The future of EDM

[ubiqe]

I agree with you - his working hard. My replay was to all those who say that there were many others before him - and not the likes of bt but rather some less known djs who use comps for years now. <- And this is true. He's no innovator, he didn't think it up but still:

1. He works hard to get the sound
2. He's got a huge influence on the attitudes.

[djway]

Other DJ's have used computers in the past. But they are DJ mixing MP3's, or cutting up vinyl's or MP3's.

Sasha is the first DJ to de-construct, as apposed to cutting up tracks. Not many people could ask every producer of a track they'd like to play to send them the individual sound files. Sasha has a team doing this.

I'm not saying he's the 1st(hell, I was doing it 2 years ago myself using cubase) but I'm say he's doing it from a different angle ( I'm still waiting on ITM to come back up so I can back up exactly what I'm talking about here).

I'm not attacking you, just trying to get us on some level ground.

--djway

[djway]

Finally I can get that quote I was after...

The qoute comes from the guy who runs the club where Sasha played last Sunday (Ben Korbel).

"Hi all,

Just to give you all a little more idea of the effort that goes into Sasha's new live laptop show. We didn't advertise it in the marketing as Sasha has only been using the laptop for part of his sets up until now, as a third deck (using mostly CD mixing). Last night was the first time he has performed an entire set from laptop. Now just to let you know what's involved.

Sasha has three full time staff whose sole job is to contact labels and producers of tracks Sasha wants to play, requesting the seperated/layered parts of a particular track. When they can't get the parts, they pull the track apart themselves. These parts are then sent to Sasha and loaded onto his laptop. When he mixes in Abelton, he has individual control of the bass note, vocals, percussion etc etc and uses an outboard controller and mixing desk to manipulate and introduce each layer.

Ontop of this he has an outboard fx unit that can change the sound of any layer on a particular track he is mixing. For all intensive purposes he is performing just as live as any electronic band. The reason that it sounds so seemless and programmed is that Sasha spends weeks on his laptop, familiarising himself with his music so that it flows. As for it being boring to look at, this is subjective but I agree an interesting and fair point and there is something cool about the more manual visual aspect of a turntable. Sasha is now developing an integrated controller for his live show with a joystick type device so it might look like he's playing Playstation. Who knows what's next, perhaps DJs with virtual reality goggles!

Ben

PS. For me personally, as someone who feels progressive is an outdated and tired sound (in its traditional form), I felt Sasha's performance was refreshing to include a more dance floor oriented sound, with the house/electro aspect. I'd say 90% of the crowd, who aren't purists, felt the same, judging by the hands in the air.

Ironically it's (SOME, not all) of the purists who have sucked the life out of their own prog scene by being so anayltical and critical about it to the extent where there is unfortunately little scene left. That's why it is great to see the wider dance community enjoying dance music for dancing's sake."

--djway

[ubiqe]

Many thanks for the quote.
But I still think all the post in this topic (and many others) about guys using Ableton for mixing live meant that they were also doing this (though they probably don't have contacts within labels...) Or is Sasha the first to mix from parts?
Well if yes then and If not, still and certainly :wink:

what I tried to put through (as an argument for sash, not against him...) was that even if he's not the first to do this it's his achievement that mixing from comp becomes more and more popular. <- And that's where he starts a revolution.

[supaz]

Call me old school...
I'm down the the 1200's and vinyl...

I have no interest in some mad mobile studio/laboratory...

leave that at home and work on your releases...

and for the previous comment of how dj's already has their set pre-programmed...bollocks...

I've seen Sasha bring 5 flight cases of records for a 4 hour set....that's not pre-programming. That's bringing the war chest to work the crowd.

[djway]

I'm glad someone else has noted this...

"I have no interest in some mad mobile studio/laboratory...

leave that at home and work on your releases... "

I agree with that statement 100%

--djway

[beats]

^^^

what he said

i was there and it was an awesome set. u could hear individual samples/riffs from some tracks played over others and running effects and shit over certain loops. i really enjoyed it. if u wanna hear a similar set to the one he played in syd (only more proggy) look out for his Maxima FM (22-AUG-2004) set. The vs set he did with James Zabiela @ Pacha, Ibiza (05-AUG-2004) is a good example of a set where he seems to utelise Ableton a lot and u can hear the variety of different tracks and loops he uses (i espec like the Dark Train riff that eases in and out over the space of 15mins)...

[Kobe]

I'm really impressed with what Sasha is doing, and thank god somebody is exploring new grounds and innovating. To paraphrase Woody Allen: it's like a shark, if it's not moving forward, it is dying.