Futurists

a while back I posted a link to some old skool house mixes from the late 80s. These were pretty good, but in reality they were a bit too soulful even for me – I’m not as into the vocal, soulful, almost gospel style of house music from those days – I personally prefer the more hardcore acid house that also surfaced during that time.

naturally I started looking around the web for some good mixes, and by searching for “acid house podcasts” I managed to find the page of DJ JuJu, a British DJ from South London (now living in Norfolk).

I’ve never heard of him myself, but this fellow has a pretty good grasp of the acid. His site has a series of free downloads of mixes ranging from acid to vocal to hip house, and I’ve linked to them below.

Classic House Part 1: Vocal house and garage from ‘88 to ‘90. Some big tunes in here (like Tribal House’s Motherland and Sweat by Jay Williams at the end of the mix), though as I have mentioned I wasn’t as big into the vocal house as I was the other stuff.

Classic House Part 2: More classic vocal house. Listen for Chanelle’s One Man and the Steve Hurley mix of Ten City’s That’s the Way Love Is.

Classic House Part 3: Deep classic house from ‘88 to ‘90. The instrumental version of ESP’s It’s You is one of my favorite house tracks of all time (and so much better than the vocal version), and Can U Dance by Kenny ‘Jammin’ Jason & Fast Eddie is guaranteed to bring it back.

Classic House Part 4: An awesome mix of acid house and Detroit techno, some of my favorite genres. Reese & Santonio’s The Sound is a true classic, (love that 808 drum line), plus there’s Ride the Rhythm’s This Ain’t Chicago for a killer acid line and the jammin’ Work It to the Bone by LNR.

Classic House Part 6 (there is no part 5): Some hip house classics. Yet another of my favorite genres of classic music! I recommend you skip the first part of the mix and start at minute 25:00. From there you’ve got the 1997 remake of Doug Lazy’s Let It Roll called Rollin’ On, the club mix of Mr. Lee’s Get Busy, Musto & Bones’ Dangerous on the Dance Floor, I’ll House You by the Jungle Brothers, Fast Eddie’s Yo Yo Get Funky and the white label Planet E. Seriously, this stuff is tremendous. If you don’t like this stuff you may in fact have no soul.

and this next mix isn’t a classic house mix, but…

JuJu 4 Hour Radio Show 19th April 2009: A mix of classic techno and rave music, for the most part. This is a massive four hour mix, containing three of my favorite classic techno tracks, Tronik House’s Up Tempo and Altern8’s Infiltrate 202 followed by Comin’ On Strong by Rhythm Section. If you want to listen to what I think is the sweet spot of this mix, start at about 2:25:00.

DJ JuJu has plenty of other mixes on his site (the last one uploaded on February 18th, 2010) so I recommend you visit his site and check it out! I’ll be heading back there on occasion to see if he’s put out any more compilations of some of my favorite classic tracks.

Deadmau5 is huge on the progressive house scene. There are plenty of songs and remixes out there that were either produced by Deadmau5 (and he has a bunch of them) or by someone trying to sound like him.

a while back Deadmau5 released Project 56, a series of 56 ideas, melodies, clips and grooves that he originally created as a compilation project for people with short attention spans. In the end he decided to stick the whole series online so that people could download them for free and to, as he indicates, “exploit these tracks in any way your evil heart desires”. His only request is that if you do use them in a production, give him some credit for doing so.

so… why not! 56 clips of interesting ideas by one of the biggest names in the business, available for free download. Is at least worth checking out.

last year I posted something about how I first got into electronic music; one of the songs I mentioned was this one, Information Society’s Running (Instrumental Version). I thought I’d elaborate on that post here, simply because I feel Information Society’s instrumental version of Running was a truly groundbreaking song. I still remember hearing this song in Toronto during the 80s and being quite blown away by it – there was nothing much like it at the time. I also remember subsequently hearing the “true” version of the song (with lyrics) and being horribly underwhelmed. To my young mind, the magic of the song was lost once they started singing overtop of it.

I’m wondering if Information Society (or someone else) were to make a version of this today, how well it would perform in the clubs. It would need a better drum kit – a deeper kick, some better compression, and some cymbal sweeps – and a more thorough bass sound, but with a little work I think this song could bring people to the floor in clubs today. Heck, it probably could right now, as it stands.

this may of course be one of those cases that my own sentimental value of this song outweighs its true value – I’d appreciate any feedback on that! And speaking of nostalgia… what the heck is with the clothes Information Society is wearing on their album cover? If we bring back classic dance tunes from the 80s, let’s not bring that part back as well…

here is a very interesting video about what is likely the world’s most popular breakbeat (when you hear it, you’ll know it immediately). Popular in techno, hip hop and jungle, the Amen Break is a 40 year old breakbeat that was first featured in a tune by The Winstons called Amen, Brother, the little known B-side track on the Winstons’ Grammy Award winning hit Color Him Father.

while the Amen Break is not as widely used now as it was in the 90s it certainly played an essential role in the development of modern electronic music (and, when sliced apart and sped up, pretty much kicked off drum ‘n bass), and for that it holds a special place in the hearts of many, including myself.

most producers probably already know this, but KVR is a great site for free (and some paid) VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plugins. I’ve downloaded several for Ableton Live, and they’ve been very helpful for creating techno and trance music (yes I’ve still been working on that song – it’s a progressive (dark) trance track called Phantom and it’s almost done! I mean it)! On the plugin search page you can search for all sorts of different VSTs – drum kits, samples, effects, and so on – for Mac, Windows or Linux, and you can specify how much you want to pay to download them (some cost, some are free).

I’m especially fond of this side chain compressor plugin that you can download from some random site in Japan for Windows and Mac. The site looks totally dodgy when you get there, but I haven’t had any issues with the plugin (of course you’ll want to run virus scans on anything you download, just in case). It’s probably not as necessary as it used to be due to the fact that Ableton Live 8 now includes a side chain compressor, but this one is pretty simple to use once you download it (Ableton’s is not), and effective. Perhaps I’ll make a short tutorial about how to use it in a future post.

so while I consider myself technically adept, and above average when it comes to adopting and adapting new communications technologies to suit my evil purposes, I somehow missed the boat on podcasts. That may be partially because I’m not huge into the way that iTunes tries to take control of your computer every time you install or upgrade it, and therefore I don’t use it very often. However it happened, I only jumped on the podcasting bandwagon the other day, but I’ll admit I’ve become a fan.

there are tons of excellent DJ mixes out there, mixed by a whole bunch of different DJs and producers, that will simply appear for you, fresh out of the oven so to speak, as soon as they’ve been uploaded by their creators! Those of you already into podcasts are probably pointing and laughing at the screen (well, at the guy behind the screen) and saying “well duh, of course”, but to me, this is pretty big news.

so to celebrate my late discovery of this fantastic technology, here is a podcasted mix by Steve Helstrip, aka The Thrillseekers, a producer who I mentioned a few posts back. I’m linking this mix because I’m really loving the Nitrous Oxide and Adam Nickey song Moon Dust. I even burned a CD of this mix so that I could listen to it in my ancient car.

in other news, as soon as I finish this post I’m going to work on my latest song. It’s been a long time in the coming, but it’s almost done! And I’ll post it on this site when it is.

a few years back I used to listen to the Global Soundwave mixes with DJ James Williams, a DJ based out of San Francisco. He played a variety of popular trance music. The only minor complaint I had about his DJing that I did bring up to him over email is that he tended to talk quite a bit throughout his mix – introducing himself, greeting people in the chatroom, and that sort of thing. It’s not really that big a deal, but it’s one of my pet peeves to hear people talking during a DJ mix – I’m there for the music, not for the banter.

at any rate, I hadn’t heard from him for a while, so the other day I checked his web site and discovered several mixes he’d created ready for free download (right click on them to snag them) – and better still, the mixes are completely banter-free, just the way I like them! From what I’ve heard so far they are more melodic and less hardcore than some trance mixes – very easy to listen to.

the only downside here is that James Williams appears to have stopped making mixes – the last mix on the site was put there in November of 2008. I don’t know what he’s been up to lately, but I do hope he’ll eventually get back to work putting some more mixes onto his site.

why are you not listening to this Daft Punk live set right now?

I’ve had it on repeat pretty much since I found it. A tremendous mix featuring plenty of classic Daft Punk songs and more use of low-pass filters than you can shake a stick at.

here’s a quick link to something bunmun forwarded me that I found both interesting and entertaining; a video demonstrating how to recreate the classic techno track Smack My Bitch Up by The Prodigy. It was created using Ableton Live 8 by Jim Pavloff, a Ukranian producer with some time on his hands. It’s fascinating how, piece by piece, the song gradually comes together.

what amazes me the most about this exercise is how Liam Howlett, the front man behind The Prodigy, originally found all of the extremely different samples he used in the track, cut them up, filtered them, mashed them together, and churned out a tune as massive as this one. I’m lucky if I can find myself a good kick drum, let alone create something on this epic a scale.

as I’ve been posting links to sites with good information for budding techno producers, I figure I should take a moment to point out Trance.nu, “a central, global place for trance enthusiasts to gather and talk about the music they are so passionate about”. Trance.nu boasts a sizeable community of trance music fans, and features interviews with the likes of such trance stars as Tiesto, Armin van Buuren, and Ferry Corsten. The site was started by Europeans (as evidenced by the site’s wiki), but for some reason it is hosted in Canada (as evidenced by my Flagfox add-on).

for those interested in creating trance music, the forums are very good, and the How do I produce? forum is dedicated toward helping users who produce, with tutorials about gating, compression, how to make a good kick drum sound, and the like. One important thing to note, is that it isn’t good manners to post the songs you’ve created for feedback without offering feedback on the songs that others have made in return, and it is never allowed to post DJ mixes of songs that you haven’t created or don’t own the rights to distribute.

I personally frequent the boards as soundlord, though I probably don’t participate as much as I should. It’s a great community!