Accurate and hilarious!

Until Abelton Live came out, nearly every DAW was pretty much the same. With the advent of Performance Mode, Abelton successfully created an intuitive way to blur the lines between performance and recording.

Lots of DAWs have tried to jump on the bandwagon, and many have rolled out their own versions, but the best of those have just ripped off what Abelton was doing. No other DAW has ever given me a reason to even consider switching…. until now (but I’m not switching yet).

FL studio’s Performance Mode is finally something different (kind of – really it just emulates the Monome). Users can now go from the playlist directly into performance triggering. Instead of flipping the grid like in Ableton, the screen is simply chopped up – smart and fast.

While you could easily set this up in Abelton with follow actions (if you rotate the launchpad 90 degrees) it would take a long time, this can be set up in 30 seconds.

I’m just hoping Abelton implements something like this into Abelton 9, FL’s interface is hideous.

Our system of law doesn’t acknowledge the derivative nature of creativity. Instead, ideas are regarded as property, as unique and original lots with distinct boundaries. But ideas aren’t so tidy. They’re layered, they’re interwoven, they’re tangled. And when the system conflicts with the reality… the system starts to fail.

On January, 28th; 2012 I gave a live performance/talk on the history of New Orleans Bounce music.

A fully annotated video and audio clip will be here as soon as it’s ready, in the mean time, here are some resources:

Timeline of Bounce Music

Wonderful Oral History – Where They At

Bounce Nights in Portland:

Buck and Bounce 

Booty Basement

Artist I’m playing: Gotty Boi Chris, 5th Ward Webbie, The Showboys, Cameron Paul, Derek B, Gregory D and DJ Mannie Fresh, DJ Jimi, MC Tucker and DJ Irv, Mia X, Cheeky Blakk, The Hot Boys, Juvenile, Katey Red, David Banner, Big Ramp, E-Mynd, Aloe Blacc, Big Freedia, DJ Invisiboy

I’ll be speaking about and playing the history of Bounce at Research Club this Sunday, January 29th.

Listeners of my music will note my love and reliance on hyper-regional dance genres (b-more and philly club, juke, bounce music) and thus I’ve begun a series of educational talks about these movements, starting with my favorite, bounce!

Sunday, January 29th; 2012 at Noon; Free

Collective Agency!, 322 NW Sixth, Suite 200

I’m a big fan of IK products. I’ve been a loyal T-Racks user for years, and love playing with Amplitube. Their products have always promised high quality audio, (not to mention high CPU demand,) and their interfaces have always been well thought out, and intuitive.

Lately they’ve been making forays into the iOS world, but I was still surprised when they announced the iRig this morning, as it’s their first foray into DJ gear.

While I still call bull shit on DJing on iPads and iPhones – I have to admit that this is the first app I’ve seen that allows Cue-ing and all of the super-basic things a bar DJ needs.

You could actually play a gig with this. (Not that you should).

Key to the viability of this product is that they didn’t ignore real faders and cue control – which is the main thing real DJs need. No one watches their faders when mixing – we use our ears.

But they also developed X-Sync which allows jerk-offs with no talent to let their devices beatmatch for them – sure to be a big hit with the noob that steals your gig this summer by playing for drinks.

You can actually use this mixer/controller as a mixer too – which is very cool. It’s nice to know that two years from now when the device/apps are no longer supported you might be able to use this for something besides a paperweight.

For more information, check go to IK.

A Mashup feat: The Miracles Club, YACHT, and Wonderus

Miracles Club tore up Holocene on New Years Eve. Their remix of YACHT’s Utopia had such a cool vibe and I wanted to mash it up so I made this simple mashup. Houston Rap meets Neo-Retro Chicago House.

Listeners are the #1 way my music spreads, if you like this consider Sharing

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This is totally what it’s like here. Guilty as charged.

Beatport just launched a free for now iPad application called Mashbox.

Using a “cutesy” analog-ish UI – users can load in loop packs, at about $1.99 per pack, and then mute and un-mute tracks between two loop packs.

The loop packs are pre-separated by drums, percussion, bass, theme 1, theme 2, and sweetener, and the bpm can be adjusted.

Should mashup artists be worried? Nah – this is just a toy. I can’t picture enough people being interested in the app to fund the robust library that mashers need (re: everything recorded) – but it will no doubt be fun for amateur DJs and I can see some commercial opportunities for tie-ins by Glee Fans and the like.

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