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 laser & smoke filled null sector.
Remix culture, sometimes read-write culture, is a society that allows and encourages derivative works by combining or editing existing materials to produce a new product. A remix culture would be, by default, permissive of efforts to improve upon, change, integrate, or otherwise remix the work of copyright holder
My personal thoughts are, DJ culture was new exciting and things were moving and changing all the time. We had vinyl, record players and mixers. But people were innovating and doing new things on top of that. Then the technology changed from spinning discs (Vinyl, CDs heck even Minidisc if you must) to Solid State/Digital. There was a lot of push back and there still is… But you can’t stop the future.
However we adopted the digital methods to do exactly the same thing. You can see this in the vast amount of digital dj tools, 2 decks and a mixer. Skeuomorphism hell! And it needs to die! Because a good 20 years after the first Mp3 dj software (virtual turntables by Carrot innovations). The interface, method and general approch is exactly the same.
2 decks and a mixer (kinda) – 19962 decks and a mixer with extras – 2016
That’s more than half my life time! That has to be some kind of a joke!
Ok under the hood things have changed but not far enough and wheres the distruptive changes? The DJ world still seems to be stressing out about auto BPM? Its happened get over it. For a whole culture built on innovation and creativity, it seems highly ironic?
But this was just scratching the surface of a much larger problem with DJ/Remix culture. I put together some slides which horrible to read back through as they are 5 years old, but its been super useful when talking to people and companies about what DJ hackday could be about. It was due an update and thankfully I can finally tick this off my list.
The 1% rule is a rule of thumb pertaining to participation in an internet community, stating that only 1% of the users of a website actively create new content, while the other 99% of the participants only lurk. Variants include the 1-9-90 rule (sometimes 90–9–1 principle or the 89:10:1 ratio), which states that in a collaborative website such as a wiki, 90% of the participants of a community only view content, 9% of the participants edit content, and 1% of the participants actively create new content.
In the case of DJ hackday; out of 100 people…
90 will be consumer (lurkers/watchers)
1% will be makers (creators)
9% will be remixers (editors)
Music hackday cators for the 1% and of course moving remixers and consumers into makers. DJ hackday is moving consumers and makers into remixers. Its a very viable area with plenty of people doing interesting great things already. Everyone we have spoke over the last 5 years have gotten the concept and really want to see it become a real things now.
Myself and Simon have started a Lanyrd page to start building support and getting more people interest. Its also one of Mozilla Festival’s Fridge events, which is fantastic as it shows the progession from its small prototype to a full blown event and Mozilla are always a supporter of remix cultures.
Capitalising on the recent interest in the Get Down on Netflix, which sums up a bit of why DJ/Remix culture is important. I created some simple teaser posters. Expect a proper poster in near future but right now, its about getting the word out. And we’re really targetting those who never thought of themselves as DJs or participating in remix culture. People like you!
As the year counts down towards Winter, I’ll be looking for people to help and other companies to join the DJ Hack. We already have some great names (tbc) and starting to sort out venues for the night events. Of course we already have the MMU Shed for the main hack which is a great space for a hackday. The actual hack dates are Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th January, with a social event on the Friday 13th January and post hackday party on Sunday evening somewhere we can try out some of the hacks.
If you are interested in helping out on the day, know a great venue, like to support in some way, set a challenge or want to come help organise it. Get in touch…
Feel free to ping myself a tweet or drop a message via email, my contact form, comment, etc… I’m quite easy to get hold of.
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.
I’ve been thinking recently out of 100 people using social media , 1 person will want to create and upload their own media. However 9 people if the user interface is effortless, smooth and simple, would make slight changes to either reflect their own decisions, point of view, etc.
This is reflected in the 1% rule where 90% are lurkers, 9% are contributors and 1% creators.
Its strikes me that many things are missing the 9%. They miss the fact that the 9% can also contribute to the enjoyment of the 90% and be even more interesting than the 1%.
Simon tweeted me about the Microsoft’s idea of a new remix platform. Some instantly thinking I wouldn’t be interested because heck its nothing like the now legendary pacemaker. My negativity is centred around things like Armin’s project which to be honest isn’t so great (still don’t know what he put his name to it).
The Surface remix project isn’t a DJ platform but rather a remix platform. Yes you could do a little mixing on it but realistically it for making music. The thing which got me interested was the interface. From what I understand about the Microsoft surface is that the keyboard is clicked on, but what if you could click other types of inputs in? It would certainly beat the problem of touching glass.
Will this extended beyond the one smart modified smartcover? I doubt it, Microsoft are well known for wanting to control everything but then again what they did with the Xbox Kinect was good news, although I’ve not seen anything like this recently. If it was a open source project with open and published hardware and software specs, I would be a lot more interested.
I’ll keep an eye on it but I don’t hold out hope for anything ground breaking…
I was speaking to a group of students at Salford University earlier this month about the cultural value of parody videos. Even the terrible ones. I made the arguement that the really terrible ones may be more important than the really good ones.
I explained to the students that for every terrible parody video on Youtube there will be hundreds of super talented viewers saying to themselves “I can do better than that”. The terrible parody video is what it took to kickstart their creative career.
This may have been true in some cases but frankly it inspired a whole generation of other people to give it a try and write their own tunes. Some of them were successful and others just had fun.
So no matter how much I hate the gangnam style stupid dance. Hopefully it will encourage others to do there own thing instead of just jumping on the bandwagon.
There is something about Simon Lumb, something that everytime we chat creative juices start flowing (wipe that smile off your smutty face, you know what I mean)…
Imagine if you could do the same thing as a published book? Remix books!
Books right now are like Albums, but imagine if they were more like singles and EP’s?
They could be like the Mixtape of the written word? Fits perfect with the self publishing trend.
Example 1: Custom cookbook. Pick a your favourite menu items and self publish your own cookbook. A bit of Jamie, dash of Heston and a lot of Nigella (yes please). Arrange them into a new type of cook book which is custom for you, or reflects your cooking style. It could be a cookbook for you or for someone else…
Example 2: The best of… Many times in the past, people have said the best way to learn about Z is to read chapters Y & X of book W and chapters A, B and C of book D… Want to know the best to learn how to skateboard or surf? I recommend reading my custom book which is made up of… you get the idea
Example 3: The best places in the world. Could be a nice mix of places you’ve never been to before, places you inspire to go or places you have been to before. Actually it kind of reminds me of off beat guides, but instead of building it from raw components its from previous decent reviews.
Sure there are many more including books for young children, books for different learning styles, etc, etc…
The remix methodology is actually very apt, because instead of building your own from the components, your remixing parts of others. Like a Dj remixing other peoples tunes.
The copyrights framework will be a nightmare to work out (we’re not kidding ourselves about that) but to be honest it could be something like the music rights framework for albums and singles? Might even increase the amount of readership for some books? It could be massive changes, or little changes like the art work in the book. Instead of lovely glossy pictures of food in a cook book, it could be technical diagrams for those more interested in seeing those? Maybe the remixes will cost more than the originals but to the person who gets it, its worth so much more. You get the idea…
Crazy idea? Tell me and Simon why? Maybe you love it and want to run with it? Well all we require is attribution… This idea is open to the world… Run with it and tell us when you get rich by changing the publishing industry. This is what places like Lulu have been crying out for right? Just like… My lifestreaming dating idea and my dreamscape idea. Go get them, change the world or go Lazy web make it so…!
This all comes at a point when I’m seriously considering wiping my laptop drive and building a version of Ubuntu without Unity from the very start. Problem is I don’t really want to loose all the applications, preferences, etc, etc… So I’ll try and get Gnome3 fully working then maybe one day soon, just do the wipe. I am hoping Ubuntu allow Gnome3 to be a part of Ubuntu or allow such projects to grow and establish themselves.
Back in 1999, System F’s ‘Out Of The Blue’ redefined trance music for a new generation. Ferry Corsten’s synth-laden classic destroyed dancefloors across the planet and became a worldwide chart hit, beginning one of the most successful careers in dance music for the Dutch maestro. 11 years on, the track is being re-released with a host of new mixes from Tiësto, Hi_Tack, Laidback Luke, Rafaël Frost, Giuseppe Ottaviani, Koen Groeneveld, Showtek and others!
To celebrate, Ferry Corsten in association with Trackitdown.net and Copa Football, has launched FC System F – the chance to become part of the greatest team in trance history! By entering the competition, users are able to remix highlights from the System F back catalogue. To kick things off, Tiësto, Laidback Luke and the above have already remixed ‘Out Of The Blue’, but there are 10 further original tracks presented in the line-up, all waiting for the remix treatment from a new star player.
Starting weekly from February 2nd, Ferry will post the original parts of a System F track on the website. After agreeing to the Terms & Conditions and registering, fans will be able to download the parts for free, and have 3 weeks to send in their remix via a download link to team@fcsystem.com
Wonder if I can use LMMS for remixing these tracks once their available?
