Deadmau5 Releases Sample CD For Producers
In a twist that might seem counterproductive to building a unique artist sound, Deadmau5 and his longtime studio partner Steve Duda have put together a CD-ROM packed full of 100% royalty-free samples for music producers to use in their own tracks. Some would say it’s a charitable gesture, considering the burgeoning international profile of Deadmau5 and the influential releases of their BSOD project. If you asked aspiring producers worldwide to name the top 5 producers they most want to sound like for instance, you can bet Deadmau5 would be in there… Read more
Back in the days before digital, DJs used to be sent promo records through the post. Some of it was decent, but a lot of it was crap. Then when digital arrived, the promos started arriving via email as downloadable link: 
This week’s Weekend Weapons feature comes from San Francisco’s tech house don, Claude VonStroke. As the mastermind behind the Dirtybird and Mothership imprints, VonStroke has helped oversee the release of some of the biggest tech house tracks of the last few years including Style of Eye’s recent bomb ‘The Big Kazoo’ and his own major hit ‘Who’s Afraid of Detroit’. Claude was kind enough to share his current top three dancefloor destroyers…
Free plug-ins, a portable hardware widget to run them, and a valuable lesson on differentiating between Deadmau5′s music and your own are all rolled up into this week’s roundup. It’s been an interesting week, to say the least.
While a lot of DJs might mention Detroit or Chicago as a key influence of their music, the star of Fabric’s latest mix CD is a little different. Graeme Sinden grew up around Kent and Essex in satellite towns near London. As a kid his stereo was tuned to the drum & bass and two step garage sounds that gave London such a unique input into dance music. Now in the naughties, along with a new twentysomething generation of producers like Herv� or Duke Dumont he’s helping to update the vibe of the bass heavy sounds of London from the mid 1990s into an altogether more exciting musical melting pot… 
Known for delivering marathon 12-hour performances when he’s given the chance (something hinted at by last year’s Balance compilation, which spanned a mighty three CDs), Lee Burridge’s sets take in a wide range of modern dancefloor sounds. Burridge made his name in the unlikely hotspot of Hong Kong during the superclub boom of the ’90s, and, by the time he decided to move back to his native home of England, his contacts book was overflowing with the biggest names. It was here that he set up his Tyrant residency at Fabric with Craig Richards, and together they mixed some of the most celebrated compilations in the club’s DJ mix series. Burridge is currently residing in San Francisco, where he’s started up a new party entitled Get Weird and, perhaps in that spirit, Lee has come up with something different for his RA podcast; a mix of melancholic melodies and stripped back beats that is, according to him, strictly for the ladies… 
Andrea Fratangelo and Francesco Barbaglia are actually Phra and Bot, who are actually Crookers. 3D’s Rezo chats with the Italian stallions of bounce.
Using a Max/MPS/Jitter patch that he made with Brian Schmierer, Christopher Willits (Ghostly/12K) shows how you can use your iPhone as controller for Ableton Live. You can download the software patches they made and read the details on how to DIY.
With compression, gates, delay and reverb covered, we’ll now delve into the mysteries of modulation effects. Flanging, chorusing, phasers, tremolo, and auto-panning are the most common types of modulation effects in modern synths and digital audio workstation software. Since each of these effects has its own flavor, this tutorial will cover the specifics of what to use and when to use it. For example, flangers are great for adding animation to percussion and sweeps, but can be problematic when used on bass. Let’s find out why… 
‘Hatiras Presents’ is the weekly radio show presented by Hatiras. Each episode features a new 60 minute mix from many of the planet’s finest DJs. Feel free to download the show here every week. And don’t forget – support the music by purchasing downloads from Beatport, Juno, etc.
Poor old Justice are having a hard week. Last Thursday the duo admitted in an interview that their album ['] contained at least 400 uncleared samples, and now comes this photo which shows the pair faking it during a live set. The MIDI controller on the left ain’t plugged in, but the tall fuzzy-haired one is pretending that it is – he’s got an intense concentrated look on his face whilst moving the faders and knobs. Busted!
Kraftwerk peddled mannequin mystique. Daft Punk resplendent robotics. Heirs apparent Justice a luminescent electronic sermon, conducted from within a Marshall amp pulpit. ‘Pop froth,’ is what those Parisian Ed Bangers affectionately termed it: the gimmick, the in, the catalyst to worldwide hipster renown. Digitalism don’t have, or for that matter need one. Jens ‘Jence’ Moelle and Ismail ‘Isi’ Tuefekci, two modest pals from Hamburg who produced some of the finest electro to emerge from 2007, a scene-defining year that saw their debut LP Idealism compete with virgin offerings from Justice, Boys Noize and Simian Mobile Disco, let punk-infused distortion be their calling card… 
DJ Sneak could be Chicago house’s most streetwise ambassador. The DJ ‘ born Carlos Sosa ‘ is touting himself as ‘the original house gangster’. Sosa may have been based in Toronto, Canada, for a decade, but he’s not lost touch with his roots. Sosa’s contemporary Felix da Housecat ushered in electroclash, but he’s stuck to traditional Chicago house ‘ or his ‘Sneak style’.
Check out this dope video from an Ibiza 2008 beach party with Groove Armada that took place at the end of the season, featuring footage from the event and an interview with GA’s Tom Findlay.
British producer James Holden, boss of Border Community records, is often tipped as one of the great thinkers of electronic music thanks to his cutting-edge approach to techno and electronica. Here Future Music magazine catches up with James Holden in his studio to discover his Top 10 favorite bits of studio kit, which includes a drum machine made by Mattel which is ‘the most evil thing in the world,’ says James, plus lots of cuddly toys that he has circuit bent… 
