So I woke up inspired, the morning of my show at Mighty with Boys Noize. I felt like i had to finish this track. I had ripped and eq’d the vocals a while ago along with sending audio to score in logic and creating the midi notes for the main loop. That morning I sat at my synth and pulled out the wobble line. I spent the rest of the day editing and getting as much done on it as I could. I ran it through a quick mastering and burned it to cd. I put it in the cd player in my car and drove to pick up Alex (Boys Noize) for dinner before the show. While we were driving Alex mentioned that the clap was a little thin and suggested that I should add a rimshot to fill it in. After dinner I went home and adjusted a few settings on the multipressor added the rimshot and re bounced the track.

I got to Mighty at about 9:30 cause I wanted to hang out with everyone that showed up early and to catch Sleazemore’s awesome set. At 11pm I went on to a completely sold out room. There was still a line of people outside the building waiting to get in. From there I just went into music performance mode. Time pretty much accelerates and stops at the same time. I get so lost in the sound and the movement I forget everything and just flow. I really love Djing for just that reason. There were moments when tracks would break down and then build and build and build and I could feel the intensity in the room rising and peoples hands would be in the air flickering in the strobe light like a sea of grass reaching for the surface of a sweaty ocean. In the moments before the bass would drop It felt like there might be a riot coming. Swell after swell, breaks that I usually pass over in the set became like life preservers that would let every one catch their breath before the next wave of bass. The explosions on the system at Mighty are intense. That sound system is literally 15 ft high on four corners of the room. Its massive but so friendly. The floor was so packed that everyone could only bounce. Carmen was dong a beautiful job with the visuals that we had been working on together for the last few days.

Before I knew it Boys Noize was on stage and getting ready for his incredible set. I had one more track to drop. Miike Snow’s animal. The one I had just finished that evening. The two tracks before were meant to start bringing the whole show out of orbit so Boys Noize would have a good place to start. The intro to this track is pretty unique and filled a lot of sound space in the mix. It felt like things were building back up. When the first rolling synth sound came in it was just a whole nother beast. The bass was enormous and the pause after the glitchy vocal intro worked. As soon as the vocals dropped and everyone recognized the song hundreds of people starting singing along. I looked down and saw this girl look like she was gonna start crying. I think I just fucked up her favorite song. I looped the outro and Boys Noize mixed right out of it. One of the most epic nights I’ve ever had. That’s the story of this track. Here are the photos that Al took of the night up on stage with us.

Tweet This Post

This is my newest work. Its a track for a Turbo Recordings remix contest. Check it out, you can leave comments right on the track. Love it.

Tweet This Post

Solid Gold Jacuzzi @ LovEvolution from carmen osterlye on Vimeo.

Tweet This Post

Tweet This Post

Deep in the heart of Brooklyn I found myself at a Haitian church. I walked through the door with the summer heat on my back into a florescent lit room filled with the smell of home fried chicken. Immediately my two friends and I were welcomed and found our place next to the girl that had invited us to church with her. Folding chairs were placed in rows and the reverends sat up front on an elevated stage. The lights flickered as they would do in the DMV. The pale florescents added no character to the room. I had nt been to church in a long time mostly due to rooms like this one. Ive always had trouble understanding how holyness could be beheld in such a not uplifting space. The Haitians taught me a valuable lesson.

One voice lifted softly. Another joined it and another and another. The songs found a natural harmony. Within a few minutes the singing put me in a trance and I watched the beautiful crystaline walls rise up and replace the pale yellow.The flickering of the lights seemed to be in time with the frequency of the song. I imagined that we could be anywhere. I suddenly understood how spirituality could survive under the darkest oppression. In the caves of the world became the cathedrals raised by the voices of the believers where traditions are passed on. Music can contain within it the bricks of a metaphysical architecture. People can use these bricks to build a space that shapes them and sets them free. This experience has become one of the reasons why I have chosen Djing as my career path. Good architecture sets people free.

I came back into the heat of day with an understanding of how to evaluate sound and architecture. I found a spot in NYC where when the traffic stands still you can hear the voices from blocks away. I found subway benches that if I hummed just right I could resonate the whole subway tunnel. My chosen profession has put me in many spaces in relation to the sound that I bring to fill the space and the people who come to them and I have thought about what makes one club better than another. One night of experiences more memorable than another. I have come to believe that there are three basic elements to a memorable night out. Its a synergistic trinity between the people, the DJ and the architecture of the club or venue. I have played some very unique spaces from forests to hay bale mazes to the modern architecture of international hotels. At this point I have learned that there is a resonance between all of these that have made some memorable and others not so much.

Just like a Haitian church, a night club is made out of sound. Just as a single note forms a point in a song, songs can form points in time that are either memorable or not. A DJ builds a set of these songs in the same way that a craftsman builds a foundation. This means that the more resolved the sound system the more accurate the designs and intentions of the DJ can be heard and understood. A Dj makes meaning through the soundscape he weaves. The audience can be shaped by the architecture of the sound and transformed into an unified whole. This unification becomes an experience that the audience can bring with them into daily life and can use it to evaluate the environment around them. Does the environment promote the harmony that was experienced or does it detract from the sense of wholeness. A good DJ attempts to impart this.

Tweet This Post

Click here to read the full story. You can also check out Nisus’ new Portable Sunsets remix BDSM With Me here.

Tweet This Post

Nisus @ Coachella 09 Heineken Dome part 5/5 from Rich DDT on Vimeo.

Tweet This Post

I found this while researching the tuning of bass drums.

I am soo fucking honored to be a DJ!!! Thank you for your support. This last year has been amazing. The next should be even better. D

Tweet This Post

I think what makes dance music production so hard- hard to do well that is- is that it is super elegant. It should be like good design where every part could stand on its own, but together the parts release a ton of light, like photography for your ears. You have to communicate incredibly complex thoughts in very simple emotional ways. I think that is why it is an amazing art form, becuase It’s resonating on two poles at the same time. It is super intellectual in its construction, but super primal in its execution. Hence why some people go to dance and others stand and listen.

Dance music is like an example of what the human brain does best; synthesize. Creativity is a synthesis of memory, experience, intention and knowing what tools are available. That’s probably why the synth as a tool has stuck to dance music. We love sysnthisizing patterns and organization, its inherently one of the highest forms of cognition we have daily access to, and also the reason drugs work so well in that sound environment. Creativity is really a drug. Martin Atkins in his book Tour Smart has a chapter on drugs and says basicly “…do drugs while you are creating not performing.” He is saying that creating is difficult and you need to enhance your synthisis.

I am learning what tools are available and developing the ability to use them. My monitors are like a microscope, i’ve been disecting peoples’ tracks and then attempting to put the concepts to work in my own. Its has taken me 8 months to get the bass wave that I want. Now I have a template built that I can apply to all of my tracks and I understand what makes a bass wave everything that it is. Twelve elements make it sound amazing on its own even! There is a lot of learning in there. Which means that it will get sidechained in the composition because it needs it’s room and space. When it does, it will be there sitting like a diamond and just as valuable.

Now to place it…….yup

Tweet This Post

Tweet This Post