Things I've learned after a few days on flx4
I got an FLX4 last week and it's been a ton of fun. The fact that it's going to take a ton of effort and practice is actually pretty cool. It feels good to make any progress at all.
Everybody seems to say "don't waste time with loops, effects, etc, just practice beatmatching transitions". I totally get it, that's the skill that should be acquired first. But still, it's pretty satisfying to learn what the equipment does. I'll see a YouTube with a feature tip and see how powerful it could be in the future.
I quickly realized there's way more to transitions that sound good than just beatmatching. Making a transition sound natural is tricky. Finding the right exit point from one stong and timing it for the next is tough. I like finding sections of the songs that are purely instrumental - again harder than I thought. Tonight I started setting a loop at my exit so I could relax and work my way into the next song. Then I experimented with the key shift buttons on the performance pad. I setup cue points on the next song. Super beginner stuff but damn it's satisfying. My son came out of his room and commented on the sick transition.
Natural sounding transitions are so much harder than I imagined. I am a huge reggae fan so I figured I'd try 2 songs based on the same riddim. Not so easy. The riddims are almost never exactly the same it seems, or they're just more complex than I first thought.
I look forward to having some days where I can really put some time in. This is going to be fun. I hope I don't lose interest.