Sunday 20 July 2008

Voices Inside My Head


God bless my shitty old laptop. Providing I do not ask too much of
her, she keeps on running ... just about. Had to pare down Traktor
Scratch to just a basic external mix TS3 set up. I decided to augment
my last DJ set with a few toys: My usual Xone 92 rig plus Traktor
(thru MOTU Ultralite) was bolstered up with a Metasonix distortion
unit (mmm ... filth) and two CDJs looping samples of white noise,
sine waves, people talking, traffic, electrical buzzing and lots of
off-kilter dubby echos ... nothing requiring beat-matching ... no
sirens. Bleeding all this stuff over the top of techy-proggy-minimal-
ish was pretty easy and down right cool as far as I was concerned.
Don't think anyone else noticed.

Actually, the distortion unit sounded awful. The TM7 is too heavy for
most dance floors – even the usually forgiving home crowd at Yumla.
The concept was great though. Destroying tracks to the point of
collapse then releasing the noise into sweet oh sweet clean loving
bass. Concept needs tweaking. And after last Saturday, I suspect I
need to start playing live music again. Even if just off the laptop –
as boring as it is to watch, I often diss the idea 'cause I'm no
showman – but for my own sanity I need more input into the
proceedings: Would rather spend all week making tunes than spend the
same amount of time sifting through 1000 hours of bad 4/4 just to
find enough music for one set. If you've not seen Danton Eeprom do
his thing, check it out. I'll probably head down that path over the
next six months. Although no microphone. I'm liable to start shouting
orders for beer over the PA instead of singing.

Highlights of the night: Elite Force remix of my track "Right On" (a
debut public play for me, matter of fact), Carl Cox & Yousef "I Want
You" (Deadmau5 remix) plus a really old blast from the past in the
form of KC Flight & Funky Junction "Voices" Fata Morgana remix.
Sweet. Putty in my hands after that one. A ten year old classic and
they never even knew it. Going to have to write something in the form
of an homage to "Voices". Before some bastard ruins it with a bootleg
at least.

Nearly three short paragraphs and I haven't actually said anything.
Awesome, that's Sunday evenings for you :)

2 comments:

scissorkicks said...

I can imagine that Metasonix might be a bit too far into the realms of total filth for dancefloor action :). Back in the days when I did sound for Mclusky, I used to use a Sansamp GT2 pedal for a distorted vocal effect. Had it on an aux, running on a separate channel. Didn't send it to the monitors as it would squeal horribly - although unless you've suddenly taken to MCing, I doubt this will be an issue :) The GT2 was totally controllable, I found, and could do anything from light grungification to out and out fizzing destruction.

Take care - Ant

disuye said...

Ah - will keep an eye for the GT2. The TM7 was running from a send off the A&H, and with judicious EQ on the return it sounded OK but it didn't take much for it to totally overwhelm.

No danger of me MC'ing :)