The one caveat is that you have to register with beatport, but a) it's free, and b) you should be registered with them already anyway.  After all, they do have lots of awesome house music for sale there.  If you already have a beatport account just log-in at beatportal and then click "Spin It" (on the left side of the track player) to vote; if you don't have an account/are not logged in it will say "Log In" instead of "Spin It".

Regardless of whether or not you log-in/vote you can still listen to my remix and hopefully you'll enjoy the be-shit out of it, and if you do I sincerely hope you'll make that extra little effort to vote for me.

Thank you all for allowing me to waste a bit of your time.

I'll be DJing alongside Lazer & Blazer as well as Properly Chilled to welcome of of the most respected names in House Music to Quinns.  If Wayne & Garth were here there'd be a whole lotta "We're not worthy!" going on.

I hope you can make it out, it will be a truly special and great night.  Lately its been getting PACKED and the shows have been great.  See ya then~!

please don't suck....

See, Allen & Heath already has one of these called the Xone:4D.  Its been out for years.  It costs a couple of grand.  It is a fully featured 4 channel DJ controller with these 2 MIDI doohickeys stuck on the side.  Its perfectly capable as a MIDI controller and as a DJ mixer. SO why on Earth would Allen & Heath do this to themselves? The fucking money.  That's why....

See you can't penetrate a market if your products costs like $4000 which is what the Xone:4D cost when it came out.  It wasn't tied to some hokey Dj software package.  You want the drool inducing sound of of Allen & Heath and a MIDI controller?  Pay up.  ANd you know what?   I am WAY ok with that.  It wasn't junk.  The value was obviously there.  I knew what I was buying because if the reputation and other products available.  I mean, I didn't buy one.  But you get the picture.

So here we are.  Controllers are all the rage and the VAST majority of them are like $300 alone or up to $900 with a software pack. (I'm looking at you VCI-300).  So why not sweeten the pot.  Lets drop the DJ mixer part and just make it a soundcard.  While we're at it, lets keep the cost WAY up!  Fuck it, we're Allen & Heath.  Well, my dear readers.  I kinda want to see this thing.

The problem with DJ Controllers is they're shitty.  I have a Numark Total Control just gathering dust upstairs right now.  Its tiny, its flimsy, and it just wasn't right for me.  Lazer & Blazer however CRUSH gigs all month long with theirs.  Its all about personal preference.  Me?  I want a full sized mixer.  I want all kinds of buttons, faders, and encoders to map.  I want it to have a good A/D Converter.  And most of all I want it made of metal and real shit.  I may have found the holy grail of digital DJing for me.

 If Allen & Heath were to send me one tomorrow, would I sell my CDJs & 1200s and tell you all to do the same.  Probably not.  But if this thing have REAL faders, a metal case, is a bit heavy, and carries with it the quality I expect from Allen & Heath.... I'd better update my eBay account.  Immma 'bout to need $1300.

I know, I know, "OMG I can haz ableton & serata?!?!?"
 

Well.  First of all the interface is garbage.  It looks like Mac OS 7 is back.  I have always hated Serato's interface and Ableton's won awards for theirs so WHY!!!  Serato should take a back seat on this one.  Second, Sertao is MAD picky about your needles.  Traktor is way less finicky if your records are dirty or your needles are worn, but Native Instruments makes software.  They would never partner with Ableton. Third, look at the screen shot above. Ableton is assigned to Deck A and Thriller on Deck B.  Thats right.  No you cannot drop 2 tracks and use Ableton.  Weaksauce.

I have been an Ableton OWNER (yes I buy software and music) since version 1.  I'm a little stunned that they would do this when they could have licensed "Ms. Pinky" which is a VST plugin that has control vinyl support for MIDI and they could have done it themselves.  Hell, thats what M-Audio did with Torq (Their flaming POS digital DJ system)! **Editor's Note: I owned Torq.  It sucked. I sold it.  It worked for 2 out of 7 gigs

I'll hold back my overall skepticism for now, but I don't see this being the awesome thing they think it will be.  Especially since you can watch James Zabelia in this video from OVER 2 years ago clearly swicthing from Ableton to Traktor while playing in front of 5000 screaming fans.

TOGETHER: The New England Electronic Music Festival seems to promise a lineup of incredible DJs from great sponsors along with a terrific website and hell, its in Boston.  Visit the website to find out more about the festival, get studio tips, and even enter the bedroom DJ contest. I'll be checking it out for sure.  Hope to see you there!

Well, thanks boys.  First of all I'm glad it kind of looks like a CDJ.  Why on earth didn't you write the program yourselves though?  I'm not knocking MixVibes (who wrote the software), they have some great DJ software.  Their newest version ranked #4 out of 10 and considering Traktor, Ableton, & Serato's grip thats not bad. My only real question is why?  Why the fuck do I need a whole new program.  The iTunes Library is just an XML file and its features are well documented and open.  There's even a way to add metadata to iTunes allowing all kinds of extra unsupported tags & goodies.  So why on earth do we have another attrocity?  BECAUSE PIONEER MISSED THE FUCKING BOAT.

Well, since its 2010 I decided to go out and try to find the sweet Pioneer Rekordbox program to organize some tunes.  I'm sure I'll come acros these new CDJs soon enough and I'll need to have my shit together right?

OH! By the way if you have CDJ-1000mk3 or 800mk2, you need to update your firmware.  Glad I'm the only person in America who figured this out. And no, its not free....

Oh, the CDJ-2000, which no one owns yet also has a firmware update as does Rekordbox.  Not looking good....  I'm trying to download the updates and Safari is telling me a half an hour.  So firmwarer updates that cost money and software updates that take forever to download.  Not so hot....

I'll have to post a part two since I have othert shit to do than sit here and wait for this thing to download.  For right now though, I'll have to say that the CDJ2000 & its software which cost $2000 a piece are not impressing me.  Since I also found these other firmware updates I'll have to say that Pioneer as a whole doesn't mind taking our money and pretending to be the friend of DJs, but the customer service is a bit lacking....

Join Select Rhythms DJs Lazer, Blazer & Properly Chilled along with DJ Jay Travis and Robin Moreau for NEW YEAR'S EVE @ TROY CITY TAVERN!!! We're holding down the swank 3rd floor lounge all night.

$20 Entry includes 2 free drink tickets
$60 Entry includes open bar from 9pm-1am

Champagne toast at midnight for all!

Email Lazer for more info! (alittlesound@gmail.com)

NEW YEAR'S EVE @ TROY CITY TAVERN
3rd FLOOR LOUNGE
8PM - 2AM
21+ UP

DJs:
Lazer & Blazer
Properly Chilled
Jay Travis
Robin Moreau

124 4th Street, Troy NY
(near corner of 4th and Congress)

I just wanted to give a quick shout out to EVERYONE in the northeast that went to a Toyz For Totz show over the last couple of weeks. Around $5000 was raised for the charity. A ton of bands, DJs, and venues donated their time. My set at Valentine's was great and a surprising number of people showed up early to rock out! Special thanks to Leila Harrison ( http://www.djleila.com ) for getting me involved and everything she did. Kudos!

So a new article I just read says that turntable & vinyl sales are growing year over year.  I love that 1200gate (yeah, i just came up with that!) keeps getting more interesting.

No it fucking isn't. At least not yet, officially. Lately rumors have been trickling around the Internet (or at least FaceBook & Twitter, but thats all the internet is anymore) that Technics (who is owned by Panasonic) will be discontinuing the venerable Technics 1200 turntable. I call bullshit, but then again I'm an asshole.

If you google "Technics" (I forgot that google also own the internet with Twitter & FaceBook now) and follow the first link you will be brought to Technics incredible website from 2005. Thats right, 4 years ago. Technics as a brand is largely dead, but the 1200 is the cash cow. Here's the proof.

Pro Sound & Stage Lighting is one of the biggest names in catalog and online DJ gear sales. I spoke to a rep there and he told me they sell "several thousand" turntables a year. "...like four or five a day. On a good day ten" So five 1200s a day for 365 days a year is approximately 1,825 turntables and thats one website! At a cost of $500 a piece that means Pro Sound sells $912,000 of 1200s a year. Thats almost a million dollars from one retailer. Holy fuck thats a lot of money for Panasonic to loose. Take those numbers and multiply that out worldwide....

I also called Panasonic's PR department but they were probably out standing in a line at Wal-Mart because it's Black Friday. I'll update this if I hear back from them.

All-in-all, I think everyone can take off their tinfoil hats and calm down. While the record industry is changing, the roots of DJing isn't. Just the other day I got hit up to help find a new DJ a pair of cheap twelves. Add to that the fact that a new set of CDJ-2000 cost FUCKING FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS and I think its safe for us to all take a big deep fucking breath and have a turkey sandwich. That or start hoarding all the used twelves off eBay so we have spare parts for the turntable apocalypse.

Does that say Dj or BJ?

Just wanted to take a second to say thanks toeveryone that threw & attended ART ATTACK! Last night.  There was some great art on display and some incredible DJing! I and everyone else had a blast. Here's a couple of pics from the event.

Fuck Yeah!

We're having a little Post-Thanksgiving Soiree at our favorite new watering hole in Troy, NY: The Troy City Tavern.  It used to be Club Lime for all you crusty pervvy old dude that like to look at hot chicks.  Its 2 floors of sound, no cover, and a great mix of DJs.  Do it!

Wow, that's a hell of a title! I was also thinking of calling this write-up, "What a ton of people decided to do after the Lotus show". Around 2am the sleepy little diner that doesn't sleep on Saturday nights got a sudden 30 person boost, which was unfortunate for them. They didn't get to experience Properly Chilled! But why don't I start at the, um..., start.

I got to Quintessence (11 New Scotland Ave in Albany) right at 10pm. There weren't a lot of people there yet, but Albany is a late night crowd. Brandon (Properly Chilled) was warming everything up and I use that phrase because when he got off the whole place was en fuego! He's an amazing DJ that appeals to everyone including the guy that, I thought, was an undercover cop. He was by himself, not drinking, and paying no attention to the hot chicks Brandon had whipped into a jiggiling frenzy on the dancefloor. Make sure to stop by his site www.properlychilled.com

If you knew what House Music was in 2006, you no doubt heard Hustle & Flow's "Life". It got crushed by every major DJ ever. Brian Anderson & Ryan Kick released some other music together, but none of it had the signature saxaphone and hot house vocal work like this. They pull from all areas of the music: jackin, tech, deep, etc. They brought nothin but prime rib with extra sizzle. Which made the arrival of the next wave of fans that much sweeter. The whole vibe of the music changed with the whole vibe of the place. I didn't get home till 5am We had to stay until the end and not because they borrowed my gear, but because it was that sick.

Special thanks to Lazer & Blazer, Brandon, & Ryan. This is their night and they threw on he'll of a party. If you have pics from the show, email or send them to our Dropbox (over on the right there) so we can share them.