DMb | Dance Music blog & Podcast

Well, another Schulz show has come and gone, and once again my fellow Schulz Army Cadets are left in post-Markus depression! When we first heard Markus would be in DC on October 15th, a 6-hour trip seemed like NOTHING for Schulz! Road trip from NYC was definitely in store!

I’ll start by saying, if you haven’t been to Fur Nightclub in DC, here’s the scoop. While definitely not as seedy and dark as your normal NYC nightclub…it definitely has its quirky yet unique characteristics. The club contains a layout with 4 areas to dance. Outside patio, salsa room (which I have yet to see), hip hop/pop area and of course the only room that makes this club…the main dance area on the lower level. If you’ve read any of my past reviews, you know I can’t resist to comment on the horrid cheesy pop/mainstream crap they play on the main level. It’s just poor planning to hear this garbage while there are epic trance events in the lower room. If you have the urge to escape for some fresh air on the back patio, you are forced to walk through garbage music while meddling through amateur crowds of mayhem. Not fun!

On to more relevant things…we arrived around 11:15pm and had an easy entry experience with no line. Nice! The opening DJ in the main room was…let me say…meh. While the crowd seemed to dig the vibe, this guy had way too much fun dropping cheesy mashups of various popular edm tracks. Might I also mention an observation early on in the night…the crowd seemed a little “off”, as if too many people simply strolled off the street just to go clubbing, not realizing there is an epic master DJ/producer about to take the stage. Nevertheless, we situated ourselves directly in the center of the crowd and awaited the entrance of our boss…Mr. Markus Schulz!

About 12:30am, Markus took over. It’s always impressive when a DJ is able to come out of the BS music of an opening DJ, into full blown Markus-mode! Instantly turned the mood around!!!

As always, Markus was consistent with his set, and never disappointing. Dropping remixed tracks like Perception, Saints, and of course, Sinners, the floor was rumbling and the sound system was banging! I must say, I’ve seen Schulz a lot, and I can honestly say, every show gets better with new remixes and fresh sounds that I’ve never heard live. He really took it to extreme levels that night with the non-vocal hard tracks and had the entire crowd on their feet. Tracks like Angular Momentum & The Plank Effect, kept the crowd at energy levels I have never experienced! I can’t forget to mention also how Markus so effortlessly changed the room energy with some melodic Gaia Stellar…Love! (more...)

We recently recieved a pair of White Reloop RHP-5 headphones in the mail for review and I was excited to give them a listen because they looked so cool. They have a nice durable rubberized coating that really feels like it could save some potential damage when taking these with you everywhere. When I first took the headphones out of the box I was surprised that these headphones were being marketed towards DJs because they seemed so much smaller and lighter than what I’m used to. I’ve used Sony MDR-V700 headphones for the past 8 years or so and I’ve grown very accustomed to the way they feel and sound. They Reloop headphones didn’t feel nearly as durable or heavy as I was used to so I initially doubted that they could work their way into my DJ bag as a regular accessory.

I went to my computer, unplugged my Sonys, plugged in the RHP-5s, and loaded up FL Studio to start a new track. I was immediately impressed with the low end these little headphone put out. I switched out among 3 different pairs of headphones, the Sony V700s, Sony V500s, and Reloop RHP5s while playing the same bassline and found that the Reloop headphones volume level seemed to be a little bit louder than my other two headphones and that the bass was definitely louder than it was on both pairs of Sonys. Now the Reloop headphones do have a (more…)

Since the Skrillex Remix is obviously 100 times better than any other version or really ANY song in 2011, the Benassi brothers decided to get a video made for this remix. It seems kinda low budget, with some mediocre After Effects filters applied.

Check it out.

This is a great video from the Create Digital Music blog showing you how to hook up several different devices to get MIDI inputs and outputs on your iPad.

From an LA Times Article:
If time-lapse photos existed to illustrate the movements of the crowd during the first two nights of the Electric Daisy Carnival this past weekend at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a bird’s-eye view would show clusters of human ants, an estimated 80,000 for each of the three days of the annual electronic music festival, moving in packs within the grounds of the 1,200-acre complex as if by mysterious force.

Zoom in, and patterns would begin to emerge. Within the facility’s 1.5-mile oval track, home on most weekends to racing events like the Kobalt Tools 400, thousands of bobbing heads gathered in darkness around five booming, crystal clear sound systems, bouncing among carnival rides and strobing lights to the sounds of some of the world’s most popular DJs — including Benny Benassi, DJ Tiësto, David Guetta, Swedish House Mafia, and Skrillex — and some of the genre’s most innovative and forward-thinking masterminds, such as Richie Hawtin, Green Velvet and Rusko.

Focus on just one of the event’s many stages — Guetta’s 1:30 a.m. Sunday set — and witness party trains snaking through the crowd, rolling in time to a 128-beat-per-minute metronomic thump. Notice one fivesome, holding hands; boys musclebound and shirtless; bikini-top girls wearing matching panties that say “booty” on the bottom; faces lost in music; Mona Lisa smiles.
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FL Studio Mobile for iPad iPhone and iPod Touch Available Today for iOS

I’ve been drooling more and more lately as I have been awaiting this day when FL Studio was available for mobile devices. It is finally here and I’m headed over to grab it, but I thought I’d pass the word on first. Now it’s not a full version of FL as there is no support for VST plugins and you can’t load your own samples yet but I imagine those very key features can’t be far around the corner. I remember running Fruity Loops on a crappy 133 MHz Pentium machine and using VSTs so the iPhone 5 and iPad should be able to as well.

FL STUDIO MOBILE KEY FEATURES
Load and extend projects in the FL Studio desktop version
Resizable, stackable piano keys & reconfigurable drum-pads
Stuffed with FL Studio quality instruments, drum kits & loop files
99-track sequencer, Piano roll editor & Step sequencer
WAV, MIDI & FLM (project) import/export
iPad HD version, iPhone 4 Retina Display support
Compatible with the Akai SynthStation 25

Just go to the App Store if you have an iPhone/iPod for Touch FL Studio Mobile OR if you have an iPad forFL Studio Mobile HD.

FL STUDIO MOBILE FAQ
What about Android OS? It’s on the roadmap, stop nagging! We have a development team working on a low-latency Android audio-engine and there are many screen resolutions and device specifications to consider, it’s not as simple as you may think :)

Does this mean FL Studio on Mac OSX soon? FL Studio Mobile is not a port of the Windows version of FL Studio. It is the product of a completely separate development team, and code, so FL Studio Mobile, while compatible with FL Studio has no impact on FL Studio development and vice versa.

Can I load my own samples? Not in version 1.0. We plan to enable user uploads in a future update.

Can I use VSTs? No, iOS does not support VSTs and frankly the devices it runs on don’t have the CPU power to perform the synthesis you are used to on a desktop. FL Studio Mobile uses high quality sample based instruments made from Image-Line plugins and sample packs.

Visit the FL Studio Mobile Website for more info.

via: ImageLine Press

We recently tested out Sugarbytes’ Guitarist VST Instrument and this is what we found.

PROS:
Can sound very realistic
Great songwriting tool
Useful wah pedal
Nice GUI

CONS:
Not always realistic
Lack of solo mode to enable playing of individual notes

OVERVIEW:
Looking to create guitar tracks without spending the time and effort to learn guitar? SugarByte’s Guitarist might be worth a look. Available for Win/Mac as standalone, VST, AU, or PPC plugin, Guitarist is advertised as a total guitar solution.

What IS Guitarist exactly? It’s a rhythmic guitar track generator that combines guitar sounds, an amp module and three effects modules with a series of step sequencers and a special effects section. Patterns (and entire songs) can be recorded and played back. For live use, the built in keyboard can be made to trigger sequences or change the current chord a sequence is playing.
It’s worth noting here that the keyboard which allows access to chords and patterns doesn’t provide any easy way to play single notes. So if you just want to play a melody (and disengage the sequencer) you’re out of luck. But for quickly generating rhythmic grooves and progressions, fortunately there’s a lot Guitarist has to offer.

DETAILS:
Guitarist contains 4 guitar types, 2 amp models (+direct), and three effects modules run in a fixed configuration. Effects include modulation,dynamic effects,reverb, delay, reverse and a 3-mode wah pedal. To build progressions and grooves, a chord sequencer is run through a pattern step sequencer (and also an animation sequencer for extra variation). Entire songs can be constructed by chaining patterns together in the song sequencer.
The keyboard can be used to play 24 user defined chords, with some of the keys acting as triggers for the patterns. Pressing a chord key will override the chord sequencer, and play that chord instead through the selected pattern. Another handy feature for playing live is the Action Section, which allows you to alter the groove with real time effects such as looper, timestretch, force slow, dead or damped notes.
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British dance act serve up theme to SpaceShipTwo plus exclusive DJ set at launch event.

When Virgin Galactic were looking for some atmospheric music to herald the launch of their ground-breaking ‘SpaceShipTwo’ this week, they turned to the UK’s biggest DJs, Above & Beyond.

At an event hosted by Richard Branson in the Mojave Desert, the track chosen to accompany the official unveiling of SpaceShipTwo was Above & Beyond’s club anthem ‘Buzz’, which samples Buzz Aldrin’s original moon-landing dialogue. To mark the occasion, guests were also handed a special ‘Galactic Grooves’ USB wristband, featuring a selection of Above & Beyond’s songs.

After the unveiling and naming by governors Richardson and Schwarzenegger, Above & Beyond performed an exclusive DJ set in front of an audience of 800 dignitaries, celebrities and soon-to-be astronauts, plus the assembled global media.

Jono Grant from Above & Beyond said: “We’re big fans of all things space-related and so in terms of dream gigs, this is up there alongside our performance in Rio to 1million people. We’re now hoping to persuade Richard to let us DJ on the first Virgin Galactic passenger flight into space!”

Keep reading for the more plus YouTube video of “Buzz”. (more…)