Getting digitized?

As I’ve clearly stated in the past: I’m a vinyl junkie. An analogue dinosaur. In the field of dance music we have often been the very first genre to embrace new technology. Indeed, more than any other musical variety, dance music and audio technology are intertwined. I have watched all this change and although it interests me a lot, when it comes to performance I am an absolute Luddite. Turning up at clubs to watch my dancefloor heroes play on CD decks makes me want to send the sparkling lights and fancy buttons hurling to the ground. Like a nineteenth century cotton mill, the pioneer CDJs 1000, lying in bits would bring a smile of satisfaction to my face. I’m told they’re sexy. I just feel that CD DJing is cheating – not so much the technology aspect, as in principal it is the same technique as vinyl DJing, but that the audience is cheated. I watch with horror as my favourite record shops close down as everyone turns to the cheaper alternative… Anyway – I have stuck to my guns regarding CDs and remain a vinylist.

However, it’s not just CDs that have changed the face of DJing. One of my favourite DJs is Sasha. I remember reading several years ago how he was embracing Ableton for production. I remember picking up a (vinyl) copy of Involver in 2004 and being blown away by the ‘new’ sound. The thick bass, the really electronic feel, floor-friendly loops, perfectly cut vocals… It is an ambition to produce music and I’ve always liked the sound of Ableton. I dabbled with Cubase a few years ago but Ableton seems to be the software daddy. Shock horror – I realised that Ableton could be used for DJing. I was at a gig at the Q bar, Cardiff, and the DJ had a laptop and a complex looking MIDI controller. He was playing an Ableton Live DJ set… I trainspotted for a bit, to check how it all works… DJs are anoraks at heart and get a high watching others at work. It is the quickest way to improve your style, by studying others in action. I started to interrupt the guy by bombarding him with questions. It all looked posh and he seemed a bit snobbish, with all his fancy equipment… He was very vague and seemed to be avoiding my answers. I didn’t appear to be spending much time at all cueing… OK – fair enough… Some DJs don’t need to cue much. I’ve seen Norman Jay cue a record, when someone dropped a glass from the balcony onto the decks at Ministry of Sound, in literally under 2 seconds, without a glitch in the music. Jeff Mills is notorious for spinning about 5 records every minute throughout the duration of a DJ set, bunging the vinyl over his shoulder as he slams in dub plate after dub plate of the most experimental techno. Thing is – as I soon learnt. You DON’T beat match with Ableton. It is all automatic. How can this be DJing? I felt properly cheated. It’s like losing your lifesavings in Las Vegas then realising you have been playing with a marked deck.

It put me off Ableton. I’m a DJ, not a jukebox. However, I continued reading and reading about the program and it seems that virtually all of my production heroes are ranting religiously about its power. I knew that at some stage I would be on board. I’d have to be, if I want to actually make some decent tunes, realise the dream…

I picked up a book and got studying. Ableton 6 landed on my lap and I churned out a couple of tunes. Very basic, very nasty really, but an attempt nonetheless. It is a powerful program, for sure, it just gets very confusing. I let it fester on my PC for a while and decided to wait for a bit of inspiration. The social side of DJing is important. Swapping label notes in a grotty record shop, booth banter, interacting with off-their-face clubbers. I think that the growth of social networks has helped the whole dancefloor community. I have a DJ category for friends on facebook and there are over 200 people in there. I was a self-taught vinyl DJ but always absorbed advice from my peers which proved fundamental. I decided to invest in a bit of MIDI equipment for potential use with Ableton and through a mutual friend, managed to find the local Ableton guru. I needed to get sweaty in the studio with someone, and get shown how it all operates. A few tips wouldn’t go amiss. As boring as DJing may appear to non-musos, it really is an exciting subject and digesting books and technical manuals just isn’t the done thing.

So, I loaded up on tinnies and made my way out to visit Dave Wired, techno legend extraordinaire. When I was a teenager, I used to get off my box at the Muts Nuts @ The White Lion, Chepstow, where Dave usually hammered out the last set of Techno every Saturday night. The White Lion music agenda was very underground and for a sleepy Welsh village to host one of the cutting edge forums for Goa trance, minimal techno and esoteric electronic, was quite a blessing. Dave’s style influenced me in the first place so it was important that he would be my teacher.

DJ Wired’s style can be described, if I had to tag it, as ‘nosebleed techno’ which is pretty far removed from my 130 bpm progressive house or ‘handbag’ as my mates in the pub refer to it. 180bpm beats; four top the floor with some occasional breaks. It is fast stuff and not for the feint-hearted. I don’t play this music, or indeed listen to it much, but I do appreciate it. Dave stopped DJing two years ago. Hung up the headphones. He gigs all over the world – from Europe to South America. It’s all a LIVE Ableton set these days. Not DJing, but playing his own productions. Live manipulation of his own tracks in a set that smashes hell out of global festival audiences in the tens of thousands. To hear him talk, as a sceptic of the digital revolution, I was initially unimpressed. I still cannot get my head around the idea of a DJ not using vinyl. After a few beers, we headed into the studio. This is where I truly began to realise the power of Ableton. As I said, I’ve had a dabble. But – Dave loaded up a live set which was MASSIVE. He started it rolling and I was entranced as I witnessed what could only be described as a high voltage electric storm on his laptop screen. Beats, bass and the odd vocal, all dynamically shifting. It’s hard to keep track with your eyes what’s happening. The bass bins do the talking though. The music comes slamming out and sounds shit hot. Everything is done on the fly. You prepare each individual sound in the studio, load up a host of audio clips and mash them all up. Mixing, although everything is beat synched, takes on a whole new phenomenon. You can start the next track my clipping out, say, for example the hi-hats of the track playing, add in the hats from the next track, and start looping some vocal from your sample library. Ableton has a massive host of plugins and effects which makes the most expensive Allen&Heath mixer look primitive. Autopan the kicks of one track mirroring the one you’re mixing in, flange up the mids and whack in a few breaks to liven it up. Glitch a few beats, reverse them on the fly and some of the most amazingly complex mixes can be made. To be fair – there is no time for cueing up beats. As a DJ I often cite myself as an original artist for blending two tracks together, ‘in the mix’ to create something new. Very often though, I hardly even change the EQs. Seeming tracks together in an Ableton becomes a whole new mixing experience. It provides an endless challenge and the possibilities are infinite.

I am happy in a way as I try to learn this new technology. It will consume my entire life. I can see why Ableton can be classified as a religion and I am still a new convert. The sacrament may be sample editors and MIDI manuals but I think that the future of dance music really does lie with Ableton. I won’t be hanging up my headphones just yet, but the appeal of becoming a producer means that the digital lure is starting to bite. In a world of hypocrites I am just following nature’s path. If you are interested in electronic music then Ableton is the new drug of choice.

Punta Del Este

Ibiza has for long been engrained on the roadmap for travelling clubbers across the globe. In Privelege it has the largest nightclub on the planet. All the top DJs fare their way on the White Isle every summer and the closing parties have become part of nightlife’s folklore. Goa, on the west coast of India, experienced a massive rise in club tourism during the nineties. Its full moon beach parties with flowing melodic trance earned it the accolade of those slightly more adventurous beatniks. There is a war among the travelling clubber cognoscenti to find the best place on the globe for their holiday partying. Oneupmanship is a a reality… In the chillout room of Ministry of Sound or Spundae, nothing sounds better than casually dropping into the conversation about how you ‘discovered’ the latest craze in the dance music world. In this article I aim to explore one of the more exciting emerging resorts in the world which isn’t particularly familiar to European or North American clubbers. Punta Del Este is ‘the St Tropez of South America.’

On the southern tip of Uruguay this small town of about 10000 inhabitants, has long been the destination of wealthy South American playboys. Whether you are an Argentinian cattle rancher or a Colombian drug baron, the chances are your summer hols involve a nice trip to the Punta Del Este. During the southern hemisphere summer months, from December through to February, the population of this ‘village’ swells to a million holidaymakers…

The population is mainly European in heritage which gives this coast an Ibizan feel. About ninety percent of people proudly trace their European ancestry, mainly to Italy and Spain. However, unlike other resort towns on the continent which cater to predominantly Europeans and North Americans, Punta del Este maintains its Latin American character. Yachts dot the harbour and glitzy bars and restaurants compliment the luxury hotels. The comfortable surroundings all pave the way for the most hedonistic nightlife in the Western hemisphere.

British superclub Cream started doing events in the Punta Del Este a few years ago. Indeed, when their main club in Liverpool closed its doors, Cream still continued in Uruguay, drawing in the crème de la crème of international DJs. It is a regular tour spot and a lot of DJs such as Sasha, Paul Oakenfold and Tiesto, enjoy catching some winter sun while laying down the party beats in some truly fabulous nightclubs…

Maybe, Uruguay, doesn’t automatically feature highly on your to-do list of holiday vacations. Outside of their archaic multiple world cup winning football teams, Uruguayans remain very much an unknown quantity in the eyes of much of the world. Don’t let that dissuade you though. Surely a destination that you don’t read about in the red-top gutter press must have an appeal. Drunken yobbish behaviour symbolises much of Ibiza, Goa is subject to corrupt law enforcement and is full of tales of traveller woe. Try something different. Cheap Spanish carriers can take you across the Atlantic for about a few hundred pounds. Exotic and stylish, with quality music. Punta del Este is the clubbing destination for the distinguished aficionado.

Is the DJ an artist?

DJing is a relatively new phenomenon. Sure, DJs have existed for some time, playing song selections on the radio, or providing the soundtrack to weddings and fortieth birthday parties. However, mixing as an art form emerged in the late seventies, early eighties, when DJs such as Frankie Knuckles, in America, started doing live edits to underground disco music, seaming tracks together to enhance the flow of the music and boost their party-hard audiences. This was initially done using tape machines. A pair of scissors and some cellotape and your wannabee jock could splice together songs. It was a rudimentary art form but it worked. Modern DJing was born out of this tape splicing when someone realised that the highend Technics 1200 turntable which had been around since the early seventies, had a pitch control unit which enabled DJs to manipulate songs further, and begin to actually beat match and mix them together. DJing was alive and disco and early house music provided the new soundtrack of a generation. Hip Hop jumped quickly on board and the workability of the Technics turntable meant a whole new form of skilled DJs cutting and scratching tracks. Bodypopping and breakdancing was all to the beat of the Technics turntable. I need not continue with the evolution of dance music. Suffice it to say, it has run hand in hand with innovation and technology.

DJing became a career option. The problem is, as is very often the case with emerging sciences, how do you categorise a DJ? Are they musicians, artists, skilled, unskilled? Are they on the same level of employment in a nightclub as a barman or cloakroom attendant? Surely they are not creative as they just use other people’s artistic skills… Are they artists in their own right? Is a DJ on a par with a violinist or a concert pianist?

When you are in the company of musicians and mention that you are a DJ, scorn is usually poured upon you. You aren’t fit to lace their boots – they are skilled, you are just an operator…. I beg to differ. DJs may use other people’s music for their art (though self-produced DJ tracks are becoming more common during a mixset). Using other people’s creative material is not a new phenomenon in the field of music. Take for example a concert pianist or violinist. Surely they often play symphonies by Beethoven or Mozart compositions. They didn’t necessarily create the material. They add part of their own character to a rendition of an already written piece of music, but they are not being completely original. A DJ may play a record but by manipulating the pitch, by choosing when to cut it with another record, the DJ changes the song and adds part of his personality to the show. It takes skill to pluck a Cello’s strings, or stick to a complex rhythm pattern on a set of drums, but DJing has its own set of skills. Scratching, beat matching, cutting and chopping, pitch blending all form part of a successful DJ’s repertoire. To me the most skilful part of being a DJ isn’t the ’manual skills’ as I refer to them but the ‘mental skills’. A good DJ is not averse to a bit of brainwork and to me set programming is fundamental. A skilled DJ programs his set, his tune selection, with the utmost precision. Each track should follow musically into the next, the music program should be interesting, challenging, entertaining, seamless. It should take the listener on an auditory journey. The difference between a good and bad DJ set very often lies in the set programming. The set of technical skills varies very little between performance DJs. The wheat is separated from the chaff by the occult skills of planning and sequencing tracks.

Consider another form of art. Photography is a relatively new phenomenon in the field of visual art. It involves a new technology. However, photographers are similar to painters. It involves a different set of technical skills to use a camera successfully. But in using his tools a photographer chooses a maybe otherwise dull scene to shoot, capturing the art he sees in that image in the camera lense. He presents the image in a way to portray his feelings, his emotions, his perception of the world. Nowadays, photography is widely accepted as a professional art form and indeed a prosperous career.

I think that DJing is certainly more acceptable these days. Musicians recognise the need for good DJ talent to perhaps compliment their work. DJs such as Paul Oakenfold were touring with U2 and the Happy Mondays back in the early Nineties. We are seeing today independent DJ artists like Mark Ronson or Sasha emerge in their own right as pop stars / music performers.

DJing is the photography of the music world. It is an art form. Often misunderstood it is part of a DJ’s role to define what it is to be a DJ, to be an artist, to be a musician. We should revel in our new science. Our artistic legacy inspires tomorrow’s musicians. New technologies make DJing one of the most evolving forms of music. It has never been a more exciting time to be a DJ. We are tomorrow’s musical artists.

I'm an addict!

I have an addiction. A proper addiction. It’s untreatable. There is no cure. I am a junkie. I hang around in darkened alleys, change jingling in my pocket, waiting for the dealer’s shop to open. I rush in and start filtering through the shelves. I am a vinyl junkie and record stores are where I score my fix. It’s a strange addiction, I know. People laugh and don’t recognise the condition. But it exists, I swear. Black plastic gives me a buzz. Has done since I was ten years old. All of my spare money goes on this disgusting habit. But it’s beautiful. I love needles in the groove and the sound of dustmites crackling in the speakers. Vinyl is not just a habit, it is a passion.

People think that DJing is all about glamour. They read in their glossy clubbing magazines about Paul Oakenfold, Sasha and John Digweed, touring the world, hanging out in swanky nightclubs and getting paid a small fortune for doing so. I tell you – they suffer the same craving as any other proper DJ. They like nothing more than getting their hands dirty, flicking through record racks, in search of that ultimate rarity. The picture disc, the deleted album, the white label. DJing isn’t just a technical ability. As a technical skill it’s actually quite easy. If you can count you can beatmatch. Simple as. Anyone can flick a crossfader. The art of DJing is to inject passion into your skill. Selecting tunes for the audience, to educate and entertain is the artform. Danny Tengalia wrote quite a few years ago about ‘finding the groove’. He performed marathon ten hour DJ sets and therefore should truly understand a dancefloor. It’s all about seaming tunes together in a constant groove. To do that, you need to know your music inside out. A DJ I once worked with, Anthony Pappa, impressed me a lot. He had risen to stardom by winning the DMC Mix championship. I warmed up for him and was pleased to do the honour. He arrived, same as any other professional DJ, courteous, nice greeting, appreciative nod to the sounds you were spinning. He then cast open his box, to prepare his set. DJs are nosy animals and I couldn’t help looking at his tunes. They were all marked up with stickers. I’d seen BPM labelling previously, but Pappa’s was different. They were all colour coded and Key marked. At an advanced level of DJing, to help stitch the groove, you not only beat match, but also key mix. It was a new concept to me. It seemed a bit anal but on chatting to Pappa he explained to me the reasons. You generally have a feel for what tunes sound similar and how they mix together. Most DJs rely on chance for this, but not Pappa. Certain keys mix with certain other keys musically whereas other keys clash. However, as I soon learnt there is slightly more to it than just that. I had gone home and banged out the keys on my sister’s piano and marked up my vinyl with letters. However – you get on the mixer and try blending, say a ‘D’ with another ‘D’ and it doesn’t quite sound right. Beats are Ok and you’d presume the keys too, but what happens is that as the pitch of the record shifts for beat matching, the key also migrates. To truly understand the theory of key mixing you have to be able to calculate the effect of BPM on a record’s pitch and then match up the vinyl. Listen to Pappa. He’s a DJ’s DJ and is musically superb.

The message I’m trying to send out is that DJs are obsessive. They love their work. In order to be a good DJ you have to respect your tools. These tools, the ones that separate you from the next jock, are your records. It takes years to build a vinyl collection. Years of dedicated shopping. Of searching high and low for the unique sounds that distinguish you and enable you to deliver to the dancefloor. You may wonder why I emphasize vinyl. Surely these days we have moved on. Technology has improved. We have digital formats. We are in the ipod revolution. MP3s, computer music , Pioneer CD decks. Oh no! I cringe when I hear the ignorance blasted out by pretend DJs about how vinyl is outdated.

For technology to improve, the old format must be surpassed in every way. Digital formats were announced to be superior quality to vinyl. This is an urban myth which the music companies have now admitted to being a marketing ploy. CDs were introduced and vinyl was supposedly obsolete. For years DJing kept the vinyl factories in business but then pioneer released their replica technics model CD decks and CD DJing became all the rage. Download sites like Beatport pushed out mp3s, and DJs burned up their CDs and suddenly an entire collection could be built overnight. There is a fundamental flaw in this, well several in fact.

There is an art in itself to building a collection. You appreciate vinyl a lot more when you have starved a week to get the latest import. That part of your collection has a certain significance. I browse through my records and each sleeve tells a story. The record has a soul, a character that emits itself when I place the tune on the decks during a set. Each tune has memories, lovingly attached to it. How can you develop such a bond with something that has taken 10seconds to download and exists in a single-sentence data file on your hard drive. It isn’t as romantic. Yes, vinyl is more expensive, and perhaps more difficult to track down, but at least you get something solid for your money. it is an investment. The weight, the sleeve artwork, the labelling, the peculiarities (is it warped? Is there a misprinted label? is it a picture disc?) The generation of CD and MP3 DJs are missing a vital part of the essence of DJing. The rush of shopping for vinyl. I cannot see how a ‘new’ DJ can become knowledgeable about DJing, missing out on such an important part of the lifestyle. As well as the purchasing there is a whole social aspect to record shopping. You meet other DJs, other ‘trainspotters’, pick up tips on hot remixes, rarities, quality gigs, available work and so forth. Until you can purchase mp3s in the dimly lit streets of SoHo I cannot agree that MP3 DJs will ever emulate the emotion of a vinyl DJs work.

The biggest myth buster of all has to be that the actual quality of digital music is poorer than its analogue counterpart. Try it for yourself. Get the same track on vinyl, cd and mp3 and play them one after the other, preferably on a loud sound system. The digital formats eliminate the high and low frequencies of a tune. The sub bass lines and ultra high vox disappear in digital. The sound is condensed. Music producers nowadays are unaware of the intricacies of true sound production as they are working without a true sound spectrum. Not only are DJs being cheated by this, but also the listeners. I have been reliably informed that DJs aware of this who use cds and mp3s for mixing, are buying vinyl, then recording it themselves onto digital format, rather than buy purchasing it in digital format, just so they can replicate the true sounds of a record. There is a backlash and last year saw the first rise in vinyl production since the dip induced by the introduction of the CD. Bands are releasing on vinyl again, realising that it sounds better. It is still an industry in dire straits, however. We need to turn back to vinyl. To keep it alive. Record shops are closing down in their droves. It brings tears to my eyes to see maybe 75% of my favourite stores now shut. Tag in Soho, Woosh in Cardiff and Bang Bang in Bristol. They no longer exist. My most regular haunt, Plastic Fantastic of Covent Garden, are now an online only service (http://www.plastic-music.co.uk) I wish to preserve the art of DJing, to teach a new generation of the wonders of this exotic and mysterious world. I want to see a new generation of junkies, lurking about dark alleys, seeking their fix. Vinyl is sexy.

KEEP VINYL ALIVE! SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL RECORD STORE!


You can listen to DJ Wez G at http://www.krykey.com at http://www.wezgradio.co.uk and http://www.shuffleradio.co.uk