dj – Cubicgarden.com…

Never fading to grey mix

Man standing on a platform in the distance as a storm gathers around him — One man on a lonely platform

I recently got some new tunes mainly for the party mix I last shared. While checking out a number of new tunes, I discovered the amazing Tell nobody by Basil O’Glue and instantly thought this driving tune is tech trance at its best. I needed to mix it along side Follow Me (Jerome Isma-Ae Extended Remix) by Jam & Spoon.

Of course Tell nobody is just one of a few new tunes in this mix, expect them to pop in future mix for sure.

I recorded this mix on a very long train journey in the UK and it includes all the subtle crossfader mistakes. However this is one heck of a mix and it will get much better as I learn the new tunes.

Enjoy!

Listen on peertube or on my personal mixgarden.

The tunes used…

Fade To Grey (Moreno J Remix) – Visage
Rhienkraft (Full original mix) – Oliver Klien
Melodemon (Extended Mix) – Mrphlindr
Turkish Bizarre (DBA Remix) – Art Of Trance vs POB
Tell Nobody – Basil O’Glue
Running up the hill (Jerome isma-ae bootleg) – Placebo
Follow Me (Jerome Isma-Ae Extended Remix) – Jam & Spoon
Aluminium (Extended Mix) – Robert Nickson
Tears (Protoculture Remix) – Dakota
Theme For Great Cities (Revisited & Extended Mix) – Paul Oakenfold
Energy Crash (Extended Mix) – Maarten de Jong
Interstellar (YORK’s Back In Time Extended Mix) – Torsten Stenzel
You’ve Got The love (Sonny Noto Remix) – Florence + The Machine
Anahera (extended mix) – Ferry Corsten presents Gouryella

R&D advisory and labs winter party dance to this mix (2024 edition)

I recorded this mix live on the Pacemaker device’s build in recorder/editor while mixing at our work end of year do. Its a little ropey in places but its all mixed live and with new tunes that I wouldn’t normally mix with. This is similar to the Amstels thriller chiller mix in some of the tunes.

As it goes out on Peertube, I need to mark it as explicit because it contains one swear word in the first tune – Animals (Christmas remix).

Some will enjoy this short mix, we only had 30 minutes to play and went over that even. But I certainly could redo it into something better, now I know the tunes more.

Listen on Peertube or my mixgarden

Is DriftDJ the new Pacemakerdevice?

Its my good friend Si who sent me a message saying simply this…

Pacemaker for the next generation?

Of course I checked it out and thought wow its almost exactly what I’ve been thinking about since the Pacemaker system has come to an end. Although the Pacemaker device (to which I have 3 or them) keeps going with some repairs and 3rd party upgrades.

Djing live with the Pacemaker device at EMF Camp 2022

I still love the Pacemaker device and its survived a long time but its reaching its end of life. There is only so much you can do without being able to hack around with the kernel or change the hardware. Its been a incredible piece of hardware and my bet on it in 2007 was absolutely the right decision.

Mixing live in Skopje

17 years later and over 500+ mixes later, including live performances and a ton of house parties. Its time make the jump? My only issue with the DriftDJ is the device doesn’t exactly exist right now. I did sign up for the beta programme, but not being in Chicago might be a big disadvantage?

Who knows it would be great to get my hands on it and see how far it could go? Be great to do a #DjHack around a new device!

Midsummers nights beach dream mix

I have been listening to my latest set of mixes and there is a selection of tunes which has gotten me rewinding and playing out loud. With this, I decided to create a mix using just those tunes with a few tweaks and some reordering. All done on the Pacemaker device as usual.

Planned and recorded while on holiday on the beach in the UK. Listen on peertube or in full quality on my mixgarden.

Turn it up loud!

The playlist…

Sacrosanct (Extended Mix) – Mark Sherry
Stresstest (John Askew Remix) – John O’callaghan
Killer Instinct – Sneijder & Bryan Kearney
Inferno – Carl Cox
Dolores – Indecent Noise
Energy Crash (Extended Mix) – Maarten de Jong
Stealth bomber (Chris schweizer remix) – Bryan Kearney
Erase – Brooks Alexsander
Whites Of Her Eyes – Simon Patterson
Silver Bath – Plastic Boy
Predator – Predator
Telescope – Will Atkinson

Isolation but not Inactive in Amsterdam mix

Amsterdam Nemo museum colourised with clouds — Nemo Amsterdam

Following on from my time in Berlin, came a number of conferences in Amsterdam. Between a number of excellent conferences, time in a theme park and lots of time on the Amsterdam metro system I caught Covid for the second time. Although not so bad as the first time, I isolated in a hotel room to avoid infecting others. I was very aware there was no need to self-isolate, I couldn’t bring myself to infect a number of people. Hence this mix a late entry into the locked down mixing out era of my mixes.

In between working, sleeping and watching a lot of media, I was able to craft and record this mix then redo it on the aggressive hour plane back to Manchester.

Recorded live and it leans on the Berlin Donnerwetter mix with another swift 136ish BPM plus a real interesting bag of old and new tunes. Originally longer but the hour flight set a better time of under a hour.

Enjoy here or on Peertube or in full quality on my mixgarden

Dark Side Of The Moon (RYDEX Extended remix) – Susana
Opium (Stan Kolev Remix) – Jerome Isma ae Alastor
Back to Earth (rave mix) – Yves Deruyter
Energy Crash (Extended Mix) – Maarten De Jong
Stealth bomber (Chris Schweizer remix) – Bryan Kearney
Erase – Brooks Alexsander
Silence (Jerome Isma-Ae Extended Remix) – D-Nox, Baya, LENN V
The Wave 2.0 (Extended Mix) – Cosmic Gate
Labyrinth (Paul Keyen Remix) – Lee Cassells
The Legacy 2.0 (Alphazone remix) – Funabashi pres. Saltwater
Headliner – Jorn Van Deynhoven
Home (Cosmic gate remix) – Paul van Dyk feat. Johnny McDaid

RD Xmas 2023 party remix

For Xmas, like many workplaces we have a staff party. I gatecrashed into my previous teams Manchester xmas party and put my name down for 30mins djing. However I didn’t record the mix but I did keep the playlist and so recreated it twice (2nd time for another work event).

I won’t lie, this is less trancy but is a killer mix or as others have said to me… its a banger!

I am moving my mixes to peertube rather than my mixgarden (1) & (2) for now.

Enjoy and remember to turn it up loud.

Thriller (Steve Aoki Midnight Hour Remix) – Michael Jackson
Punk – Ferry Corsten
Rock Your Body Rock (Mat Zo Extended Remix) – Ferry Corsten
Echoes – Henrik B, Niklas Gustavsson & Peter Johansson
Cafe Del Mar At Night (Beat Service’s Out Of Office Mashup) – Energy 52 Vs Shakedown
Who Freaked Who (Electric Soulside Remix) – Dopefish
Beat (Da Boxx) – Laurent Garnier
Turn It Up (Extended Mix) – Armin van Buuren
Freedom (Extended mix) – ARTY v Muvy
Proper Education (club mix) – Eric Prydz vs. Floyd

My mix garden on the move again, hello peertube!

I have been mixing away on the pacemaker device as usual. But noticed my mixgarden is having some troubles. I was using hyperaudio and webmonization to present my mixes. It was good however things changed over the last year.

Webmonization made a number of changes and hyperaudio seems to be slightly broken the configuration I currently have it in.

So with all this in mind and after looking at Peertube and Castopod, I decided to give peertube a try before running my own instance. Similar to what I had planned with Funkwhale a long time ago.

This has worked out well on rankett. Then I heard on podnews last week about music freediverse.

Music Freediverse is a new place for musicians to post their songs as an RSS feed, using PeerTube.

After a email with the sysadmin, about mixes and legality of them. They suggested I check out Split Kit if I have the metadata (which I do), this is something I looked into and now have a lightening address, which you can send sats to on my new mixgarden. I am also interested in the peer 2 peer tech

One of the good things about Peertube is the ability to sync videos over, which I took advantage of, it was a shame the metadata wasn’t copied over too but its fine, as I had it all.

In the short term I’ll keep using peertube but I have a plan to install a peertube instance myself and host it all locally. Then I could syndicate them out elsewhere. (Anyone can recommend a good docker container, do shout)

Another thing for the task list, but likely the best idea for now with lots of room to grow and expand.

Talking of which the next mix is a banger….

Sinead’s baroque troy mix

I recently put together a new pacemaker device mix for Sinead O’Connor. Its a short mix and quite deep in parts, but Sinead’s voice is the main point at the start and the end. Its recorded live using the later beta firmware.

Troy (push remix) – Sinead O’Connor
Please save me (push mix) – Push Vs. Sunscreem
Follow Me (Roger Shah Extended Deeper Translation Remix) – Jam & Spoon
Trick – Carlo Ruetz
Club Quake (Oliver Klein Hard remix) – 5 Below zero
Fiction (Extended Mix) – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
Panoramix – Laurent Garnier
Troy (push remix) – Sinead O’Connor

You can hear the whole mix at full quality on my mixgarden or on peertube.

Rest in peace Sinead…

New Pacemaker device mix: Knights of the new republic

Another recorded live mix due to the Pacemaker’s latest firmware. I was listening to some of my older mixes and the Knights of the old republic recorded while in another conference (republica in Berlin) stuck out to me. So I thought it was time for a redo as I was in Amsterdam at a similar conference (publicspaces).

Of course it includes the tune I’m still loving at the moment, Carl Cox’s Inferno and similar to the last mix, I decided to switch Blaze’s my beat to the Jan Driver remix. Which in my mind is a dance floor disputer.

As its recorded live with the loop feature, there is very few edits just a bit of normalisation.

You can listen to it on my mixgarden in full quality with Webmonitzation or peertube.

The playlist is here

Altern8 – Infiltrate 202
Miki Lutvak & Ido Ophir – Shnorkel (Thank you city remix)
Leftfield – Open up
Tomcraft – Happiness and Loneness
RAM – Grotesque (Alex MORPH & RAM mix)
Blaze – My Beat (Jan Driver mix)
Inferno – Carl Cox
Moogwai – The Labyrinth (part one)
The Prodigy – Charly
Floyd (Extended mix) – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
Home (Cosmic gate remix) – Paul Van Dyk Feat. Johnny Mcdaid

A beat that seems out of time (with the one you feel in the metronome of your mind) mix

Another mix using the Pacemaker device. However this time I have been experimenting with the later beta versions of the Pacemaker device firmware, which includes beat aware looping. It’s great but I find the native digital recording of the Pacemaker device unreliable when using it. I thought I had found the solution. But in the end I recorded the output directly using the analogue output.

The result is a completely unedited mix. Not quite as smooth with the cross fading but its just such a raw mix, I had to put it out.

First put together in Barcelona but the digital recording was all over the place, later I re-did the mix. This mix moves at a heavy pace and is fully of lovely progressive/tech beats with little lyrics. Perfect for hitting the treadmill, scooting down the motorway or what ever you fancy doing at a pace. Look out for the my beat into Inferno long mix, simply can’t stop bouncing my head to that section.

As always you can listen to it on my mixgarden or via peertube.

Here is the complete tracks used.

[00:00] Fall to Pieces – Jonas Steur feat. Jennifer Rene
[03:40] M.I.L.F. – Laurent Garnier
[08:35] My Beat (Ambassador extended remix) – Blaze
[11:10] Inferno – Carl Cox
[16:18] Interlinked – Thomas Schumacher
[23:02] Predator – Predator
[26:40] Fiction (Extended Mix) – Jerome Isma-Ae & Alastor
[31:04] Shnorkel (Thankyou City Remix) – Ido Ophir, Miki Litvak
[35:42] Pǝsnɟuoɔ (Confused) – Laurent Garnier

Let the lyrics do the talking mix

Utopia's street art of a young woman with roses — Utopia’s street art of a young woman with roses (C) Utopia

A special anniversary mix for my partner, partly following the hearts in the clouds of Amsterdam mix. She loves vocals, while I tend to focus on the beats & rhythm. Looking through my collection of tunes, I was surprised how few had vocals.

With this, I started thinking about a mix using them and following a holiday in Lisbon. Tweaked an initial mix a few times to make it a better listen overall. The result is a mix which moves along at a higher speed of about 138bpm, matching the higher vocal trance and is a gift to my loving partner.

Of course enjoyable by all those who love vocal trance…

Enjoy it on my mixgarden or via Peertube!

Loop travel isn’t helpful to me, at all!

Settings on the pacemaker device menu

I am still loving my DJ pacemaker device but stuck on the last official firmware for my main device (I have quite a few of them just incase). I always found I couldn’t guarantee the accuracy of the looping feature if I recorded on device, so didn’t use it unless playing live. I did a blog about this a while back.

However yesterday I happened to be doing a mix and it crashed with a 201 error, loosing my currently recording mix. Very annoyed I decided to look at the lack of space left on the device (7gig left) as I don’t actually know how much working spare space it actually needs to run?

Then I started looking at the settings, I noticed loop travel which I always turned on for some reason thinking it was something good.

Deactivate/activate loop travel
This setting disallows/allows loop in-point to push end-point and vice versa.

When in Mix mode, select Settings > Mix control > Loop travel >.

Toggle between Off/On by swiping right

Now to be fair in the early versions of the Pacemaker firmware, the looping was hit and miss but in later versions its not needed for me.

So I turned it off did a test mix and what do you know it looped perfectly when listening back in the editor!

All this time, I avoided looping unless playing live because of this. You can imagine how happy I was going to sleep. It also means I can upgrade the firmware to the latest and get the added features.

Wait for the next lot of mixes!!!

The interdimensional transmission mix

Communicating with space from the See Monster

Following the previous Pacemaker mix, I decided during a very long train journey to get the pacemaker out for some more trance. Using parts of the last few mixes, I decided to give the new mix some new direction.

The mix shifts along at a nice 136 bpm, complete with hands in the air moments and who couldn’t enjoy some stress test (hidden gem).

Enjoy!

You will notice there is no Mixcloud upload for this mix. Mainly because of the decisions of Mixcloud and being at my limit for a free account. Which means going to my mixgarden for future mixes.

Escape – Markus Schulz
Catch (Martin Roth remix) – Blank & Jones
Stresstest (John Askew remix) – John O’Callaghan
Tears (Protoculture remix) – Dakota
Arjan – Angelica S
Follow me (Jerome Isma-Ae Extended remix) – Jam & Spoon
Talk to me (Orjan Nilsen trance mix) – John O’Callaghan and Timmy & Tommy
Higher state – Kevin Crowley
Shnorkel (Thankyou city remix) – Ido Ophir & Miki Litvak
Running up the hill (Jerome Isma-ae bootleg mix) – Placebo
Eternal Horizon – Alex M.O.R.P.H
The Descent – Protoculture
Grotesque – RAM & Alex M.O.R.P.H

I saw it coming, changes to Mixcloud

Today there was a email from Mixcloud.com

Nico here, CEO and co-founder of Mixcloud. Today we’re announcing upcoming changes to Mixcloud:
From December 1st we’re introducing a maximum allowance of 10 published shows for creators on the basic tier.

Why is this happening?

We believe DJs and producers should be rewarded for the skill and creativity that goes into their work. That’s why for over 10 years we’ve subsidized hosting costs and built tools that enable creators to grow and earn money.

We also believe artists should be paid when their music is played. That’s why every show uploaded to Mixcloud is scanned by our content ID system. This enables us to identify the tunes being played and pay royalties to the artists who made them.

Unlike other platforms, we’ve spent years securing comprehensive licensing deals with the major and independent labels to ensure this money is paid to the right artists. We have shouldered these costs in order to create a fair music ecosystem.

Until now we’ve kept our basic tier uncapped. However, as we’ve grown our royalty and hosting costs have risen and we are not profitable. To continue running and improving Mixcloud we need to become more sustainable as a business, and Pro memberships help us cover our costs.

How will you be affected?

On 1st December all of your shows will remain published and available to listeners. But, if you want to make space for a new show, you will need to manually move shows into drafts until you are within the allowance or upgrade to Pro for unlimited published shows.

Fair point but I’m not totally convinced, as it wasn’t that long ago when rewind and track listing became not possible. It was clear to me that I needed to do something ahead of this all, hence why I setup my own webmix garden. I agree it would be great to pay the creators of the music, and using webmotization considered a way to do this.

Maybe this is where I part ways with Mixcloud? Its a shame but like all the people leaving Twitter due to Elon Musk. its just not suitable for me anymore.

I would still like to try that distributed payment pointer system and also explore the notion of distributed charts using DHTs, removing the need for huge amounts of centralised storage.

Follow me to the big trance sound of summer mix

During a recent holiday to Lisbon, I of course took my Pacemaker Device to create a brand new mix. This time, I went very trancey. Maybe it was the incredible sunshine, the fun of exploring Lisbon or just being in Europe again?

Whatever it was this mix is a much more pacey 135bpm and frankly kicks those tired legs with some force. I’d say this is a excellent mix and full of hands in the air moments. Its also full of new tracks alongside some old classics.

Blood Angels (Chris Liebing mix) – John Starlight
Catch (Martin Roth remix) – Blank & Jones
Humming the lights – Armin Van Buuren & Gaia
Venture (Nifra Extended remix) – Super8 & Tab
Music is more than mathematics (Extended mix) – Protoculture
Communication (Tomas Heredia remix) – Armin van Buuren
Megalodon – MaRLo
End transmission – ReDrive & Patrick Blanes
Ecstasy – Eddie Makabi feat. Einat
Wonder of Life (F&W remix) – Tukan
Stresstest (John Askew remix) – John O’Callaghan
Airtight (Extended mix) – Rafael Osmo
We are one (Instrumental mix) – Dave202
Arjan – Angelica S
Valhalla (After future remix) – OneBeat
Madagascar (Domi-Nation remix) – Art of Trance

Available in full on my webmix garden and mixcloud if you prefer…