I’ll be DJ-ing twice this month. First, I’ll be one of two DJ’s at Scatz Nightclub (Middleton by CostCo) on Friday, March 19th from 9pm to 2am. My friend Lucien and I, along with DJ Web Spinna from Milwaukee are hosting a T.G.I.F. Party in the upstairs lounge at Scatz. I hope we’ll see you there. The cover is $5 and we will be sticking to our theme: Keeping it Cool, Hip and Sophisticated!
A week later on Saturday, March 27th, I’ll be DJ-ing at The Great Dane Fitchburg. It should be a terrific time. I’m looking forward to keeping the vibe pumped from 10pm to 2am. The beer is great and the music is FREE! Keep an eye out on my sax—I’ll be bringing it with to provide a few surprises during the evening!
And if you’re from Kalamazoo, Michigan…you’ll dig knowing that our friend, Kevin McFadden, will be in town and in attendance for the Great Dane gig.
Again, great to talk to Nick at Guitar Center today. He suggested I check out this site. He said he learned most everything he knows now about Maschine and Ableton by watching videos from here.
Well, I took back the Axiom Pro 61 midi keyboard/controller. I had some success with integrating Ableton Live with the keyboard, but ultimately, this keyboard controller (to the tune of ~$500) didn’t live up to my expectations. It had no “brains” or “guts” inside. No internal sound banks, not even a collection of sounds that you could install on a computer to trigger (like Reason or Native Instrument samples). It’s just a nice semi-weighted 61-key piano surface with 8 faders, 8 knobs and 8 pads to control Ableton (or other software).
In the end, it just failed to work well for me. Admittedly, I’m at a beginner’s level with Ableton, but the bottom line experience was that, even after a month of dedication to getting the Axiom Pro/Ableton Live relationship to work, it wasn’t really going anywhere.
“I’m sorry, Axiom Pro, but this isn’t really working out.”
Fortunately, the recovery period is very short for failed software/hardware relationships. I just had a great 30 minute conversation with a Shure mic rep who happened to be at Guitar Center when I was returning the keyboard, who also is a DJ and musician in Chicago. He heard me explaining the situation to the GC guys and told me how he’s composing and arranging grooves. He uses Native Instrument’s “Maschine” with Ableton to make music, keeping the Ableton software relevant, but replacing an empty shell keyboard controller with a equally priced hardware/software groovebox with tons of sounds and added resources.
He confirmed that the technology out today is amazing, but there are so many options that it can get very confusing trying to figure out what products to invest in. I was totally going back to getting a used Akai MPC 1000, which I’ve been craving for a long time, but I’ll have to seriously consider NI’s Maschine, instead.
Maschine comes with 5 gigs of awesome sounds and integrates with a laptop or other computer. I was surprised to learn that Maschine is not resource heavy, so he said I would be able to use the NS7 and Maschine together on the same laptop (which I thought was incredible). Sweeeet! It functions as a sequencer, a sampler, an arranger and effects array. And it can connect with my existing full-weight 88-key keyboard. No need for more keyboards….done.
Tiken Jah Fakoly’s African roots reggae is taking over the entire African continent, per my Senegalese friends. I was told to check out his music because I would love it. Man, was that good advice! Check out Tiken Jah Fakoly’s MySpace page to hear some of this deep roots music coming out of the Ivory Coast. It’s wonderful!!
P.S. I appreciate the powerful horns backing up the band! These tunes have great arrangements.
