Music Production, DJ, Live PA and Random Ramblings
Posts tagged DJ
Tutorial Plan
Aug 17th
Right so I am busy planning out the various tutorials that I am going to offer on this site. Well, not entirely but at least the first few 
My idea is to offer two types:
- Screen cast style where by I will describe the subject through an interactive video. This will usually involve me providing theoretical foundations for the concept and then performing demonstrations which can be followed and replicated. Any associated files, projects, documents and the like will be included with the tutorial as a download.
- Written tutorials comprising screen shots and textual descriptions. These will be used where concepts are of a purely theoretical nature such as when discussing a concept from music theory or perhaps some kind of sound analysis.
As a first pass design at the various curricula, I want to do the following two courses:
Production Technology
Compressors
- What, Why, When
- How – Threshold
- How – Ratio
- How – Attack
- How – Release
- Where – Drums
- Where – Percussion
- Where – Bass
- Where – Leads
- Specific Applications – Sidechain Compression
- Specific Applications – New York/Parallel Compression
Music Production and Sound Design
Drums and Percussion
- Theory – What is the rhythm section of a track
- Practice – Designing a Kick
- Practice – Designing a Snare
- Practice – Designing a Clap
- Practice – Designing a Open and Closed Hi Hat
- Practice – Designing a Shaker
- Practice – Designing a Wood Block
- Practice – Sampling
- Practice – Sequencing
- Practice – Processing and Effects
All of the above are going to be screen casts and I will probably refine this list many more times because I think it’s quite week and doesnt provide a thorough (enough) overview of concepts and practices.
Nonetheless it’s a start and if this list is anything to go by, then perhaps 2 years from now, I will have hundreds of tutorials on this site. Provided I can ensure that the quality is of the highest level, I plan to completely outdo anything else that is available on the internet.
I have also been toying with the idea of giving it all away for free, both the tutorials and my own music. I know you probably think I am nuts but there is method in this madness that I will go into on another post. For the time being, let me just say that my plan is not to make money from the music on its own because in this internet age, that money would almost be negligible. It’s simply not a viable option anymore. Instead, the plan is to use my music and tutorials to get myself exposure and ultimately gigs as a DJ and performing artist because that is where the money is at.
After watching the industry for a number of years, I have observed the following:
- Artist X is a bedroom DJ and producer.
- Artist X makes tons of tracks, send them to labels for a few years and gets shot down time and again.
- Artist X starts DJ’ing at a local pub/club to get experience and tiny bits of exposure.
- Artist X eventually makes a track that a small label is willing to sign.
- This track then ends up on Beatport and Trackitdown which is where the artist’s name starts to grow a little bit.
- X releases a few more tracks but now he has developed some industry clout and a big label signs him up.
- X then releases his track on the big label and then his name really blows up.
- The big label usually handles his marketing and acts as management agent controlling his DJ bookings and requests which now start to come in thick and fast from all over the world.
- X now has made it.
Now I know I am making this process sound quite mechanical but honestly I have watched it happen with small names turning into big names countless times and the process always seems to work like this. Also on reading many interviews with famous DJ/producers, they pretty much all say the same thing.
Now my intention is to kind of bypass some of this because it is both a slow process and I am getting into the game pretty late….Note I didn’t come up with this strategy, I am basically copying this guy, Tom Cosm, who pretty much releases everything for free and through providing high quality content and proving his worth, he is currently touring Europe for 4 months playing gigs all over the continent despite not being affiliated with any label or studio whatsoever. His whole reputation has been built up by making good music (firstly!) and then providing good content to the whole community. The only thing he sells are HD versions of his tutorials that can be purchased and shipped on a DVD (I have bought all of them), but you can still download standard quality versions as well as all his music, directly off his site, for free.
So in short, my plan is to give it all away and build up a solid reputation around my personal brand. Using this approach of not waiting for a record label to bite means I can distribute my music at my will and get (potentially) millions of people listening through the power of viral and social media marketing.
It’s a plan that is certainly full of holes and naivety but that’s exactly why I like it
Future of my blog (and how to make money plans…)
May 26th
So I thought I would speak about my intentions for this blog and how I intend to make some money off my passions, while exploiting current technology.
I haven’t spoken about it much on this site, but my absolute passion in life has become music and more specifically music creation, engineering and production. I absolutely love electronic music and my genres that I am interested in both from a production but also a live performance point of view are from the 125 bpm tech and electro house through to progressive house and then to the 140 bpm tech, progressive and uplifting trance with a massive dose of belting techno in the middle.
Between these genres they represent everything that appeals to me in sound and my own productions in some way, attempt to combine all my music interests into one track. One thing is massively prevelant in everything that I make and that is my love for percussion – african, latin and synthetic as well as my love for powerful, driving bass-lines that you might find in techno or tech-trance. There is just something so provocative about the rolling bass of a Simon Patterson track and the complex percussions loops of a Daniel Portman track. I love complex drum and percussion rhythms and the interplay with the bass-line always where my heart is at.
But back to what this post is actually about….I plan to completely redo this site using Joomla instead of WordPress and will put a custom theme together which I feel better defines me (well, I intent to pay on of my more UI talented colleagues to help me with it .
The reason for Joomla is because I intent to create a bit of a community and artist portal site for myself where I will not only provide my tunes as well as weekly/monthly podcasts of me mixing together my top tunes but I intent to use it as a platform to provide some pay-for content.
A big trend in the music production world over the last few years is for budding and mostly unsigned producers such as myself to release high-quality screen casts tutorials on things such as sound synthesis and design, sound engineering, mixing and production techniques, specific hardware or VST tutorials and even genre specific tutorials.
Most charge either a monthly fee to access all content (but then you need to be constantly delivering new content) or they work on a pay per course basis. Of course, the quality of the course is everything as well as the ability to leverage off the viral marketing potentials of the current interweb.
From all I have seen up till now, the sound and audio community is more than willing to pay for this (unlike the software dev community) and I, myself have forked out a good few hundred dollars for top quality content which has really helped me learn and grow in my abilities.
Now where I intent to diff slightly is that I plan to offer soundsets and sample packs for download. For example drum and percussion sample packs which I have designed from scratch. This is currently only being done by some of the top industry professionals and few can compete with the Vengeance sample pack series. Nonetheless I intent to try and initially I will give away a third of each pack for free to entice potential users.
For example say I have created a pack that contains Kicks, Snares, Claps, Open Hats, Closed Hats, Shakers, Congas and Bongos, then i will create a sample pack containing a third of each of the type of samples and distribute it on the various sites, forums etc etc.
This community is brutal, if my sample collections suck, they will flame me to death and obviously not buy. If they are good, there is the potential to gain not just the respect of the vast community but also to turn labels in your direction.
I would probably offer the full sample pack for $20-$30 and it might contain 300-500 one shot samples and maybe 100 loops created solely from the sample in the pack and various bits of processing that effecting.
For the tutorials, I will need to first determine what I want to create and how often I am able to get something out before deciding on a costing model. I will probably include the Ableton Live Packs for free (I use Ableton Live as my primary sequencing system) to registered users of the site, again to entice them to view the tutorials that produced the live packs.
I also intent to provide tutorials on my live performance setup once I have actually figured it out for myself and actually started performing live. My intention is not to be a DJ, but rather, an electronic musician commonly known as a Live PA. This differs to a DJ in two ways. Firstly, I will only play my own music. Secondly, like a band or musician, I will totally recreate the music live – if you have ever seen Goldfish, then you have an idea about what I am talking about…
Overall, this is not something that will make tons of money by any means, it is not something that will allow me to make music all day long. It could however, have a tremendous impact on community support which in turn leads to gigs (where the money is at if you are a DJ) and production/remix requests (not much money to be made any more here).
The current trend in the electronic music world is that your music gets you the gigs and the gigs get you the money and that is why, nowadays, every DJ is a producer and every producer is a DJ.
Anyways, should be an exciting year. My intention this year, musically, is to get my tracks to a level that I would be willing to submit them to labels. If I can do that, It would mean that it has taken me around 2.5 years to get to that level which is decent since most well known producers say that it took them 4-5 years to get their tracks to top level standard. Who knows, maybe I am being overly optimistic, I still have so much to learn but hey, that’s just me
Ultimix at 6 on 5FM
Oct 15th
Getting pretty tired of this crap. I listen every day hoping that today will be the day they decide to play something other then the same crap house mash-ups using the same crap acapella’s. Every day, the same tunes almost, trying to do the same thing….off beat, off key vocals and mash ups. It’s really sad that a DJ in South Africa is someone who does the same thing as everyone else. No wonder we have no one in the Top 100, it’s because we are completely unoriginal in our approach!
I was fortunate enough to go to Ibiza in 2008 and in doing so, one realises just how far behind we are in terms of parties, the atmosphere, the fun and of course, the music. There is only on place in SA that has it and does it right and that is ESP in JHB! They know what music is and how to play and mix it. They know how to drive a crowd wild! They are the only nightclub I will go to because they have a soul for the music.
Everything else in SA is shit!
I don’t know what happened to that rave seen of the 90′s? Those good old Rosebank days of the 90′s! Fuck man, those were the days! Since then, there has been almost nothing new, nothing unique and nothing that pushes the boundaries. Trance and Techno just aren’t accepted in this country and I don’t know why, it has so much depth and character but I guess, one can’t account for taste these days!
I listen to the radio on my way to work and all I hear is Lady Gaga, Britney and other horse shit and I wonder, where have the real musicians and artists gone? Where is the talent, it must still be there surely?
I saw something on Facebook the other day which really pissed me off. Fucking Tiesto is giving away as a competition prize, a personal phone call!!!!! Huge ass WTF!!!!!
How can their egos have gone so far up their own asses that even the guys that are talented, have become shallow, vote seeking, Top 100 thriving assholes!
Good on you ESP and James and Shane and everyone else! You are authentic! Don’t loose sight of that!
Goals are goals
Aug 6th
Setting goals for the sake of having goals is not necessarily a good idea unless you plan to action them otherwise, you end up feeling pretty poo about life after being unable to achieve your them. That said, I am not one of those people and I am relentlessly pursuing my goals despite my tendency to assign procrastination to lack of time.
My medium term goals, in no particular order are as follows:
- Continue to be an awesome husband (well that’s my opinion anyway)
- Become the worlds greatest DJ and producer
- Play the piano and bongo drums effortlessly
- Eat the food and drink the wine of every country in the world
- Continue writing on topics of substance and resisting to be like every other popular blog that writes bits about everything
- Definitely cook more, especially more Mediterranean
- Exercise more! A got a gym contract, it’s a start, give me a break!
That’s a decent list for the time being. I think I will have to re-evaluate whether I am the worlds greatest DJ and producer every month or so because it’s has such an immediate horizon
