Interview + Performance with Edison
In our quest to seek out new DJ territory of the inspirational variety, we came upon Edison, a producer/performer who plays live with Ableton Live and a custom Monome. His performances are dynamic, visually understandable, and have a very “live” sound that is hard to achieve when you’re dealing with the quantized clip launching in Live and nothing but a giant grid of buttons. To get a closer look into how Edison gets that sound and showcase some of his new songs, we brought him into the DJ Tech Tools studio to share his ideas with the world. You can catch Edison on a live West Coast tour from late March to early April. Visit his Myspace page for more music and tour info.
February 21st, 2010 at 10:26 pm Quote
edison = srsly dope.
February 21st, 2010 at 11:46 pm Quote
Awesome! make’s me wanna get ableton.
February 21st, 2010 at 11:52 pm Quote
Diggin’ this rad-ified office setup & edison’s electric ingenuity.
PS- Good Camera Work.
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:42 am Quote
DOPEEE
February 22nd, 2010 at 1:22 am Quote
Crazy! I had just discovered Egadz and Edison yesterday. I get home and here he is on DJTT. Very cool with the Monome. Thanks Ean for introducing what these guys are doing to DJTT.
You guys should check out their blog as well.
http://kidwithoutradio.blogspot.com/
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:22 am Quote
As far as I know, Edison doesn’t use quantization when he plays…at least he didn’t (http://vimeo.com/2655887). Anyways, I love his work…awesome interview too!
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:53 am Quote
Thanks DJTT for this Interview – love it. And very good camera work – give us more articles like this ;)
btw : There is a ‘F’ missing in ‘performer’ (first sentence)
February 22nd, 2010 at 3:51 am Quote
impressive stuff!!!from what i could see though he had a limited amount of sounds for say a 2 hr set.just wondering if what i could see was enough for 2hrs or how he loaded a new template of clips(i would guess dangerous if performing live)or if he just dragged new clips in from folders and if so how he grouped them in the folders for quick and easy access .overall though good presentation as always.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:40 am Quote
I’m sure that is very hard to do and sounds cool for about 5 minutes but a whole set of that would get very boring I think
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:12 am Quote
TOTALY DOPE!
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:33 am Quote
This is way cool! But yeah.. very active for a 2 hour set.. i wonder how he buys himself time to change his clips and the like.. seemed like he only had enough material for one song?
Awesome beat making skills on the monome though.. now no-one can complain about not having the right drum pads for the job! Thanks for sharing Ean :)
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:44 am Quote
oh wait.. i can see how it can vary.. very cool :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYv5jqHMe5c
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:45 am Quote
how easy/hard is it to map a monome with ableton?
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:09 am Quote
Great live material. I’m glad to see the creative interface. I just bought Edison’s first album. It’s killer. I want to be just like him.
February 22nd, 2010 at 1:08 pm Quote
…
…
February 22nd, 2010 at 1:10 pm Quote
Here is a great short tune / video by Edison named: Blue and Yellow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDzW1DMeEPQ
I like. Very well done Edison !
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:22 pm Quote
thanks guys!
glad to be up on djtechtools!
as for the question of changing clips….
each song i do is its own ableton set…
in a live setting, i use a kaoss pad 3…
i can easily grab 3 or 4 loops, and then quickly switch sets…
messing with what is looping while the loading is happening…
it’s definitely a busy set…. but its alot of fun… and never the same twice…
endless endless remixes on the fly…!
thanks for watching!!!!
thanks djtechtools!
February 22nd, 2010 at 3:29 pm Quote
Edison IS the reason why I have a monome. Thank you Edison for opening my mind to new possibilities.. and thanks to DJTT for covering more than just digital djing. Let’s see more artist interviews like this!
February 22nd, 2010 at 6:51 pm Quote
Really nice stuff here!
I’ve been work at a similar thing with mainstage and a midifighter.
Not nearly as insane as this though. Impressive!
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:31 pm Quote
agreed.
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:33 pm Quote
edison YaY!
February 23rd, 2010 at 7:44 am Quote
Yeah thats fly, nice stuff Edison, Maybe its about time for a Ableton VS Traktor article, ive heard alot of good things about Djing with abelton but i use traktor and i like it and i dont want to spend a whole lot of money and time switching to find it shit, thoughts?
February 23rd, 2010 at 8:33 am Quote
Awesome to see these different articles, I agree with the Ableton vs. Traktor article…I’ve dabbled in ableton, but found myself bored and confused so I went back to the much simpler traktor. It would be nice to learn it better so I might be able to produce something with a little less of a headache
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:52 pm Quote
You were in the bay area, but you won’t be playing there at all?
Dang, I’d love to catch you in action!
February 23rd, 2010 at 4:38 pm Quote
bay area date fell through….. we will definitely play… just no final show locked… one of two options up in the air…. stay tuned….
as for traktor… never used it!
ill check it out
February 24th, 2010 at 1:56 am Quote
Is Ean going for the Jesus look?
February 24th, 2010 at 3:50 am Quote
Why does everyone rag on Ean’s look? There must be at least one commented about it every week.
February 24th, 2010 at 6:41 am Quote
here you can get an album from edison for free..
http://ivdt.net/ivdtmp3069.html
February 24th, 2010 at 6:45 am Quote
Ordered my overlay a week ago ,turned up within a week to uk ,fitted like a glove ,love the new mapping ,thanks DJ TT
February 24th, 2010 at 11:32 am Quote
is the show at lo-fi lounge on Mar 30 gonna be 21+?
February 24th, 2010 at 11:15 pm Quote
@ teenage
I’m pretty shure it is… I think our reno show is the only one that is all ages… give em a call!
February 25th, 2010 at 12:17 pm Quote
heh. thanks for another video.
while watching, i couldn’t help but wonder whos the bigger nerd…
February 28th, 2010 at 4:06 pm Quote
Nice interview
BUT ean learn to stand still^^, youre moving around like you needed to go for a wee xD
March 1st, 2010 at 7:02 am Quote
i wonder how during a performance artists switch to a different sound setup if they want to perform another song. i mean for DJing i guess you just have all the songs in one project, but what about artists that actually perform songs on stage, doesnt seem practical there. more over is there any way in native ableton to easy switch your midi controller assignments?