The Deep End @ The Board Room Game Cafe

I’m really excited to announce the new day, time and venue for The Deep End: the second Wednesday of every month from 8-11 PM at The Board Room Game Cafe, starting Wednesday April 9th!

Anyone who’s ever talked to me about these shows knows that I’ve wanted to combine chill/deep electronic music with board games since pretty much day one but there simply hasn’t been a suitable venue in Halifax, until now…

For those who don’t know, The Board Room is a LICENSED board game cafe on Barrington St. with over 400 (!) games. In addition to a bar and a cafe they also have a kitchen.

As always my goal is to create a very low-key and INCLUSIVE environment, so don’t be afraid to bring people who you might not normally think to bring to a “show”: co-workers, family, etc.

(BTW, fear not, they have *3* copies of The Settlers of Catan plus expansions… phew!)

 

Deep End Mix Sessions – March 2014 – Snug & Etcha

Here’s the first installment of the The Deep End mix sessions–something I hope to make a monthly (or at the very least, quarterly) thing.

This first one is an hour-long journey through the deep, soulful and jazzy side of drum & bass. Track selection by my wife, mixed by me. Enjoy! (Also available as a 320 Kbps MP3)

 

Track listing:

Blade – Parts of Me
dRamatic & dbAudio – Stronger
Tim Cant – Sacred Moments
Paul SG feat. Carter – Kosato
Flowrian – Don’t Care (Soultec remix)
Malaky – Vibrate
Dynamic & Command Strange – Jazzmine
Survival – Walk On By
Scott Allen & Deeper Connection – Zion Dub
Carter – The Sweetest Thing
Clart & Dave Owen – Deep Cover
dRamatic & dbAudio – Entrance to Jericho
Soultec – All That I Own
Poschek – Concept World
Furney & Paul SG – 1955
Commix – Everything
Locksmith – Love

Snug live at Baseline (January)

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of playing Baseline, Halifax’s big house music night. It was the opening set–10 PM to 12 AM–and as you’ll hear I had lots of fun meandering between deep and tech.

As always they recorded the set live using a room mic next to the speakers. Truth be told this is one of the longer sets I’ve played in a while–especially in Halifax, where the average set time seems to be about 8 minutes–and I’m really grateful to the Baseline crew for recording it.

I had a blast playing, and I hope you enjoy listening! (It’s also downloadable as 320 Kbps if you prefer that to streaming)

Here’s the track listing:

Greg Parker & Terry Lee Brown Jr – Eclosion (Forteba Remix)
Tina Valen – Colors (Terry Lee Brown Jr. remix)
Robert Babicz – Simple Feeling
Matt Prehn & Marcia Alves – Insomniac Oasis (The Timewriter remix)
Nick Curly – Right or Wrong
Luna City Express – Seven (Agne’s Dubhouse Mix)
(Saint Germain – So Flute)
Atnarko feat. Nica Brook – Solid Ground (Fred Everything’s Lazy Dub)
Channel X & Jake The Rapper – Snug Descent
Terry Lee Brown Junior – Under Pressure
KiNK – Express
Matteo Matteini – The King (Dimo remix)
Jimpster – Porchlight And Rocking Chairs (KiNK remix)
Scope – Feel It (The Timewriter remix)
Questionmarq – Sun Day (Mirror Music remix)
Marc Romboy & KiNK – Delusion of the Enemy
Milton Jackson – Simple Life
Jim Rivers – Black Keys (Paul Ursin remix)
Sylar – Mellow (Sara Galli Shamalaya mix)
Simon Garcia – Hallucinogenic
Tom Middleton – Hawkes Groove
Jay Lumen – Spin Like Fire
Peace Division feat. Dan Diamond – Club Therapy
D-Unity – Afrika (Tribal Mix)
Rachel Row – Follow The Step (KiNK Beat Mix)
Tom Middleton – Penrose Steps
Channel X – Mosquito
Umek & Jay Lumen – Sinful Ladies
Jay Lumen & Gary Beck – Strange Fruit
Piatto – Work That
Channel X – Salome (Audiojack remix)
Terry Lee Brown Jr. – Across The Ocean
Angel Stoxx – Astro Panic
Junior Boys – No Kinda Man (Jona remix)

Latest Sonic State blog post; The Deep End back

Happy Saturday all! Just a quick note to let you know that my latest Sonic State blog post is up now. It offers some tips for automating external MIDI gear in Ableton Live.

In other news, my deep/downtempo night The Deep End is back in business as of August 30th. Head on over to the Facebook page and give it a “Like” if you’re in Halifax and interested in this sort of thing.

10 ways to work faster with Ableton Live

Sorry for the silence lately but the past couple months have been crazy! Several summer trips and out of town gigs, a new job, and unfortunately, basement flooding that’s led to me having to disassemble my studio and (temporarily) move it to a much smaller space 🙁

I realized I totally forgot to share my last blog post on this blog. It outlines some of my personal workflow tips for getting things done more quickly Ableton Live.
 
Anyhow, I’ll continue posting links here as I remember to! I typically blog for Sonic State once a month, and you can expect the next post within the next few days. Be sure to “Like” Sonicstate.com on Facebook, or watch their home page, as they post new blog posts to both.

SYNC your teeth into this

(Yeah, <groan>, another one of these. Whatever, I’ll try to keep it brief)

I press SYNC and I don’t care. I press play and I don’t care.

I see a lot of “old school” DJs complaining about this (SYNCing is cheating, laptop DJs aren’t DJs, blah blah blah). Honestly, this is so utterly, completely and mind-blowingly ignorant given that the umbrella genre is electronic music (I refuse to call it EDM as it’s not all “dance” music per se).

Last I checked, laptops, sync algorithms, DJ controllers, etc. had a hell of a lot more in common with the field of electronics than rotating platters, pressed wax discs, and synchronizing music by hand. Given that the music has it roots in technology why not embrace everything technology has to offer?

It’s akin to somebody riding around on a horse complaining that motorists are cheating. Or someone doing math by hand complaining that calculators kill the art of math. Seriously? Step off your high-horses and into the 21st century.

For the record (no pun intended) I started DJing on vinyl. I think vinyl is great and nothing compares in terms of feel/tactile response. But it’s heavy, expensive, it degrades, etc. Likewise, turntables are heavy, expensive, prone to skipping if not properly installed, and generally not really a standard commodity at shows nowadays.

Snug circa 1999. All vinyl, baby.

That said, I do have lots of respect for DJs who can scratch, do 3-4 deck mixes, etc. This takes skill. But so does rigging an Ableton Live set with synchronized lights, visuals, external synths, etc. So does a multi-deck mix on a controller with on-the-fly looping, live FX processing, overlaying synth and drum loops, etc.

Snug 2012. Vinyl + controller (SYNC button engaged!)

At the end of the day the end goal is to produce sound and/or entertain. If it sounds good and/or entertains then who the hell cares? So what if modern technological advancement means “everyone’s a DJ”? Honestly, when I was getting into it “everyone was a DJ” then, too. Same old story. As with anything, those with talent and drive will go much further than those without.

Closing thought: if “keeping things on time” is what you’re most concerned with then maybe you should consider a job as a railroad conductor or a dispatcher? You’d probably make a hell of a lot more money than you would DJing, anyway.

</rant>

Musication update #2: post-mortem

Well it’s been a few days since tearing things down and heading back to the city. Overall it was a success: I finished 5 tracks, mixed 7 and started 4 collab ideas. I also completed my first guest post for Sonic State and spent a bit of time learning about/playing around with  iZotope Ozone’s “matching EQ“, which will come in handy for mastering dubs/demos.

Part of the reason I wanted to do this was to see what it would be like if music were my day job, assuming this becomes a possibility some day. Would I lose interest? Burn out? The answer, based on this experiment, is no. I was able to work a solid 40 hour “work week” and stay focused for pretty much the whole time.

Here are a few pics of the setup (the last couple art courtesy of my wife):