Electronic Music Magazine

Album Review deadmau5 > album title goes here <

Production Tutorial Drums in Ableton Live

Artist Spotlight: Mord Fustang

Tips for the Digital DJ

The Debate To sync, or not to sync?

Table Of Contents

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Album Review: deadmau5 >album title goes here<

Artist Spotlight Mord Fustang

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How Times have changed From Dubstep to Brostep

Production Tutorial Drums in Ableton Live

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Digital DJ Tips

Practice makes perfect How I Started Out

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The Debate To sync or not to sync?

What being an artist is all about

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Music is something great, it’s something what divides and unites people. You should take it seriously, but on the other hand it’s fun. People do not want dry information, facts, etc. A strong opinion raises discussion, something were friends will talk about at the bar when they’re done talking about women.

That is what I’m trying to achieve. Informing people and raising discussion, because there is nothing better than a bit of controversy Robert-Jan Pietersen

Album review

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Joel’s fourth installment in the EDM-scene

On September 21st I finally found deadmau5’s new album on my doorstep. Although I heard most of the tracks long before, listening to it in an album format made it feel new. Most of the album consists of classic progressive house, where deadmau5 is best known for. His previous album, 4x4=12, took a different direction in the meaning of dubstep. Though there is no dubstep on this album, he did took a whole different direction with tracks like Telemiscomminications, Sleepless and Failbait. Of which the last contains a remarkable collaboration between Zimmerman and rap-collective Cypress Hill.

Superliminal

Damn, what a great way to kick off an album. Hard pounding kick drums and raw bass lines. And a break in the middle that’s very calm and somehow, it fits together very well, love it!

Channel 42

This is one of those collaborations with Wolfgang Gartner that are nothing but great!

The Veldt.

Man, this is the track I have on repeat for the last couple of weeks.

Classic deadmau5-house, inspired by a great story and topped of with the amazing vocal by Chris James. Although I can’t sing, this track gets me singing along. These are the tracks that really come from the heart.

Fn Pig

This might be the perfect intro track for a live set. Great chords in a well thought-out build up of 3 minutes by simple but effective action.

I know for sure I will play this a lot!

deadmau5 > album title goes here

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Professional Griefers

This seems to be deadmau5’s most popular track at this time. And with reason, because the combination of Zimmerman’s production talent and Gerard Way’s vocals is stunning. Though the lyrics don’t really make sense, I doe love them. Perfect to play in the morning to get pumped for work!

Maths

Maths is a track that has been released long before the album, which doesn’t make it worse though. No sensitive or complex melodies here. Just straight progressive/aggressive house, I predict an absolute club-destroyer.

There might be coffee

This is one of the tracks that gives me goosebumps and makes me love the world. It’s so dreamy, light and happy my love for cats takes over and I want to go to an animal shelter and snuggle some poor little animals. When you’re angry, listen to this.

Take care of the proper paperwork.

To be honest, I don’t know what to think of this. It sounds good, yes. But it’s build-up after build-up and in the end nothing really happens. It’s kind of a letdown really..

Closer

This is a bit similar to ‘There might be coffee’, but with more action.

Perfect festival track. It has so many layers, every time you listen to it, you notice something new, small, details.

October

The tenth track of the album (October, tenth month, I see what you did there) a more dreamy track. Sounds a bit depressed to, but not too much so that you get sad, just by listening to it. No, you get very calm, might be something for anger management training.

Sleepless

This is one of the more alternative tracks on the album. But it is my favorite. Although it’s called sleepless, it makes a perfect lullaby. It’s a calm, melodic track with a drum pattern I can’t really place in a genre. Can’t stop listening to it.

Failbait

A remarkable collaboration, really. But the result is great. I never expected deadmau5 doing hip-hop and especially not with Cypress Hill. The result is a pretty aggressive track with great lyrics and a solid production.

Telemiscommunications

This is the last and the most calm track on the album.

It’s build around Imogen Heap’s voice, telling a story about a couple that communicates by phone, what doesn’t work out. I love Imogen’s voice and it pairs up so nicely with the soft piano on the background. I can’t say anything more than that I am in love with this song.

In Conclusion

This is by far the best album deadmau5 has released so far. I think it’s safe to say it’s the best album in the genre. Except for one track, they’re all stunning, amazing, great. This CD will be stuck in my stereo for a while. I’m eager to see how deadmau5 will top this one.

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Artist Spotlight

Mord Fustang

The Electric Dream

It was January 2011 when I first heard of the Plasmapool records based DJ and producer Mord Fustang. This happened at the time that his first track ‘‘The Electric Dream’’ was released. I was an instant fan. This track is just straight mindblowingly great. Besides the epic electro-chords this track features more complextro elements like complex melodies and some subtle dubsteppy wobbles.

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Upcoming tour dates October 18th

Lit Ultrabar

Philadephia, PA

October 19th

Congress Theater

Chicago, IL

October 20th

Roseland Ballroom N ew York, NY

From then, Mord steadily released one song per month, all of them quality tracks. ‘Super Meat Freeze’ delivers more of that complextro and wobbly type of house music, while ‘Milky Way’, released in march 2011, is a more calm track, where melodies play the main role.

October 24th

The Honey Pot

Tampa, FL

October 25th

Firestone Live

Orlando, FL

October 26th

Space Miami

Miam, FL

And then there was ‘Lick The Rainbow’. Although that’s quite a strange name, I’m pretty sure he licked a toad or something, because the melodies on this track are all around the place. Which doesn’t make it bad, in contrary it is really, really good! It has the same complextro feel as his first two tracks, but more aggressive this time. His other tracks had this more ‘clean’ feel to them, but ‘Lick The Rainbow’ really pops out of you speakers!

October 27th

Hallowfreaknween

Denver, CO

November 2nd

Opera

Atlanta, GA

November 3rd

Nevada Festival

Mexico, NY

November 9th

Harterei Club

Zurich, Switzerland

Remixes

As his popularity increases, more people want their tracks remixed

by Mr. Fustang, and so he did. He came out with a remix of ‘Gold’

by Plasmapool’s own Fussy Boy and a remix of the classic ‘Finally’

by Froidz, which are both absolute tunes! He even turned up with a remix of LMFAO’s ‘Sexy And I Know It’ You might love or hate the original (I personally can’t stand it) but this remix is nothing but pure greatness, a must have for your music-collection

A New World

Until June he has been solely producing Electro House, apart from a little Dubstep break in the remix of ‘Finally’. But then he released ‘A New World’ that came to an end. Sweet mother of god, this track is amazing. Though it isn’t the Electro House he normally does, the typical ‘Mord Fustang style’ is definitely recognizable. Dreamy chords, filthy wobbles and hard-hitting drums. This track has it all and is, more than a year later, still one of my favorites.

Less than a month ago he also released ‘Champloo’, another great track, but some more alternative Dubstep this time. The sound reminds me a bit of NOISIA, but Mord’s signature sound is still there and I hope he will release more of this, because, damn, it’s good!

Mord on the Internet

I really recommend to follow Mord Fustang on the several social media he is on.

Twitter:

http://twitter.com/mordfustang

Soundcloud http://soundcloud.com/mordfustang Facebook http://facebook.com/mordfustang Tumblr

http://mordfustang.tumblr.com

And for those of you who are living in 2007: MySpace:

http://www.myspace.com/mordfustang

How times have changed

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Dubstep in a nutshell

Most of the times people seem to recognize dubstep by the wobbles. Let me put an end to that. It’s about tempo and the drum pattern. Dubstep plays at roughly 140BPM (Beats Per Minute), which is a bit faster than house (+/- 128 BPM) and slower than Drum and Bass (+/- 175 BPM).

And maybe even more important, the drum pattern. Dubstep usually has kick-drum on the first step and a hard-hitting snare on the third as a base. This is usually filled up with more kicks, snares and hi-hats to fill up some emptiness.

The signature for Dubstep is usually heavy basslines which may or may not involve wobbles or dreamy pads and melodies.

Garage, Dub, 2-step and Grime.

If we want to discover the roots of dubstep we need to go back to the late 90s, in London. This is where Ammunition Promotions ran the influential nichtclub ‘Forward>>’ (It still exists inder the name ‘FWD>>’) and some early dubstep labels, like Tempa, Shelflife and Texture. Forward>> was the first club dedicated to dubstep and was a place where producers like El-B, Steve Gurly and Zed Bias copuld premiere new music. Ammunition Promotions began to use the term ‘Dubstep’ for the new sound that uses drum-influences from 2-step, subbass from Dub and darker influences from Garage and Grime.

Forward>> also ran a radio show on a pirate station called Rinse FM.

Evolution

Between 2002 en 2005 dubstep grew a little. Names that are still very popular to this date, like Skream and Benga, released music that was played on Rinse FM and Dubstep took en new minimalistic and dark direction.

A new event, called Filthy Dub, started to happen regularly, tottally independant from Forward>>. This is the place where artists like Digital Mytikz, Skream and Benga started DJ’ing and began their career.

Then the DMZ label was founded where many compilations featuring dubstep artists were released and every two months a DMZ night was held in Brixton, where new artists were showcased

Skream and Benga, some of the pioneers of dubstep

Growth

In 2005 dubstep took chances in getting more popular. A hype began to build around the DMZ label and got support from several online forums and communities. The scene got even more recognized when BBC Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs gathered top figures from the scene for a show, Dubstep Warz. It gave Dubstep an international audience, it wasn’t UK-exclusive anymore.

Because of that, artists in the USA began to pick up the sound and regular dubstep clubnights started to appear all over the country Digital Mystikz

From Dubstep to Brostep

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Going mainstream.

It is 2009 and dubstep definitely hits the mainstream. With UK duo La Roux putting their single ‘‘In for The Kill’’ in the hands of Skream and they let Nero remix ‘‘I’m Not Your Toy’’.

2009 was also the time when Luke Hood made the UKF channels.

He created the UKFDubstep and UKFDrumandBass channels on Youtube, of which UKFDubstep is the most popular. It helped showcase new and wellknown artists and they have released 2 compilation CDs so far. UKFDubstep continues to be very popular and now has 1.8 million subscribers and a stunning 835 million total views.

But sound changes. From 2009 on the sound of Dubstep transforms into a more aggressive and complex style.

And then Skrillex happened

Skrillex is probably the most known Dubstep producer, but he is the most hated as well. In 2010 he released his ‘‘Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites’’ EP, which was very succesfull, but recieved a lot of negative response as well. Some say it wasn’t real Dubstep and Skrillex is a digrace to the genre. However, I see this differently.

I might not be Skrillex’s biggest fan, nor am I a passionate hater of his music. ‘‘Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites’’ was pretty good, ‘‘Bangarang EP’’ was not. I look at it this way: Skrillex is an artist. And a good artist makes what he likes and shares it with other people. Wether the audience likes it or not, it is what he does. And for destroying the genre, that is impossible. A genre doesn’t dissapear, it evolves because artists move boundaries.

Dubstep will be around for another long time. In the from of Skream, Skrillex and everything in between

Sonny Moore AKA Skrillex

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Production Tutorial

The importance of proper drums

Drums provide the rhythm and groove in your tracks, ther set the mood. Hard hitting or smooth and soft. Well then, you’d better get them right and organized. Because nothing a beats a running project in which you can find everything you need.

The Drum Rack

Ableton Live is equipped with a handy little instrument called the ‘Drum Rack’. It has room for 128 samples and is compatible with most control surfaces. Load it up on a MIDI-track and we’re good to go.

Selecting the drums.

First things first, you should have the proper samples for production usage. There Are plenty of sample kits and CDs available, though I recommend checking out the ‘Vengeance Essential’ - series. If you plan on searching for free packs via the internet, be aware of the .mp3 format. EQ’ing and compression on .mp3s might damage the audioquality. Uncompressed .wav files are the best pick, if you can find them.

Just drag you samples of choice to one of the slots in the Drum Rack. I start out with a simple kick and snare.

If you select a slot, several editing options appear.

Creating a basic pattern.

To create a pattern you simply add a MIDI-clip to the channel the Drum Rack is on. When you open this clip you’ll get something similar to the pianoroll you will normally get. Except the keys represent the drumsamples instead of notes.

Important when creating the pattern is you don’t make the ‘notes’ to short, because the sample might not have ended playback.

For de basic drum-hits one step is probably long enough.

EQ’ing your drums

To make the drums come to their right some frequencies should be compressed and others should be boosted, both for creative and technical reasons. When there is to much going on in the same frequency field, there might be some distortion, not good.

First you need and equalizer, I recommend ‘‘APeq’’ by apulsoft, but most of the EQ’s out there will do. Select a sample slot in your drum rack and add the effect to the small slot next to the editing section.

‘‘Drums provide the rhythm and groove in your tracks, they set the mood.’’

Drums in Ableton Live

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Boosting and compressing

For each sample the EQ’ing is different, though there are some guidelines you con follow for different kind of drums. I’ll take the kickdrum as an example.

First thing I do is cut off some of the low frequencies which tend to clash when overpowered. I place a high pass filter and move it to the right until I hear unwanted changes is the sound. I do this virtually with every drumhit. There’s always some bass in the original sound, maybe not even noticable, but it might distort you subbassline.

Make it stand out

What does a good kickdrum make a great kickdrum? Punch, that’s how it’s called when a kickdrum hits hard and tight. To achieve this sound you should boost the frequencies around 150Hz. This is where the action takes place. Might be a little lower or higher, play with the frequency and amount of the boost you give.

To accentuate it even more you should put more emphasis on the high shelf. I start at 1K Hz, but this varies heavily. This attracts a little more attention to the kick and makes it sound a little lighter.

Another tip is to lower the volume around 400 Hz so more emphasis will be put on the punch and high shelf, this way you’ll get tighter sounding kick drum!

Side-chain Compression

Side-chaining is a technique to lower the volume of audio signal one with the volume of signal two. For an example: When a kickdrum hits, the volume of your bassline or melody lowers. This will stop frequencies from clashing and will make your drums stand out. If you exaggerate the compression it will add a pumping effect which gives your track more energy if used properly.

How to do it

The technique itself is fairly simple. I f you want the effect to happen on for example a bassline, just add a compressor to the channel.

You can find the compressor in the folder ‘audio effects’ at the ‘Live devices’ section.

If you select the compressor you will see an arrow in the upper left corner. Click this and more functions will appear like sidechaining.

Now select your input, which will be the Drum Rack, and you set up you sidechain. Now you need to edit and fine-tune it until you have the desired outcome.

Remember, everything I just told you are just guidelines. It is simply not possible to explain it precisely, because every sample, dong and genre a different. Keep on experiment and practicing and you will have your drums sounding perfect in no time. Practice and enjoy!

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Digital DJ Tips In todays DJ Setup the laptop is standard, but if you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t use it right, technology might turn against you.

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Space, room and capacity.

Whenperforming live you want your music loaded up as quick as possible. A lot of people tell to place your music in USB-drives because it will clear some space on your laptop’s harddrive, thus speeding it up. I think that isn’t relevant at this date, because laptops are a lot faster than 2-3 years ago and a big harddrive is very cheap. If you do want to invest, buy a laptop with an SSD. SSDs (Solid State Disk) are a new type of harddrive with chipsets instead of moving platters. And they are a lot fster aswell. And they are pretty expensive. An SSD with 1 TB of space simply doesn’t exist, so best thing to do is to buy a laptop that holds both an SSD and a normal HDD. Place your most important programs and files on the SSD and they will load up within a heartbeat.

Shut down everything you don’t need.

You have more junk running in your laptop than you care t admit.

Anti-virus software, iTunes services (for detecting new devices), updaters for a lot of your software, dropbox, printer-drivers, torrent-clients, you name them. These too can cause audio-dropouts and when you’re playing, you don’t need them anyway.

Another thing you don’t need is the ‘Aero’ theme on your Windows computer. The calculations needed for the ‘see-through’ effect might cause CPU-spikes on some computers and you’re audio might stutter because of that.

USB-cables

Most MIDI-controllers use USB-cables to connect to your computer, but let’s be honest. They’re all pretty cheap standard cables and plugs and if you’re on the road a lot you’ll be connecting and disconnecting them all the time. This could result in little fractures inside the cable causing them not to work anymore, maybe in the middle of a performance.

So you need to get some proper cables then. Well, DJTechTools developed some for you. They’re sturdy as a rock, gold plated for the best possible connection and they’re blue. Though they are pretty expensive at $14,99, but it’s worth investing.

Turn off your Wi-Fi.

If you’re playing at a venue, there is usually no Wi-Fi connection, so your laptop will keep searching for one. While doing that, the CPU-usage wil go up drastically for a brief moment once in a while.

Normally you won’t notice this, but as you’re working with live audio, dropouts may happen for a split second.

The High-Quality USB-cable by DJTechTools

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Practice Makes Perfect How I Started Out

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DJ school It was January 28th, 2009. I had knee-complications and had to stop playing fieldhockey. I already had a fascination for electronic dance music and news came in a DJ-school opened up in town.

Still, I didn’t have a clue what a DJ actually did, but after the first lessons, which involved nothing but beatmatching, I was sold. The fascination for electronic music be+came a passion.

Frustrations, frustrations, frustrations Starting out, learning the basic was hard work and frustrating at times. Learning how tracks built up, beatmatching, proper effect usage, etc. It was hard, though mostly fun at all times.

Kunstbende In april of 2009, I participated in my first DJ-contest. Only DJ’ing for about 3 months I was nervous as fuck. I had to play for only 15 minutes, playing at least 3 tracks. I had 5 and was proud of myself.

Only the three best contestants were named, though didn’t think I the worst of all 15. Probably 13th or 14th, but hey, it’s about the experience right?

Gig-wise there wasn’t much going on. Though the school had some connections. I could perform at several poolparties and a small festival in town. My first performance at a high school dance is when everyone got to know what I did in my spare time and all feedback i got was more than positive!

And then it got interesting I continued to participate at the Kunstbende.

2nd and 3rd time, not much happened. Yes I got better, but I didn’t break through as a great DJ. The 4th year is where I stood out, better techniques, live mashups, and an original choice of music. I was the best of 13 people in my region and got through to the national semi-finals!

But that’s where it ended. I placed 4th, which ment I didn’t qualified for the finals. Though I didn’t got through to the finals, I got some great gigs, of which Fantasy Island Festival being the biggest. Free drinks, being driven to the stage in a golfcart over the festival terrain.

Yup, I could get used to that!

Kunstbende

Photography by Jérôme Wassenaar

Kunstbende is an organization that promotes different kinds of art to youth. They’re most known for the competition they organize each year. Participants can compete in different disciplines like music, acting, film, classic art and DJ’ing.

Every province in The Netherlands has an own competition and those who win there get to compete in the national finals.

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‘ There is no such thing as live EDM. At some point we all press the ‘ Play’’-button.’’

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deadmau5 said it and shit hit the fan. And then Paris Hilton gets behind the decks and proves him right, whithout even knowing it.

DJs are being revered by many people as gods, as like they master a talent no one else does. Like a CD-player is a magic wand or something. Let me tell you, it’s not. You like them as a producer, not as a DJ because many DJs never do anything special behind the decks. Pressing play, pulling up a fader and putting the other down is not a showcase of pure talent and certainly not of creativity.

And then there is the sync-button which makes beatmatching unneccessary. The new CDJ2000 has that function and the whole scene starts bitching again. Letting a chip do that work for is not DJing they say. The essence of DJing is playing recorded music for an audience, nothing more, nothing less. So what if beatmatching isn’t ‘live’. There is no such thing as ‘live’ EDM. At some point we all press the ‘‘Play’’-button.

The sync-button is a tool for timesaving so you have your hands free for other useful stuff, like using effects wisely, losing your mind over a drum machine and making music as ‘live’ as possible.

Without your own productions, you are nowhere as a DJ, I always realized that, but deadmau5 opened my eyes about the ‘live’ aspect. There is more than CDJs and a 3-band EQ. Let creativty enter the stage and do something more, something unexpected.

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‘ You should make music that fits people’s vision.’’

-Afrojack Dutch superstar DJ Nick van der Wal AKA Afrojack is huge. Not only because of his length (6’7’’) but because of his success as well. He is famous all around the world and the tracks he made all seem to be received very well.

And because he’s so popular, TV0shows want him as guest. But if you’re on TV, you should know what to say and what not.

What he said on October 15th blew my mind. As I heard what he said I was stunned. For a few seconds I didn’t know what to say because it was pure nonsense what left his mouth. He said, as an artist, you should make music that fits certain people’s vision. But if you make music you like, for example a wicked Drum‘n’Bass track (he called Drum’n’bass ‘fast, gabber and weird music) and you like it a lot, but the crowd does not, there is no use in making it.

Well, Nick. I’m speaking directly to you. I will personally revoke your title as ‘artist’ because you are unworthy of that title. Making music is NOT about making money. It’s about expressing yourself through sound, connecting with people. Music is an art and art is something

personal. If you like a sound, make it, play it, release it.

The whole reason why people still listen house music is innovation.

Make something different, outrageous if you will. As long as YOU love it. Staying true to yourselves is a thing everyone should do, especially as an artist.

But many people do not accept it when an artist does something different. For an example: Juventa. An 18-year old boy wonder who is around in the Trance-scene for a couple of years now. He has made some great Uplifting Trance tracks in the last years, but now he makes different kinds of music as well like Progressive House, Dubstep and Drum’n’Bass. Not everyone is pleased to hear that. On several of his Youtube-videos people are nothing but hating on his new style.

Well, Juventa is a person as well, not a music making machine. He is an artist who makes music that he loves, nothing more, nothing less.

‘ No matter where I go, Barcelona, Liverpool, Berlin, I feel like the crew of DJs and musicians I’m touring with are part of a new cultural language.’’

-Diplo