DJ Times March 2017, Vol 30 No 3

MARCJ 2017

DJ Expo ’17: Details Inside

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PARADISE

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WINTER NAMM ’17: ANALYSIS & PRODUCT PICKS MIXON 4: Reloop’s unique controller.

TORAIZ AS-1: Pioneer DJ’s new synth.

Studio Control: PreSonus’ FaderPort 8.

allows you to create DMXcontrolled light shows that are tied to your music. The light programming is stored to metadata, allowing the program to play back the same way, for the same song, every time — regardless of BPM. Even “crossfading” of the light programs is provided. The system also has provisions for songs that have no light programming information.

Germany’s Reloop was present through its U.S. distributor American Music & Sound, showing a couple of new offerings, including the MIXON 4. It’s a multi-platform controller, working across PC and Mac computers, as well as iOS and Android tablets. On the desktop, it’s designed for Serato, while on tablets, it supports Algoriddim’s popular djay Pro, and includes a tablet prop slot that accommodates devices up to a 12.9-inch iPad Pro. The company even offers mappings for Virtual DJ and Traktor.

Louisiana’s PreSonus offers an array of toys for studios (not to men-

DJ Expo Dates Set

tion AIR Series loudspeakers for mobiles), and among the new offerings at the show was the FaderPort 8. It’s a controller designed to pair with an array of DAWs, putting physical control of transport and faders at your fingertips to help eliminate some of that fancy mouse work, and making workflows more intuitive. Its tightest integration is with PreSonus’ own Studio One DAW, but Mackie Control and HUI are supported, extending its reach to other popular DAWs, such as Pro Tools (via HUI), Ableton Live, Reason, and several

others (via Mackie Control).

Music collabs seem to be on the minds of many DJ/producers. Avid was showing its newest version of Pro Tools,Version 12.7, and its support for Avid’s MediaCentral Platform. MediaCentral provides easy and effective social-enabled collaboration between Pro Tools users, along with project forking and versioning features.

Also, there was BandLab, the Singapore-based music-collab service. It’s a combination of simple, purpose-built, web browser- and app-based DAWs that are designed from the ground up to let musicians work together easily online. The service is free.

Also, German DAW-maker Bitwig showed off the upcoming Bitwig 2 upgrade, which sports user-interface refinements, along with some innovative new modulation capabilities that take advantage of that new UI in a way that’s both fun, and practical.

Bitwig 2 also contains several new devices in the box, along with revised MIDI interfaces, and new CV (control voltage) interfaces to compatible offboard synth hardware.

LIGHT YOUR STAGE FOR LESS!

MARCH 2017

Atlantic City, N.J. – DJ Expo is set to run Aug. 14-17, 2017, at the Atlantic City Convention Center. Produced by DJ Times & Testa Communications, the show will present exhibits, seminars and evening events and it expects to d r aw m o re t h a n 5 , 0 0 0 pro DJs. And this year, the show will offer some new and different twists. For more , please see Feedback on Page 9.

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By Wesley Bryant-King Anaheim, Calif. – For me, the Winter NAMM show was, again, a whirlwind of meetings and demos with some of the music industry’s biggest players showing their wares.

The show—held this past Jan. 19-22 at the Anaheim Convention Center—had its share of exciting additions across the DJ and studio spectrum. Here are some of my personal favorites: On the heels of its MCX8000 controller, Denon DJ introduced the Prime Series, consisting of a mixer, turntable, and media player. The SC5000 Prime media player caught my attention. Denon DJ raises the bar with impressive embedded software coupled with a fast processor and touch interface that match the rich, responsive user experience DJs are accustomed to. With the ability to layer two tracks from a single deck, and analyze music on the player (vs. having to do it on a computer), the SC5000 Prime is fun to use, while enabling more efficient DJ workflows.

Pioneer DJ is working to blur the lines between traditional DJing and live performance with the TORAIZ line.

The TORAIZ SP-16 sampler, a collaboration with Dave Smith Instruments, was released in 2016 and now the company returns with another DSI collab—the TORAIZ AS-1 monophonic analog synth. Both are musical instruments, but with the Pioneer DJ name on the front, the intent is clear: These are musical instruments intended for DJs. The AS-1 borrows heavily from DSI’s own popular Prophet-6 analog synth, giving the AS-1 some powerful capabilities with a classic Prophetesque sound signature.

Lighting company Chauvet was highlighting a new partnership with SoundSwitch. The New Zealandbased company’s product, a combination of hardware and software,

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VOLUME 30

NUMBER 3

14 Living in Paradise

After Conquering Clubland in Ibiza & Beyond, Jamie Jones Sets His Sights on America

BY CHRIS CARUSO

22 Holy Ship!

Two Big Cruises Took the World’s Top DJs Out to Sea

BY DJ TIMES PHOTOGRAPHERS

24 Groomzilla!

Nitpicking & Panic Are No Longer the Domain of Bridezilla. Meet the Male Version & See How DJs Deal with the Drama

BY JEFF STILES

DEPARTMENTS 9 Feedback

As Always, the Answers to All Your DJ-Related Questions

26 Making Tracks

Native Instruments Komplete 11

28 Sounding Off

Hercules Hercules Instinct P8

30 Mobile Profile NYC’s DJ Mike Dynamite

32 Business Line

Better Business Tactics for DJ Owners

34 Gear

New Products from Denon DJ, Steinberg & More

38 Grooves

Phat Tracks from Mr.C, Radio Slave & More

41 Club Play Chart

The Hottest Records, As Reported

by Our Top U.S. Record Pools

SAMPLINGS 10 Adventure Club Making “Red // Blue”

12 In the Studio With…

DJ TIMES

MARCH 2017

6

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FROM THE EDITOR

Paradise Revisited It’s been a few years, but Jamie Jones is back on the cover of DJ Times. When we first featured the Welsh DJ/producer in 2013, his Paradise party had become the rage of Ibiza and Hot Creations— the tech-house label he co-founded with Lee Foss—had begun to take off. Fast-forward four years and the event brand is stronger than ever and the American appetite for Hot Creations, whose roster includes Patrick Topping, wAFF and Denney, has become a little more ravenous.

Now Jones’ Paradise events are branching out dramatically here in the States—he’ll be throwing it down at Space during Winter Music Conference/Miami Music Week—and our Chris Caruso caught up with him to discuss how he’s prepared to further flex his brand.

In our Samplings section, Long Island-based scribe Michelle Fetky connects with Adventure Club’s Leighton James and gets the lowdown on the Canadian duo’s new full-length, Red // Blue.

Additionally, our longtime L.A. correspondent Lily Moayeri scores some studio talk with Thievery Corporation, the D.C.-based duo which split time recording its reggae-centric The Temple of I & I between our nation’s capital and Jamaica. And in a two-page photo spread, we take a look at Holy Ship! – the annual Caribbean cruise that carried some of dance music’s biggest DJs out to sea for some beat-filled mix sessions.

This month, Denver’s Wesley Bryant-King again goes above and beyond, as he offers his analysis on the Winter NAMM show (Page 3 News), which we both attended this past January – he also handles both our tech-review sections. In Making Tracks, he takes Native Instruments Komplete 11 into his home studio and, in Sounding Off, he handles Hercules DJControl Instinct P8 controller and takes a sidebar look at Version 3.5 of Hercules’ DJUCED 40° software. Give the guy some rest!

On the mobile side, Iowan Jeff Stiles revisits the nightmare wedding client – this time, it’s Groomzilla. Stand back and beware! In Business Line, Maine mobile Jerry Bazata offers five tips on better business tactics for DJ-company owners. Also, in Mobile Profile we meet with Staten Island, N.Y.-based operator Mike Kazis, who runs Dynamite Party Productions and serves as president for the New Jersey Disc Jockey Network.

In this issue, we also take this opportunity to announce the latest on DJ Expo in Atlantic City, N.J. Set for Aug. 14-17 at the Atlantic City Convention Center, the show will move venues, but retain the same mission. Now in its 28th year, DJ Expo—produced by DJ Times and Testa Communications—will continue to bring the very best for every professional DJ. With more than 100 exhibitors, nearly 30 educational seminars and three evenings of sponsored entertainment, DJ Expo is the industry’s longest-running and most-successful trade show—a must-attend event. And in the months to come, expect more exciting announcements about DJ Expo.

Cheers,

DJ TIMES

MARCH 2017

Jim Tremayne Editor, DJ Times

8

editor-in-chief Jim Tremayne jtremayne@testa.com

art director Janice Pupelis jpupelis@testa.com

editor-at-large Brian O’Connor boconnor@testa.com

production manager Steve Thorakos sthorakos@testa.com

assistant editor Chris Caruso ccaruso@testa.com chart coordinator Dan Miller dmiller@testa.com contributors Joe Bermudez Wesley Bryant-King Shawn Christopher Paul Dailey Reed Dailey Chris Davis Tony Fernandez Tommy D Funk Michelle Fetky Jennifer Harmon Josh Harris Greg Hollmann Mike Klasco Michelle Loeb Evan Maag Duanny Medrano Lily Moayeri Phil Moffa Natalie Raben Deanna Rilling Jeff Stiles Emily Tan Bruce Tantum Phil Turnipseed Curtis Zack President/Publisher Vincent P. Testa FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE AND TO ORDER SUBSCRIPTIONS, CALL 800-937-7678 VISIT OUR WEBSITE www.djtimes.com

DJ Times Sound & Communications The Music & Sound Retailer Sound & Communications ClubWorld Blue Book America’s Best DJ The DJ Expo IT/AV Report Convention TV News VTTV Studios

digital art director Fred Gumm fgumm@testa.com social media coordinator Matt Van Dyke mvandyke@testa.com

advertising manager Tom McCarty tmccarty@testa.com marketplace advertising sales manager Ricky Pimentel rpimentel@testa.com art/production assistant Ricky Pimentel rpimentel@testa.com Circulation circulation@testa.com Classifieds classifiedsales@testa.com operations manager Robin Hazan rhazan@testa.com Editorial and Sales Office: DJ Times, 25 Willowdale Avenue, Port Washington, New York, USA 11050-3779. (516) 767-2500 • FAX (Editorial): (516) 944-8372 • FAX (Sales/all other business): (516) 767-9335 • DJTIMES@TESTA. COM Editorial contributions should be addressed to The Editor, DJ Times, 25 Willowdale Avenue, Port Washington, NY, USA, 110503779. Unsolicited manuscripts will be treated with care an d should be accompanied by return postage.

DJ Times (ISSN 1045-9693) (USPS 0004-153) is published monthly for $19.40 (US), $39.99 (Canada), and $59.99 (all other countries), by DJ Publishing, Inc., 25 Willowdale Ave., Port Washington, NY 110503779. Periodicals postage paid at Port Washington, NY, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to DJ Times, PO BOX 1767, LOWELL MA 01853-1767 Design and contents are copyright © 2017 by DJ Publishing, Inc., and must not be reproduced in any manner except by permission of the publisher. Websites: www.

March 2017

visit our website: www.djtimes.com

FEEDBACK WINTER NAMM ’17 PREVIEW AMERICA’S FIRST MAGAZINE FOR PROFESSIONAL DJs ESTABLISHED 1988 FEBRUARY 2017

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FROM THE DEEP

ucts that will impact every DJ in the market. Expect to see the industry’s biggest and most influential manufac‑ turers and distributors showing their wares – playback, pro audio, lighting, studio, video, accessories and more.

Sponsored DJ Expo events will offer attendees special networking oppor‑ tunities and musical experiences fea‑ turing trend-setting DJs and hitmak‑

ing artists. In recent years, DJ Expo has presented keynotes, seminars and performances from Lady Gaga, Lil Jon, Markus Schulz, Cash Cash, RedOne, Paul Van Dyk, DJ Skribble, QBert, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Grandmaster Flash and many more. As always, DJ Expo is the place to be.

For the very latest on DJ Expo, please visit thedjexpo.com.

1/11/2017 6:25:46 PM

This is Feedback, a monthly feature that fields questions from you, our readers, and funnels them out to in‑ dustry professionals. If you have any questions about DJing – marketing, mixing, equipment or insurance, any at all – drop us a letter at DJ Times, 25 Willowdale Ave, Port Washington, NY 11050, fax us at (516) 944‑8372 or e‑mail us at djtimes@testa.com.

If we do use your question, you’ll receive a free DJ Times T‑shirt. And remember, the only dumb question is the question that is not asked.

DJ Expo ’17 Announcement Atlantic City, N.J. – DJ Expo, the DJ industry’s top trade show/exhibition, will run Aug. 14-17 at the Atlantic City Convention Center.

The show’s venue has moved, but the DJ Expo’s mission remains the same: Bring the DJ industry together to ex‑ perience the latest technologies, enjoy the unique networking opportunities, benefit from a deep slate of educa‑ tional sessions, and have plenty of fun each evening.

Produced since 1990 by DJ Times and Testa Communications, DJ Expo will gather the country’s top DJs, manufacturers, distributors and retail‑ ers for three days of exhibitions, four days of seminars/keynotes, and three evenings of sponsored events/parties.

For the 2017 show, DJ Expo exhibits and seminars will be presented at the Convention Center during the day.

Also, the Tropicana Casino & Resort on Atlantic City’s famed Boardwalk will serve as DJ Expo’s host hotel for attendees – and The Tropicana’s ex‑ quisite nightlife venues will house the show’s evening events.

Now in its 28th year DJ Expo remains America’s largest gathering of pro DJs. As always, DJ Expo seminars will offer solutions to the biggest issues in an ever-evolving industry, be they mobile-, club- or studio-related. The DJ Expo’s showfloor and demo rooms will debut and showcase the prod‑

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SAMPLINGS

DJ TIMES

MARCH 2017

ADVENTURE CLUB: MAKING “RED // BLUE”

10

With its melodic brand of dubstep-infused EDM, Adventure Club has enjoyed a steep ascension since its 2011 debut.

Catchy, big-drop remixes for “Crave You” by the Flight Facilities and “Youth” by Foxes, plus a monster collab with Krewella (“Rise & Fall”) set the stage for the Canadian duo’s breakout – 2014’s “Wonder” feat. Kite String Tangle. After its debut EP, Calling All Heroes, earned over 10 million Spotify streams, the duo began to grace the stages at major festivals like EDC, Ultra, Coachella, Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo.

This past December, the Montreal-based pair—Leighton James and Christian Srigley—dropped its first full-length, Red // Blue [BMG]. Loaded with sparkling collabs (Terravita, Hunter Siegel) and features (ELEA, Delaney Jane), including latest single, “Firestorm” feat. Sara Diamond, the 12-cut album expands to broader musical territory—soulful, ethereal, experimental—and was recorded in the group’s newly built hometown studio. We recently caught up with Leighton James to discuss Adventure Club’s latest doings.

DJ Times: What are your musical backgrounds?

Leighton James: I’ve played the piano since I was 7 years old.

Christian is a guitarist by nature, but I also play as well. We both have been in and out of rock and pop bands our whole lives.

DJ Times: What were you playing before Adventure Club?

James: It wasn’t as fruitful as Adventure Club is, but Christian and I were in three different bands altogether. The other members would rotate and we would change names. We started off as a metal-core band, and then more of a rock band, and then finally Christian and I started writing in a pop band. While in the pop band, simultaneously, we were writing electronic music. We put some of our electronic music online, and it started taking off. After that, we put the pop band on the back burner and started focusing on Adventure Club.

DJ Times: In late 2016, you released your debut album, Red // Blue. What were some of the musical inspirations for that project?

James: It’s pretty wide and far apart. We pulled a lot of real

Adventure Club: (from left) Christian Srigley & Leighton James.

sounds into this – piano landscapes, drums and more. As far as indie stuff goes, Damien Rice, and some of Thrice’s new stuff. Electronically, it was some San Holo and a bit of RL Grime.

We kind of pulled as many sources as we could.

DJ Times: Do you have a favorite song from the album?

James: “Ghosts,” it’s one of the more understated records on the album. It kind of has this feeling of incompletion. It’s sort of an unresolved piece – the chords are unresolved and the lyrical content is unresolved.

It’s about getting closure and I think there is something haunting and beautiful about that.

DJ Times: As DJs, what are you

using in the booth?

James: [Native Instruments] Traktor, a sample deck and a Kontrol X1 controller.

DJ Times: What DAW do you use in the studio?

James: When we are writing music, we are writing on a program called SONAR by Cakewalk. It’s kind of like the odd child in the production world and I don’t think anyone else really uses it. We also use Ableton Live for DJ edits and getting ideas down on the road.

DJ Times: Which DJs have had the most impact on your career?

James: Skrillex, he’s the poster child to everything that we were.

He was in a hardcore band like we

were and then he transitioned into the electronic world and everything he did was well-received. His musical creation just puts him up at the top of the list. RL Grime, I love the way he produces music and to watch him DJ is something that helps with our creative output. Justice, A-Trak and Boys Noize. Justice really opened my eyes—they are really two of the coolest dudes. To hear them play and watch them DJ, smoking cigarettes and playing electronic music for massive crowds is so inspiring. That whole sound is just amazing.

DJ Times: Any producers impressing you now?

James: PhaseOne from Australia. (continued on page 40)

IN THE STUDIO ing the studio, according to their longstanding front-ofhouse and studio engineer, Gianmaria Conti: “The first thing we do to sketch a song is pull out an obscure record for samples here and there.”

This was the case on Thievery Corporation’s latest album, The Temple of I & I [ESL Music], which got its start in Montserrat House, their D.C. studio, with these sketches.

Then the project moved to GeeJam Studios in Port Antonio, Jamaica, for 10 days to record the rhythm section before returning to D.C. for completion, which took the better part of a year.

As might be expected, The

Temple of I & I has a decidedly dub-reggae feel to it, primarily inspired by GeeJam’s beautiful, exotic location. But it’s also because Hilton and Garza have been moving toward tighter musical-genre concepts on their recent albums, rather than the mixture of world sounds of their earlier works.

Thiever y Corporation took its own rhythm section to GeeJam along with Conti, and Hilton admits, “We could have gotten the same sound in our own studio, but it was a bonding exercise. It felt good recording in Jamaica and having Jamaicans hear you play Jamaican music and

giving their critique, which was generally very positive.

That was a cool challenge we couldn’t have gotten anywhere else.”

It’s not surprising that Hilton and Garza received good feedback – The Temple of I & I has an authentic, low-slung Jamaican feel to it.

Song titles sport classic reggae terms (“Thief Rockers,” “True Sons of Zion,” and “Babylon Falling”) and MCs chant familiar catchphrases – check Notch’s calming flow on “Strike the Root” or Racquel Jones’ big-throated raps on “Letter to the Editor.”

Even hip-hop-style rhymes courtesy of Mr. Lif cushion

THIEVERY CORPORATION: ON ISLAND TIME

nicely against the lazy horns of “Ghetto Matrix.”

Avid’s Pro Tools is the recording platform of choice with Native Instruments’ Maschine sometimes used to edit beats and loops. At home, Hilton and Garza have a plethora of vintage keyboards, including a Wurlitzer, a clavinet, Lowrey organs, plus a Leslie amp cabinet. At GeeJam, which is one small L-shaped room, Conti had the drums tucked at one end with a little bit of space for room miking, recording the musicians separately. They worked from the aforementioned sketches, which were essentially rough demos.

With limited time, the days at GeeJam ran 12- to 13-hours long, providing a more difficult, if scenic environment. (continued on page 40)

DJ TIMES

MARCH 2017

I f yo u ’ve e x p e r i e n c e d Thievery Corporation over the last few years, chances are it has been in a live setting with a full band, rather than a gig with either of its members DJing.

The Washington, D.C .based duo—Eric Hilton and Rob Garza—became known as a DJ collective early on, but eventually established its live presence, playing some of the world’s most prestigious stages like Coachella.

According to Hilton, when they do DJ, which is very rare anymore, it often confuses their fans who are looking for the musicians, “no matter how big you put the letters ‘D’ and ‘J’ on the various bits of promotion for the gig.”

Hilton says that he’s “officially retired from DJing,” pointing to the digital demands on the modern DJ. “I found it really frustrating to keep up with the music,” he laments. “Sifting through five hours of digital files, buying music, makes me want to punch the wall. I miss going to the record stores and interfacing with my friend who works there who can tell me about cool stuff. There are so many DJs I love, I’d rather listen to them than hear myself DJ.” Even so, Pioneer CDJs are still the instruments Hilton uses in all Thievery Corporation’s live performances, w h i l e G a r z a p l ay s key s , samples and, intermittently, the guitar. As for record-

12

Thievery Corporation: (from left) Eric Hilton & Rob Garza.

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LIVING IN

PARADISE

A F T E R C O N Q U E R I N G C LU B L A N D I N I B I Z A & B E Y O N D , JAMIE JONES SETS HIS SIGHTS ON AMERICA

DJ TIMES

MARCH 2017

B Y

14

C H R I S

It’s been just four years since Jamie Jones last appeared on the cover of DJ Times. But it’s remarkable just how far the Welsh phenom has come in some 48 months from being described in many circles as “the best DJ you may not know.”

Back in 2013, Jones had already established himself as underground force, thanks to some nascent releases like his turboblasting remix of Azari & III’s “Hungry for the Power” and his Fabric 59 mix compilation. Hot Creations—the label Jones cofounded with Lee Foss—had earned its place as the home of the off-kilter tech-house that was as cool as it was floor-filling, and Jones’ Paradise residency at Ibiza’s DC-10 was gearing up for its second full-summer outing.

In the years since, Jones has ascended to being a bona fide DJ superstar, with no “underground” qualifier required. Having notched headlining sets at Ultra Music Festival Miami for four years running and routinely selling out clubs like New York’s Flash Factory and Los Angeles’ Sound Nightclub, the Welshman is as in-demand on this side of the pond as he’s been in Europe.

Hot Creations has become a fertile breeding ground for tech-house talent, with acts like Patrick Topping and Denney being catapulted to their own club superstardom with releases on the revered imprint. His live band project Hot Natured— comprised of Jones, Foss, Luca Cazal, Ali Love, and occasionally Anabel Englund—has dropped an album, toured the world, and even hit the Top 40 for the U.K. Official Singles Chart.

Paradise has taken on a life of its own, becoming the Wednesday night event in Ibiza and sprouting annual multithousand-capacity installments in Amsterdam, Miami, and Playa Del Carmen, in addition to one-offs in Moscow, Barcelona, and more. Creatively reinventing itself each year with colorful themes like A Planet Called Paradise and 2016’s Paradise: A

C A R U S O

Tasya Menaker

MARCH 2017

DJ TIMES

Virtual Trip and bookings that run the gamut of legends like Danny Tenaglia, established faves like Nicole Moudaber and cutting-edge talent like Midland and Jey Kurmis, the brand has cultivated its own identity and ethos separate from the Hot Creations brand and even Jones himself. Just this past December, a Paradise on Earth mix compilation series was launched featuring Paradise veterans Topping and Nathan Barato.

This year, Jones has his eyes set on one thing in particular: America. While already a headlining draw at clubs across the country on his own, Jones is poised to take the Paradise brand to new heights with one-off parties and festival-stage takeovers throughout the year. Kicking off the fun is Paradise in Space: a relaunch of the perennial Miami Music Week party that takes the event away from the Wynwood warehouses and into Club Space and its iconic rooftop terrace.

And, as always, Jones remains planted firmly in the cockpit, ready to bring his brand of intergalactic techno heaters to dancefloors across the planet and beyond. Paradise won’t just be a place on earth if it’s up to him.

We caught up with the globetrotting DJ/ producer ahead of the madness to get the history of Paradise firsthand, as well as look to its future and beyond.

DJ Times: I’d love to hear the brief oral history of Paradise and its creation. What sort of start did it have and what inspired its concept?

Jamie Jones: I started it because it got to the point in Ibiza where I was getting a lot of offers from various clubs to start my own night. I was a resident at DC-10 at the time and after discussing it with them they offered me to start my own night there for the whole summer, which no one had really done before. A few people had tried, but it hadn’t really worked out. My first residency in Ibiza was in this room called The Music Box. It was the first place to bring DJs like Damian Lazarus and Tiefschwarz and M.A.N.D.Y.—that kind of early electro-house sound from Berlin and London in the early/mid-2000s—to the island, and to me and my friends held a lot of good memories because it was a time before minimal techno took off.

DJ Times: So how did things change?

Jones: With Paradise, I wanted to bring those sorts of more colorful people dressed

15

Tasya Menaker

DJ TIMES

MARCH 2017

“THE UNDERGROUND-VS.EDM THING?

16

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well and keeping the music going in various directions every week. The reason we called it Paradise was because it made sense to be associated with Paradise Garage—it’s a bit of a homage to that, really.

DJ Times: What is the central core of Paradise? If someone were to go stay from open to close one night, what sort of journey are you trying to take them on?

Jones: I’m a DJ and I think what we try and do with the label and all the brands is we try and continuously move it forward, but the running element is a bit of variety. From the offset, we’ve got some great residents and we always bill the music well, but I think the reason it’s been successful is because we don’t look in one world of music for our DJs. We have everything from Metro Area and DJ Harvey all the way to Adam Beyer and Alan Fitzpatrick to Daniel Bell and Mood II Swing this last summer.

DJ Times: All over the musical map…

Jones: I’m somebody who gets quite bored very quickly, so I like to constantly make my sets from place to place as different as possible, and I want [Paradise] to reflect that. I love listening to rolling techno or the Berlin-style techno as much as I love listening to disco, so I think that’s what people can expect.We curate the night so that it all fits together, but I think that if you go in one room you can hear one thing and, if you go in the other room, you can hear another.

DJ Times: A well-rounded evening…

Jones: That’s what people can expect, along with… when I first went to Ibiza the nights I went to were pretty epic and there were lots of moments, and the lights were incredible. It wasn’t just a dark warehouse kind of feel— which I love! When I’m in Ibiza, I want to feel the Balearic-ness of where I am, and I think that’s what we’re trying to do: to bring underground music and DJs that we love on the cutting-edge of the scene and just soundtrack a Balearic night out.

DJ Times: A lot of its identity comes from its home, DC-10 in Ibiza.

What makes that club so special and what’s your personal history with it?

Jones: My personal history with it was my third visit to Ibiza when I had decided to spend the summer there. I had been there [in 1998 and 1999] on holiday, and in 2000—the summer after my first year in college—I had decided to spend the full summer there. I went with my box of records, and midway through the season, some friends of mine from London were like, “You’ve got to come check out this party.” We’d heard something about it the week before. Back then, Space [Ibiza] on Sundays was the staple night where everybody went. It was amazing, the Space Terrace is open-air—I remember hearing Laurent Garnier and blowing my mind. It was an amazing night, and everyone would party there from about mid-afternoon until about 2 a.m., then we’d all hang out on the beach somewhere or actually at this weird hotel Manumission had. I don’t think anyone stayed there, and it was a place you’d have to be in-the-know to be invited, but they had all the performers of Manumission there. It all got kind of weird, but it was cool.

We’d go there, and then about 8 or 9 in the morning, everyone would go to DC-10.

DJ Times: What about your first time there?

Jones: I went for the first time, and I think I remember I was inside for hours in this dark cave—it was the inside room of DC-10—and it had a foosball table in there, zero lights, super basic. It almost looked like a used club or something. I had been there for a good few hours, and I saw a light and thought, “What’s going on out there?” I didn’t even know there was a

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MARCH 2017

DJ TIMES 18

terrace out there. The whole club was maybe 300 people, the turntables were just on this makeshift DJ stand in the corner, and it was all open-air with barely any cover. The sun was blazing, and I remember sitting down on a piece of cardboard on the wall because I was, you know… partying hard [laughs]. Sitting down on the side of the dancefloor for God knows how many hours, just mesmerized by the music. It just became a thing.

DJ Times: Who was there?

Jones: Back then, it was predominantly Italians, Spanish, and some English/U.K. people, and we used to go every single week religiously. Every single week at 2 p.m., the police would come and shut it down because they didn’t have a license.

Everyone would take a walk from DC-10 to Bora Bora, and we’d do that every single week.

I watched it grow as the word spread, and two years later it was closing later and later until it went until 5 p.m. They finally got the license sorted, and that stopped happening.

DJ Times: And when did you start playing there?

Jones: I was on the dancefloor there every single week from 2000, and then in 2005, I had been playing in Ibiza, I had that residency at Manumission, and I got to know Clive Henry, who was a resident at Circoloco. I went from being on the dancefloor to finally getting asked to play a closing party there. Then I just did what a lot of DJs do: playing a closing to playing two or three nights in the summer, and then I played more and more for them. A few of the bigger DJs left—Luciano was their main guy and he went on to do his thing and Loco Dice was a main guy there and went off to do his thing—and then in 2008, the local authorities closed the club for the whole summer.

DJ Times: What was that like?

Jones: I know for me and a lot of people when it got closed, it was strange. I remember it being a Monday and waiting for the call to know it was happening. I was thinking if DC-10 wasn’t going to be open all summer, I was just going to go back to the U.K. You’ve got to remember back then there was only Circoloco and Cocoon that had guys playing underground house music that we loved.They ended up opening at the end of the season and did a night at Privilege, and I played. That next season they reopened and asked myself and Seth Troxler to be the main residents playing every week.There was a period of three years where we did that.We took over from Loco Dice and Luciano to be the main residents there.Then a few things happened to me with records and stuff and I got into the position where I could do my own night.

DJ Times: The brand itself has expanded, now featuring a Paradise on Earth compilation series. What was behind the decision to do more than just parties with Paradise?

Jones: I think that one of things I’ve seen with Hot Creations was that when we launched [the label], people are as drawn to the vibe as they are the music. Sometimes supporting brands in dance music is like supporting football teams; people love to get really involved. For me, yeah we could just stick to doing parties, but like I said to you before, I get really bored quickly unless things are growing or moving forward. I would never be happy just doing the same circuit of clubs and festivals every summer.

DJ Times: The Paradise brand is doing a lot more in America this year. What spurred your interest in expanding its presence here?

Jones: I think that the scene is getting much bigger here—it’s big now [already]. I live in Los Angeles half the year now. I’m one of the DJs from the scene that’s been coming and touring [in the U.S.] for a long time—I used to play for Lee Foss in Chicago in the early 2000s—and I’ve been continuously coming here three or four times a year for the better part of 10 years. I’ve always seen a lot of potential here—there are a lot of cool venues.

DJ Times: The brand remains huge in Europe…

Jones: Europe’s amazing, but there’s so many things going on there. Sónar [in Barcelona] is the perfect example: we’ve done lots of parties there and it’s an amazing festival, but I decided not to do one there [this year]. We do these huge parties at BPM Festival, a big party in Miami, Ibiza all summer, and rather than just doing something for the sake of it—we did amazing, sold-out parties there for four, five years—everyone’s already there and it’s not challenging to put 3,000 people in the venue. Over here [in the U.S.], I want to start by getting the audience involved in the brand the same way they are in Europe because we do a lot of festival stages there, and then doing a lot of really cool parties.We’ve got some really cool bespoke parties we’re doing in the States in 2017, as well.

DJ Times: Ibiza is a whole different beast than U.S. clubs and festivals. How do you bring the spirit over while adapting it to the scene here?

Jones: I think that we’ve got experience doing the [Paradise] Miami party and doing the party at BPM. I think that it’s finding the right times of the days to do the parties. For example, doing something on the West Coast, it makes more sense to do it in the daytime, while on the East Coast, it makes more sense to do it at night. It’s finding the right location, and also one of the best things we do is finding the right lineups. There’s some people who I feel are stronger over here just because of the style of music that they play. I’m somebody that analyzes everything meticulously, and—as a DJ—the groove of the beat is different.

DJ Times: How’s that?

Jones: In Italy, people dance to the rhythm and they’re more concerned with the rhythm of the night rather than the melodies or the drops of the songs. In the U.K., they’re listening to each song. Obviously still listening to the journey of the set, but mixing it up and having a variety in the sets is a stronger thing to do there. Different areas in the States have their own thing, so we make sure we have the right lineups for the right city and the right venue.

DJ Times: Ibiza’s been seeing a fair amount of changes, especially in the rise of the VIP scene and ownership changes. What have you noticed personally about the crowds and scene there?

Jones: I’m not going to lie to you: Ibiza has changed for sure. It’s different. I think that everything changes, and if you go there for the first time now, you’re going to have an amazing time. If you were there 20 years ago, you had that rawness to it and you’d love that and now it’s different, but it’s still got that magic. Sometimes that magic is a little harder to find these days because there’s a lot more money involved and less (continued on page 40)

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HOLY

Port Canaveral, Fla. – In America, the new year brought some real surprises, but Holy Ship! wasn’t one of them.

No, Versions 8.0 and 9.0 of the annual Florida-to-Caribbean-Sea cruise delivered again with its unique party-at-sea.

Held in two consecutive sessions (this past Jan. 6-10 for 8.0, then Jan. 10-14 for 9.0), Holy Ship! loaded up the Norwegian Epic cruise liner with fans and presented sets from electronic dance music’s biggest DJ/producers—including Claude VonStroke, America’s Best DJ 2016. Cruising to The Bahamas and back, Holy Ship! was produced by Hard, Cloud 9 Adventures and The Bowery Presents. It all looked like this:

Wonder Goggles: Rezz in the mix.

Erik Voake

TWO BIG CRUISES TOOK THE W

It Takes 2: Justin Martin & Green Velvet.

Lance Skundrich Mello Man: Marshmello rocks it.

Rukes.com

Destructo: The party promoter abides.

Lance Skundrich

King Dirtybird: Claude VonStroke onboard.

Lance Skundrich

SHIP! Onboard: Party underway! aLIVE Coverage Future House: Tchami hits the decks.

Lance Skundrich

Rumble Rumble: J.Phlip in the groove.

Lance Skundrich

A-Trak: Thanks & goodnight.

Lance Skundrich

MARCH 2017

Trio: Doc Martin, Destructo & GRiZ. Lance Skundrich

Fatboy Slim: Right here, right now.

Erik Voake

It’s On: Deck party out at sea.

James Coletta

DJ TIMES

WORLD’S TOP DJs OUT TO SEA

All Out: Anna Lunoe gets busy.

Rukes.com

23

Last August, Mark Haggerty had a groom from hell.

“What made him a Groomzilla is that he wanted all the lights, effects and choreography we had available, but he wasn’t keen on paying for it—at least not at first,” says Haggerty, a DJ with Denon & Doyle Entertainment in Pacheco, Calif. “We’d tell him, ‘Well, cut the gobo and one of the TVs and you’ll be in budget.’ “‘No, no,’ he’d respond, ‘but I want all those.’

“Then there were so many ‘extra events’ at his wedding that the coordinator had told him she didn’t think there would be time for everything.”

A Groomzilla, indeed.

Jay Frieze of Signature Sounds in Bristol, R.I., says that, although he absolutely tries to steer clear of these Groomzillas, sometimes one will slip through the cracks.

“I honestly interview my clients as much as they interview me, and I try to steer clear of them,” says Frieze. “I’m not a typical wedding DJ, so they need to see my style and vision. Although I did once have a bride who gave me her entire cocktail playlist—in order, and with specific times.”

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Fortunately for Jerry Bazata in Ogunquit, Maine, he’s rarely had couples the past several years who fall into the “zilla” category.

“In general, though, I’ve found that grooms and brides who try and negotiate a deal with you tend to take up the greatest amount of your time with regards to planning as compared to those who pay you standard rates,” says the owner of DJ Jaz Music & Entertainment.

We asked mobile DJs from throughout the country about the men who’ve been drama “queens” when it came to details about their reception. How did the DJ respond, and how did the groom react? Was the entertainer able to convince the high-maintenance groom that the DJ knew best, and maybe turn lemons into lemonade?

For Haggerty in the San Francisco Bay Area, he said he first figured he might be in trouble

when the groom at his Napa Valley wedding reception—in front of his groomsmen—told him, “Wow, you look much older than your online picture.”

Says Haggerty, “This guy had two grand entrances timed with a video we displayed on the two 60-inch TVs we supplied. The first song was what you’d expect, with a song for each couple, and the second one was when the bride returned after changing into her traditional Chinese dress. They then followed each entrance with yet another bride-and-groom dance.

“I guess the most frustrating part was he would not listen to the advice of other professionals. Heck, it was his wedding and I wanted to accommodate his wishes, but he wouldn’t budge in the pre-planning. He did allow some adjustment during the wedding, but, of course, they all do that.”

Other than the introductions, Haggerty said even his load-in at this Napa Valley reception was not planned well. “The wedding reception was in a wine cave, with the ceremony held up on a hill where you must drive up to get equipment up to the middle of a vineyard,” he says. “I had an assistant, but it was still a lot of work to coordinate with the venue as to when they’d allow access.

“Then, when we showed up with two sound systems, eight speakers, two TVs with stands, 40 uplights, eight gobo washes, a monogram gobo, roto heads, truss lighting with four Martin intels and tons of cable, the venue seemed surprised that we were loading in so much gear, while they were still setting up tables.”

Haggerty’s cell phone call to the in-house coordinator had apparently fallen on deaf ears.

“Aside from the logistics and gear, now let’s

“Of course, that’s not based on income or their abilities to be the mother or father children, but simply by their interests,” says Weitz.

“She might be involved more with banks, while he could be a very successful designer, so being right-brained as a designer might allow him to understand color geometric shapes, fashion and music.”

Weitz says all that begs the question: How do you communicate with a Groomzilla?

“The answer is that it’s much easier than it would be for a Bridezilla, because guys still like to have their guy friends, and as an entertainer—male or female—you can take them out for a cocktail or a beer find out what makes them tick—talk about music, talk about lighting, and talk about design and interests.

“And the best part about it is that grooms are more prone to giving us absolutes, whereas with a female nature you have to work with them more diligently to get their answers.

“Men, on the other hand, can be very black-

and-white when it comes to the perception of what they want.”

Weitz laughs when he describes the differences between a Bridezilla and a Groomzilla.

“It’s like when a Bridezilla gets aggravated, she’s more prone to screaming and stomping up and down and being pissed off until she gets you to react. And when you react and ask what is it that you want, their reply statistically is ‘I’m still not sure,’ and you have to work with them to get the answer.

“A Groomzilla, on the other hand, is different because he’ll threaten you by canceling services and saying you’ll be removed from this part of the responsibility if you don’t take action.

“When questioned about what action you want us to take, he’ll tell you exactly what he wants, and your response should be to not only do what he wants, but to then do it clean and accurate—and in a more than reasonable amount of time to achieve his expectations.” n

DJ TIMES

a ton of little things that they don’t want their DJ to do.

“This is all OK,” he says. “When you sit down with a bride or groom, you need to understand that, since you haven’t even done their event yet, they aren’t upset with you—they’re merely concerned that a mistake they’ve witnessed at another event will happen at their event.

“My advice is to simply address the issue head-on and not get offended—even if you were the DJ at an event that they didn’t care for.

Some people like chocolate cake and some like vanilla. Your job is to bake them the cake that they want for themselves.

“Listen with the intent to hear and then help create an amazing party for them and their guests to enjoy.”

Back over on the East Coast, Adam Weitz is the CEO of A Sharp Production in Huntingdon Valley, Pa. He says there are always husbands who appear to be the traditional female in the family, while the wife can be the ‘man’ in the relationship.

MARCH 2017

talk music,” he recalls. “He picked all the music to include his one-dimensional list of dinner music—two hours between about six artists. And it was very monotonous. I mean, I love The Beatles, but after eight or 10 songs, it may get boring, then to follow with four U2, four Simon & Garfunkel, the Beach Boys, The Four Seasons and one Oasis song… I bet most DJs can guess which song that was.

“He also gave me some pretty lame must-plays for dance music, and gave me a little musical freedom to read the crowd. Although, with all the extra events, there wasn’t much time left for open dancing. There were lots of older folks attending, so normally I would play a wide variety for a crowd like this.”

In spite of all those challenges, of course, Haggerty says he would never allow any event to merely “crash and burn,” no matter what happens.

“What I’ve noticed about all couples is that, once the event is underway and ceremony’s over, they tend to relax a bit,” he explains. “And as long as everyone is having a good time and I’m not completely ignoring his list, they’re OK with my song choices to keep the party moving.

“I barely speak to a groom during the reception. I just check in with him from time to time. I’m most likely to have a Goodzilla when the groom is put in charge of music. Just make him aware that the music should reflect those who are attending his wedding.

“If he’s not a dancer, then he needs to think about what his dancing friends and family would like.”

Over in the Midwest, K.C KoKoruz in Chicago says he’s had plenty of clients wherein the groom started out being a challenge, but for his company it’s never turned into a big issue.

“My experience with challenging clients typically comes from them having had a bad experience at an event as a guest, where they have watched a DJ completely screw something up, act obnoxious on the microphone, or butcher the introductions, or have poor sound quality, etc.,” says KoKoruz of The Keith Christopher Entertainment Group.

“I’ve had mitzvah moms call, panicked, because their child was at a party where the dancers were mean, or where the DJ didn’t get the kids involved, or there weren’t enough giveaways.”

KoKoruz says he believes that most DJs are average, at best. “Very few have taken any type of formal training in improv, acting, microphone technique, music, mixing or have attended any national trade shows like the DJ Expo to get any better at what they do.

“Based on the fact that they’ve only had on-the-job training, at the end of the night they get hugged and tipped by the client, so they assume they rocked.

However, the reality is that if you watched them on video, you’d pick them apart.”

Whenever anyone at an event is planning a future party for themselves, says KoKoruz, they go from being a guest to becoming a judge—and start to notice

25

MAKING TRACKS STUDIO…HARDWARE…SOFTWARE…

KOMPLETE 11: TOP PRODUCTION SUITE

Komplete Package: Native Instruments’ trio.

DJ TIMES

MARCH 2017

By Wesley Bryant-King

26

It has been over 13 years since Germany’s Native Instruments first threw some of its best studio softwaresynth and effects products into a single box, slapped the name “Komplete” onto the end result, and priced the whole thing to emphasize value.

Back then, “value price” was arguably more relative; Komplete retailed for a hefty $1,500, and included just nine products in the bundle, but it was still a lower price point than the products individually.

In late 2011, I first experienced and reviewed Komplete for this magazine—by then, it was incremented to Komplete 8. It was the first time that N.I. splintered the offering into levels: Komplete 8 (28 products included), and Komplete 8 Ultimate (54 products included). The levels varied both in price, and the scope of included products, but N.I.’s mission was no doubt the same: Create an incredible bundle at an attractive price, and give musicians and producers an opportunity to “have it all.”

I was impressed with Komplete five years ago, and I have to say I’m even more impressed today. With the recent release of Komplete 11, N.I. is again incrementing the number on the box — packing in even more value, and packaging the result in more formats: Komplete 11 Select (14 products), Komplete 11 (46 products), and Komplete 11 Ultimate (87 products). The package retails (rounding the prices up a penny) for $200, $600, and $1,200 respectively.

It is Komplete 11 Ultimate that’s the subject of this review. And to give you a sense of “ultimateness,” merely saying you get 87 products just doesn’t do it justice. N.I. says you get in excess of 18,000 individual sound presets.

That’s a sample library of more than half a terabyte in size.

And quite literally every significant engine, synth, sampled instrument, studio effect and creative effect in the N.I. catalog. (No, it’s not every single one, but I’m not sure most users would notice what’s missing, and N.I. must make sure it has something to put in Komplete 12, right?) Of its seven new instruments, both Komplete 11 and Komplete 11 Ultimate include Form, a synth with a rich feature set that uses a sample as the primary oscillator.

First Impressions: As I noted in my Komplete 8 review from 2011, Komplete—especially Komplete Ultimate—is so expansive, so broad, so deep, new users will spend (literally) months going through what they just bought. I’m sure most new users will do as I did: survey the landscape, and start moving towards those objects that prove shiniest in one’s own situation.

It’s worth mentioning here that Komplete contains a mixture of standalone products such as Absynth 5 (a great semi-modular soft-synth with a unique “Sound Mutator” you can use to easily create new sounds from existing ones), Battery 4 (a drum sampler), and FM8 (an FM-based soft-synth) — in addition to many others that leverage Native Instrument platform products, or “engines” to do the heavy lifting, such as Kontakt (a sample-based synth) and Reaktor (a modular synth). For example, Retro Machines Mk2, included with Komplete,

Form: Komplete 11’s new synthesizer.

is an add-on for Kontakt. This can make it a little bit confusing for users new to N.I.’s products—if you’re not familiar, you can end up wondering why you don’t see the software you just installed when you open your DAW. But you might only need to drop Kontakt into a track, for example, and then you’ll see what you’re looking for inside of that.

As for existing users upgrading, you’ll clearly want to evaluate whether the delta between your current version and the new version justifies the upgrade cost. In the case of Komplete Ultimate, the upgrade is (again, round numbers) $400 if you have Komplete Ultimate 8 through 10. (Regular Komplete upgrades for $200 for any version from 2 to 10.) Obviously, the farther back your current version, the more value you’ll get from the upgrade – but N.I. seems to have worked to make the upgrade worthwhile for most users.

Indeed, my own upgrade from Komplete 8 to Komplete 11 feels like a pretty hefty jump. Some of my favorites, like Absynth, Massive, and FM8, are unchanged from five years ago. But other longtime N.I. offerings, like Battery, have received significant makeovers in the intervening years, and without question, there’s a ton of new “stuff” in the box as well.

Some of the content seems almost duplicative unless you’re a purist in search of just the right thing.

For example, there are no less than six Scarbee basses, as well as six different Abbey Road Drummer variations. And while the orchestral material may not be of strong interest to most readers of this magazine, there’s plenty of territory covered that probably is. Let’s take a look at some.

Komplete 11 Ultimate Highlights: It’s worth noting that some of my highlights are not necessarily new products in Komplete 11 specifically; again, my last touch of Komplete was Komplete 8, so there was a huge amount of ground to cover. In any case, here are some of my personal favorites in the box: I believe it can be argued that many of today’s most popular genres are all about pushing the envelope, experimenting with sounds and approaches that break (or perhaps even shatter) the mold. One mold-breaker you’ll find in Komplete 11 Ultimate is Discovery Series: India. This product, which uses the Kontakt Player, features nine percussion and six melodic instruments found in classic Indian music. While readers of this magazine are unlikely to be producing music for Bollywood films, I had some pretty interesting results pairing some of these sounds with EDM percussion tracks in some sample projects, proving that genre-bending can be sonically interesting indeed.

The same might be said for Session Guitarist Strummed Acoustic. This collection, which debuted in 2015 and also uses Kontakt, provides an array of meticulously played and recorded acoustic guitar strumming patterns. Of course, it can be used for a range of popular music, but here again, I found the results pretty interesting when dropping some strummed acoustic guitar into a breakdown part of a trance track. With 8.5 Gig of content behind it, there’s a lot of variety to tap into here. (N.I. (continued on page 40)

SOUNDING OFF PLAYBACK…PRO AUDIO…PROCESSING

INSTINCT P8: SMALL UNIT, SOLID CONTROL

By Wesley Bryant-King is perhaps the most diminutive DJ controller I’ve had the opportunity to use to date. Barely bigger than a box of Kleenex tissues, I, at first, wondered what the company might have left out. The answer is, yes, certain things have been omitted — such as per-track gain controls and pitch sliders. But with just nine knobs, three sliders, a pair of jog wheels, and 24 buttons, Hercules has somehow managed to provide everything you need, and nothing you truly don’t. (For the record, the functionality of the traditional pitch slider can be replicated by pressing and holding the Shift button on the controller, then rotating the corresponding jog wheel, so the omission of the dedicated control is perhaps solely academic.)

In the box with the controller is a copy of the aforementioned DJUCED 40° software, along with a set of sample packs from Loopmasters. DJUCED supports both Windows and Mac users, and offers a fairly comprehensive feature set, packaged and presented within an attractive, modern user interface. Its default set-up right out of the box is

DJ TIMES

MARCH 2017

The first review I ever wrote for this magazine was one for a Hercules DJ controller and, in the years since, I’ve reviewed a number of its successors. The company — part of France’s Guillemot — continues to crank out an impressive array of products for the DJ market, which it now segments into “advanced” and “leisure” categories (though some of the products straddle that fence).

On the advanced side, we have DJ controllers for Serato and Virtual DJ, while on the leisure side, the focus is primarily on bundling affordable controllers with the company’s own DJUCED software.

(Hercules has recently started to up the ante on DJUCED; refer to the sidebar accompanying this review for more details on that.)

Certainly, we all have to start somewhere, and enabling aspiring, bedroom DJs to learn the basics of the craft without breaking the bank seems to be a sweet spot for Hercules. The subject of this review fits that category; it’s the new DJControl Instinct P8.

First Impressions: The DJControl Instinct P8

28

Hercules DJControl Instinct P8: Capable, affordable solution.

for two playback decks, and two sample decks, into which the Loopmasters packs have been loaded.

Quite literally, it’s a “just add music” sort of situation.

Back to the controller itself: It includes a basic sound card on-board, providing both master outs and cueing output to the headphones, in addition to the dual stereo tracks back to the computer for use with DJUCED. The unit requires no drivers, and is USB-powered, making installation plug-andplay. The only necessary step is accessing Hercules’ website to grab the necessary software.

Connections are pretty Spartan; there’s an 1/8inch headphone jack on the right side, a pair of RCAs on the back (along with the USB connector) — and that’s it. These choices reflect the intended market for the product, of course, and it makes the net-net very consumer friendly.

In Use: As an experienced DJ myself, mixing a set with the DJControl Instinct P8 and DJUCED was easy and intuitive, and required no homework.

About the only thing I found lacking out of the gate

is that there’s no master-gain control in hardware; it’s software only. For the typical home user, whose monitor speakers likely have a front-panel volume control, the omission is logical; but I’m glad I used my mouse to turn down the virtual knob in software before blowing my ears out through my standard pro-grade studio monitors, given that virtual knob’s default position of full-on.

As I’ve written in numerous other controller reviews on these pages, multi-purpose pads seem to be the norm in many a DJ controller these days. DJs get one set of rubberized buttons to handle effects, looping, sample playback, cue points, and more, and such is the case with the DJControl Instinct P8. The difference is that the Instinct P8 provides just four pads per side, but still offers a lot of capability without more in the hardware itself.

A backlit strip above each set of four indicates the mode the pads are set to: loop, effects, sample, and cue. Used in conjunction with a knob and a shift button, you get basic control of these four software functions using the pads. Making the most out of them requires some study of the manual, and a fair amount of practice — but that’s the same with any controller that uses this general approach.

After mixing with the DJControl Instinct P8 for a bit, I have to say I was impressed by the general feel of the various controls given the price point. The jog wheels, while relatively tiny compared to most controllers I typically use, were responsive, accurate, and behaved as expected — despite being mechanical in nature versus the costlier conductive type. The buttons all had the expected tactile feel; perhaps my only criticism is that some had a defined, audible and tactile click, while others offered only a mushy giving-way feel. I’m sure it’s due to variations in the switch actuator under the hood, but some consistency there across the board would have been a welcome tactile feedback mechanism that a button pushed is truly pushed; absent any definitive click, it’s hard to know.

Conclusions: Hercules continues to own its niche in the DJ market, and its capable, affordable, “DJ-kit-in-a-box” solutions like the DJControl Instinct P8 will surely satisfy many an aspiring DJ. With a street price of around $130, and with the bundled DJUCED software and its full feature set including effects, looping, sample playback and more, would-be DJs can learn all the basics, explore more advanced capabilities, practice their skills, and certainly impress their friends — all at a price point within reach of virtually anyone.

DJUCED Software Gets More Juice

Hercules recently announced an upgrade to its DJUCED 40° DJ software — to Version 3.5 —and at the recent Winter NAMM Show in Anaheim, Calif., we got a tour of its new capabilities. As DJUCED continues to evolve, it’s becoming easier for me to see it as software whose raison d’être is not solely for bundling with hardware and, in fact, that seems to be what they’re going for with the platform.

New in 3.5 is a refreshed approach to the UI that makes it scalable and dynamic to adjust to different display sizes and types. The waveform displays are improved, and the application now includes capabilities to guide you to tracks that mix best with the track currently playing, based on a combination of key and tempo — a nice aid both to aspiring DJs and more seasoned ones. The company has also broadened the support of its own hardware, and added some other new features around the edges.

I still find the effects and effects control to be fairly basic compared to others in the market which have really focused on effects in recent software iterations.

But I do like the waveform treatment and track-to-track visual beat alignment layout; it follows the industry standard approach to it, meaning that DJs who learn with DJUCED will feel at home with other digital DJ applications should they want to make the jump at a later point. But with each new version, it seems less and less likely that a DJ would want to; the company is pretty serious about DJUCED, and as it continues down this path, it’ll be interesting to see where Hercules takes it.

– W.B-K

MOBILE PROFILE CAREERS…INNOVATIONS…SUCCESS STORIES

FORMER STAR DJ STILL SHINES

By Stu Kearns

“You need to evaluate what your current strengths and weaknesses are, to come up with a strategy to set yourself apart from the

DJ TIMES

MARCH 2017

competition.”

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Staten Island, N.Y. — Like many in the New York metropolitan area, Mike Kazis’ path to the DJ profession ran through John Murphy, the founder and CEO of Star DJs. At the time, in the late ’80s, Kazis was in a modeling school— h e u s e d t o d o r u n w ay modeling for bridal shows, which, he admits, “you’d never guess this now.”

The New Jersey-based Murphy, ever the scout, was recruiting for new DJs that he could train. “It seemed like a good opportunity,” says Kazis. “So I accepted.”

Turns out, the training was superb. “Ever ything you need to know to be a great DJ is what I learned from them,” he says of Star DJs. “I learned how to address a crowd during announcements or intros, what music to play at parties, how to beatmix, how to ad lib and improvise during an event, and how to persuade and control a crowd during games and other formalities.”

It was such effective training that within a few years Kazis was ready to fly solo. In 1992, he started the company that would eventually morph into Dynamite Party Productions.

The challenges were typical, no matter how good his training regimen had been from Star DJs. “One of the biggest challenges for me has been employee retention,” he says. “DJs would leave or I’d stop using them for various reasons – not enough extra work to keep them busy, not the right fit for

Dynamite: Mike Kazis learned from an important mentor.

the company’s needs, etc. Another challenge for me was rebranding my business in 1997 after a previous partner and I split the business. I merged my business with another company from 1994 to 1997, and we operated under a different name.”

Kazis has learned that you can’t just hire anyone that wants to be a DJ. “Their individual characteristics have to fit what your business needs to keep your customers happy,” he says. “To maintain retention, I look for hard-working, proactive, knowledgeable, and resourceful people. The more I can delegate to someone — or the more they could copy what I could do, the better.”

When he was re-branding his business in 1997, he knew it would take time—time to build the Dynamite Party name as its own. “By then, I was also learning new skill sets anyway because I was going back to school to complete my degree in computer information systems,” he says. “The technical skills I learned there helped me keep the company on the edge of new technology. Grad school in 2005 also helped a great deal because I turned my focus toward achieving my MBA, which I completed in 2008.”

Kazis says Dynamite is set up as a partnership, with one equal partner that he brought on board and trained as a DJ. “I made him a partner in 1999,” he says. “The ownership of the business is one aspect of the company, but how it’s managed is another aspect. We have a concrete organizational structure in place where we’re both in charge of different business categories. One person might be in charge of operations and the other might be in charge of sales and marketing.”

I asked Kazis if he sees Dynamite as an entertainment entity, or a business. “I think that my perception of the two is one and the same,” he replied. “To me, Dynamite Party is its own entity and is branded as a collective of entertainers. We also recognize this entity is one type of business that we prefer to categorize as an entertainment company.”

Although he’s based in Staten Island, Kazis is the president of the New Jersey Disc Jockey Network—just one bridge away. “It is indeed possible to stand out in a competitive market, but it’s a very challenging,” he says of the crowded New JerseyStaten Island market. “You need to evaluate what your current strengths and weaknesses are, to come up with a strategy to set yourself apart from the competition.”

Kazis adds that “standing out” could mean different things to different people.

“For instance, you could be a great music mixer, a singer, or musician with talent that would catch the attention of a large crowd or you could be great at providing great customer service to clients behind the scenes. Standing out could come from just about anything you do, and do well.”

His five-year plan is to grow the business, so there are more jobs available for more staff. “We recently upgraded our management infrastructure to handle the demand,” he says. “We’re actually on schedule for upgrading our marketing plans for 2017 to help accomplish our five-year goals. The plans are, of course, reviewed and modified whenever something changes in present times.”

When asked what piece of advice he’d offer to a young DJ starting in the business, Kazis’ many years of experience speaks for itself. “Never think you know all there is to know – continue to improve,” he says. “Always stay on top of your marketing, and never believe that status quo is always the best choice for your business.”

For Mike Kazis, those words have been put to good use.

www.dasaudio.com

Mains vs. Monitors ???

Use the Force and get Both!!!

The SoundForce DJ-Monitor

A 4-way Monitor stack loud enough for use as a main system.

Models shown:

Storm Festival, SHG

WildPitch, ATL

Two SF20A &

One SF1521A

DJ Expo, ACY

Are you attending WMC / MMW? Hear D.A.S. at the following venues:

BUSINESS LINE SALES…MARKETING…SOLUTIONS…

5 KEYS

BETTER BUSINESS TACTICS FOR DJS

By Jerry Bazata

Each year, thousands of entrepreneurs take the leap of faith. You did, remember? Dropping the full-time employment and beginning your DJ business was entwined with the hopes and dreams of obtaining financial success and independence.

With all good intentions, these new entrepreneurs begin working on a business model, creating a plan for sales and marketing, purchasing assets and diving head-first into business development.

But as a commercial lender for over 30 years, I have seen countless business owners try to take control of their financial future only to veer off on a path they had not intended—usually because of a lack of capitalization, financial discipline and a realistic understanding of what it take to be profitable.

The success rate of a small business is entirely dependent upon the owner ensuring that they take these five actions to ensure you’re making all the right financial moves.

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CREATE AN ANNUAL BUDGET AND MANAGE TO THE BOTTOM-LINE. Knowing how much you make is the easy part, keeping track of what you are spending is what often causes a business to fail. For each event you book, gain a clear understanding of the costs associated with delivering your services for the event.

It’s not just limited to expenses related to the day of the event, but the costs leading up to securing the event, marketing, fixed costs to running your business, insurance, office operations and future replacement of equipment.

PLAN FOR CAPITAL EXPENDITURES. Save for the future by planning on putting aside 5 to 7 cents of every dollar in revenue, to ensure you have working capital for long-term growth. This also can be allocated for unexpected expenses, such as unanticipated equipment replacement or short-term cash flow during slow periods of the year.When an unforeseen expense happens, those who did not plan scramble to find cash, often at a high cost or ultimately close up shop because, in their own words, “They did not see that coming.”

DISCOUNTS, THE EXCEPTION AND NOT THE RULE. You set the price of your services based upon the budget you’re created at the beginning of the year. If you choose to discount, then you need to review you expenses and adjust them accordingly. Often we are more focused on winning the sale without evaluating the short and long term impact to the bottom line. An occasional discount will not have a significant impact, but long term can erode your profits quickly, resulting in a negative cash position of the business.

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5

FINANCING THAT IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. Small-business owners are primary targets for predatory lenders. Easy access to working capital is often deal too good to be true, right? Banks and credit cards with loan interest rates should be your primary source for capital. Preapproved loans from non-traditional lenders such as finance companies often result in rates between 20- to 25-percent and higher than average loan fees.

If you accept credit cards for payment of services, do not consider accepting a loan in which payment is based upon future credit card revenues. These loans are short-term in nature and with a fixed pre-determined monthly payment based upon historical credit card transaction volume. It translates into the lender taking up to 65-percent of your merchant receipts on a weekly basis with an effective interest rate exceeding 25-percent.

Accurate and timely financial records of your business will insure that applying for a traditional bank loan or credit card will not be a painstaking process.

DO WHAT YOU DO BEST, STICK TO YOUR CORE BUSINESS MODEL. Entrepreneurs are prone to adding other sources of revenue to grow the business and, in most cases, it can be successful. A pitfall to avoid is focusing solely on the revenue, and not assessing the overall impact to the bottom line. Spend time thoroughly investigating what it will cost you in capital to start up this new service, additional expenses to deliver the service, both from a fixed and variable cost and it will erode away from your core business.

For example, many mobile DJs quickly spend thousands of dollars investing in photo booths with the ambition of increasing profitability. The decision to invest was predicated on the sales pitch that you will add $10,000 or more to your bottom line.

Focusing on the promise of greater revenues caused many to be blinded from the fact they did not account for the costs associated with earning this income.

Once many realized they were not making the money promised, the market became flooded with a lower price point, quickly turning it into a commodity. At that point, the business owner is simply trying to recoup their initial investment, and preserve the revenue from their core business.

Being a successful business owner takes planning, review, discipline and foresight to achieve your financial goals. As a commercial lender and business banker, the businesses that I have financed and grew to a successful brand, embedded these five actions as the core of their business model—and you should, too!

If you have any questions for Jerry Bazata or Business Line, please send them to djtimes@testa.com.

I am an innovative thinker with a flavor of fresh thoughts that lead to ideas that stick.

Atlantic City Convention Center New Venue, Same Mission AUGUST 14-17, 2017 w w w. t h e d jex p o. co m

For exhibition/sponsorship information, please contact Tom McCarty at 516-767-2500 Ext.507 or tmccarty@testa.com

GEAR AUDIO…LIGHTING…STUFF

Prime Number

Black & White

Denon DJ 200 Scenic View Drive Cumberland, RI 02864 (401) 658-5766 www.denondj.com

Pioneer DJ Americas 2050 W. 190th Street Suite 109 Torrance, CA 90504 (424) 488-0480 www.pioneerdj.com

The Denon SC5000 Prime DJ media player is capable of fully analyzing both beatgrid and musical key onboard the unit. It’s equipped with a 7-inch, high-definition, multi­touch display, as well as dual­layer decks with dedicated outputs, 24-bit/96kHz digital audio outputs, and an eight-inch jogwheel with central display. Engine Prime software is also included, allowing users to organize, categorize and import music, either directly from iTunes and Serato DJ or via drag-and-drop from existing music folders.

Pioneer’s DM-40-W Desktop Monitors are now available in a white edition in addition to the already-available black model. These compact active monitor speakers feature a front-loaded bass reflex system with grooves for “uninterrupted, rich bass,” according to the company. Features include a four-inch fiberglass woofer, headphone output, and both RCA and stereo mini jack inputs. The DM-40-W comes equipped with ¼-inch soft dome tweeters with convex diffusers, and it also sports curved front edges that the company says reduces resonance.

Waves Hello Waves 2800 Merchants Drive Knoxville, TN 37912 (865) 909-9200 www.waves.com The Waves Tune Real-Time plugin from Waves Audio is designed for provide natural-sounding vocal pitch correction in both live performance and studio settings.

Featuring intuitive control and touchscreen compatibility, Waves Tune Real-Time allows users to set the plugin to follow a melody played in advance or in real time via MIDI. Users can control the range, choose a scale, mark in advance specific notes to fix or avoid, control the plugin’s sensitivity and tune a singer’s vibrato.

Serve & Protect

DJ TIMES

MARCH 2017

Mixware, LLC 11070 Fleetwood St, Unit F Sun Valley, CA 91352 (818) 578-4030 www.mixware.net

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Decksaver announced new additions to its line of synthesizer and DJ covers. The new covers are designed to fit the Moog SUB-37 and Little Phatty, Akai MPC Touch, Teenage Engineering OP1, Elektron Analog Keys, and the Pioneer TORAIZ SP-16. Each cover is precision molded to fit that specific piece of gear—including cables, knobs, faders and power supplies—and protect it from dust, liquids and other environmental elements.

AUDIO…LIGHTING…STUFF

GEAR

9 Lives

The Jazz Stinger

Steinberg/Yamaha 6600 Orangethorpe Ave Buena Park, CA 90620 (714) 522-9011 www.yamahaproaudio.com

ADJ Products 6122 S. Eastern Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90040 (323) 582-2650 www.americandj.com

Steinberg released Cubase Pro 9, Cubase Artist 9 and Cubase Elements 9. All three versions feature the Lower Zone, which allows for a dedicated area in the Project window to be used for the mixer and other tool panels. Through the Lower Zone, users can access controls and filters for the Sampler Track, which comes with its own Caleidoscope library with hundreds of samples. Additional features include an overhauled Maximizer plug-in and the new Plug-in Sentinel, which scans plug-ins on startup to maintain stability.

ADJ introduced two new 3-in-1 moonflower, wash and laser effects.

The Stinger Star sports a moonflower dome and is powered by six 3W RGBWAV LEDs. The unit features an integrated red and green Galaxian-style multi-beam laser effect, as well as a color-chasing wash effect.

The Stinger GOBO features a sweeping pattern effect created by eight 3W RGBA LEDs that are projected through eight different GOBO patterns, which are then projected through eight lenses mounted to a rotating disc on the front on the unit.

Analog Heat from Elektron is a stereo analog sound processor equipped with eight stereo analog distortion circuits that the company says are “capable of applying everything from warm tape-like saturation to harsh over-the-top distortion.” The unit features two-band stereo analog EQ, as well as a stereo analog multi-mode filter. In addition, an assignable envelope and an assignable LFO are included to easily “create rhythmical textures and re-shape beats,” according to the company.

DJ TIMES

Elektron Music Machines 1340 E 6th St #632 Los Angeles, CA 90021 (213) 935-8521 www.elektronmusicmachines.com

MARCH 2017

Heat of the Moment

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GEAR AUDIO…LIGHTING…STUFF

Barker at the Moon

Who’s the BASSBOSS?

LOUDPVCK 8671 Wilshire Blvd., 5th Floor Beverly Hills, CA 90211 (310) 207-1037 www.loudpvck.com

BASSBOSS 9501 Cargo Ave, Ste. 600 Austin TX 78719 (855) 822-7770 www.bassboss.com

LOUDPVCK has expanded their SOUNDPVCKS Artist Series with the Travis Barker Sound Kit. The drummer—famous for his work with Blink-182, The Transplants, Box Car Racer and more—recorded hundreds of samples of drum loops, fills, and one-shots for the kit, which was custom made and curated “to work for any genre of music at any tempo,” according to the company. The Travis Barker Sound Kit is available for download on the SOUNDPVCKS website and it is compatible with any DAW.

The SV8 Powered MicroMain from BASSBOSS is a single eight-inch speaker that offers 117dB of sustained output in satellite mode and maximum output of 120dB. Its cabinet features a large port above the woofer grill that helps maintain low frequency performance. The SV8 includes a comprehensive digital signal processor built into the 700 watt Powersoft amp, providing four presets that allow the speaker to be used either as a full-range system, a satellite for a small subwoofer or a main speaker with a larger subwoofer.

Calculator Alligator Powersoft Advanced Technology Corp 486 Constitution Avenue Camarillo, CA 93012 (805) 654-0630 www.powersoft-audio.com

Oh Say Can You Odesi

DJ TIMES

MARCH 2017

Odesi 3250 NE 1st Ave #305 Miami, FL 33137 http://welcome.odesi.com/yw

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The Odesi music software program from Mixed In Key is now available in version 2.0. Odesi 2.0 features new Melody and Call and Response plug-ins, as well as a Chord plugin that will automatically adjust a song’s melody and bassline to fit changes in chord progression. The program allows users to import a track and then transpose it between different keys and scales. Odesi 2.0 can be used as a stand-alone software, or integrated using MIDI files with Ableton Live, FL Studio, Pro Tools, Logic, BitWig, Reason and GarageBand.

Powersoft has announced that it is sponsoring the multi-platform PAcalculate app, which runs on Android, iOS, Windows-Phone and Blackberry smartphone and tablets. The app contains many calculations, utilities and reference information that is useful for dealing with PA, sound reinforcement, sound systems, electroacoustic, pro-audio and lighting. PAcalculate has been developed to help users set a starting point for a limiter setup, performing real life tests to validate and tune the results. It is available in a variety of languages, including English, Spanish, French and Simplified Chinese.

TRACKS…MIXES…COMPILATIONS “STAND UP” u Mr. C u Superfreq Originally aimed at the bourgeois forces behind the closing of London’s Fabric nightclub, this dark, groovy, acid-house protest tune (“Stand up!

It’s time! Unite!”) can now vector toward other, more-pressing targets.

The breaks on the Club Dub Remix feel fresh, while remixes from Jay Haze (more downtempo) and Jay Tripwire (full-on acid tweakage) both push a more manic, psychedelic bent. And Omid 16B’s bewildering techhouse mix goes even darker and gets even dirtier.

– Jim Tremayne “BALEARIC BALLS” u Above & Beyond u Anjunabeats Mr. C

Pauline Henry

After a menacing start that includes dark kicks and nervy synth stabs, the track takes a chill pill and soothes down into a calming whisper of beats. Eventually, bells begin to toll and all hell breaks loose again. Another well-crafted, hard-hitting jam from the beloved A&B trio.

– Jennifer Harmon “DOWN WITH THA” EP u Waze & Odyssey u Eats Everything Heavy house hitters Waze & Odyssey are back with this deep and funky EP. Both cuts, “Seizure” and the title track, offer looping drums, funky basslines and killer hooks that echo throughout the club.

And check the superb breakdown on the title track – it’ll rock any dancefloor. Full support here.

– Tommy D. Funk “ANOTHER CLUB” B/W “FEEL THE SAME”

u Radio Slave u Rekids

The U.K.-based techno master celebrates his label’s 100th release with an absolute stormer of a two-track EP. Opening cut “Another Club” samples the now infamous video of Lady Gaga recounting an endless night of clubs, planes, and automobiles, placing the raver’s soliloquy over a maelstrom of big-room synth stabs, throbbing drums, and gigantic drops. On the flip side, “Feel The Same” takes a soulful vocal sample and reworks it into an entrancing tech-house hurricane featuring interstellar synths and rattling hi-hats.

Above & Beyond

– Chris Caruso “KAIROS” u Hausman & SNR u Adrenalin Room This proggy trancer begins with a pounding kick and some wobbly synth stabs, drops a wicked, dirty bassline, then drifts off into a dreamlike breakdown. Then, of course, it builds back up into a triumphant groove, with one final, gritty bounce capping this highenergy ride.

– Jennifer Harmon “SAME MAN” u Franky Rizardo u DFTD

Waze & Odyssey

This underground monster’s making waves on all dancefloors. Sampling a 1983 rare-groove track (B Beat Girls’ “For the Same Man”), Rizardo matches the sassy vocal with a punchy house beat and voila!

A must-have for house DJs.

– Tommy D. Funk “ACE OF SPACE” u Few Nolder u Sodai This hard-house track has a chunky-funky, heavy-hitting four-to-thefloor, full-throttle kick. However, before you know it, an ethereal, climactic key riff drops in, carrying an amazingly uplifting vibe, making the track really memorable. A hot piece here!

MARCH 2017

– Shawn Christopher

DJ TIMES

“SOAK” u James Hadfield feat. Danny Linton u Me Me Me Go right for “The Bird of Paradise Mix,” the choice cut here. DJs get a complex, rolling groove, an erupting breakdown and a progressive, driving bassline—and it’s all topped off with superb sonics and sound design. A really, great heavy houser.

Severino

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– Shawn Christopher Franky Rizardo

TRACKS…MIXES…COMPILATIONS “ALL ALOUD” u Adrian Lux u Source On this melodic trap tune, a plucky guitar riff is accompanied by sweet harmonizing voices (“We are waking up, breaking up forever”), which offset the sampled scream lurking in the background. Horns, an ascending siren-like warning and a deep sub-bass highlight the breakdown. Dark and poppy.

– Jennifer Harmon “SMOKING” u Severino feat. Princess Magnifique Classic Music Company One of the principals behind the Horse Meat Disco parties, Severino drops a soulful, strutting groove, while Princess Magnifique supplies sassy vocal parts—“I do what I wanna do!” And check Eli Escobar’s remix, which drops a mega-disco groove.

– Tommy D. Funk “THE OTHER SIDE” EP u Off Sides u Cyanide This lovely three-mix EP kicks off with the original mix, a solid-deep house number complete with funky bassline, tropical percussions and catchy, disco-influenced synths. And don’t sleep on the euphoric “Analog Trip Remix.”

– Tommy D. Funk “NEED YOU” u Luttrell u Anjunadeep On this beautiful, deep-house tune, an echoing chant (“I need you”) surrounds a gentle melody and gets a boost from some sweet strings and bells, creating a music-box-like accent. Like a bright, sunny, summer day, this groove offers something warm and comforting.

– Jennifer Harmon 4 TO THE FLOOR, VOLUME 02 u Various Artists u Defected With 50 fantastic and often timeless underground tracks in all, this latest Defected comp is a house DJ’s dream collection. Presenting top remixes from legends like Kerri Chandler (his mix of Dee Dee Brave’s “My My Lover”) and Danny Tenaglia (his mix of First Choice’s “Double Cross”) or cutting-edge tracks from Red Rack’em (“Wobbly Bassline Disco Banger”) and Gerd Janson (“Still Believe” feat.

Marcoradi), this one presents the full spectrum of dancefloor goodness. Iconic vocals from Robert Owens and Ultra Naté, bouncing dubs from Solid Groove and Cevin Fisher, tech-laced cuts from Guti and Deetron, soulful numbers from Quentin Harris and Osunlade— it’s all here for you.

– Tommy D. Funk

GUEST REVIEWER: Paul Newman “Heaven” (Extended Mix) Groove Odyssey I’ve never been one for remakes of historical anthems, like this groovy 1990 classic from The Chimes, but… judging from the quality of the DJ Spen & Reelsoul Extended Mix, I need to review my thinking! In this new version, original Chimes vocalist Henry provides a full-on, orgasmic, jaw-dropping vocal over a world-class production/arrangement.

Lush and soulful, yet punchy and kicking, this one’s a winner.

Magnificent.

MARCH 2017

PAULINE HENRY

Radio Slave

39

Adventure Club

(continued from page 10) Boombox Cartel – I like their take on future bass. Illenium – his melodic dub just pulls at your heartstrings.

DJ Times: Favorite venues to play?

James: The Gorge [Amphitheatre in George, Wash.], Rebel club in Toronto, and Red Rocks [Amphitheatre] in Denver – if you do one thing, you have to get there.

DJ Times: It’s a new year, what can we expect from you guys?

James: Currently, we are really

Thievery Corporation

(continued from page 12) “We kept moving the room mics for the drums around until halfway through the week we found the best location,” says Conti, who has co-producer credit on The Temple of I & I. “It is harder, but we were there in February during a blizzard back in D.C., so

Making Tracks

(continued from page 26) recently released Strummed Acoustic 2, with even more options, but that’s not part of the Komplete 11 bundle.)

There are so many ways to create beats these days, and so many sample libraries and loops and plug-ins to help, it’s sort of hard to break through the clutter with yet another approach, but Battery 4 builds on its predecessor to entice you with a wide range kits and content that enables you to build percussion tracks across multiple genres. With enhanced usability, a new effects and playback engine, and a revamped content browser added since the previous version, Battery has a lot to offer — and it’s highly unlikely you’ll be left wanting when it comes to creative beat-making.

For electronic producers and performers, perhaps one of the more interesting creation tools in Komplete is Flesh. Developed in partnership with Tom Exile, Flesh lets you load rhythm samples into the software, which are analyzed in real-time, and transformed into control material

DJ TIMES

MARCH 2017

Jamie Jones

40

(continued from page 18) of the hippie side, but that whole hippie side still exists and people still have the same love for the island, even if some of the dynamics have changed.

DJ Times: Has that impacted what you do?

Jones: With Paradise, one of the reasons I’m still at DC-10 is because there’s no tables on the main floor.

There’s a few tables in the inside room, but they’re tucked away in a corner and it’s a tiny, tiny part of the revenue they make there. Financially, as a brand, it’s not the best idea, but for me, one of the things I love about it and why it’s got a special place in my heart is that

promoting the album and we are going to be touring it like crazy this year. We are going to be hitting as many major cities as we can in every continent. We’ll be introducing live instrumentation, which is something we have been itching to do for a long time now.We aren’t going to be taking too much away from the electronic aspect of the show, but we do want to start implementing live instruments.

A lot of our songs were written on guitar on piano, so we want to have

that in our shows. We also have more new music to release, some of which have really cool collabs.

DJ Times: Ever envision yourselves being where you are now?

James: It’s always been a dream of ours. I’ve always envisioned myself being a professional musician my whole life. With Adventure Club itself, I always thought we would be like rock musicians, playing guitar onstage and such, but Christian and I wouldn’t trade anything in the world for how

things have worked out and where we are now.

DJ Times: What’s the most rewarding part?

James: We love being onstage and performing for our fans. The most important part is knowing that we are affecting people with our music and we get to do what we love for a living.

When you hear the whole crowd sing along to one of your songs, you can’t really put into words what that feels like.

– Michelle Fetky

I can’t complain. I did have to re-dub some stuff we did out there because it didn’t feel right. A lot of the dubbing on this record was done with Roland RE-201 Space Echo, but nothing was particularly different to our usual way of working other than we went to Jamaica. It never happened before that

we went somewhere else to record.”

Hilton, who recommended GeeJam after vacationing in the area, says the studio has become his blissful sanctuary. “If I could be in the studio making songs all day every day instead of playing live, I would be extremely happy.

It’s like painting. If you’re a painter,

you want to paint. You don’t want to go to gallery openings all the time and sit there in front of your painting and talk about it. You want to make a new painting. Art to me is creating the music. That’s what I truly love.”

– Lily Moayeri

that’s sent to four different audio engines for synthesizing new musical elements. Tinkering with Flesh was a kick, and it’s one of the offerings in Komplete that I intend to go back to and dig into much more deeply.

Controlling and adjusting its many parameters “live” is rather the point of Flesh, making it essential to have an appropriate MIDI controller. Exile uses one of N.I.’s Komplete Kontrol S-Series keyboards in his demo videos, using its various knobs to adjust the sounds in real-time. After my own tinkering, I can see how an S-Series or something like it is nearly required for Flesh, but the results are astounding.

Battery isn’t the only beat-making tool in Komplete 11 Ultimate; another favorite is DrumLab. It’s a little hard to describe; it essentially blends acoustic drums with electronic ones and layers on top an intuitive and unique interface that enables some pretty interesting percussive alchemy.

N.I. refers to it as an “advanced drum layering instrument,” but I’d just call it a drum machine with a cool and

unique twist that can make it applicable across multiple genres.

Finally, another standout bit of content from Komplete 11 Ultimate is Una Corda, which runs within Kontakt. It’s a sample-based piano synth whose sounds come from recordings of an actual una corda piano, hand-built in Germany by piano maker David Klavins. The una corda has only one string per note across all the registers, and was constructed “open” without a cabinet. These elements give the instrument a very distinct sound. Given the applicability of pianos across practically any genre from EDM to pop to classical, Una Corda will be of interest to virtually all Komplete users. The incredible precision of the sampling, and the playback options in the Una Corda plug-in, renders piano sounds that are unbelievably pure and crisp. It’s definitely a highlight of the Komplete 11 collection.

What I haven’t called out here are the various effects plug-ins that N.I. bundles with Komplete. What you’ll

find is a wide variety of all the basics, from delays, to compressors, to EQs, to reverbs. Playing with some of them leaves me fairly impressed, but like a lot of producers, I have my “go-to” effects that I’m familiar with and know how to use, and don’t tend to stray too far away. N.I.’s effects are not among my “go-tos” at present; perhaps they deserve deeper inspection to see if they should be.

Conclusions: Komplete 11, in its various versions, provides both virtual instruments and effects plug-ins in a range of warehouse-club-sized packages. While Komplete 11 Ultimate provides the most bang for the buck, its price tag may dissuade some users.

But the more affordable Komplete 11 and Komplete 11 Select still offer a lot of options, and a lot of value. At the end of the day, Komplete, in this new iteration, continues to be one of my favorite plug-in bundles.

If you have any questions for Wesley Bryant-King or Making Tracks, please send them to djtimes@testa.com.

everyone’s the same. If you want to listen to music loudly, you have to be on the dancefloor. Somebody with two euros in their pocket who took the bus to the club or somebody with 10,000 euros in their pocket, they both want to listen to the music when they’re in that club and there’s no difference between people there.

DJ Times: What about bottle service culture?

Jones: I’m not against table service—there’s a time and place for it. If you want to spend the money and have a little space for yourself, I’d be an idiot to say I’m against it. I play a lot of those clubs. Every DJ does, so any DJ that

says, “Oh, I hate table service, blah blah blah...” is hypocritical because they’ll happily go and get paid twice their fee because that’s in the club. It’s the only reason why DJ fees are getting so big in clubs. DC-10 keeps that rawness.

The guys could easily put some tables around the terrace and make a fortune every summer, but I’ve got to respect that they don’t and that they care more about maintaining that underground vibe. It’s rare these days, and it’s why I’m still part of it.

DJ Times: It feels like the whole underground-vs.-mainstream argument has dissipated in recent years, especially as we get further from EDM’s

explosion in the U.S. Why do you think that is?

Jones: Personally, the reason is that the people who had anything to say about it realized how much crap they were spouting. The underground-vs.EDM thing? Who cares? Really, really— who cares? Some of the DJs who were talking about that were still going and playing the big festivals. If everyone just focused on what they’re doing and making good music and making sure they’re rocking the crowd, then that would be much better. Why do people spend any time thinking about the thing they don’t care about?

DJ Times: Makes no sense, then…

MP3s in 6

Compiled As February 15, 2017

NATIONAL CROSSOVER POOL CHART

NATIONAL URBAN POOL CHART

1 Bruno Mars 2 Tinashe 3 Ed Sheeran 4 Lady Gaga 5 Weeknd F/ Daft Punk 6 Sia 7 Maroon 5 8 Martin Garrix & Bebe Rexha 9 Donna Summer & Barbara Streisand 10 Pet Shop Boys 11 X-Ambassadors 12 The Chainsmokers F/ XYLO 13 Clean Bandit F/Sean Paul & Anne-Marie 14 Dua Lipa 15 Vassy 16 Rihanna 17 Britney Spears 18 DNCE 19 Martin Solveig 20 Galantis & Hook N Sling 21 Starley 22 Joe Gauthreaux F. Inaya Day 23 Manuel Riva And Eneli 24 Chainsmokers F/ Halsey 25 Mollie Jay 26 Alex Veliz 27 Maroon 5 F/ Kendrick Lamar 28 Tony Moran F/ Jason Walker 29 MOPO 30 LeAnne Rimes 31 Stonebridge F/ Therese 32 Crystal Waters F/ Stedie E 33 Brian Justin Grum F/ Toy Armada&DJ 34 Sean Mendes 35 Kim Cameron 36 Niall Horan 37 Hailee Steinfeld & Greg F/ Zedd 38 John Legend 39 Salt Ashes 40 Four Kings F/ Sybil

1 Drake 2 Rae Sremmurd F/ Gucci Mane 3 Partynextdoor F/ Drake 4 Lil Uzi Vert 5 Rihanna 6 Amine 7 Dj Luke Nasty 8 Weeknd F/ Daft Punk 9 Big Sean 10 21 Savage & Metro Boom F/ Future 11 Beyonce 12 Migos F/ Lil Uzi Vert 13 Steven Streeter F/ Gucci Mane 14 Future F/ Drake 15 J-Soul 16 Chris Brown F/ Usher & Gucci Mane 17 Gucci Mane F/ Travis Scott 18 Rob $tone F/ J.Davis & Spooks 19 Dj Khaled F/N.Minaj & C.Brown 20 Khalid

24K Magic Superlove Shape Of You Million Reasons Starboy Move You Body Don’t Wanna Know In The Name Of Love Enough Is Enough Say It To Me Unsteady Paris Rockabye Blow Your Mind Nothing To Lose Love On The Brain Slumber Party Body Moves Places Love On Me Call On Me The Urge In Me Mhm Mhm Closer Shine U + Me Don’t Wanna Know Say Yes Things Can Only Get...

Long Live Love Put ‘Em High 2016 Believe Show Me Love Mercy It Starts Raining This Town Starving Love Me Now Save It - UK Mixes Together You And I

Most Added Tracks

1 Lady Gaga 2 Martin Solveig 3 Starley 4 Glovibes F/ Gary Caos 5 Ed Sheeran 6 Robin Schulz & David Guetta F/ Cheat Codes 7 Sean Mendes 8 Salt Ashes 9 Bebe Rexha 10 Luciana & Dave Aude

Million Reasons Places Call On Me Watch Out Shape Of You Shed A Light Mercy Save It - UK Mixes I Got You Yeah Yeah 2017

Atlantic RCA Atlantic Interscope Republic RCA Interscope RCA Casablanca Kobalt Interscope Columbia RRP Warner Brothers Mushroom Roc Nation Jive Universal Republic Republic Atlantic Epic Popsicle Radikal Columbia Mollie Jay Music Universal Interscope Sugar House Swishcraft Audacious Stoney Boy 418 Music Popsicle Republic Side FX Capitol Republic Columbia Radikal I Am House Interscope Republic Epic Casa Rossa Atlantic Warner Brothers Republic Radikal Warner Brothers Audacious

Fake Love Black Beatles Come And See Me You Was Right Love On The Brain Caroline OTW Starboy Bounce Back X Bitch Hold Up Bad And Boujee Prolly Used To This Slow Wine Party Last Time Chill Bill Do You Mind Location

Most Added Tracks 1 Gucci Mane F/ Drake 2 6lack 3 YFN Lucci F/ PNB Roc 4 Rae Sremmurd 5 Yo Gotti

Both Prblms Everyday We Lit Swag Blah Blah Blah

1. 24 Horas 2. Grupo Niche 3. Grupomania 4. Adassa feat Ayrin 5. Luis Fonsi feat Daddy Yankee 6. Prince Royce ft G Ortiz 7. Hector Acosta 8. Juanes 9. Toño Rosario 10. Kinito Mendez 11. Don Omar feat Zion & Lennox 12. De La Ghetto 13. Shakira feat Maluma 14. Ozuna feat Aecangel 15 Rolf Sanchez 16. Tito Rojas 17. Edgar Joel 18. Magia Caribeña 19. Ricky Martin feat Maluma 20. Jerry Rivera

Por Favor La Oreja Media Group El Coco Select O Hits Si Me Quieres No Me Quieres Mania Music Tu Complice Warner/Vale/Kult Despacito Universal Moneda Sony Amorcito Enfermito Dam Music Fuego Latin Hits Dale Vieja Cerro Music Las Mujeres J&N Te Quiero Para Mi Machete Acercate Warner Music cHANTAJE sONY MUSIC Yo Te Quiero Making Money Paso A Paso Sony Music Esa Clase De Mujer TR Hacha & Machete Promo Besos Usados MC Vente Pa’ Ca Summit Ent. Vuelve Crossove

Most Added Tracks

n Dj Stickyboots - Goshen, NJ; Blake Eckelbarger n Soundworks - San Francisco, CA; Sam Labelle

REPORTING LATIN POOLS

n Masspool - Saugus, MA; Gary Canavo n OMAP - Washington, DC; Al Chasen

n New York Music Pool - New York, NY; Jackie McCloy n Dixie Dance Kings - Alpharetta, GA; Dan Miller n Mixxmasters - Lithonia, GA; Brian Stephens n Pacific Coast - Long Beach, CA; Steve Tsepelis

LOOKING FOR THESE TITLES? YOU CAN HEAR THEM AND BUY THEM AT WWW.DANCEKINGS. COM. JUST CLICK ON THE LINKS IN THE CHART. DDK HAS LIMITED MEMBERSHIPS AVAILABLE

Atlantic Interscope Think Its A Game Interscope Epic

NATIONAL LATIN DANCE POOL CHART

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

REPORTING POOLS

Republic Interscope Warner Brothers Atlantic Roc Nation Republic OTHAZ Republic Def Jam Slaughter Gang Columbia Quality Control Atlantic Epic Cash Money RCA Atlantic RCA Epic RCA

Johnny Rivera Ozuna Rafu Warner Orq. Yare Johnny Ventura

Si Se Enamora De Mi Dime Si Tu Me Queires Sin Hablarte Ella Me Tiene Tu Chupa

Lluvia Ent. Making Money Rammy Promo Chantiao Music

n Latinos Unidos Record Pool n Salsamania Latin Record Pool n Lobo/Bass Record

Pool n Urban Tropics Music Pool n North East Record Pool n Mixx Hitts Record Pool n Ritmo Camacho Record Pool n Ritmo Internacional Record Pool n DJ Latinos Record Pool n Mass Pool n Record Pool Latino n V.I.P. Chicago Record Pool.

ATTENTION DJ TIMES READERS: DJ Times is currently looking for DJs that are interested in reporting to the DJ National Dance/Crossover chart and the DJ Times National Urban Dance chart.

Reporterships are open to Record Pools and individual DJs. For more information contact: Dan Miller, dmiller@testa.com

Jones: I’m not a lover of EDM, but if I’m in a big festival I go check out some of the shows. You know what my feedback on it is? Everyone in that crowd is having an amazing time. If people are having an amazing time, why should I have anything negative to say about it?

If I want to go there and experience the music or the lights or whatever, I’ll go there! If I don’t, I don’t go there. I think it’s died down because it’s boring, more than anything else. It was a boring thing to do, and I think a lot of people just did it to get some press out of it, maybe.

DJ Times: Could it be related to the idea that some of the kids who are now old enough to go to clubs may have discovered you in the U.S. at festivals like Ultra?

Jones: Insomniac was one of the first people to put on an underground stage at one of their festivals outside of San Bernardino years ago, and I remember the discussion with my agent about them wanting to do the stage. I was one of the first people to play one of these stages, even when people were saying it was too commercial. One of the reasons why was about three years ago, I was playing at Verboten in New York. I was playing an all-night-long set—I DJed for nine hours in the end—and at 8:30 in the morning, the lights finally came up, and this girl came running up to the decks and jumped up. She wanted to shake my hand, and she said, “I just want to tell you, I drove two hours to come tonight. Three months ago I had no idea who you were, but I was with some friends at TomorrowWorld down in Atlanta and they took me over to your stage, I heard the music, and I loved it.

I drove down here and was here from the start of the night.”

DJ Times: There you go…

Jones: To me, that is exactly why—

even though I wasn’t thinking about things like that happening at the time—it’s so much more important [to play these festivals]. Music is one of those things that, unless somebody recommends you or plays for you, you don’t just search and go, I want to go find this [specifically]. There’s always a trigger to finding new music, and those kinds of festivals are the perfect opportunity. That happening to me is way cooler than going to play vinyl only to 300 super-heads. Don’t get me wrong: I love doing that, but equally and more fulfilling for the greater benefit of the underground scene is doing things like what I was just talking about.

DJ Times: In the last year, club culture has come under attack both physically and legislatively—Pulse Orlando, Fabric shuttering, BPM shooting in Mexico. From an artist’s perspective, how do you foster a safe, inclusive environment for ravers?

Jones: I’m lucky enough that my team has been doing this stuff a long time, so they make sure if I’m going to play somewhere that the club, the environment, and the promoter are trustworthy. Don’t get me wrong, bad things have happened. I was down in Argentina when people died at Time Warp. I wasn’t playing the night [of the shooting] at BPM, but I know the story.

DJ Times: What about crackdowns on drugs in clubs?

Jones: People are going to take drugs anyway. If they can’t go to a club to take them, they’re going to sit at home or go to a house party to take them. You cannot stop young people from taking drugs: it’s part of the world we live in. People have to make sure it’s as safe as possible. Me, personally as a DJ, there’s a few times where fights have broken out on the dancefloor.

You just try to be as professional as you can. If the best thing to do is to

stop the music, then you stop the music. Sometimes the best thing to do is carry on and not draw attention to it.

You just have to make a judgment call.

I’m not saying it’s not my responsibility to make sure people are safe in the club, but it’s my responsibility to make sure I’m working with people who do that.

DJ Times: So it’s a consideration for you…

Jones: I believe in my heart in myself and my team, and I think most people I know are trying their best to make sure everyone is safe. Don’t get me wrong: these are horrible things that are happening, With the thing down at BPM, there was also a shooting at Ft. Lauderdale airport a few weeks ago. An airport with security everywhere and metal detectors. Unfortunately, right now in the world there’s a lot of violence, and whether it’s a party, whether it’s a football match, or anything, there’s going to be incidents.

I think sometimes they get blown up [in the media] because it’s a party and people think that there’s something wrong with partying anyway.

DJ Times: What are you up to, studio-wise? What do you have planned for the year?

Jones: I’ve been kind of in transit with my studio. I had a studio for five years in London and then I moved out and gradually moved over here to L.A. I’m now extremely settled here, and finally I’m—in one way to put it— banging out the tunes at the moment.

My plan is to reach a healthy number of EPs this year. I am working on a number of other big projects.

DJ Times: What about Hot Natured?

Jones: The guys are actually coming over this afternoon! We’ve got a couple of tracks which we’ve been roadtesting a little bit, slightly more clubby

stuff. We’re going to finish those, and then we’re definitely going to do another album. My plan is for 2018 to get it out there. We’re going to take our time and develop a new sound. One reason there hasn’t been any new Hot Natured music is because everyone’s doing something. Lee Foss is about to release his new album, Infinity Ink’s been working on theirs, and I’ve been busy with Paradise and stuff. One of things I’ve been doing is as a producer.

DJ Times: How? Jones: I had a way of working for many years. I originally used to use Logic, then I used Ableton Live for a good eight years. I’ve used many machines and stuff, but I had a system.

What I wanted to do, when moving into my new studio in L.A. and before I started the new Hot Natured album, was really better myself as an engineer so that when I started back, I’d have a new way of doing things.

All the machines, whether it was my 909 or my MPC or Jupiter or whatever, I learned how to use everything properly. I learned about mixing and compression.

DJ Times: And the result?

Jones: So now when I’m in my big new, fully analog studio in L.A., I know how to use everything. I’ve worked out what my favorite things are—favorite drum machines, exactly how to make songs fully in them without putting them into Logic. I also switched from Ableton to Logic and Pro Tools. I’m still deciding which one I like better, but I know how to use both of them properly now, so I’ve got the option.

So rather than making music for six months, I’ve just been educating myself on music production, which is something I haven’t done for a long time.

Going into the studio now, it’s amazing because I have all these new sets of n skills to utilize.

Galantis: One Step Beyond But sometimes…

DJ TIMES 42

we can fly!

Galantis, Next Month in DJ Times

Photos by Rukes.com

…not omnipotent superheroes.

MARCH 2017

Look, we’re just DJ/producers…

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