I think of this mix as the evil little child born in Amsterdam during the freaky time of Halloween.
Another travel with Pacemaker mix, this time flying to Amsterdam for a conference over Halloween. It coincides with me djing at a Halloween party just a few days earlier. I started with MK’s thriller and decided it was a great starter for the mix on the plane following.
Originally the mix was a bit longer but I did it again on the plane back and recorded it live using an external recorder. Its likely I could have done it with the Pacemaker device’s own built in recorder but as I was using a later firmware, decided to play it safe.
I have to say, I do love this mix. Its punchy, energy and full of highs. Its even got some songs to sing along to, which my partner would enjoy.
I had the joy of going to Utrecht in the Netherlands for a Storyjam. On that plane ride I started a mix, which I thought was good. Then did it again during of the nights in the Airbnb recording it live to my external recorder. It was good but then on the plane ride back I let rip and the results is what you hear in the 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
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.
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.
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…
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.
Its a return to Lisbon’s Martim Moniz after the heightsof Lisbon mix, always reminds me of how the square is being used by many different people. I learned the old city wall runs right through it and its interesting to sit and watch the different people come, go and gather.
Bit of a moody mix during a lovely holiday in Lisbon but its winter so wasn’t as warm. Leaning on the tech trance side, this mix has a large number of new tunes and some bold choices with the crossfader, which I kept in. Its a mix which gets you bopping that head up and down with some excellent tunes.
With the death of Maxi Jazz from the popular group Faithless, I had to do a mix in honour of his life & death. I mean what a voice and what incredible iconic songs. Who has not sung the lyrics of Insomnia at some point in the last 15 years? Its a song I have started with a few times and still find stunning when played nice and loud.
Although short and compact, I found the best 3 versions of Faithless songs in my collection and added tunes which fitted with the mode & tempo. Stress test made another show, as it is a tune!
I have been doing mixes in the car for my partner while she drives. Its one of the big advantages of the pacemaker device. Plugin the audio jack and you can DJ almost anywhere. My partner prefers vocal tunes to my usual style of tech trance, so I now have a case of vocal trance tunes. On top of this was a visit to the world’s first dance music museum with my good DJ friend Dirty Si.
So with all this in mind, here is my new mix recorded while going to Amsterdam recently for my lovely partner. The mix shifts along at a nice 135 bpm, is short (due to the flight to Amsterdam) but is full of hands in the air moments. Enjoy!
Tears from the moon (Tiesto’s in search of sunrise remix) – Conjure one Feat. Sarah O’connor
Drifting away (Large sunset dub) – Large Feat. Skye
Talk to me (Orjan Nelison Trance mix) – John O’Callaghan and Timmy & Tommy
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
However one thing, I didn’t enable record on the Pacemaker device. It was kind of gutting because it was a good set and 90mins got extended to 2hrs, even with the mixer power supply getting overloaded half way through.
Because of the lack of recording, I remembered most of the tracks I played including the starting tune (Stella) and the last one (Anahera), I did a remix of the night also on the Pacemaker device.
Its good mix with some pace and sums up that amazing night after midnight in the laserΒ & smoke filled null sector.
The lovely picture of EMF Camp 2022 from the Null Sector complete with lazers!
I have always wanted to go to Burning man but don’t think I could ever do it due to the extreme heat. I remember hearing about a similar type event in the Netherlands (what the hack) ages ago then soon afterwards Electromagnetic Field in the UK.
EMFCamp is hacker conference over 3 days in glorious sunshine complete with power and wifi to your own tent. In theory it sounds amazing right? Well it is but for a city boy like me, its less appealing. However this year I put in a free 2hour workshop around Adaptive Podcasting and it was accepted. I had planned to stay in a hotel and go back and forth with my scooter (although I didn’t really fancy those country lanes in the dark.
However my wonderful partner suggested going together and somewhat glamping in her huge tent. On top of this we had a bunch of friends coming from Manchester, so we created a mini village together. This with fridges, BBQs, power and amazing wifi made my festival/camping experience well worth it. Can’t imagine doing it any other way now.
Glamping it up with my beautiful partner
I’ll be honest we packed too much and the second tent was useful for our bags, duplicate items and things we didn’t need.Β If it wasn’t for my partner and friends it likely would have been a completely different experience.
Because of this I had a great time. Everywhere I went I bumped into old friends from all over – going way back to my time in London and the many conferences I went to during the BBC Backstage days. It was a total blast and I’m sorry to anyone I missed.
So much talking and socialising, I didn’t get much time to join the talks and workshops. However I did attend a few including one about trackers (music mod trackers), although with my Ubuntu Dell XPS slightly broken at the moment (it doesn’t know any of the onboard devices including the keyboard unless plugged in) it was going to be a big hassle installing an Amiga emulator on my Chromebook just to run Protracker. Instead I spent time trying to find a Android app, then blowing away my Debian setup on the Chromebook and starting again (for some reason I couldn’t sudo at all). Once I got that working, I ran the incredible Fasttracker2 and Milkytracker.
We also got to see Interstellar on the big screen again, although I really wished I brought my sock hat and gloves! But the Q&A with the SFX artist was great, even if the question I wanted to ask might have spoiled the film for others (of course I didn’t ask it). I think the assumption was that everyone had seen it but the moderator asked and lots of hands were raised saying they had not seen it before, including my partner.
I do have to say my biggest highlight was djing live in the null sector. I followed a DJ on a laptop playing hard house till midnight so the BPM was high but I started with the classic Stella and the shock to the dancefloor was self-evident. So I threw together some tech trance and kept the BPM about 135-ish. Unfortunately I forgot to record the pacemaker set as I was messing around with the mixer and trying to make the transition smooth.
Djing live with the Pacemaker device at EMF Camp 2022
The slot was the last one of the night (0000-0130) and it was about 0115 when I asked how long I got left. He replied well legally we need to stop at 0200. So I played for 2 hours-ish… I say-ish because there was 4 mins when the electricity to the mixer was over loaded and people were trying to fix it. Also I had planned 90mins and was absolutely bursting for the toilet. Unlike a club where the toilets are only a few minutes away and most DJs would stick on a longer track (in my case 11mins of Acid Trax might have worked in retrospect) I knew the toilets were outside in the camp site somewhere. So at 0156 from the end, I faded down Ferry Corsten’s Anahera (only the very end). Although the crowd shouted one more – one more. Packed up quickly and make a quick exit.
Loved every moment of it and lots of people wondering what on earth the pacemaker was… Its 15 years old and still going strong!
EMF Camp was great generally, even for a city boy like me. There were some interesting situations but as a whole it was great with good people, good facilities and a wonderful partner to explore something new with too. As EMF is once every 2 years, its very likely I may go back.
Massive thanks to everyone and the massive amount of volunteers which make the whole festival work. I’ll be back but not too soon…
Found on a wall in the Northern Quarter of Manchester, modified by me
My first new mix for 2022 and it comes at a time as Covid19 variant Omnicron has come, peaked and is likely going to move us things from Pandemic to Endemic? Who knows…? Lets hope!
Regardless of this all, I was thinking about the incredible people who helped us all through the pandemic and kind of been forgotten, while also flicking through the new book dictionary of obscure sorrows. I came across the incidental contact high, which is described as “a innocuous touch by someone just doing their job, that you find more meaningful that you’d like to admit.”
Anyway, its really good mix with lots of new tunes, a bit of pace (134bpm-ish) and a good feeling throughout. I’m loving Protoculture’s Music is more than mathematics and the unique remix of Shnorkel.
