No Place Like Dome 2010 (NPLD)

NPLD No Place Like Dome 2010
I’m finally recovered from what had to be of of the best little Irish festivals ever. No Place Like Dome or NPLD is a very small music and arts festival in Sligo, this was its second year ever and it was a great success. It was organised by a small group of friends who just thought that Ireland needed something new and fresh on the festival scene. basically a bunch of lads went to Burning Man in the US and were so blown away they wanted to do something similar in Ireland, and they did just that. The first year was a tiny 250 people, so basically a big extended group of friends, and this year it was expanded to 600 – but it still felt really small and intimate. It’s basically anti-commercialism so you cannot buy anything there – you bring everything you need and you barter for anything else – or basically get given it as it happened as everyone was so friendly. Tickets are cheap at €80 but you get lots for your money.

Myself and the Laundry DJ’s were delighted to be asked to play at it this year. We had just played at Life Festival 2 weeks before and that was a truly incredible weekend, I can’t remember having had so much fun. NPLD was quite different, also great fun but it just had something a little more special. It’s super relaxed atmostphere made it feel more like a big friends party than a commercially organsied event (and in one way that’s exactly what it was). There were loads of great bands and DJ’s all playing for free, such is the spirit of the gig. There was the main dome, the Bass Bunker which was absolutely brilliant – a fantastic place to play a DJ set, a Liquid tent as seen in Life Festival with a Funktion One system, and then the accoustic stage where they burned a big campfire to keep everyone warm at night. There was also a set of decks set up in the Tea Station – a little hut where they gave out free tea and chocolate to everyone!

All in all a fantastic weekend and I cannot wait for next year! Here are a few random pix I found online, I’ll try to add more soon

Collection of Traktor Pro Tutorials, Tips & Tricks

I’ve recently started Using Traktor Pro – I got together a collection of videos & links that would be of help  to many so I thought I’d share them here:

Native Instruments Tutorials:

Part 1 – User Interface: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXOZlK4veR4
Part 2 – Looping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl21UN5XuEY
Part 3 – FX Setup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTd3i79-QFU
Part 4 – FX Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQX0DoQNVpU
Part 5 – Crate Flick http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiIV4qdHTmw
Part 6 – 4 Decks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4P9KTmPC68

Richie Hawtin on his Traktor (3) Setup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1H9W_iLff0

MrCuss
Midi Mapping Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQjJs…eature=related
Midi Mapping Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw9Y5gikiKc

Ean Golden – DJ Tech Tools:

VCI-100SE Walkthrough: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWl79ae6fkM
Traktor Audio/Setup Guide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znUwbqczWIg

Cue Points: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLQuukGhgxI
Beatgrids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAW8X9RSt7A
Assigning Effects: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsbMJTTGDGo

Dynamic Buildups: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMP7yMvNja8
Dafer FX Theory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjjA0xPkXMs
Live Loop Recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgKt-2Sik48
Create Drumroll: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xuu0IKP-yE

Links:

Traktor 3 DVD Tutorials : http://www.dv247.com/computer-music-software/native-instruments-traktor-3-tutorial-dvd–48172 – its a ripoff – I don’t think its wroth buying as the tutorials above will cover most of it.

Traktor Pro Bible: http://www.traktorbible.com – proper softcover book by an expert covering all aspects of Traktor pro. Also expensive but I have ordered it – I’ll let you know what its like.

Traktor World: http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/home/?pwfilter=dj&page=djworld&content=966 – hardware guide, compatible controllers, DJ Interviews etc.

Can’t think of too much more but any links I’ve missed please post here. Please check out my house & techno mixes here: http://www.colly.tv

Isle of Man Legalises Piracy for £1 a month

manpirate

The Isle of man are about to Legalise Piracy – for a flat fee of £1 a month! Sounds too good to be true? Read on…

Under a proposal announced this month, the 80,000 people who live on the Isle of Man would be able to download unlimited amounts of music — perhaps even from notorious peer-to-peer pirate sites. To make this possible, broadband subscribers would pay a nominal fee of as little as £1, or $1.38, a month to their Internet service providers.

Ron Berry, director of inward investment for the Isle of Man, said the music industry needed radical approaches because of the “utter failure” of its current strategies. Global music sales have fallen nearly 25 percent since 2000.

Despite nearly a decade of campaigning against piracy, the industry’s international trade group estimates, 95 percent of tracks distributed online are pirated, generating no revenue for the recording companies.

“A lot of people in the business are concerned with how much money they are losing, but not with how much money they could make,” Mr. Berry said.

Under his proposal, the money collected by the Internet providers would be sent to a special agency that would distribute the proceeds to the copyright owners, including the record labels and music publishers. They would receive payments based on how often their music was downloaded or streamed over the Internet, as they now do in many countries when it is performed live or on the radio.

Fully Story Here

Resell your old Mp3’s!

I thought this was a joke, but no apparently there is no a site where you can upload your unwanted Mp3’s and resell them to to others. The site is: http://www.bopaboo.com – Read more here:

Now I assume after you upload your song you probably have to tick a box confirming you have then deleted it off your computer, but seriously do they think everyone is going to be that honest? What stops someone spending all day downloading music illegally, then reselling it for half the price on this site. I’d say you could make a fortune! I’d do it myself but I wouldn’t last long in jail….

What happens if you download a song from someone, assuming it was bought legally, but it turns out it was pirated. Are they going to chase you too for handling stolen goods? Pffft….

It won’t be long until the music industry set their bulldog lawyers on this, and you never know if they throw enough money at it they might just be successful and get the site shit down. But I’m sure there will be 10 more sites just like it by that time. They can keep trying to fight, but they are fighting a loosing battle. The music industry should get with the times and change their business model and stop swimming against the tide.

Irish DJ Mixes Blog

I’ve finally got around to another little project I have been thinking about. I started a Blog for Irish DJ’s. I really enjoy listening to mixes from DJ’s I know or know of through websites and message boards ect – I actually prefer it to listening to big name DJ’s. Nothing quite like a bit of home grown talent.

Irish DJ Mixes Blog

Please take a look, download some mixes and leave some comments!

The ‘Super Trendy’ new sound of Electronica

I’ve been into electronic music for about 10 years now. Before that I was into metal and rock, but as soon as the rhythm of house got into my blood, there was really very little for anything else. I’ve always been pretty close minded compared to others when it comes to the variance of music styles. I like what I like, but no much else… Electronica is absolutely vast when it comes to sub-division of different genre’s, but really I’ve always been pretty much into the same stuff; mainly ‘House’ and it’s many variants. Funky, Deep, Progressive, Disco, Electro, Tech and Tribal have always been there, and there was almost no need to go anywhere else… Until now.

The most recent and significant progression of my musical tastes, is my recent exploration into the realms of Minimal. “Minimal Techno” or “Microhouse” as it is sometimes known, is a more recent spin off from the well known Techno genre, focusing on the more basic and stripped down repetition of rhythms and beats, somewhat lacking in the melodies tha are moreso found in House and Electro. The thing is that only about 18-24 months ago, being the big music snob that I am, I hated anything of the such, but have more recently grown to be listening to very little else!

There was a very interesting article in The Guardian a few weeks back:

The sound that has been filling those clubs and distributed on those labels, and which has exploded across the continent, is broadly known as “Minimal”. Over the past five or so years, it’s grown from an arcane subdivision of techno into an ubiquitous buzzword on the dance scene. Even two years ago, minimal techno was still the preserve of the so-hip-it-hurts sunglasses-at-night set. Its trendiness was endearingly encapsulated in the ubercoolische.com website, a charming soap opera written about the adventures of minimal figureheads Ricardo Villalobos, Magda and Richie Hawtin. In 2006, minimal finally crossed over, though, when Gabriel Ananda’s 10-minute percussive epic Doppelwhipper exploded across Ibiza.

Minimal is not exacltly going to burst onto the Irish Club Scene any time soon. It is much more suited to dark and dirty underground Berlin clubs at 5am, but it has grown so much on me that I listen to it most mornings on the way into work…