First set

Twenty minutes, three moments you hear. First the hi-hats of a CDJ track start to circle the floor while its kick stays put. Then the vocal of a StemDeck track rises over the crowd on the drop and comes back on the one. Then both run on one beat. After that you know the instrument; the rest is taste.

What has to be there: A³ Core with its engine running (What you need), a desk (the A³ Mixer, or the virtual desk), A³ Motion (the hardware, or its screen alone, by touch or mouse) and StemDeck deck A, which always runs on the Core. No speakers yet? Read Without speakers or panels first.

Warning

Start quiet. The desk’s MASTER and BOOTH down, then bring them up slowly. A room that was never set up plays at the shipped low level; set it up first: The audio engine.

1. A CDJ on ST: one band moves

  1. Plug the CDJ in. Its L/R outputs go into the interface inputs of channel 1 (on a shipped Core: inputs 1 and 2).

  2. Put channel 1 on ST. Turn its INPUT knob to ST and push: the bracket sits over ST. Fader up, MASTER up. You hear the track spread around the room, standing still.

  3. Pick a clock (Who is the clock): with a CDJ on Pro DJ Link, tap A³ Motion’s clock key to PIO. The BPM on A³ Motion matches the CDJ.

  4. Load a set on A³ Motion: FILES › SETS › Warmup › Load. Loading sets 3d, FREQ and Q of all four channels, so load first and turn afterwards.

  5. Choose the band. In channel 1’s field of A³ Motion’s channel row: turn FREQ high and Q narrow. That band is where the hi-hats are.

  6. Turn 3d up on channel 1 and press its Play|Pause. It blinks and starts on the downbeat.

What you hear: the hats leave the track and circle the room on the clip’s path. The kick and the bass stay on the floor. Turn 3d down and the hats sink back into the track. Turn FREQ down and Q wide, and much more of the track moves: you hear why A³ moves one band and not the whole channel.

More: A³ Motion’s first ten minutes (actions on the pads, pausing on the downbeat).

2. A deck’s vocal rises

  1. Load a track on StemDeck deck A (the STEMDECK key at the far right of A³ Motion’s top bar takes you there) and wait for its BPM.

  2. Put it on channel 2. Turn channel 2’s INPUT to A and push. Press PLAY on the deck and bring channel 2’s fader up. A³ Motion’s channel 2 now says DECK A: the deck moves its own stems.

  3. Mix it in against the CDJ as you would on any mixer: EQ, fader, the filter’s FX key. They act on the whole deck.

  4. Before the drop, choose the length under the vocal stem’s pads (‹ ›: ½ to 8 bars), then tap RISE on the vocal.

What you hear: on the next bar the vocal lifts out of the track and rises over the crowd; after the bars you chose it comes back down and sinks into the track again. The drums, the bass and the rest never moved. Try ORBIT on the drums in a break, PING on a stab, SCAT on a fill.

Pre-listen to a stem with its CUE key: it is in your headphones whether the deck is on a channel or not. A stem’s AUX knob sends only that stem to the beat delay, the vocal echoing from where it is.

3. Who is the clock

Everything that moves counts in bars, so everything needs the same beat. Pick one source for the evening on A³ Motion’s clock key; it sets the Beat Analyzer’s mode for the whole system.

Who is the clock tonight?

Your booth

Clock key

Where the beat comes from

CDJs on Pro DJ Link

PIO

the CDJ that is tempo master

StemDeck, no CDJs

PIO

the deck with MASTER on; see StemDeck as the tempo master

CDJs and StemDeck

PIO

the CDJ that is tempo master; the StemDecks follow it with SYNC

vinyl, or players without Pro DJ Link

EXT

the Beat Analyzer, listening to the music; tap TAP on the desk to set the one

nothing to listen to, or you want to play the tempo

INT

A³ Motion itself: tap the tempo there

The clock is never saved in a set: check it at soundcheck. Details: Beat Analyzer › Clock modes.

With one clock, A³ Motion’s clips and StemDeck’s actions start on the same bar line. Hand the master over from deck to deck, or from CDJ to CDJ, and A³ Motion follows the new tempo.

Without speakers or panels

You can play all of this before you own a speaker ring or the hardware panels:

Instead of

Use

the speakers

headphones on the PHONES output. Turn CUE/MIX fully to MIX: you hear the whole room folded to two ears (binaural), every movement included

the A³ Mixer

the virtual desk, on any machine with a screen on the A³ network

the A³ Motion panel

the A³ Motion screen alone (the Motion UI, installer role Motion) on a machine with a screen, by touch or mouse; 3d, FREQ and Q are in its channel row

a CDJ

any stereo player into an ST input, or only StemDeck: then step 1 has nothing to move, and steps 2 and 3 work as written

The REC output is the same binaural mix: StemDeck’s REC key records what the room would hear.

Where next