This is the first, hopefully, of what should be a step into the world of remixing. Over the next few months I have 4 or 5 to have a go at, as well as carrying on the edits, so there should be enough Cosmic Boogie stuff ticking over.

This remix is a mix of Frank Booker’s El Salvador, and will be coming out in August or September on Wonderful Noise records. It will be a vinyl only release, for now, at least. High five to Frank for throwing the parts at me, and high five to my kids for listening to the track on repeat 28 hours a day for the last 3 weeks.

Stream the preview directly from Soundcloud below…

El Salvador (Cosmic Boogie Mix) by Cosmic Boogie

Greg Wilson, great friend and contributor to this very blog, has now launched his own piece of the web to go alongside the excellent electro-funk roots website. I cant do it any better justice than Greg can, so I hand you over to him for the lowdown:

“Been wanting to sort this for a long time, but simply haven’t had the time to properly wrap my head around it until now. I’ve had more than a little help from my friends with regards to its construction and design, so big thanks due to you know who. It’s great to have a place of my own where I can highlight the things I feel passionate about – not just music, but various aspects of popular culture – stuff that remains relevant, at least to me, regardless of where or when it was made. Hopefully there’s a bit of something there for everyone.”

“The reason I called it ‘Being A DJ’ is laid out in the column to the right hand side of the blog. It’s been online for the past week, whilst  the initial content was uploaded and all the necessary tweaks were done. I wanted to get a reasonable amount of stuff up there, to kick things off, before letting everyone know about it.”

At the time of writing this, there are 11 posts online with a little something for everyone. Have a look around…

http://www.gregwilson.co.uk

Also, to coincide with the launch of the blog, Greg is also now on twitter.

http://twitter.com/djgregwilson

As I may have mentioned on here a few times, I am very fond of Poland. I have been to play out there twice now and have people I consider friends for life. One of the best things about the place is the passion and knowledge the people have for music and partying, often putting my own knowledge – and partying ability - to shame.

Last time I was out there when we had finished our night about 3 a.m. – we went to another club with as few local DJ’s playing hip hop, funk, boogie…you get the picture. One of the DJ’s was a guy called DJ Boogie (yes, a great name)…and I dont think I have danced as much without the aid of *cough* consumables, since I was about 18. Thats quite a while ago.

I dont think I need give any more reason as to why I got in touch with him when I got back and asked for a guest mix. If your a DJ who knows how to make people dance, then you deserve all the mix time you can get. Thank you, DJ Boogie.

Tracklisting

Chime Disco / Keep It Up
Webster Lewis / Are You My Life
Nccu / Super Trick
Cameo / Your Love Takes Me Out
Locksmith / Unlock the Funk
T-Connection / Midnight Train
Teddy Pendergrass / Only You
Crown Heights Affair / You Gave Me Love (Boogie edit)
Donald Byrd / Caricatures
Idris Muhammad / Turn This Mutha Out
Midnight Starr / Two in Love
Instant Funk / Slap, Slap Lickedy Lap
Roy Ayers / Can’t You See Me
Dynasty / I’ve Just Began To Love You
New Bird / Up Against The Wall

A new digital EP from me hit the download shops today (well – Juno at least). I will let the official speil do the talking for me, as usual…

Straight outta Bedmo – that’s Bedminster for non Bristol folk – comes a brand new digital-only label… Bedmo Disco Records!

Named after the website, club night and production outfit of the same name, Bedmo Disco Records launches this June with a very special E.P from rising star and friend of the family, Cosmic Boogie.

The Liverpudlian producer and DJ has been enjoying a stratospheric rise of late thanks to a series of much-heralded releases on Disco Deviance and, of course, his own Cosmic Boogie imprint.

Now he’s kick-starting a busy summer of gigs and festival appearances with a killer set of edits for Bedmo Disco.

‘The Disco Grinch’ is Cosmic Boogie’s first digital release, and it’s a belter. It features four wildly different slabs of dancefloor-friendly disco and electrofunk, all with Cosmic Boogie’s trademark eye for detail and ear for a killer groove.

The E.P kicks off with ‘Catch 22’, a sensual slow-jam that’s perfect for those ‘eyes wide shut’ moments. It’s sexy, scintillating and, frankly, a little bit naughty. If it doesn’t make you go a bit wobbly down below, we’ll eat our flat caps.

Next up is ‘Must Come Down’, a chunky groover that teases out a lesser-known disco gem for nine action-packed minutes. Think sizzling synth-bass, cut glass strings, heavy percussion and just the right amount of vocal. As we’d say in Bristol, proper job.

Bursting out of its third-place billing is ‘Calling Lenny’, an endorphin-releasing beast of shirts- off disco set to fire-up festivals across the globe this summer. With its dizzying disco horns, floor-slaying vocal and thumping groove, ‘Calling Lenny’ is sure to cause a commotion on any disco-minded dancefloor.

Rounding off the E.P is the digital bonus ‘Let’s Jam’. Only available for those who buy the whole release, it’s an intergalactic P-funk jam with more wonky percussion than your average crusty drum circle.

The goodness doesn’t stop there though. In addition, Bedmo Disco Records will be making another Cosmic Boogie edit available free-of-charge to lucky disco diggers. The frankly rather enormous and funksome ‘Talk To Me’ will be made available as a free download (see the link below)

Bedmo Disco – breakin’ out the happy music!

So there you go.

You can buy from Juno Download:

http://www.junodownload.com/products/1591237-02.htm

You can listen to the full release on soundcloud:

BEDMO01 – The Disco Grinch EP by Cosmic Boogie

And you can also download a free edit from the EP either at Juno Download, or soundcloud:

Talk To Me – Cosmic Boogie Edit by Cosmic Boogie

Donald Byrd and 125th Street re-edited to strip it down to be more…well less of a song more of an instrumental – stretched out in places to build up, chopped and changed around. Another simple style edit – nothing too fancy, just making it more how I want to play it – but really, a truly great original track. Not really a dancefloor thing as its very slow but its very very cool…

I found out that The Revenge used it on McLovin – so I thought I would just upload the wav edit of the original and share out the edit for people to play. You can find it on the soundcloud account and its embedded below…

nb: this edit it intended for dj play only (thats why i edited it like this in the first place)

Feel Like Loving You Today by Cosmic Boogie

It actually has been ages. Looking back through the archives, the last time I did a mix for my own blog (directly that is – one thats not hosted by or created for anyone else) is over two years ago. A time when my football club hadn’t imploded, my second child was still a mere grub, and apple hadn’t “changed everything” at least 14 times.

So last night I thought about what kind of mix to do – seeing as there are going to be a few others released on other sites over the next week or two, and the path it took me down was much of the more nu-disco and houseier sounds that I have in my box, and like, but get little chance to work into what I play normally.

So here it is, a mix of stuff that shows a different, perhaps more up-front, vibe. I suppose this is Cosmic Boogie Mix 15 – but I have decided to drop the numbers on the mixes as they mean nothing. Gav Kendrick asked me to do that a while ago, and sadly I didn’t listen then. I hear you now, Gav lad.

Tracklisting

The Time & Space Machine / More Cowbell
Dicky Trisco Edit / Night Dancing
Illija Rudman / Call Me Tonight (The Revenge Engaged Mix)
Russ Brown / Find A Way (Leftside Wobble Dub)
Space Ranger / Herbal Cake (The Revenge Rubdown)
Alkalino & BlackLodge / Breaking Bad
The Francis Inferno Orchestra / Meet Me In Salt Lake City
Dan Electro / Look Around
Chopstick & Johjon Feat. Fritz Kalkbrener / Keep On Keepin On (Fritz Zander Drunk Disco Jam)
Jacques Renault / Miranda
Ron Basejam / Run With You
Christophe / Make A Mark (Family Affair Remix)
Polargeist / Home From The Can (Tensnake Remix)
Space / Carry On, Turn Me On (The Time & Space Machine Remix)

Yesterday I upgraded my Soundcloud account to give me enough “minutes” (surely the stupidest way ever to manage storage space), and I created a set that will just have all the decent Cosmic Boogie mixes that have been created over the last couple of years.

At the moment, they are all hosted on this blog obviously, and also the Cosmic Boogie Mixcloud – but the problem is on the blog they are separated with guest mixes and mixes from Greg, and on Mixcloud you cannot download the mixes, only stream them. And as good as I think Mixcloud is, it still only has a fraction of the users that Soundcloud gets.

So anyway – now you can get all the Cosmic Boogie mixes as downloadable 320 MP3 from the Soundcloud site, all stored in one handy place, and they have full tracklists and notes and so on. I’ll update it with as many mixes as I have kicking around as time goes on.

http://soundcloud.com/cosmicboogie/sets/cosmic-boogie-mixes

Cosmic Boogie 004 is now out in record shops online and offline somewhere near you. This time its a straight up edit twelve from me same as the first one. Take it away official blurb…

Side A: Youngblood (Cosmic Boogie’s You Don’t Know Me Edit)
Side AA: The Users (Cosmic Boogie’s Shergar Edit)

Cosmic Boogie is back and drops two funk fuelled bombs for the fourth release on the imprint.

First up is a driving, peak time version of War’s classic hard edged funk cut ‘Youngblood’. Cut up, extended and rearranged, it has a devastating impact when it hits the dance floor. Flip side cut, ‘The Users’, is a heavily percussive funk outing that is packed full of soul vibes, a heavy dose of boogie and a hint of Caribbean groove.

Re-mastered and cut loud for vinyl lovers, Cosmic Boogie is all about exploring a different meaning of ‘cosmic’.

You can buy the track at the following places:

Picadilly: Buy / Listen at Piccadilly Records
(a staff pick at picadilly: http://www.piccadillyrecords.com/shop/feature.php?feature=642)
Juno: Buy / Listen at Juno
Phonica: Buy / Listen at Phonica

And you can, if you so wish, listen to them both in full here:

Soundcloud: Listen in full at Soundcloud

The chances are that if you are reading this from somewhere that is not Liverpool or Birmingham, you wont have ever heard of Chris Barker. This is a real shame because he’s not only a thoroughly decent individual, he is also (as you will soon hear) a very talented DJ and producer.

His skills are about to be unleashed on the world with the signing of many of the records from his Deep Space Orchestra project with Si “jazzchops” Murray, and the continuing success of the Altiplano night in Liverpool that he is resident at along side Kelvin Andrews.

I have been asking him for a guest mix for some time, as every time I hear him play, it usually ends with me drunkenly shouting at him that he is the best DJ in Liverpool. He finally passed me one a few weeks back, and now I pass it on to you.

Its things like this that make me pleased to chip in on a site were I can put up mixes from people I want to hear (and want others to hear) – without any high profile name stigma.

Full Tracklisting

Weather Report / Cucumber Slumber
Renergie / Stone Groove
Hudson Mohawke / Fruit Touch
Santana / When I look into your eyes (outro)
Atmosfear / Outer Space
Jimi Tenor & Kabu Kabu / Mystery Spot
Tommy Stewart / Fulton County Line
Soulphiction / A short history of…
Ron Trent / Morning Fever
Super Value / Super Value Special Edits 5
Danny Mekanik / Osmondosis
Million Dollar Edits / Magic Lady
George Duke / Carnival (interlude)
A Hundred Birds / Black Water
Roy Ayers / Fast Money
Pamela Joy / Think Fast
Christian Gaubert / Sweet Maryline
Break SL / My love is for you
Darondo / Sure know how to love me

Cosmic Boogie isn’t always about dubby percussion, having disco drinks in the park, or me spouting bollocks. No sir, one of the things that still brings many people to the site are the tutorials I wrote a while ago about how to use Serato and so on. I need to update these, as all my methods have changed now (I am 100% committed to my Macbook and iTunes these days), but that’s for another article. This one concentrates on something I found mixed information on everywhere I looked, but nothing that cohesive; ripping vinyl.

When I say ripping vinyl, I don’t mean ripping it down to 128 mp3′s for sharing on blogs, something that is personally not for me (only an opinion – each to their own). I mean ripping my collection so I can use it with Serato, or any other digital solution I choose to adopt in the future. Because, lets be honest, its kind of all going that way.

Background Research

When I started to look into this I didn’t realise how many options I would come across for ripping the correct way, or someone else’s correct way, or someone else’s correct way, or…well you get the idea. Everyone has a take on this, so I am going to lay down some caveats for my methods so you can understand what I am trying to achieve writing this and make sure it sounds useful before you have to dive in (it’s quite a lengthy article after all).

1. This article is written in such a manor that it is more about the reasoning why I chose to rip vinyl a certain way, with background info and alternatives suggested. Its not a step by step how to.
2. I am not an audiophile. I mean, I like my sound to be as good as I can with the budget I have, and try to make sure the basic things are right, but this article tries to look at things from the angle of someone who cannot spend £800 on a power supply.
3. To back that up, I am operating here on a strict budget, only buying things within budget that will really help the process. I cannot afford to spend £500 on new equipment, and I think that many other people would be in that position.
4. I struggle to fully explain technical terms. I am not a sound engineer. I know what compression means because I bought a book that explains it to me (written by a sound engineer), but that’s about it.
5. I took a lot of help from people on the wonderful DJ History Forum (in particular the ninja that is Darryl Funk and the super digital convert Captain Cookson), and other such places. You could do worse than look there to accompany this. I will add some “further reading” at the end.
6. This article is by no means the be all and end all – that is, even though I have learned a lot I don’t know everything. Anyone who disagrees or has something to add please do so in the comments at the bottom. I am  just as much a novice as some of you reading this might be, and nowhere near an expert as others will be.
7. Please don’t use this to have a debate about whether or not vinyl is better than digital. The answer is it probably is, but great music is great on all formats.

With all that in mind, and if your still with me, Ive split what I learned into three stages; preparing your vinyl, getting the right equipment and recording to digital.

Preparing Your Vinyl

Old records get dusty. In fact, new records get dusty too, but not like old records. Even if you have all your records stored immaculately in plastic sleeves in dry places, if they have been sat for years unused, they will be dusty. Old records also get scratched, worn, used, damaged and generally soiled more than new records simply because they have been around for longer. Dusty records sound terrible when recorded to digital, and although you can do your cleaning at the stage when its in the computer – do you really want to, when you could do it before hand and take away the need for often over zealous click / scratch removal software?

Before you rip your vinyl it needs cleaning. Maybe if its brand new from Juno / Piccadilly that morning you would be OK, but in general, it needs cleaning. There are of course many solutions to do this, ranging from soapy water in a kitchen bowl, to wonderfully expensive robotic cleaning systems. If you can afford it, for sure, buy one of the robots. If you cannot, there are a few things that I have purchased that made a real difference for me.

• Vinyl Cleaning Fluid – this one to be exact. Cheap, and good. Two little sprays and a good wipe is a good start.
• Ant Static cloths – for wiping the vinyl. Be careful which ones you buy because they sometimes leave fluff on the record, which I am sure defeats the object. Choose carefully, and they make a big difference.
• Static removing gun. I managed to get one of these quite cheap from eBay, and i was a little skeptical at first. However when I was cleaning my records it was really evident just how much static was on them, and static discharges through the needle – so it was really a no-brainer. Its made a big difference (just use it on the record before you are about to rip it).

That’s it. That’s how I clean my records, with a combination of the above. I guess, really, it doesn’t matter how you clean them as long as you follow one of the more tried and tested methods. Someone will undoubtedly tell me that using the vinyl cleaning fluid is bad for your records, and so on. I’m going off what I know, and all the above cost me about £40 altogether, which is palatable. I am thinking about getting one of these for some of my older records, they really clean into the groove well (read that review and you will see), but its an (admittedly small) expense (at around £30 on ebay) that I don’t need at the moment.

I’m not saying that all your records will come up scratch or crackle free if you give them a good clean, that’s really not going to happen. At least you have done your bit though to get rid of either years of neglect or overplay. Its probably an obvious step really, anyone who tries to rip dusty arse old records without even trying to do something about it probably deserves what they get. Once your records are nice and clean its probably a good idea to get some plastic sleeves over them, make sure they have an inner sleeve also – and generally try to keep them in as good a condition as possible. Sounds obvious doesn’t it, but I know loads of people who never follow any of these steps.

Getting The Right Equipment

I agonised over this for weeks. Months, if I am being honest. My poor girlfriend often had to be on the receiving end of what I had decided to buy and how I had decided to do things, just so I could hear my decisions out loud and make sure they made sense. Even then I wasn’t sure, and unlike many other facets of my life, she couldn’t help me. You see, I am a little bit obsessive compulsive (it runs in the family) and I start to freeze up a bit if I think I could be doing something better. (This, incidentally, is one of the reasons I am dreading comments from people who read this who know nu-fangled solutions I didn’t discover). In the end, I had to decide and get on with it, trying not to worry that if I spent another £1000 then I could get that little bit more from the rip – I wanted good solid quality with pretty much the equipment I already had, and a small budget for improving or upgrading.

The key to getting the best quality recording is taking as many links out of the chain between your record decks and your PC as possible. Everything that you have between the vinyl and the final digital output can colour the sound in some way. Mixer, Amp, Cables, Digital Audio Interface – everything. You need to minimise the links, and if you do have to use equipment, use the best that you can. Same with cables, needles, and so on. Using the best that you can, however, does not mean that everything you have at the moment needs to be chucked out and new equipment purchased at huge expense, as you will see.

There are three different methods I looked at:

Ripping with a dedicated turntable that has digital out

For me, you can forget this method. I don’t really even want to waste that much space saying why – all you need to know is that they sell these record decks in the ever awesome electrical goods isle at Asda. That might sound snobbish – I don’t mean it to, what I am saying is that these are made for the mass market. If you just want to rip your old collection for your shitty pc speakers and play it through iTunes then these will do the job. They are not made for serious ripping (and subsequent playing), and should be avoided. Your DJ Turntable has a better needle, tonearm, everything. One of the decks I looked at only converted to MP3 onto a flash card with its own in built software. That’s some scary shit. If you want to see an entire list of what NOT to buy for ripping vinyl, why not browse the entire stock at Maplins.

As a side note, there are USB turntables that you can get from Numark and Stanton – although they are a good few hundred quid, maybe if anyone has used these and had any experience they could post up about it in comments…I am not even sure that these are something that you could successfully rip with (I assume they do analogue to digital conversion down the USB lead – but just don’t know).

Ripping with a Technics turntable through a dedicated phono stage

I learned a lot about sound quality and how mixers work with amps when I was reading up on this. It would shock most of the proper DJ’s to hear this, but I didn’t know what pre-amps or phono stages and such things were. Why should I? Its not something I ever really had to be concerned with. I don’t really use my turntables for listening – i use them as a technical tool. Somethings I do listen to on vinyl but always found the quality from the usual setup to be adequate.

It turns out it is something I really need to be concerned with when looking at ripping vinyl, and correct sound reproduction from vinyl…and everything else to do with vinyl. Its something that passed me by through ignorance rather than design. I am not going to go into the details of how these things work here, because Wikipedia is cleverer than me and can do a better job. However, I am sure if your serious about ripping vinyl then you have come across these terms and may be thinking about this route. There are three different ideas I toyed around with.

The Ripper

The first is this thing – The Ripper. Not only does it have a great name, but it also looks like it does nothing other than RIP YOUR VINYL. Which, of course, is a good thing. No gadgets, no fanciness, no over complifimication – just pure RIPPING ABILITY. It is basically a phono stage of seemingly very good quality that you plug your deck straight into, and it has a USB lead coming out of it that goes straight into the computer. So it does the analogue to digital conversion in the box, and then you use whatever software you want at your end on the computer. You don’t even need an external soundcard to go into – truly an awesome black box for RIPPING and RIPPING ONLY. There are, however, a few draw backs with it. Firstly its around $400 – which at current exchange rate equates to about £270. Not exactly fitting into my “small budget use the equipment you have” mindset is it. You can of course buy a kit version and make your own (for much less expense) but it requires you to have a masters in molecular nuclear physics no doubt, and I am stupid. So no.

The other problem is slightly more technical – as I will explain in the recording to digital section further down, when recording, you really need to to be able to capture at a high sample rate and bit resolution. You may be familiar with the standard resolution for CD’s – 16bit and 44.1khz – 16bit is the resolution depth and the 44.1khz is the sample rate. Just because CD music is at those rates doesn’t mean that’s all you can have with digital, you can record a far greater level. Ill explain more about this later, but The Ripper only rips at the aforementioned 16bit and 44.1khz – so straight away, even through it would sound good, you cannot record any better. That’s a limitation too far (and one I admit I didn’t spot at first). This coupled with the price led me to a sadly negative conclusion about this particular piece of hardware.

Alternatives? Yes, there are plenty. There is another USB cable straight to PC Phono Stage (of sorts) called the USB PhonoPLus V2. It looks a bit tacky compared to the machine that is THE RIPPER, however, I am told by a couple of people that it does a good job. Its about £80 (although hunting on eBay I found it for less) but sadly it has the same limitations musically as THE RIPPER – that is, your pretty much restrained to recording audio at CD quality. Its just not really good enough, so maybe a dedicated phono stage that’s not a digital converter would be better, and let my soundcard handle the analogue to digital conversion by itself?

I looked into this, and it would be great – but once again I found that it would cost me a good amount of money to get a really good pre-amp. The one I finally settled on, if I was going to go down this route, would be the Cambridge Audio 640p. This seemed a reasonable price and I also like Cambridge Audio gear. It might not be top audiophile standard, but its good value and good quality equipment and it has served me well over the years. Looking into what else I would need if I purchased one of these, in order to get the best recording I would need a moving magnetic cartridge (a needle for the deck) and also some really top notch audio leads from the pre amp to my computer. All this is starting to seriously mount up, and if you remember, there is a very limited budget I have on offer here so I am starting to wonder at this point is there any compromise between this method and the equipment I already have?

Ripping with a Technics deck through a mixer

This is almost identical to the method listed above, however, instead of a dedicated pre-amp, it uses the pre-amp that you already have in your DJ Mixer (assuming, of course, that you have a DJ mixer). In this instance, I am lucky that I own an Allen & Heath Xone 32. Some quick research on the web and I found out that the pre-amp installed into this mixer as standard is very good, and that I would be hard pressed to beat it even if I spent decent money…so, with my new found knowledge, I settled on using the pre-amps in the mixer.

The solution entails your Record deck going into your mixer via the phono leads, then some good quality phono cables coming from the “Record Out” of your mixer, and into your computers external (or not-come-as-standard internal) soundcard. Something that many people would already have setup these days because it is probably how many of us record mixes in the first place. The things I needed to do were upgrade the cables between the mixer and the PC – and, I settled on the best Cambridge Audio Azur cables I could get (around £40 each I paid for them), and I also needed to make sure my soundcard could handle the incoming signal and had decent analogue to digital conversion, at the correct 24bit / 192khz format that I wanted. Luckily, mine is ok. I have an Audiophile Firewire (picked up from ebay for about £100), and it can handle everything I need to throw at it.

Rme Fireface 400

Thats not to say if I had money to spend I couldn’t get better – there are a million soundcard’s out there that are better than the on I am using, but again, going back to the budget debate – I have to be practical. Realistically, to get the best possible sound conversion, you are looking at high end cards like the RME FireFace 400 – but this little beauty weighs in at about £650 brand new, or £550 second hand – so clearly, its aimed at a spectrum that is out of my range at the moment. Another good soundcard, and one that I will eventually upgrade to (in the next few months I hope) is the Edirol FA-66 (which I have seen going for around £200 on ebay). Both of these cards have better analogue to digital convertors, and so you will get a better, cleaner sound from your recorded vinyl. I am not exactly sure how much of a difference you would notice as an average user on standard equipment though, but maybe someone else could shed some light on that?

Hardware Setup

So you really dont need me to tell you how to plug a record deck into something with the minimum of fuss, and I am not about to do that. I am going to give you some basic bullet pointed tips for things to make sure you have your hardware setup correctly.

• Make sure whatever needles you have decided to use are tracked correctly and are in as good a condition as possible
• Make sure your Technics deck is grounded properly either with the ground lead attached to the ground on the mixer properly, or the technics ground lead modification fitted (i.e. – no need for a ground lead anymore).
• You want as few steps as possible ftom your deck to your computer – so really, one lead that comes out of the mixer straight into the soundcard. No shitty extension cables joined at the middle, no ground loop isolators getting in the way, nothing. Just one lead from the deck into the mixer, and one lead from the mixer to the soundcard.
• Make sure that any digital djing solution you might use is not connected – as in, dont use the pass through option. No point in “passing through” Serato for ripping, might as well just bypass it altogether.
• Make sure that you are not connected to an amp – you don’t need to be. As were taking the signal straight out of the mixer into the soundcard, we don’t need use the amp at all. If your connected to an amp and the sound is being ripped through that, the sound will be coloured by the amp.
• Make sure no noise enters the room during the recording process – there is no point you hearing what you are recording – all you are in effect doing if you have the sound turned up is increasing the chances of bass / noise feedback into the rip itself.
• Check your equipment for any digital hum – try to figure out if anything is laying any noise or interference down that could potentially upset the track that you are ripping. You can check for this quickly by listening through your speakers with nothing playing – if you hear something, there is a chance it could be recorded. (There is also a way to check for this in software I will mention later).

Conclusion

Just to re-cap…I am going to use the equipment I already have to rip:

1 x Technics 1200 Turntable
1 x Ortofon Nightclub S cartridge (properly tracked and setup)
1 x Allen & Heath Xone32 mixer
1 x Audiophile Firewire soundcard
2 x Cambridge Audio Azur reference phono leads

Sure, with a better soundcard it might be better. Sure, with dedicated pre-amp and moving magnetic cartridge, it might be better – but ultimately, it would also be significantly more expensive, and I do not have that kind of money to invest at the moment. Its something I will upgrade over time. The only thing I really need to do now, is make sure I have everything I have decided on setup to the absolute optimum it can be. That doesn’t cost money, just the time and care to get it right.

Part 2 of this very wordy article will cover the software side of things – what to use, correct settings, cleaning up recordings, storage, tagging…the works. It might take me a few weeks to write it, but when its done, I will link back to it here…

Its friday, and the volcano is causing havoc across the airports of europe, meaning that many of the international superstar dj’s due to be flying into the UK have had to cancel. Fear not though, because here is a guest mix from an International DJ that I think is probably the best mix ive had up on the site this year so far.

When I started Cosmic Boogie, I did it to break away the shackles of what was a pretty restrictive genre id been djing for many years. I wanted to be able to play different genres and BPM’s side by side. I wanted to be able to do exactly what this mix does. I cant really articulate it better than that.

You might know Frantic as one of the leading figures at the excellent Sleazy Beats Recordings – who have so far had tracks out from Eddie C and LTJ Experience, and if you dont know him from that, then now you know him from this. A truly superb mix of records, many that I didn’t know. Surely the best kind.

Full Tracklisting

Tal M Klein / Plastic Starfish
The New Mastersounds / Hole In The Bag
The Fantastics! / Soul Child
Parliament / Flash Light
Ave Blaste & Lopez / Drakefield Soul
Talbot / Amo El Funk
Touche / Wrap It Up
Pete Herbert / Don’t Let Go (edit)
Steal Blue / Spun (edit)
Tal M Klein / Emmylou’s Underwater Petting Zou (Neighbour remix)
Greg Wilson / I Was A Teenage DJ (edit)
The Glimmers / Tape
Prince / Head (Yam Who? re-work)
Sharon Redd / Love How You Feel
Popular People’s Front / Any Way Ya Wanna
Raph Dumas & Pascal Comelade / Le Chanson Douce
Jacques Renault / Sweet Rollin’ On
Mystic Slot / No Way Back
Mr. Confuse / Low Life

This saturday night see’s the return of a djing performance that went down as Legend in the city of Liverpool. Terrence Parker, he of detroit house, techno, disco….well just about everything fame comes back to a city that has been lay in wait.

The night sees the T-Funkshun boys perform with the man himself @ The New Picket, just around the corner from were we run Leaf. Over to Scott McGill with the details…

T-FUNKSHUN – THE DARK NIGHT RETURNS
(SPECIAL ONE-OFF EVENT)
TERRENCE PARKER (PMW/Detroit)

SCUZZ MCBOOB (t-funkshun/archive)
MARK FORSHAW (t-funkshun/outofboundssounds)

THE NEW PICKET
61 NEW BIRD STREET, OFF JAMAICA STREET, LIVERPOOL L1 0BW
11AM-5AM

Facebook Event - http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=285822153012
Skiddle Tickets - http://www.skiddle.com/events/11355114/

Detroit has been credited as one of the Soul Music capitals of the world, spawning legendary artists like The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross just to name a few. Within the past decade Detroit’s Underground Music Movement has brought rise to new artists such as Derrick May, Juan Atkins, Carl Craig, Kevin Saunderson and a host of others. But unlike the aforesaid names, Terrence Parker has established himself as a producer, remixer and DJ of the classic sound of House Music, and is known as a pioneer of the Inspirational / Gospel House movement!

Terrence Parker has performed as a DJ in more than 100 cities throughout the world. Since 1988, he has released more than 100 recordings, and had top 20 hits with his songs “Love’s Got Me High”, “The Question” and albums like “Detroit After Dark” in the U.K. The Netherlands, Germany, and France. As one of the headliners for the 2004 Detroit Movement Festival (May 2004), TP (along with his friend & Detroit legend DJ Mo Reese) performed a stunning Tagteam DJ set on 4 turntables with 2 live vocalists for a crowd of over 100,000 people.

As part of the Detroit Historical Museum’s History of Techno International Exhibit, TP’s collective musical works and pioneering efforts have been recognized as a valuable contribution to Detroit’s music history, as well as the International History Dance Music. This exhibit is currently touring museums throughout the United States.

Between Scott and myself, we threw some questions his way. Here is what he had to say…

It’s only taken us 6 years to get you back after that wondrous party in the Masque! The best things come to those who wait. Looking forward to playing in Liverpool again?

Yes, I am very excited about returning to Liverpool after so many years!

Do you have a connection with the floors in the UK, or is the connection the same worldwide? I know you play Germany a lot so if so do things differ greatly?

One common ingredient in all the many places I’ve played is dance floor energy. There has to be positive energy and excitement on the dance floor for any event to be successful. My goal as a DJ is to provide the musical environment for that energy to flourish.

Being from Detroit, the city that gave the world techno, you were always tagged as some sort of an enigma being the first global house dj from Motown. Over the years since your pioneering footsteps the world has opened up it’s ears to a thriving scene of house producers a la Moodymann, Norm Talley, Kyle Hall, Keith Worthy, Theo Parrish, Rick Wilhite to name a few. Who is it that does it for you in the scene? Anyone special that we have to look forward to?

All the names you’ve mentioned are great. However the person I am most excited about is Kyle Hall. He is a young guy with promising talent! We played an event together last year and his set blew me away!!!

I asked Theo Parrish is there any kind of music you cant take something from and he said absolutely not – everything has an energy you can tap into. You echo this feeling?

I totally agree! There is always something positive that can be derived from any musical composition.

This is a question you have been asked many times I shouldn’t wonder but I think there are still a lot of people who still aren’t aware of the importance that the late Ken Collier had to this music. I know you are are a massive advocate of him, and like you I see Alan Oldham has just created a tribute EP to Ken, so it would appear many still do not know enough about him. Care to give us a quick insight and maybe a little of what he meant to you?

Ken Collier was the “godfather” of dance music in Detroit. He was legendary; known for his remixes of artists like Was Not Was. He was also a Dance Music Reporter for Billboard Magazine here in the USA. Each time I received a white label/promo copy for one of my releases I would bring it to Ken for his advice. Ken would give me great advice which helped me make better records.

And what parts of the world have you played that were an eye opener?

I would have to say DJing in countries like Japan, Russia, Germany, UK, and France have been the most eye opening experiences for me.

You have been djing for over 20 years, throughout the supposed rise and fall of house music, techno, et al. How do you manage to keep things fresh your own way?

Actually I have been DJing closer to 30 years now. I keep things fresh simply by doing my own thing yet embracing technology

To me things don’t change much, just the words that describe them. All these new scenes like dubstep, future-disco have been here before here before. I mean minimal house/techno was here along time ago, just Rob Hood was too busy making it, to name it. Do you feel you have to keep an eye on these media-driven fads to see which way the scene shifts, or do you tend to ignore them?

I am aware of the various genres but I don’t get caught up in the hype surrounding them because in the many years I’ve been DJing I’ve seen them come and I’ve seen them go. I simply stay true to what I feel is good music.

When I was fortunate enough to be at Movement 08, I was talking to Dwayne Jensen about your dj cohort Mo’Reese. Care to tell us a bit about him as he is another name we do not hear outside of the ‘D’?

DJ Mo Reese is a good friend of mine who I’ve known for many years. He is a very good DJ who now has established his own label called Mo House Records. He has been DJing 20+ years and is a well seasoned DJ.

Finally, a little over a week to go, what should the T-funkateers expect from TP?

Good music! Positive vibes! Lots of love!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Amen to that.

Below is a mix Scott passed to me to host on Cosmic Boogie. Stream it, download it, or just come and see the man do it for real this weekend. Makes sense.

Ill be playing with Michael McKenna who rocks out many disco, house and soul mixes from his soundcloud page, and also on his powerFM show. Michael is also the promoter of the night which runs monthly, as well as playing in loads of other places across Ireland. Smart.

I’m really looking forward to it as its only a short hop across the Irish Channel from Liverpool, and I have been many times before but never as a DJ so I don’t know what to expect. Apart from. of course, people who know how to have a good time. As part of the warm up for the night I was interviewed by the super cool Aoife Nic Canna on Near 90fm, and if you so wish you can listen to me bang on via the medium of podcast.

If you are in Ireland, and are about Dublin, come in and say hello. I do like Guinness as it happens, but in all honesty I’ll drink anything.

Even MD 20/20.

Easter weekend is going to be a blur. Playing three nights one after the other, I think (or is that hope) Sunday is going to be a write off. Starting in Liverpool with Archive on Easter Thursday, then on to the East Village club in London for friday…and then back up to Manchester for El Diablos on Saturday – its a roller-coaster. If any of you are happening past any of these cities, on any of these days, all the details are below…

ARCHIVE EASTER THURSDAY SPECIAL

GRAEME PARK
JON DASILVA
JUSTIN ROBERTSON
ANDY MAC
COSMIC BOOGIE

11pm-5am
£9 adv / more on the door…

@ THE PICKET
61 NEW BIRD ST, LIVERPOOL L1 OBW

Skiddle: http://www.skiddle.com/events/11357515/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=319811234725

EAST VILLAGE GOOD FRIDAY ALL-DAYER

DJ PIERRE
ARGY
STUART PATTERSON
TOMOKI TAMURA
PETE HERBERT
DICKY TRISCO
COSMIC BOOGIE

5pm – 5am
£7 adv / £9 / £10 (after 10)

@ EAST VILLAGE CLUB
89 GREAT EASTERN STREET, LONDON

Ticketweb: http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?region=gb_london&query=detail&event=377522
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=387338656062

EL DIABLOS SOCIAL CLUB pres DISCO DEVIANCE

DISCO DEVIANCE (Dicky Trisco and Cosmic Boogie)
NEIL SCOTT

10:30pm – 4am
£6 adv / more on the door

@ THE DEAF INSTITUTE
135 GROSVENOR STREET, MANCHESTER M1 7HE

Skiddle: http://www.skiddle.com/events/11358430/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=387338656062

JOY ORBISON
ANDY MAC
COSMIC BOOGIE

9pm-2am
£7 adv / more on the door…

@ LEAF TEA SHOP AND BAR
25 PARLIAMENT STREET, LIVERPOOL

Skiddle: http://www.skiddle.com/events/11357510/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=308335059129

ARCHIVE is here with an almighty spring in its step this March, pulling out the stops to keep the momentum of Liverpool’s most eclectic and innovative music night rolling. Leaf Tea Shop and Bar are proud to present Joy Orbison, one of the hottest acts to hit the UK dance scene in 2010.

Joy Orbison, aka Peter O’Grady, is a groundbreaking producer mixing up some of the most fascinating beats and tunes to hit the House, Disco and dubstep scenes. Pioneered by the likes of Mary Anne Hobbs (Radio 1), The Guardian, BBC Online; Joy Orbison has appeared on a multitude of hot tips for 2010 lists and has enjoyed rave reviews for his gifted combination of grime, dance hall and drum and bass, which are amongst some of the genres he effortlessly produces tracks that rhythmically transcend the previously unchartered territory between dubstep, garage and House. Incorporating the sounds of acts like My Bloody Valentine, Josef K and The Beach Boys he creates emotional electro music for the dance floor.

“Lovingly crafted late night evolution of house and UK garage with soft bass, hypnotic home-made percussion and distant chopped up vocals” – BBC Online

Prepare yourself as this is one gig worth getting there early for to catch this rising star in an intimate and unique setting before the rest of the world jumps on the Joy Orbison band wagon!

Joy Orbison will be supported as ever by the Archive residents, Andy Mac and Cosmic Boogie.

I have included below for your listening pleasure a mix I found on the web from Joy Orbison, and its absolutely brilliant ( with the fact that it has one of my favorite ever tracks in Alicia Myers – I Want To Thank You). I dont know were it came from or who it was originally for but I give them all the credit necessary…

Full Tracklisting

Thriller – Genie
Floating Points – Love Me Like This
C.O.M.B.I. – It A Late
Eddie C – Make It Better
The Revenge – Night Flight
B.W.H. – Stop
James Pants – We’re Through
Alicia Meyers – I Want To Thank You
Fudge Fingas – DinsDins4Dada
Bumblebee Unlimited – Lovebug (DK Edit)
Arthur Russell – Hop On Down
Nite Jewel – Weak For Me
The Samps – Traincummings…..
C.B. Funk – Subway To Cologne
Kate Bush – Cloudbusting

So at last I am finally fulfilling the promise of new content and new mixes. Here is the second of three mixes I have to go up (and in fact just got sent another this morning – joy), and this one is from Brighton resident Local Zero. I first became aware of Local Zero after a few people I know favorited mixes on the soundcloud account, and then had a listen myself (whilst beavering away making the millions of pounds I earn each day grafting). I met the man himself when I was down spinning in Brighton, and asked him for a mix. This is the product of that ask.

Im sure you agree, any mix that ends with the Eddie Kendrick’s Date With The Rain has a place right here on CB.

Full Tracklisting

Coffee / Casanova (Redsoul Edit)
Disco Very / Get It On (Todd Terje Re-Edit)
6th Borough Project / Planets (The Revenge Lost Groove)
Gwen McRae / Keep The Fire Burning (The Revenge Rework)
Trus’Me / Narda
Linkwood / Chicago (part two)
A.N.D.Y. & Vincenzo / Skin Flick Funk
Jackie Moore / This Time Baby (Redsoul Edit)
Eddie Kendricks / Goin’ Up In Smoke (Super Value Edit)
Sound Stream / Soul Train
KZA / On&On&On
Trus’Me / In The Red
League Unlimited Orchestra / Things That Dreams Are Made Of
Eddie Kendricks / Rain (Special Disco Version)

I promised you three new mixes, and three new mixes you will have. The first one on the list is this from Emma – an hour long journey though deep house with jacking disco strands. Emma came to play at Archive for us a month or so ago and didn’t get anything like long enough, so hopefully this makes up for it somewhat. She will be playing again for us in the future as long as she remembers her way back to the North West, after the soon arriving exodus to the bright lights…

Full Tracklisting

pal joey – here it is / loop d’loop
nebraska – a weekend on my own / rush hour
dj sprinkles – house music is controllable desire you can own / mule musiq
philip lauer – handcuffs / separe recordings
rick wilhite – what do you see / rush hour
motor city drum ensemble – got it / prime numbers
wbeeza – candle groove / third ear
the revenge – forever in their debt / home taping is killing music
shimmy sham sham #002 – track 1
gene farris – the spirit / farris wheel recordings

Its been a while since I did an update, mostly because I am a useless bastard. So this week will see three – thats right, three new mixes from people I have met on my travels of late, all the different shades of disco and house represented of course. Tonight though its my turn, with a mix on Galaxy Radio going out sometime between the hours of 2am and 6am. You can find out more details at the Galaxy Radio website.

For those of you who are not going to be up in Manchester at that time, the whole show will be available from David Dunne’s Mixcloud account as of Monday. Win.

Id like to thank David for asking me to do this, with the likes of Greg Wilson, Joey Negro and the Disco Outcasts regular guests, it really is an honour.

UPDATE: Now that the show has been on, you can catch the full thing on Davids Nu Cool Mixcloud account (link mentioned above), or you can stream it from my mixcloud account as well:

http://www.mixcloud.com/cosmicboogie/cosmic-boogie-the-galaxy-mix/

Full Tracklisting

Mikki / Itching For Love (Unreleased Sergio Muzabai M&M Mix)
Curtis Mayfield / Love me, Love me now
Fatback / Keep On Steppin’ (The Noodleman Couch Kung Fu Dub)
Advance / Take Me To The Top
The Chimes / Heaven (Adam Wilson Heavy Club Refix)
Banbarra / Shack Up (The Revenge Edit)
Eddie Tour / Rigor Mortis
Legacy / I’m So Glad
Messengers / First Left
Red Rack’em / Place For Me
Visual / Music Got Me (DT Ruff Edit)
Greymatter / Seventh Disco
Session Victim / The Keyboarder

THE REVENGE
EMMA
ANDY MAC
COSMIC BOOGIE

9pm-4am
£5 adv / more on the door…

@ LEAF TEA SHOP AND BAR
25 PARLIAMENT STREET, LIVERPOOL

Skiddle: http://www.skiddle.com/events/11352247/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#/event.php?eid=242181796703

Archive welcome THE REVENGE and EMMA to Liverpool for what is the first of a great line of parties in 2010.

The Revenge began producing in his early teenage years, making a skewed blend of electronic music using a couple of his dad’s old drum machines and a sampler. Influenced by his parents collection of rock, soul and funk aswell as eighties daytime radio and the burgeoning rave scene, he began the process of dissecting and re-imagining the music.

Productions for his own labels Instruments Of Rapture, Five20East and his DJ edits for L.E.S.S. Productions have had across-the-board support from scene heavyweights including Danny Krivit, Jimpster, Radio Slave, Prins Thomas, Fabrice Lig, Todd Terje, The Unabombers, Karizma, SWAG, Dan Ghenacia, Gilles Peterson, Ashley Beedle, Domu, Kissy Sellout, Joe Claussell, Stuart Patterson, Atjazz, Bill Brewster, Phil Asher, Tim Sweeney and more.

Emma has shared booths with some of her heroes, such as Green Velvet, Andrew Weatherall, Etienne De Crecy, Justin Robertson, Stacey Pullen, Cassius and The Idjut Boys. She has played across the UK and beyond, including Fabric, The End, Lowlife & The Warehouse Project. Several trips to New York took in sets at Manhattan hotspot APT and the Music Gallery. Russia and Croatia followed, with peak-time slots at both the Garden Festival and the Electric Elephant last year, returning in 2010.

Her vinyl-only sets traverse the sublime across the deeper end of the house, disco and techno spectrums, always crafted around a solid 4/4 heartbeat.

Supporting The Revenge and Emma will be the Archive residents, Andy Mac and Cosmic Boogie. The Revenge, being the nice chap that he is, took some time out to answer questions for us ahead of his trip to Liverpool…

2009 – the year of The Revenge? Or have you got more up your sleeve for this year…

“I’ve got a very long sleeve so there’s more to come.”

What was the biggest part of last year for you?

“The whole year was a bit of a blur to be honest – it’s been a rollercoaster so far.”

Do you think the disco remergance and the deep house scene are starting to knit together?

“Disco is the foundation of House + Techno so all have featured in my sets over the years. I’ve never really made a distinction – good music is good music.”

And who are the people to watch, house or disco, in 2010?

“I’ll put my money on Deep Space Orchestra this year + my mate Ali who does the OOFT stuff with me – he’s been knocking out some heavy jams.”

6th Borough Project has arguably been as big as the solo production of the revenge in the last 12 months – you plan to keep the two different projects rolling?

“6th Borough Project is a collab with Craig Smith and we’ve worked together for 10 years so there’s no plans to stop. It’s too much fun!”

And will we ever see a 6th Boro live show maybe?

“No live show planned – we’re gonna do a few one-off DJ appearances together this year doing longer sets (4/5 hours).”

Edits, reworks, re-versions eh? Not needed, overbloated scene, and all that. Discuss.

“Edits have been around for longer than I’ve been alive and will always be part of this scene. My view has always been that It’s a way for DJs to re-interpret tracks they love and fit them into their sets – not a way to make money.”

Why does scotland have such strong ties with disco and great house music? The list is endless…

“We’ve got hidden heroes like Harri, Craig Smith, Funky Transport, Barry Reeves, Mash up here who have been the foundation of scenes in different cities and who have nurtured upcoming talent. We’ve also got internationally recognised clubs and shops like the Sub Club, Pressure, Rub-A-Dub records who all have a strong connection with Chicago + Detroit.”

Finally, with digital djing systems all the rage at the moment, what are your favourite crisps?

“Has to be spring onion Tudor … think they stopped making them in the 1980′s though so I’d avoid opening a bag if you see them.”

So there you go – The Revenge – great producer, fantastic DJ, absolutely rubbish taste in crisps. If that’s not all good enough for you, then here are 4 latest mixes from everyone involved. Enjoy…

Following on with the cut down versions of the amazing Red Bull Music Academy videos for the countdown to the event kicking off in London this year, here is the American/Sheffield disco house legend that is Maurice Fulton. We had him up to play archive last year and he was amazing, as ever. In this video you see the mans thought process laid out on the table as he lays down a groove. Useful, and fascinating.

The academy kicks off in February, and so far the pick of the events is this bad boy. How good does that sound?

I wish I could skate.