Boom Like 8/08/08

Our fave electronic musical instrument blog, Music Thing posted a tribute to today’s date that doubles as a tribute to the boominist drum machine around, Roland’s vintage TR-808 Rhythm Composer. The machine became so ubiquitous in certain musical circles that it’s been referenced in song lyrics, song titles, and even band names. Check out Music Thing’s list: Today is 808…

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Since You’ve Been In This Club

DJ C; Since You’ve Been In This Club* -> [audio:https://archive.mashit.com/audio/Since_Youve_Been_In_This_Club.mp3] Wayne pointed out this article by Sasha Frere-Jones on The New Yorker site about Auto Tune. It’s the software that makes singers on many of todays pop songs sound inhuman. It’s purpose is to artificially correct the pitch of sung notes, but when tweaks are made to the settings other-worldly…

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More Vinyl

I started writing this as a comment on the last post about the death of the turntable, but it got too long. There are lots of great comments on that post already too. A friend just forwarded this article about the vinyl comeback from Boston.com. It’s worth a read. Apparently vinyl and turntable sales are sky rocketing compared to CD…

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Turntables No More

What is the future of the DJ turntable? Most of my colleagues and I use tools like Serato Scratch Live when we DJ, allowing us to bring huge libraries of music to the party without hauling heavy crates of vinyl. We’re still using turntables ’cause they’re what we learned on, so we’re comfortable with them, but it seems to me…

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History of the Future

Thnk ahead just 50 years, perhaps, to the day when everyone will appreciate the nuances of electronic music” … dreaming of a future sound-scape of London” -What The Future Sounded Like Electronic music pioneers in the mid 20th century invented the tools that are now so ubiquitous that they have a profound effect on the sound pop music today. This…

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This Is My Jam

My friends over at The Echo Nest have done it again. This time they’ve got a wacky new web 2.0 music app called “This Is My Jam.” It’s still in beta, actually I think it may still be in alpha but they’ve given me the go ahead to share it with y’all. Here’s how it works: Use the search box…

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Year-End Look-Back

XLR8R magazine asked me to contribute to their annual Best Of poll this year and some of my comments are published in this month’s issue. I thought I’d share them — plus a bunch of the ones that didn’t make the cut — with y’all here: Best Artist South Rakkas Crew I’ve been digin’ these guys dancehall productions for a…

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Jeremy Fish Serato Controllers!

Just copped these guys today: super-limited Serato Scratch picture disc controllers designed by San Fran-based illustration superstar (and Aesop Rock collaborator) Jeremy Fish. Apparently limited to 500 2×12″ sets (retailing at $50), they were up on Turntable Lab for a super-short while until Rane caught wind of it and made a big stink. Everything is the same as a regular…

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DJ Poll: Vinyl or Digital?

The past couple of years have been a volatile time in the DJ world. The technology is changing rapidly and many DJs who had once been hardcore vinyl-only-heads have made the switch to using digital DJ tools like Serato Scratch Live. Of course some DJs have been spinning with digital tools like CDJs etc. for years, and some combine everything…

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Rock Star VJs

Oh, Boston! It was good to see you. I started out last week’s journey to my old stomping grounds, partying with my peeps at the Beat Research halloween party where Flack, Wayne, and DJ RNDM threw down hard. RNDM did a VJ set using the Ms. Pinky vinyl DJ system to do live music-video mashups. If you’re having any trouble…

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