Thursday November 15th, Gabriel & Dresden @ SKY

Come out to SKY on Thursday, Nov. 15th for Gabriel & Dresden. Francis Preve will be opening the night with an Ableton Live set. I got to watch him play a few weeks back at Terrace 59 at Horizon Thursdays and it was pretty solid. I’m also opening the night. I’m stoked to meet G&D as well.

Mike Hiratzka @ SKY - Nov. 17th

This is the third installment of Mike’s monthly at SKY.  I’m opening the night again and I’m really looking forward to this.  Mike is a seriously great dj and I enjoy hearing him play his own production throughout the night.  For anyone who was there last month, I don’t think Mike will be pulling the same trick twice with the CDJ.  I still can’t believe that a CDJ can bounce so many times and still play.

Slow Motion Saturdays - Nov. 10th @ Prague

Join Chad, Toddy and I for another great month of Slow Motion Saturdays @ Prague.  I missed last month so I’m excited to get back and tear it up.

Sasha’s Maven Controller

Here’s a quick look at something that a lot of DJs have been talking about. I was lucky enough to open the night for Sasha with my great friend and mentor Lance Cashion. I helped setup the booth that night as well and snapped a photo of Sasha’s Abelton Live controller, “The Maven”. To me, its fairly straight forward. Its arranged just like a normal DJ mixer but with each channel having some extra buttons and faders to control Abelton. Here’s a quick run down of how I believe it works.

From top to bottom.
The first button is to start a channel.

The knob is the trim for that channel just like on a normal dj mixer.

The next three knobs are the high, med and low filter controls just like on a normal mixer. I’m assuming that sasha has a eq effect on each channel in Abelton.

The two small faders are two control the wet dry signal for whatever effect he has going on that channel at the time.

Just below that are two buttons, Rec and Cue. Cue is to listen to his track in the headphones and I’m not totally sure what the Rec button would be used for on a per channel basis.

The next section is clearly marked “Channel Level and Clip controls”, so the fader controls the volume of the channel and each botton can start or stop a clip.

Below that is the assign button, I’m not totally sure what this is for. In Abelton, you can assign pretty much any value to a knob or button on your controller so it may be used to assign parameters on the fly from the controller, but I’m not sure why you would need 6 of these.

Below those is the standard Allen & Heath type crossfader setup with a master filter knob and button on either side.

To the right of the 6 channel controls, you have three buttons, which I believe read from right to left, Record, Stop, and Start. These are likely the master controls for the track and don’t get a lot of action. The record button is probably used when Sasha gets in groove with an effect and wants to record his actions.

Below that are 8 knobs and 8 buttons and are labeled Freeform Controls. These are just knobs and buttons that Sasha can assign to whatever effect or track parameter he wants.

Below that are the master controls for Tempo and Volume. I would hate to hear it if someone accidently hit the tempo slider all the way up. I’m sure Sasha has put parameter limits on these to avoid just that.

The last section is the headphones level, 4 leds to show what outputs are being used, Out1, Out2, ADAT, S/PDIF and a led to show that the USB connection is activated. Finally, there is a button to select either the Cue or the Master out for the headphones source.

Let me know if you think I’m wrong about any of this, its all just speculation based on my basic knowledge and experience with Abelton.

Austin Nights.tv covers Get Involved

Here’s a cool video that Austin Nights put together from Get Involved. I got to open the night and play after the fashion show. Mike Hiratzka and D:Fuse played later that night. The night as a whole was a huge success and raised some serious money for Unicef.

Lance Cashion and Jesse Brede @ SKY Lounge - Sept. 28th, 2007

Lance and I opened the night for Sasha and DJ Three. It was one of the best gigs I’ve had in a good long while and reminded me why I put so much energy into djing. The crowd was awake and really listening to what we were playing. We started slow at around 120 BPM. I searched around for a bit to find a vibe that I liked and settled in on the darker side of tech house. Lance came on and played some really great atmospheric breaks that at first confused the crowd but then as the tracks picked up put the whole night in motion.

Download

Stream

New Residency @ SKY

Starting on October 20th, I will officially have a new residency at SKY Lounge. I’m going to be opening the night for Mike Hiratzka every month. If you haven’t heard Mike play, you need to come out and check him out. He just released a full length album with D:Fuse called “Skyline Lounge’ and is a solid producer. He also plays guitar, bass and keyboards. I open ed up for him last month at SKY Lounge for the “Get Involved” fashion show and his set was one of the best I’ve heard in months.

Look for mixes from both Mike and I in the near future.

Sept. 11th - Firehouse Lounge - Toddy B, Tarek and Jesse Brede

I’ll be throwing down with Toddy and Tarek on Tuesday.   I’ve actually never played a gig with Tarek and am excited about jamming with him. He’s a class act and the ladies seem to love him…could it be his Brazilian accent?

Look for a mix from this night in the next few weeks.

September 3rd, 2007 - 5th Annual SemiAudiks Boatparty

This event is completely sold out. This party was supposed to take place on June 30th but was rescheduled due to Lake Travis being closed because of TOO MUCH RAIN???!!! The lineup has changed a bit from Toy and Merrick Brown and Alex T to Austin’s dubstep king, Grommit, and Austin’s most well known promoter and dj, Toddy B. If you are lucky enough to have tickets, I will see you there, if not, get your tickets early next year.

Thursday, September 27th, 2007 - Sasha @ SKY Lounge

Sasha @ SKY Lounge

The man, the legend, SASHA, will be in Austin. Lance Cashion and myself will doing a tag team set to open the night with DJ Three playing just before Sasha. Don’t miss this event.