The Numark NS7III is a complete all-in-one control surface for Serato DJ that integrates a mixer, display and motorised platters with the Serato software. As far as hands on DJing goes only actual turntables gets any more hands on so how does this perform?

So you are interested in maybe getting started with making some music, editing some video or just experimenting a little. While there are loads of beginner guides that help you choose a DAW, explain the basics of audio workstations, routing and plugins there are few that actually bother to take a step back and start on what I consider a much more important starting point... Backing up your data. 

Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol range of keyboards are targeted mainly at users who already own the Komplete 9/10 packages. Competing heavily with the Akai Advance the features have been ramped up with VST support being recently added in the latest 1.5 software update. So how does it perform and what value does one get for their investment? 

Native Instruments and Akai are in a fight for sales with their latest Advance and Komplete Kontrol keyboards with many users drawing direct comparisons between the 2 products. Both companies offer the same selection of keyboards with NI just announcing a new 88 key version in their range and both choices are around the same cost. The other thing these both offer is advanced integration with your DAW and control over your plugins. But which is the keyboard for you? Well if you are like me you are hard pressed to decide until you actually get hands on with both so I have done exactly this and can compare both offerings for you...

Ableton Live (or just Live as it's known) is a digital audio workstation where its initial focus was on performing Live. In recent years the software has expanded in capabilities to become both a full Live performance tool and studio production workstation and with the release of a dedicated Live controller (The Push) the lines between a computer software sequencer and a hardware instrument are ever more blurred...

This page lists a heap of useful links to websites for Ableton and any DAW or music software user. If you are a user of Ableton, MIDI controllers (Push) or any other DAW software then you should find some of these links useful. Most of these links we use every week.