We are going to introduce a new feature where I talk to a professional digital dj about his techniques and personal way of using dj technology. This month I interviewed Dj Lorin for my Remix magazine column. The printed version was only a part of the full interview bellow. Some of you may be familiar with Lorin’s sets and some of you may not. Here is a clip from the article which describes his sound:
“DJ Lorin’s (aka Bassnectar) sets are a mind-blowing affair for everyone. The constant barrage of tempo changes, intestine-rattling bass and wide swath of genres keep your interest without sounding too A-D-D. Lorin explains, “I tend to refer to Bassnectar as ‘omnitempo maximalism,’ which means any or all speeds, time signatures, rhythms and every sound source possible. I seem to gravitate toward really heavy tempos, lots of play with double time and half time and using electronic methods to embellish and reinforce other styles of music — maybe ragtime or punk rock or the blues or batucada or polka or salsa or film scores or gangsta rap or beatboxing or Balkan gypsy music or ska.” His genre-defying mixes are a highly personalized blend of beats, edits and remixes that few other DJs can offer, easily separating him from the pack without the normal bucket-load of PR hype. I sat down with Lorin to find out how he gets such a bombastically personal sound”
Continue reading ‘Bassnectar Extended Interview’
The basic principles of this technique will not require a rocket science degree. I know we usually just turn over the TKS file but in this case I would like to walk you through the basics so you can learn the principles yourself. I was asked the other day “why guitar hero”? The answer is simple, its a medium that the audience can relate to. Tapping on arcade buttons or keyboards may look cool and in many cases work much better but unless the audience can understand and relate to what your doing, they just wont get it. At this point just about everyone has either seen or played guitar hero so when you bust it out in the club the learning curve just got a lot shorter.
Continue reading ‘How to Dj with Guitar Hero’
Nathan Ramella, who is known for his work on the unofficial Ableton live Python API, has come up with something that is sure to shake the very fabric scratching as we know it today. Ammobox promises to finish the transformation of the turntable from a utility device to musical instrument by converting control vinyl signal into midi like values. Using his software in conjunction with Reaktor 5 allows you to take those values and scratch multiple samples at once or scratch a stream of pre-sequenced samples layered on each top of each other. You can even quantize and record the results to quickly “scratch” in notes of a song on the fly. Imagine a scenario where you have pre sequenced a set of well known drum samples and you build a beat from scratch by layering in each sound at a time.
Continue reading ‘Ammobox- Load up your Scratch Samples’
This will be the last update we post about the VCI-100 Special Edition on the blog. All other updates on shipping dates or purchasing the extras units will be sent out through our new email service here. That being said I have some important news for those that already purchased a VCI-100SE and those that want to purchase one.
When Apple released its I-Phone SDK , developers around the world had a free pass to create anything they could imagine for the multi touch interface. Not surprisingly there has been a small gold rush of apps that allow you to make or manipulate tunes with the newest must have consumer gadget. Here is a short list of some of the interesting ones and not so interesting.
Continue reading ‘Dj tools for your I-Phone- Updated’
Readers are Saying