Category: DJ

Tracklist from Make It New, December 27th

On December 27th I opened for Perc at Make It New — it was an awesome experience, and having people come up to me afterwards and compliment me on my taste in music is something my 16-year-old self would never have imagined :). I was worried going in because Mixxx had been crashing earlier in the week as a result of me being dumb and using the bleeding-edge development version. But I worked with RJ to fix the problem, and Mixxx worked without a hitch.

There’s a fan recording of the set on youtube:

Actually there was a lot of trainwrecking, for some reason the Cue/Master control on the mixer was broken so it was a little hard to line things up. I’ll see if I can get a full recording from the Mmmmaven guys.

Tracklisting:

  1. Alan Fitzpatrick – Always Something For Nothing (Original Mix)
  2. Cassegrain & Tin Man – Athletic
  3. Paul Mac, Mark Broom – Remember When (Original Mix)
  4. Function, Jerome Sydenham – Computer Madness Re-Vision (Function vs Jerome Sydenham remix)
  5. Macromism, DJ Kool Dek – Shifted
  6. DETTMANN, Marcel – Push
  7. Blawan – And Both His Sons
  8. Slam – Crowded Room (Original Mix)
  9. BAS MOOY – Desolaat (Xhin remix)
  10. ANGELIS, Dimi/JEROEN SEARCH – Rhetorica (Jonas Kopp remix)
  11. Monoloc, Daniel Wilde – When I Get Older
  12. Jeff Derringer – Passenger (Original Mix)
  13. Dadub – Unlawful Assembly (Al Bielek Takeover)
  14. Mike Parker – Moisture (Treatment 3)
  15. Lodbrok – Oil (AnD Remix)
  16. Hizatron, Bashley – Discharge (Original Mix)

(edit: replaced broken ustream link with youtube link)

Owen at the Together Center, 3/27/12

I played a 1.5 hour set of deep house at the Together Center this Tuesday. I was only supposed to play for an hour but the next DJ was late. I was running out of tracks to play at that point so I started playing some techno instead. In the following video I start playing around the 1 hour mark.



Video streaming by Ustream

Here’s the tracklist:

  1. Matthias Meyer, Patlac – Salt City (Nick Curly Remix)
  2. HouseRiders – Yesterday’s Future (Evren Ulusoy Remix)
  3. Lips – Mbali – Original Mix
  4. Soukie & Windish – Great Gatsby (Original Mix)
  5. John Talabot – So Will Be Now… feat. Pional (Original Mix)
  6. Daniel Dexter – No House For Old Men (Original Mix)
  7. Dark & Stormy – Feel It
  8. &ME – Glaced (Original Mix)
  9. SIS – Aires
  10. NTFO & Optick – From The Tower (Nikola Gala Remix)
  11. Atnarko, Sam Mollison – Thinking Of You – Pezzner’s Remix
  12. Pete Gooding, James Doman – Oosa – Original Mix
  13. Freak Seven Feat. Aniff – Nano Kids (Vocal)
  14. Tony Rohr – Night Drive (Alexi Delano Remix)
  15. Shifted – Spire
  16. Sandwell District – Feed Forward Test Session (Recorded Live In Berlin 23/10/2010)
  17. Kevin Gorman – Cast
  18. Mathew Jonson – Marionette

On The Boogiedownload — behind the scenes

A while back, Nick over at Beantown Boogietown asked me for a mix to post on his website, and recently I put something together that I thought was worthy of publication. Nick went all-out, doing a little mini-interview and giving the mix a very flattering review.

Check it out.

I do want to get one more thing on the record: although I didn’t have a preset tracklist, this isn’t a one-take mix. I did go back and rerecord a few of the transitions that drifted a little. If I was in the middle of a mix and things started trainwrecking a bit, I stopped everything, rewound the outgoing track to the breakdown, and redid the transition. I did that twice. And then when I listened to the recording I discovered nine or ten minutes of the recording was doubled up, making it unlistenable, so I had to go back and rerecord that section too.

I took these four or five pieces into Ardour and spliced them carefully together. I know, the magic is ruined, etc etc. Sorry. I was just really glad that the messed-up section wasn’t the whole last 40 minutes of the mix instead of just the two tracks.

Tech House Session Oct 18 2011

New mix up! Moving away from the dark techno for once, trying out some new tech house

Tech House Session Oct 18 2011 by ywwg

  1. Bjorn Wilke and Someone Else – Rainbow Bridge (Aki Bergen Instrumental Remix)
  2. Alessio Mereu – Eyes Of Sin
  3. Daniel Dexter – The Other Day (Original Mix)
  4. Daso – Open Cage (Original Mix)
  5. Pele, Findling – Deep Sea (Original Mix)
  6. NTFO & Optick – From The Tower (Nikola Gala Remix)
  7. Prompt – Brazz – Original Mix
  8. Oliver Klein, Peter Juergens – Hey Baby – Original Mix
  9. Andre Butano, Miguel Lobo – Straigh Ahead (Original Mix)
  10. Dan Caster – Wunderbar – Remerc Remix
  11. Dan Caster – Wunderbar – Original Mix
  12. NTFO & Optick – From The Tower (ONNO & David Labeij Remix)
  13. D-Formation – Stuck In The Airport (Original Mix)
  14. Dadub – Amnion – Original Mix
  15. Delano Smith – Change Is Coming – Original Mix

Mixxx Session 2011-06-20

Two posts in one day? This will really skew the average. I recorded a new mix in anticipation of… something fun happening later this summer. I kept this one on the shorter side, under 50 minutes. My mixing (in a technical sense) is getting better, I’m at the point where there are some little drifts but I pull it back fairly quickly. On the creative side, there’s one track that sticks out as not quite fitting in with those around it, but it’s not a huge problem.

Tracklist:

  1. Knobs – Reality
  2. dml – forstenried
  3. Truncate (Audio Injection) – Truncate.16 – Original Mix
  4. Truncate – Concentrate – Original Mix
  5. James Ruskin, Mark Broom – Hostage – Original Mix
  6. Gary Beck – Egoist
  7. Pfirter – Vasodilatador – Original Mix
  8. O/V/R – Post-Traumatic Son – Original Mix
  9. Tommy Four Seven – Ratu
  10. Surgeon – those who do not
  11. tleilaxu – to other people

Mixxx Session 110620 by ywwg

Together Bedroom DJ Contest Entry

Together Bedroom DJ Contest Entry by ywwg

I think there are one too many latin-style bombs in a row on this one, and I fucked up the effects at 37 minutes, but otherwise a fun mix with my usual chillout ending

  1. Luca Cazzoni & Naila`kil – High spirit
  2. Glutamate – Don’t look back
  3. Joel – Knopf (Live)
  4. Andreas Henneberg, Simon2 – Bolingo Grigo
  5. RuLO – Sounds Like
  6. Oblivion – Weaver
  7. SQL – Distorted Reality
  8. Alex Kenji – Tropical Chicks
  9. eavesdrop – chased by the trombone
  10. Chris Lake, LYS – La Tromba
  11. eavesdrop – clarinette
  12. Tea Time – My Name Isn’t Jack(System Zoid remix)
  13. damolh33 – nuda
  14. Dintun – Runge Mufasin (Pablo Denegri Remix)
  15. Function – Variance – Function Reduced Edit

More Audio 4 DJ tricks

In my DJ setup, I use the JACK sound server to link my mixing program to a bunch of fun effects. It is possible to get JACK to perform at extremely low latencies (~6ms and less) but it’s hard to get all the options just right. For the benefit of others who don’t want to go through the same trial and error I did, here is the command line I’m using to launch jack:

jackd -R -P 99 -p128 --timeout 4500 -d alsa -d AUDIO4DJ -p $size -n $periods -i 4 -o 4 -r 44100

Here’s what all that means:

  • -R: Realtime mode
  • -P 99: Realtime Priority value (maxed out)
  • -p 128: max jack ports
  • –timeout 4500: client timeout in ms. This is very important, because Mixxx might hang for longer than the default 500ms when it’s loading tracks. If that happens, JACK kicks out Mixxx and playback stops
  • -d alsa: Use ALSA backend

(Note, after this argument, the rest of the arguments are ALSA-specific

  • -d AUDIO4DJ: use the AUDIO4DJ alsa device (see my previous post)
  • -p $size -n $periods: These two options are what determines the size of the sound buffer. The first number is the frame size, in bytes (I think). The second is the number of frames. Multiply the two together to get the total size. With a special realtime kernel, I can set this to 64 and 4 (total: 256, or about 6ms). With a standard kernel, it has to be 128 and 3 (total: 384, 9ms). The idea is you want to get the total multiplied number as small as possible without inducing the dreaded XRUN, which happens when your computer can’t feed audio to the sound card fast enough.
  • -i 4 -o 4: 4 inputs, 4 outputs
  • -r 44100: CD-rate audio

Yeah, I know, if I just bought a mac and Traktor or Serato I wouldn’t have to deal with this shit, but I’m cheap and can’t resist a challenge.

Native Instruments Audio 4 DJ on linux

The Native Instruments Audio4DJ is a professional-quality USB soundcard for DJing that is also supported under linux. Like mode devices that are “supported” under linux, however, it can be tricky to set up correctly. In my case, I need the device to work with the JACK sound server, and I needed to do a little extra work.

The first trick is setting up ALSA so that JACK works happily with the card. The problem is that the drivers don’t supply any regular mixer controls for the Audio4DJ, which makes jackd unhappy. So when creating a .asoundrc, it’s necessary to substitute the internal soundcard as the mixer elements for that device. Putting this text in ~/.asoundrc does the trick:

pcm.AUDIO4DJ {
    type multi;
    # bind hardware devices
    slaves.a.pcm "hw:1,0,0";
    slaves.a.channels 2;
    slaves.b.pcm "hw:1,0,1";
    slaves.b.channels 2;
    # bind channels to virtual device;
    bindings.0.slave a;
    bindings.0.channel 0;
    bindings.1.slave a;
    bindings.1.channel 1;
    bindings.2.slave b;
    bindings.2.channel 0;
    bindings.3.slave b;
    bindings.3.channel 1;
}

# JACK will be unhappy if there is no mixer to talk to, so we set
# this to card 0. This could be any device but 0 is easy. 
#note that audio4dj is actually card 1 -- we are faking mixer elements so JACK is happy:

ctl.AUDIO4DJ {
        type hw;
        card 0;
}

The second question is how to change the input mode of the Audio4DJ from phono to line and back. Normally this type of setting would be found in the alsamixer program, but for some reason it’s hidden away. This script makes it easy:

#!/bin/bash

if [ "$1"x == "x" ] ; then
	echo "$0 [phono|line|timecode]"
	exit 1
fi

dev=`aplay -l  | grep Audio4DJ | grep "device 0" | cut -d\  -f 2 | cut -d: -f 1`
if [ "$dev"x == "x" ] ; then
	echo "Audio 4 DJ not connected"
	exit 1
fi

result=0
if [ "$1" == "phono" ] ; then
	amixer -c $dev cset numid=1 2 > /dev/null
	result=$?
elif [ "$1" == "line" ] ; then
	amixer -c $dev cset numid=1 1 > /dev/null
	result=$?
elif [ "$1" == "timecode" ] ; then
	amixer -c $dev cset numid=1 0 > /dev/null
	result=$?
else
	echo "$0 [phono|line|timecode]"
	exit 1
fi

if [ $result -ne 0 ] ; then
	echo "Error setting Audio 4 DJ input"
	exit $result
fi

Black Friday Mixxx Session

This is my mix for November. Black Cat, White Cat is a crazy, awesome track.

  1. Luca Cazzoni & Naila`kil – High spirit (Original Mix)
  2. Catstayslow – bumba
  3. Steve Bug – Look Who’s Stalking
  4. Alyn Sclosa – Organo
  5. Riva Starr – Black Cat, White Cat feat. Noze – Original Mix
  6. Damolh33 – A straw hat
  7. James Wyatt – She’s Got Nic
  8. hermetico – parabolica
  9. Joel – Laufen (Live)
  10. alec troniq – 03 i`m the foolaloof [agaric rmx]
  11. Claude VonStroke – Vocal Chords – Original Mix
  12. JuanMP – Double Block (Bubbaloop Remix)
  13. andre lanine – harp (crispmeister warp mix)
  14. Luca Lozano – Berlinetta – Original Mix
  15. Damolh33 – Innocence
  16. Sis – Dim Dim
  17. alec troniq – 05 i`m the foolaloof [tim susa vs. jan yang rmx]

Black Friday Mixxx Session by ywwg

Mixxx Session 091027

More beats. I always listen to my mixes the day after I make them, because how am I going to know what I’m doing wrong unless I check my work? Often, while actively mixing, something will sound ok, but listening to it later it’ll sound forced or messy. Lives, unexamined and otherwise, relative worth w.r.t. living, etc etc.

Most people do a spooooky halloween special mix, but this isn’t that, really. huh. Maybe I’ll do one today.

  1. Stefny – Flight
  2. Navy b. – S P
  3. Rodrigo Rivera – Despegue programado N2
  4. nemecek – vindaloo jones
  5. Insanek – My last brain (Original Mix)
  6. Ricardo Serapio – Onche
  7. alec troniq – i`m the foolaloof [agaric rmx]
  8. Steve Bug – Swallowed Too Much Bass feat. Paris The Black Fu – Joris Voorn Remix
  9. London Fm – Urbansound – Original Mix
  10. Sis – Nesrib
  11. Drugstore – Nemesis
  12. Hay Dios Mio (Splatter Remix)
  13. Eggbox – Wrongway
  14. Ambivalent – Nineteen – Original Mix
  15. Gabriel Damen – Toy
  16. JuanMP – Double Block
  17. Dintun – Runge Mufasin (Pablo Denegri Remix)
  18. Dennis Shoker – Three In One Apartment

Mixxx Session 091027 by ywwg