Category Archives: DJ
The deep thinking DJ.
So this is a bit of a strange one. What on earth am I going to talk about now you might be thinking. Let me explain… But first a small introduction.
During this horrible pandemic of Covoid 19, I decided to treat myself to a new Kontrol S3 DJ controller. I’ve always dabbled in DJing. I actually went to Manchester DJ academy when I was 17/18. I learnt how to beat match and understand the basic 4/4 rules and breakdown of music. It helped a lot.
I had belt drive Soundlab decks and a Citronic mixer. I loved it. But I had no idea what I was doing! Not only was I learning how to mix but I was also learning how to keep my belt drive turntables alive! I mixed vinyl and added CD decks a few years later.
Years went by (I won’t bore you!) and now nearly two decades later I am back doing DJ mixes regularly. But now it’s live on YouTube and all MP3! Very different.
So why the deep thinking?
I find myself now planning and thinking about mixing a lot. In-between work and being with my family I am planning my next mix. But it’s not just planning. I think about it very deeply. I plan. I create private YouTube playlists and study the tracks. Whilst working on my laptop I am listening to a playlist over and over again.
Then; I think about the journey, the story. What track’s work, what don’t. Which need replacing or moving to next week’s mix. What is the track telling me? Is it happy, sad, neutral? What is the energy and vibe of the track? What about the lyrics? Where does it sit in the order? Beginning, middle or end? Does it work harmonically? What root key is it?
I wonder how I will mix it with the next track. Where are the breakdowns and opportunities to tease the next track in? When should I drop the base or use a filter effect?
What effects might work well with this track? What won’t? How can I add movement or add a better build-up to the track? The list goes on…
For me, it’s not just about playing the latest music. It’s a journey. A story being played live. I know the tracks are not mine but I desperately want my listeners to understand why I chose the tracks and why I delivered them in the order that I did. As rvery ticking beat passes by the waveform on the screen I look at an imaginary crowd, hoping that they are enjoying it.
But the mix goes quickly. And before I know it I am cueing up the last track, which I have delicately chosen and given the honour of ending this set. The ending track is an important one for me. Like the ending of a film. The last moments mean a lot.
After mixing live for an hour I am knackered. Emotionally drained… But as soon as I put my headphones down the addiction starts again.
It tells me I need to start planning my next mix.
It’s exhausting.
But I love it.
Z-Vector & Z-Vector Touch.
Love this!
And this. Z-vector’s new Touch software.
Inspiring Videos 2015
Hi All,
Not blogged as much as usual. Work has been busy and so has my personal life. Been enjoying the great outdoors a litlte more; hiking, riding, camping, etc and preparing to be a dad early next year. I have still collected a few videos over the last few months that I knew I wanted to share. So here they are in no particular order:
XYZ tracking, before the kinect.
Shameless I know but this is one of my early experiments I had forgotten about. I remember wanting to track something in a 3D space; I could do the X and Y in Isadora and basically used scale to control the Z. The bigger something is t the camera the closer it is right? And vice-versa. Watching this made me think that often the basics are the best.
Interactive timeline/projection mapping for Education.
I love this. Simple playful and fun.
Listening to colour – Neil Harbisson.
I love this type of stuff. I am secret futurist at heart. I’d love to become a cyborg actually. This guy, in my eyes, is almost a cyborg because of his experiments. If you want to freak yourself out, check this out. If that’s not crazy enough then google Stelarc and Kevin Warwick
Watch all the videos at the end of this link. Amazing VFX!
David Gumbs – artist.
I have known of, but never me, David for a long time now. A polite, talented and friendly guy who is doing some incredible things with Isadora, motion tracking and more. He has inspire me recently in the video below. Working with children and interactive paintings. What is more rewarding than that? You should defiantly check out his work here:
https://www.facebook.com/DavidGumbsArtist
I re-edited some of the dead links (sorry about that!) David also sent me to some more links on vimeo, etc.(see above).
Joe Hunt – projection using isadora for a piece called:’The Only Jealousy of Emer’
Great work here Joe. The video speaks for itself. Give it a watch.
Old and New.
One of my favourite songs is Energy 52 – Cafe Del Mar. It’s an ibiza dance/trance classic. You will probably have heard it. I have always known that many classic trance/dance (and more) music takes chords, progressions and melodies from older classic music and the like. But this one really struck a chord when I hard the ‘original’ by Wim Mertnes. I just wanted to share this with you. Listen to the original and then the ‘remix’
One for the DJ’s! STEMS.
“This morning Native Instruments is launching the Traktor 2.9 update, which is the first software on the market to use their new Stems audio file format.”
I am very excited about this!
Modulations. A full feature film about the evolution of Electronica music as one of the most profound artistic developments of the 20th century!
That’s it for now. Comments welcome below.
Enjoy.
The VJ is the new DJ: Introducing Z Vector
Glastonbury, The Temple arena, 2014.
Mud, sun, rain, more rain, great music and a kick-ass projection system. That was Glastonbury 2014, in The Common field, at the Temple arena. Wow – what an experience…. I don’t know where to even begin with this one!
Let’s start from the beginning. I got a really nice email via this very blog from a guy called Ryan asking if I was interested in a gig. He wanted something a little different and asked if we could talk more if I was interested. I won’t lie – I thought it may have been a small VJ gig or some kind of install using isadora – I get a lot of questions, emails and comments each week. I reply to them all but admit – I though this one was no different.
After the initial hello emails Ryan casually said it was a venue at Glastonbury. I had to read the message about nine times over to believe it. I had never been to Glastonbury, but like many reading this, knew it was an amazing opportunity. I knew this could not be done solo – this was a job for me and Dan and his place of work; guildhall school of music and drama. I work quite a lot with Dan, we get each others workflow and being a lecturer for many years he knows I am professional and reliable around students – not only this I love getting student involved in real world gigs. In my opinion it’s the best place to learn and experience things first hand. If I had the opportunity to work at Glastonbury it would have been amazing!
So you get the idea, we then had various emails, phone calls and Skype sessions, we bounced ideas around and got the ball rolling. We looked at lots of hardware and software options but decided that Isadora was the tool for us. The video mapping features that we had custom made for Lux, Helsinki had been developed to a very high standard and whilst still under a beta we were confident we could use it.
A year passed and the gig was just around the corner, we all contributed to the video content using After Effects, Cinema 4D and a really talented student called Neville built the main Isadora patch. We all helped map the structure in a variety of roles once on site. My main job was to keep an eye on isadora, make subtle tweaks, maintain performance and spot any crucial errors, make any last minute programming changes and be on stand by incase of any crashes or errors (there were none by the way!).
The pictures show the Temple and surrounding fields aesthetic, we wanted the Mayan/Aztec like structure to come alive with a nice blend of historical symbols, images and custom graphics. There was a hint of hi-tech alien like sci-fi VJ loops also. The lighting, pyro and music all worked really well. The mapping looked great despite a few set-backs; the main one was losing half a day due to extreme rain, wind and an electrical storm; so bad that the electrical company shut down all non-essential power. This was not cool – but al part of the experience.
It’s hard to describe the full set up so I am going to keep it simple.
- Two Mac Pro’s 9not the new black (‘dustbins’).
- Each Mac pro had two Touch Screens for triggering video. (one screen for DJ booth, the other for exterior)
- Two Lindy DVI switches
- Two Spark D-Fuser Video mixers
- Then into a Datapath X4
- DJ Booth had four Panasonic 16500 lumens projectors on it.
- Exterior had four Christie Roadsters 26000 lumens each.
- Everything was run over Cat5 once it left the Datapath.
- We used a custom beta of Isadora (the soon to be version 2.0)
- Modified APC20 from Akai for MIDI effects and control via Isadora.
- A few TFT monitors via splitters for monitors, etc.
- We also had Blackmagic capture cards running into one mac for CCTV feeds, etc.
We had a great experience, a few crashes when programming things and trying stuff out before shows (during the day) but no crashes during live sets. Because we had two Macs mixing between each other , both doing inside and outside, if one machine was to crash we had the other as a back-up, however we treated them both as live machines.
We got to VJ for some great artists, I can’t name them all here but it was a privilege to hear them, meet them and talk to them over the course of the three days. Likewise the whole team at the common were amazing. We were very well looked after and I can’t thank them enough. I can safely say we delivered what we said we would. We made it happen. The pictures and video are great – but it’s never as good as seeing it live. The arena felt alive. It felt like it had an energy oozing out the walls.
A few highlights for me:
- Seeing a huge que of people wanting to come in at 5:45 in the morning even though we closed at 6:00. Not that I liked people not being able to come in but it was great to see the demand.
- Seeing people walk up and touch the wooden lock gates when they were being projected onto. Granted some people were ‘out of it’ but that magical element you can see in peoples faces is amazing – you can see the cogs working in their heads going ‘how is that moving’, ‘where is he light coming from?’.
- Watching the sun come up (and down) multiple times whilst working, with a nice breeze in your face, time flew by and was just an experience I will never forget.
- Seeing the DJ Booth mapped for the first time was a true OMG moment. It wasn’t even fully Dark yet and it was so so bright! Seeing the visuals you had been working on for months and months finally on the structure was amazing.
- Waking up at 3 in the afternoon and dancing to old school jungle before going for breakfast – which was actually tea… strange, but amazing.
- I went to see DJ’s Above & Beyond play at the Sonic tent – incredible! This was my only 2 hours off I had the whole week and it was well worth it.
- Last but not least – just being n Glastonbury was a highlight. It’s so hard to explain. It’s not just another music event. It’s like a mini city. A fantasy world were anything goes. It was so cool.
So. It was quite an experience. There is some video being made which I will add soon. But for now… a few pictures (click to open gallery):
Aspiration Video Promos
I have recently created a video promo for Aspiration.
He wanted a modern looking but edgy visual for his up and coming tech/trance track. His music is really really good and he is well worth checking out…
I love doing videos like this, if you are interested then please contact me for info and prices.
NI-Mate & Ableton
If you haven’t seen this then you need to….
Free Promo Trance Mix
I’ve put together a promo mix. It’s a live recording of a full Trance set at 135 BPM. Feel free to download it and give it a listen.
Enjoy!
Trance & Progressive Clothing
I am pleased to announce that my logo design is now being used on the Trance & Progressive Clothing line.
http://www.trackitdown.net/merchandise/brand/345/trance-and-progressive.html
Graham Thorne 