocity RCA Stereo Audio Extension Cable, Dual - L + R


2 - Cable Vu USBA-USBB-5 5 ft USB 2.0 Type A to Type B Cable

6 - GLS Audio 3ft Patch Cable Cords

2 - LyxPro 1.5 Ft Right Angle XLR   

10 - Black 3 Pins IEC320 C14 Inlet Power Plug Socket AC 250V 10A 

Gear List: 

2 - Technics 1200M3D

1 - DJM700

2 - Road Ready Turntable Cases

1 - Road Ready 12" Mixer Case

Roughing out the placement of all the ports on the case

Note I'm not an electrical genius, I went into this project with a fair amount of fear that I would blow up my gear. Needless to say I did not. Most questions I had were answered over the internet via forums and youtube videos. Big ups to The Bright Pixel for his indepth XLR soldering video.

Neutrik ports are so pretty

Roughing out the placement for the ports was a humorous game of "musical ports". Basically I made an arrangement, tossed some darts, moved them around again, had some tea, moved then around once more. Ha.

Each one I just used a white colored pencil to map out my placements

Eventually I figured out where I wanted what and penciled it in with white colored pencil.

Making a cheat sheet

However, when drilling holes and trying to be really precise a cheat sheet is nice to have.

This illustrates how to make a simple design far more complicated then it needed to be.

This is a great example of how all the planning in the world can over complicate a design. In the end the key is always "Keep it simple stupid".

In the end keep it simple

This was the first look inside the case, thankfully it was not full of foam.

My drilling cheat sheet.

Cheat sheet in full effect. You can see the center marks I made. I then used a nail to punch a guide hole for the drill.

Mocking up the ports making sure the holes were big enough

Pro Tip: When putting the ports into the drilled holes, use a rubber mallet so as not to hurt the ports.

Hat tip to Soulsonica for the diagram!

A 3-pin XLR with a stereo signal can be split into left and right RCA. 

Pin 1 of the XLR connects to the sleeve of both RCA plugs as the ground

Pin 2 of the XLR to the tip of the LEFT RCA plug

Pin 3 of the XLR to the tip of the RIGHT RCA plug  

Presto balanced to unbalanced signal. Revers this on the other end and your good to go.

Ages ago I got one of these for fly fishing, but its was a great bit of tech to have in the build

Prepping the ports, cutting the wires, tinning the wires, heat shrink and making all sure I have all the supplies. Doing all this made it a production line of audio goodness.

Prep, Prep, Prep

Rough placement of the Rane SL4 box

Here is where I started roughing out the placements for the Serato box, power strips, and wires.

Turntable case port placement

Prepping to knock out the holes in the turntable case.

I love the smell of solder

XLR right angle cable added to the XLR port. Again I love this bit of tech

Wire management round one

Lets talk about wire management. Serato is notorious for getting your cables mixed up. For those that remember the SL1 where their was 4 RCA cables... yea headache. SL4 has only 2 but I marked them all the same so they would be easy to find or replace.

I'm sort of proud with how much space I still have in the box

labeled ports

Yes those are labeled ports... yea I got nerdy with the label maker. Smiling.

Let me tell you about being proud and scared.

At this point I've not hooked up the decks yet. I've done some minor sound tests with my phone. I'm totally freaking out that my soldering will not be up to snuf.

This was just before I tested the audio source signals.

If your looking you will see the roach clip for a grounding connector. Its the one part of this system that could be knocked loose in travel. I may update this later but I wanted something that would be easy to swap in our out decks.

Detail shot before we hook it all up.

In action. totally stoked with the build.

Freaking sexy. Now all my cables are all easily replaceable. 2 XLR in, 2 XLR out, 2 USB Serato out, 1 USB out for the Dicers. Something to note if your looking hard over in the right side of the mixer is a USB extender that allows me to hook up the Dicer to the USB port in the mixer case. Its not perfect but its functional.

Now I've gone with a 3 Pins IEC power port instead of a Neutrik Powercon, because in a pinch I can replace it far easier.

Here she is ladies and gentleman. Locked stocked and ready to rock.

What did I learn? Really... not much. It was all either really simple or easy to learn. 

The big hick up I had was actually right at the end. I found out while testing my signal clarity with the Serato box, that the track was playing backwards. But that was a 5 min fix as I had switched the red and white RCA when soldering them to the turntable XLR port. Switching them back took care of the issue.

I hope you all enjoyed this tear down of the mobile case build. If you have any questions feel free to drop me a line.

All Crews: Brian Belle-Fortune Audio Interviews on MixCloud

All Crews by Brian Belle-Fortune is over 10 years of journeys through the Jungle / Drum & Bass scene and features interviews with the music's top artists. However, it also delves deeper and looks at the pirate radio stations, labels, crews, promoters and ravers that form the backbone of the scene.

Since graduating from Sussex University in 1994, Brian Belle-Fortune conceived and co-produced One in the Jungle, Britain’s first national Jungle program for BBC Radio One. His TV credits include BBC South, Channel 4 and MTV where he specialised in underground youth culture, particularly Jungle.
He was also label manager for DJ Ron's London Some ’Ting Records and London pirate radio stations Rude FM/Ruud Awakening as DJ Zy:on.

[SOURCE]

Randomness: EDM - Yea or nay?

Yea or nay?

EDM is an industry term used to homogenize various styles of electronic music into a generic and soulless soup that many of us who have been in the scene for a long time despise. It represents the appropriation of our culture by an industry who couldn't give a shit about our values we have fought so hard for. Call it electronic music. EDM is offensive.
- Dre Morningstar
 ==

Background:
This came to me this morning over my first cup of coffee. I've known Dre for years... longer then I've known most anyone else in my the DJ community. Because we grew up in the same town, we were skaters, punk rockers, artist long before we found the music that would reshape our lives. So to get a question like this out of the blue was a nice bit of mental stimulation.
==

Answer:
Strong Statement. I think its similar to all industry classifications of music genre. 

Rock is punk, metal, rockabilly, northern, hardcore, pop, ect. It has the same lack of sensitivity to the many variations in the styles of sound.

In the early 1990's (in the Midwest at least) everything was "techno", if it was electronic and House was still thrown into the "rap" section of the record store. This misclassification or over simplification of music has been an issue long before EDM. 

To that end my answer is FUCK YEA. The homogenized classification system that the music industry has created to make marketing to the public easier is epically annoying. 

However the key here is "marketing". I will say that the rising interest in Electronic Dance Music (EDM) in America has been nice to see. Especially, after a bit of a dark spell. So is this because of the hard marketing push by the majors... maybe? 

Or is it because the majors bought into the American Dub Step craze, which had the ability to very its BPM wildly, thus making it adaptable to multiple genres of Electronic Dance Music? So why not rise all boats and call it all EDM? Who the fuck knows. 

What I do know is Jungle / Drum & Bass in the Nations Capital has seen a nice uptick in events, fan base, and new blood in the scene. Did it come in because of the EDM all encompassing umbrella? Maybe. Did they then find their sound and eventually learn about its history? I hope so. Does it make them buy music and dance their ass off? I hope so other wise they are doing it wrong. I guess I can't get bent our of shape about this if it means people are dancing.
- The Librarian
==

Follow Up over IM:
I'd also like to add that most people I know from the LA underground differentiate EDM as being separate from the music we play. What the industry calls EDM generally refers to dubstep, glitch, hard house, electro, hardstyle, moombahton, and even drum and bass. Yet, it does not represent any of those styles, which all are worthy of respect in their own rights.

I'd say EDM generally refers to open-format mixing of top 40 electronic music. You want a real mindfuck, listen to the Beatport Top 10 and try to figure out what these tracks have in common.
- Dre Morningstar
 ==

oooooh. Beatport Top 40 you say? Ok now I'm curious. Heading there for a bit of fun.
-The Librarian

What do you all think? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Cheers

Random: VIDEO: B.Two presents OUR FUTURE

B.Two video is totally note worthy. hat tip

FTA UPDATE: ELM Imprint

So its been a while but never fear we still have the Jungle / Drum & Bass up in here. While I've been away I'm been busy helping out a new local Jungle / Drum & Bass label called ELM Imprint. Since I'm not much of a producer, I've been doing a lot of their design and illustration work. However I'm proud to announce that I also hosted their first ELM Imprint podcast!

ELM Imprint Podcast: 001 by Elm Imprint on Mixcloud

Description:
Another soundboy selection from Edward the Librarian this month on the ELM Imprint podcast. Pulling forthcoming tracks from the likes of A-Sides, Wills Miles, R.A.W & the godfather Ray Keith. As well as a slew of classics from the golden era.

ELM Imprint is an independent record label based in the United States of America. Primarily releasing Drum & Bass, the label was started in 2015 by Phil Witkins , Aaron Duncan and Arch Dixon. The label is home to artists such as Wills Miles, R.A.W, Mutt, Tedder, Robert Manos and Spinnscott, while also releasing tracks from a whole host of other artists across the Drum & Bass genre.

Playlist:
1. Intro
2. Safari Sounds - Ghetto Born Kid
3. The Prisoners Of Technology - Breakdance
4. RAW - LATE NIGHTS [featuring WILLIE WALDMAN]
5. Nu/Tone - e.Spresso
6. DJ Die - Special Treat
7. A Sides - Atlantic
8. Juju - The Streets
9. Will Miles - Bass God
10. 45Roller - Saturday Night Roller
11. The Riddler - F.S.B
12. Greg Packer - We Hear Drumz
13. 6BLOCC - GETTING RECKLESS [Featuring DYER MC]
14. DJ Krush - Angles
15. Dragon Fist - The Drummer
16. Spinscott - Make It Funky
17. Randall & Andy C - Feel It (Remixes)
18. Ray Keith - FIGHT(5 ELEMENTS)
19. E - Z Rollers - Science Funktion
20. MIA - BUBBLE [RAW REMIX]
21. Heretic - Heads High
22. Mutt & Tedder - I Want 

* all the bold tracks are releases or future releases on ELM Imprint

FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/elm.imprint/
TWITTER:
https://twitter.com/Elm_Imprint
SOUNDCLOUD:
https://soundcloud.com/elm-imprint
BAND CAMP:
https://elmimprint.bandcamp.com
ELM IMPRINT WEBSITE:
http://elmimprint.com/

Also go check out the SHOP, most of the merch was designed by me and I'm wicked proud if it.

Randomness: John Peel's record box

I can only hope that when my time comes my box brings a smile to my friends and family.
-The Librarian

FTA UPDATE: The silence is coming to a close

So those close to the Annex camp know this last year was bonkers. Originally I thought this would only be a few months while my wife and I got settled with our new addition to the Junglist community. 

Twelve hours later (and the longest amount of time spent on my feet since Starscape of '02) our little bundle of joy was born. Huge respect to my wife for birthing our child, and a special thanks Mamma Sue who was a constant balancing force.

IT'S A GIRL!

Whats up with the bars on her face? Well that's easy, I'm a huge fan of internet privacy, and I don't want her to have a legacy of digital information surrounding her before she is old enough to choose how to represent herself.

Yea... normally I would say I work best with very little sleep... but when you can't choose when your sleeping...yea it sucks.

You may be asking why the lack of DJing. The day... THE DAY we brought her back, I rolled down to the studio to make a celebratory podcast and I smell something. Its damp, or something. I did some sniffing around and moved my wall of records to find this.

 

Ladies and gentleman that's mold. 

ALL HELL NO! We are not having this. So after some home grown cleaning technics failed. We called in the big guns, to get to the bottom of this mess.

Well as you can see we went right down to the brick walls. That framing eventually would go as well. While they were doing all this we found a bunch of dodgy wiring, so all that got pulled and updated.

Thus the Annex was packed away while things got straightened up.

In the mean time, the Little Rebel and I went shopping at Blue Groove records for her first record buying spree. The Bad Brains album is hers.

New framing!

Who's daddy's little Junglist? (yea so the bad Dad jokes have not started... yet )

INSULATION!

During all this work without my records I joined some social media platforms to see what the fuss was about... this was the only thing of note before I deleted the account. Preach on, Boy George.

It should also be noted that I've frozen my Facebook account till further notice, after killing a lot of time reading terms and conditions in the wee hours of the morning. I've started to see the power of taking control of the media I create and promote. Thus, no Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Myspace, and Soundcloud. I'm sure I will get some serious heat over this but whatever. Maybe as I figure out solutions or downfalls I will make another post on this topic.

We made a pilgrimage to TURNSTYLE RECORDS in Richmond VA, and ran into General Motors who is now working there! If you have not already done so check out her mix with Moody Moore.

 

Progress is being made!!!

Then it happened. I got suckered in to hacking off my hair for Locks of Love.

Learning to program beats.

Our cat is not impressed by the naked rat we brought home.

She found a satellite stash of records and was very pleased with herself.

The sub flooring arrived. Dum Dum DUM!

I wish I had better time-laps photos for installing the flooring as it was pretty fast and fun.

Then painting.

FINISHED.

Then the unpacking started.

Now its just trying to make sense of all the piles of squirreled away records I've hidden all over the house. I hope to be up before the end of March... but famous last words right?

Anyways that's what I've been up to. Hope you all are doing well and stay tuned The Librarian will be back.