diff --git a/content/news/XXXX-XX-XX-Midsummer-Mixxx.md b/content/news/XXXX-XX-XX-Midsummer-Mixxx.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ba654a73 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/news/XXXX-XX-XX-Midsummer-Mixxx.md @@ -0,0 +1,65 @@ +title: Midsummer Mixxx +authors: Evelynne Veys +tags: summer, info, news, update, harmonic, key, stem +comments: yes +status: draft + +#### Let the Mixxx shine + +Summertime, partytime. In the middle of the festival season you are maybe playing a sunny vibes gig somewhere. +Or you are relaxing on the beach or at the pool with a cocktail in the hand checking the long list of music you had to discover. +Both ways will give you inspiration and energy. +Who thinks Mixxx-devs are laying in the sun can't be more wrong, we're having a crowded github-festival ourselves. + +#### Let the Mixxx in + +A lot of new contributors found their way to our mapping parties on the discourse forum, our coding raves at github, +and the development zulip dancehall. You are all welcome and we'd like to thank you for all kind of input. +With your feedback on the 2.5 beta version the coding team is on track for gold, the bugs and errors teams are already defeated. + +#### I'm going on a holiday and … + +While you're enjoying a well deserved vacation the Mixxx team is preparing new features. +Not all new features are already for bundling in an official release but you can find everything about them in the partie venues. + +The new visual aids for key and bpm will be astonishing, it needed quite some adaptations but the project is in pole position for gold. + +The color integration will give you intuitive directions of matching tracks for harmonic mixing, also for people who suffer off color-blindness. +Soon you wil be able to discover a 'heat column' in the library which will give you hints on tracks that are compatible with the current playing track, +based on the Key and BPM. And BPM coloring will be added to show tracks with a BPM close to the current tempo. +This will be our first step in Intelligent Assistance, it can inspire you to make surprising Mixxx-es with tracks that slipped your mind. +And these features will later be used later for some QOL features, like an improved suggestions algorithm, search ranking based on similarity, +and adding key color ticks on the rate sliders. +Fill the floors! + +Our marathon stem project is fantastic, a peek behind the curtain: +Playing with stems changes the whole idea of DJ-ing. If stems are new for you I would like to invite you to do some research. +In brief: stems are regular music files that are separated in 4 stem-tracks by the original producer or with the aid of AI. +Mostly those tracks are drums, bass, melody and vocals. Together with the original track are those 4 new tracks +combined in a new container, a *.Stem.MP4 or *.Stem.M4A file, lossy or lossless (depends also on source). +While other DJ software will only support lossy stem files, we choose to support both. +These combined files can be 'remixed' on the fly, with other words: the volume of the tracks can be individual controlled, +a track can also be muted e.g. if you mute all tracks except the vocals you are actually playing an a capella. + +Without stems you need the beats to be synced, even if the intermediate beat would fit better to cover bass/drum sounds, +you need to work hard with the eq's to camouflage bass left-overs. With stems you can just completely hide the unwanted tracks. + +Remark: The quality of the stems is of course very important, a lot of stem creators are showing up everywhere. +Some need you to upload your original file, some can use your GPU, some use well trained AI models, others don't. +On Zulip I wrote a report about my quest for stems. + +In development Mixxx is already at the point that lossy and lossless stems can be played and controlled as stems, stem controls are already +working an can be experimental mapped in controller mappings. + +DJ-ing with stems is a gamechanger, it takes away limitations, gives your creativity a boost. +A hint: controlling stems with the mouse is rather difficult, some controllers are already stems-ready which means they incormporated +volume encoders and mute buttons for the different stem tracks. But don't throw away you're valuable controller. +I have experimented successfull creating a OSC midi controller to control stems (and samplers) from a tablet, when finished the files will be available. +Or you can start looking for an extra midi-controller that has enough encoders to control the volume and mute buttons of the stems (advice: 4 encoders, 4 mute buttons maybe encoders for the effect on the stem-track and buttons to select the deck). + +If you're waiting for an official release with stem support, you'll have to be more patient. + +#### Ceremonie protocollaire + +A golden medal will be awarded to everyone who contributes to Mixxx. +Have a crazy Mixxxy summer.