This one I have been listening to on and off for the last few weeks on my phone as I wonder around Manchester. Lots of new tunes and a less hectic pace of about 135bpm, but plenty of hands in the air moments and smooth mixing.
I also added chapter marks to give you can idea of what was influencing my tune selections.
Enjoy!
Perpetual Motion – Protoculture
Hold that sucker down (Jerome Isma-Ae’s 10 year anniversary mix) – Jerome Isma-Ae
Running up the hill – (Jerome Isma-Ae bootleg) – Placebo
Humming the lights – Armin van Buuren pres. Gaia
Shelter (Photographer remix) – Dash Berlin feat. Roxanne Emery
Hello (Jerome Isma-Ae Remix) – Above & Beyond
Whites Of Her Eyes – Simon Patterson
Stellar – Driftmoon
Brush Strokes – Simon Patterson
Imagineer (Alex M.O.R.P.H remix) – Lange
Seven Cities (V-One’s Living Cities remix) – Solar Stone
Its the June 2nd and its about the time I could barely talk (due to a trach) but my memory was less hazy and I can remember much more. My sister tried to create a communication board, so I could communicate without saying the word. It was pretty frustrating and too be fair i did tell her. I did feel bad about it, as she really trying to help. I remember writing, this is stupid and there has to be a better way… Luckily I didn’t need to wait long before I could talk again.
Ross and Carly came and saw me a few times and certainly helped with the healing process, by making me laugh and cough a lot. I think I remember Adrian seeing me at one point too, he gave me the printed information on Google IO 2010 and the much talked about Google TV.
This about the time when I started going a little stir crazy, as it was ICU, you were not allowed to plug anything into the wall. My saving grace was my old kindle full with ebooks which I meant to read at some point. I also had enough of the woman next to me with her kicking action to get attention. I must have read about 10 or so books while I was in ICU, unfortunately lights out was 8pm and I didn’t have the paperwhite kindle at the time.
My parents did offer to bring my laptop but I originally said no (believe it or not!). They did bring my pacemaker which I had a hard time re-learning in the first hour but gave rise to a number of mixes later.
Not being able to get out of bed was a real pain, even when I could actually stand. The nurses wouldn’t let me go to the toilet alone and it wasn’t till I pretty much pleaded with a male night nurse to please let me use the normal toilet so I could have some privacy. I finally was happy again. Privacy is something while going to the loo is something I certainly like and the doctors did wonder if my body was operating correctly.
Hospital food is pretty bad but try having complan as your main supply of food, by this point I only had to survive a day or two on it before than it was via the drip in my nose. Food via a drip was weird and interesting especially when you are fully aware of whats actually happening.
The last thing I certainly do remember is the injections of Anticoagulants better known as Warfarin. It was either have it in the arm or in the stomach. Don’t ask me why remember I hadn’t had hypontherapy yet, but I decided the stomach was best because I couldn’t move it and have it scratch and theres quite a bit of fatty tissue… It was painful but honestly it wasn’t as bad as in the arm. Having every day got me slightly use to it but any chance I could avoid it, I did. Unfortunately it would only work for a short while before they would hunt me down for another fix!
Ian had a very good day today! He was able to stand for the nurses and was out of bed sitting in a chair for most of the day. He was smiling a lot and laughing at jokes (which is helping to clear his chest).His breathing is continuing to improve and we hope the trach tube will be removed soon so he’ll be able to speak.
Hi everyone,Ian is progressing well. He is breathing with very little help now. They are thinking of transferring him out from ICU to a High Dependency Unit tomorrow.
Ian’s dad, sister and I have been back in Manchester with him since yesterday afternoon.The trach tube had to be resited and Ian is still having some ventilation through that just until his breathing improves. They are reducing use of it and he is mostly breathing on his own.Ian’s sister has been reading him messages from the guestbook which are much appreciated. However, at the moment we would still like visitors to be limited to family. Ian is having ups and downs in his recovery, but on the whole is improving. We want to make sure he rests and does not get frustrated with not being able to speak (this is temporary due to the trach tube). He is communicating with us by blinking, nodding and occasionally writing, and he does understand everything that is going on.
Ian’s ventilator was removed again this morning. To avoid having the ventilator back in, he has had a tracheotomy to help him breathe. This is just a temporary measure until his breathing is stabilised. The drain has been removed from his head, so now it is just the feeding tube in his nose.He indicated he was in pain due to having the tracheotomy, so he has had some medication to help with that.I have travelled to Bristol this evening, but will drive back to Manchester with Ian’s dad on Saturday morning. Ian’s sister will also be back up to see him on Saturday.More cards arrived for Ian today and they are all being stuck up to the wall near his bed. Thanks to everyone for all the get well messages.
A long time ago (6 years ago) I did a mix called the impossible wall of trance mix. It was a good mix but was plagued by mix problems, which I couldn’t understand.
I have no idea what happened in the first 2 mixes. Honestly the mixes were dead on, I was playing it loud out of my amp and if it was that off trust me I would have heard it. Anyway, rather that try and fix it, I’ve left it in because the whole set is a excellent one. There seems to be a bug with the pacemaker or something because after those two mixes everything pans out perfect. Anyway let the mix do the talking, just remember to skip the first two mixes.
Now I understand a little more what could be going on thanks to me playing with the pacemaker beta firmwares. I rolled back my pacemaker firmware to the last known official version and lost some features including the beat aware looping (shame!) but now can record exactly what I hear.
Because of this, I redid the impossible wall of trance which one of the first mixes where I identified the problem/bug. As its a new mix, I threw some old tunes out and replaced them with new stuff. The bulk of the mix is still there however. I did have a better ending but I had to cut it short, as we were landing and things needed to be put away.
Its another mix from my new pacemaker. This one is a combination of the mixes I was doing to test the firmware downgrades and upgrades of my new and old pacemaker. Its a nice selection of tunes and I have been throwing this around on my phone for about a month. Slight issues with file encoding caused me delays in uploading it. Have a listen and don’t forget to share… because sharing is caring…
3rd earth – solar stone vs scott bond
Ninety – Sander Van Doorm
Voices from the inside (album mix) – M.I.K.E
Intruder – Armin vs M.I.K.E
One for you (oliver klein remix) – Oliver Klien
Seven days and one week (tomcraft mix) – B.B.E
Brush Stokes – Simon Patterson
Blood Angels (chris liebing remix) – John Startlight
Stellar (TV Noise remix) – Daddy Groove
Rewind (Mikkas Remix) – Emma Hewitt
The Expedition (Indecent noise remix) – Armin van buuren and markus schulz
I’ve been pushing for the future of Djing for years and I thank Mozilla Fest for letting me run something a while ago. One of the outcomes was stem based djing, we called it 8 track. I always felt like we were just scratching the surface and there were many other scenarios which needed to be explored. I especially like the quantified club. I wonder about the line up, it seems very singles music driven rather than looking at mixing/djing. I do wish Mixcloud, Pacemaker and Mixxx were all coming along too!
I’ve had a problem in the past with the recording mixes on the actual pacemaker using the new but unofficial firmwares.People on the pacemaker forum suggested it might be the fact I’m running Ubuntu and using mainly wine windows emulator or virtual machine technology. I was never really convinced by this argument to tell the truth but couldn’t be sure. So I would use the analogue output to record mixes with my laptop.
Pretty much all the new mixes in the last few years were done this way. I generally would record the mix on the pacemaker along with the output, making the track-listing easier to put in Mixcloud.
I recently bought a second-hand Pacemaker running the last official firmware 1.4. I tried doing a mix and as you can hear, its flawless in recording. This puts me in a bit of dilemma.
The feature I love the most about the new unofficial firmware is the snap loops, meaning you can just loop with no effort. In the very latest, you can even adjust how big the loops are. I will miss that feature but the ability to record on the go is fantastic and I’ve missed it for a long while.
I’m going to look at the differences in the filesystem and SQLlite DB to see if that reveals something obvious.
Little update….
I installed the old firmware on my old pacemaker and did a mix. As you can hear its pretty much working as it should recording the mix (its not perfect as I was walking and on the tram).
This is a special mix… It was requested by Oli Wood the approachable geek, as he wanted something for his new car which he would be picking up from North Wales somewhere and driving back to Newcastle. I created a mix straight away but wasn’t happy with the overall tune selection, so created another one the night after. This is that mix. Enjoy it Oli, and make sure you have it nice and loud!
Sinister – Airbase
Smack – Simon Patterson
Sister sister – Sister Bliss
Peace – Yves Deruyter
Take me away (into the night) – 4 Strings
Megalodon – Dash Berlin
GamesMaster (matt darey 2003 mix) – Lost Tribe
Time (sean tyas remix) – Paul Webster feat. Angelic Amanda
Time for another one of my mixes, done with the Pacemaker Device rather than the Pacemaker App. Still loving the device and this mix is a slower mix at 135bpm over the usual 140. A few brand new tunes mixed with some older classics. Nice beat friendly mix with plenty to keep you going on those long drives in the mountains.
Tracklist is below…
Breathe (Blake Jarrell Remix) by Anna Nalick
Take me away into the night (purple haze remix) by 4 strings
Humming the lights (radio edit) by Armin van Buuren, Gaia
Stella – Ferry Corsten vs Markus Schulz
The Evil ID – Max Graham
The Spring – Ernesto and Alex Fisher
Orbion (Max Graham vs Protoculture Remix) – Armin Van Buuren
3rd Earth (heatbeat remix) – Solarstone vs Scott Bond
Megalodon – Dash Berlin
Attention – John 00 Fleming Vs Christopher Lawrence
The Storm – Eco
Sundown (Sneijder remix) – Thomas Bronzwaer
Rainmaker – Des mcmahon
Shadow World – Thomas Bronzwaer
Big Sky (Signum vs RAM Remix) – John O’Callaghan feat. Audrey Gallagher
where most DJ apps waste precious real estate with useless virtual turntables, Pacemaker cleverly integrates both its menus and controls into the same layout. It’s a terrifically elegant solution–and one that never would have had any reason to exist before the touchscreen.
For Jonas Norberg, the inventor of Pacemaker, coming up with a DJ interface that felt native to today’s touch devices was the whole point. As his team was plugging away on the app, designers everywhere were talking about the move away from skeuomorphism and interfaces that relied on visual metaphors from the physical world. It was a conversation he followed closely. While heavy skeuomorphism could make any app gaudy, when it came to DJ software, it posed functional problems. DJ setups are typically the size of a desk, Norberg points out, and cramming every knob and slider on a 10″ screen would never be ideal. “It felt stupid to mimic reality,” Norberg says. “Buttons have to behave like buttons. They can’t swell and move around.”
And Jonas is dead right… All those other DJ interfaces simply take the exact thing and cram it down into a tablet. It makes no sense at all. Touchscreens are a different beast and Jonas knows this too well. Its something I’ve been banging on about for years with my presentation for Dj Hackday.
Norberg has been consumed with the idea of simplifying DJing for the better part of the last decade. The original Pacemaker, debuted in 2008, was a kooky piece of hardware that packed a suite of sophisticated mixing tools into a handheld gadget. It was a triumph of consolidation, but it didn’t exactly bring mixing to the masses. “If you want to democratize DJing, $850 is a pretty high price point,” Norberg admits.
High yes but ever so elegant. I reject the idea of it being Kooky… I’m sure Wired stuck that in because that Kooky piece of hardware still runs and got its update along side the Mobile app. That laid the grounds for what you got now.
Around the time that first incarnation of the company was going bankrupt, the iPhone was taking off, and Norberg was sense that apps could be the way forward. Out of nowhere, BlackBerry got in touch and asked the Pacemaker team to develop a piece of software for the PlayBook tablet, a request that Norberg has heard came directly from Mike Lazaridis himself. Despite that slate’s ignominious fate, the effort laid the foundation for the iPad app that came out this month.
While the decision to ditch skeuomorphism dictated much of the look and feel of the final app, Norberg and his team were constantly asking what they could get rid of to make DJing easier. One thing you won’t find in Pacemaker, for example, is a “cue” button–the tool DJs use for setting loop points in a song. Instead, Pacemaker lets you drag a playhead to a particular point on the wave form itself; to jump back to that point, you just have to tap it. As another example, where previous DJ apps confusingly had two “sync” buttons, one for each turntable, Pacemaker just has one. Touch it and your songs will find their way in sync, no matter which track you’re fiddling with at the moment.
Some experienced DJs might chaff at that level of simplicity, but for the rest of us, it makes for a far friendlier experience. It’s a tradeoff Norberg was more than willing to make. Those circles–which his team cheerfully refers to as “cakes”–are a good example of how the team was willing to compromise. “If you had the controls in a grid instead you could control two parameters at once,” he says. “But a grid is no fun.” And that, in essence, is a tidy explanation of what makes Pacemaker so great. It harnesses the power of truly thoughtful design to give people something fun, in a category that all too often slides into the realm of frustrating.
The pacemaker is back baby! And I can’t wait for dual stereo output… Goodbye Faux 3D knobs and skeuomorphic turntables, where we’re going we don’t need roads…