AudioAcademy.fm

Win A Warm Up Set For Dillon Francis

admin — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:28:42 +0000

Welcome to the world of the epic Canadian University Homecoming. Football, pancake keggers, parades, girls saying things like, “I don’t ever do this, but it’s homecoming so what the hell,” and of course, killer parties. What’s a better way to make one of the most memorable of weekends of the school year even more so? Have the Official Guelph University Homecoming Afterparty entertained by internationally acclaimed EDM star Dillon Francis… and you.

Take Me High

Boom!

Dillon Francis has broken away from the ever growing pack of young electronic music producers with more sick bootlegs, remixes and original tracks than I can count. Being signed to Diplo’s Mad Decent label is no small feat on its own, but couple that with having his first big release “Take Me High” hit #13 on the Beatport dubstep charts and getting rinsed in full by Rusko on EVERY STOP on his OMG tour, it’s obvious this producer from LA knows what the crowds want, and is more than happy to give it to them.

How to Enter:

Produce a vote-worthy, dancefloor destroying track or mix of any genre by 10:00am Sept 19th, 2011
Signup at AudioAcademy.fm/signup and upload your creation
Own the competition: Get your friends and colleagues to vote up your mix
Win big and collect your full hour Dillon Francis Opening Set

Enter Your Track Now

Moumba-What?

Gliding as effortlessly between dubstep, electro, moombahton and lowering women’s inhibitions as he does between the studio and the stage, aspiring producers would be lucky to see the man in action, up close and personal. AudioAcademy is stepping up to give you the chance.

Beautician

Jump On It

To claim your opening set, as always all we need from you is a 2 minute original track or mini mix worthy of your friends’, and our loyal readers’, precious votes. Upload it to our site, get your facebook on, and hype it like your chance to spin with a legend is on the line. ‘Cause it is.

Masta Blasta

Enter Your Track Now

The Blue Bus, Is Calling Us

As an added bonus to party people in the GTA that want to crash the party in style, AudioAcademy is chartering a Greyhound bus and is ready take the town by storm, but you have to move fast because tickets are already 50% sold. Drop a line to (contact name and email) and we’ll take care of the rest. Did I mention there’ll be a DJ on the bus? Yeah, we do that.

September 24th

So don’t miss out on the awesome and join us at the Guelph Concert Theatre on September 24th. The drinks will be flowin, the beats will be pumpin and the crowd will be jumpin. You definitely want to get in on this, see you there.

Aleks

Aleks Kenins is a DJ, Producer and runs his own music blog called Low Battery Crew.

Club Virgin – August

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 06:34:37 +0000

Bridging the divide: “DJ or Producer”?

jacob — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 04:02:02 +0000

Working with instrumentalists is a producer’s dream; there’s nothing like laying down a track with a live instrument instead of using prefab samples. But to bring the magic into a live setting while DJing with a moving audience is a challenge worth discussing. I’m going to dissect my liveset collaboration process. It melds the DJ and Producer’s worlds. At the end of this article hopefully you’ll have a framework for collaborating with an instrumentalist in your set.

Do you know what pitch is?

Pitch is a fundamental aspect of music. It is, simply put, the order of tones on a frequency-related scale. As a musician, I’m able to identify the intervals, or spaces, between two tones (relative pitch). So when a guitarist starts wailing, you should be able to tell if it’s on or off-key (off-pitch) with respect to the song you’re playing. A great way to learn about pitch is to try out a few online applications. I highly recommend David Lucas Burge’s Perfect Pitch training course; in 2 days I had matched the squeak of my bathroom faucet to B♭.

Breaking down the process

Step 1: Song Selection

There are many approaches to finding the proper material to play with an instrumentalist. For starters, choose around 15 songs for your subject to play along with. You should try for a variety of genres just in case. Keep in mind the emotion the instrument portrays: the chinese violin ‘erhu’ is great for sad songs but pairs well with dubstep, classical guitar is great for chilled out scenes but can also work with latin hip hop, and so forth.

If your instrument is polyphonic (can play 2 or more notes at once) try to find a song with little to no backing chords. Minimal Techno is great for this since it relies on a single note. Adam Beyer – London comes to mind; there’s a lot of room to pair Aminor & Amajor with Dminor & Dmajor, and so forth.
If your instrument is monophonic (one note at a time, like a flute), look for a song without a prevalent main melody (Chilly Gonzales – Knight Moves is an excellent pair with a trumpet).

Step 2: Check the frequencies

Keep your frequencies in mind so the instrument’s sound doesn’t clash (Refer to the reference tracks post and apply the principle to samples of the track and the prefab instrument if you have it). Get feedback from your talent- nobody wants to play a song they don’t like. You’ll be left with around 5 songs if you’re lucky.

What’s with the cheap trumpets? 2:49 begs for a huge solo, and some backing grunge guitar. Do it!

Step 3: Remixing

Cut up the songs…

Import the song into your favourite DAW
Look for stripped-down parts of the song where you’re able to isolate 1 or 2 sounds
Find the intro, 1st breakdown, 1st verse, bridge, chorus, and 2nd breakdown; the meat and potatoes, so to speak.
Use your stripped-down samples to recreate the basis of the meat and potatoes. You’re going to be layering your live instrument on top of these parts to recreate the songs.
Arrange the recreations into a generic song form [Intro, Breakdown, 1st Verse, Bridge, Chorus, 2nd Verse, Bridge, Chorus/Outro] as a bed track. You can play with these later, but take baby steps for now. Export it and send it to the talent.
Use a midi keyboard with a prefab of the select instrument to experiment with some sounds. Keep that original bed track open for the talent, but feel free to record over as a starting point. Remember, let your instrumentalist have some room to experiment when he/she comes in.
If your frequencies clash, you can always sidechain a compressor to pull out a certain level of frequencies of the original export when your talent is playing.

Find some cool effects you can use with the keyboard&prefab combination. A loopstation will usually come in handy, but if you have a variety of effects you might as well try them out to see which ones work. Important Note: VSTs eat up CPU (computer processing) power so there will be a significant time gap between the live instrument and what your soundcard spits out. This is why people use analog sound processing hardware; it alleviates the computer from doing the work so you can get better sample rates and faster processing times.

Step 4: Live Mixing and Performing

Ask your live talent to come in; bring out your microphone and start recording. Record everything and keep it organized according to the segments of your songs. You’ll need these to experiment with later on. But for now, see how your talent likes the effects they’re working with. Try to mimic some melodies or chords of known songs if you’d like to make a mashup. If it works, great. Either way let your ears make the choice in the end. Send the talent home and get to work with the samples you’ve got. Keep in mind you’re going to be tweaking and routing the sound when you perform live. There’s no way your talent will play exactly on time so automations are useless. Set up your audio patches so you can work with them quickly.

Step 5: Rearranging & Mastering

Lay your track down and export the bed track + cut samples without any fx in your DAW. Export it.
Run through your fx and perform, live, using the cut samples in place of the instrumentalist tweak your EQs so the final raw samples sit well with the FX and in the total mix. Export it.
Send these two tracks to the musician, and tell him/her to learn the first song (the one without the fx).

Step 6: Practice, Practice, Practice

Bring the talent in and perform the piece live. Try to mix from a similar song into one you just made, then out into another. Remember the cue points for your talent and always be on par with counting measures and bars. You are the conductor so make sure your talent comes in at the right time.

Perform the piece live.

Perform the piece live until you’re sick of it. Remember, your job is to perform it perfectly. There’s no room for mistakes in front of 1000 eager people.

Remember, music is a language. Make it accessible for people, not overly complex. The reason why I work live is because there’s a time restraint influenced by other people; namely the musicians and audience. The most crucial factor in performing music in my opinion is the constant feedback through tempo, volume, and tone. Also, always make eye contact with your talent so you’re on the same page….

Free Man: Jake

Jacob Friedman is a Radio and Television Arts student at the University of Ryerson, Producer, and of course, member of the Toronto Collective

Remix Roundup – September

admin — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 16:49:16 +0000

Artist: Sean Tyas

Sean Tyas Remix Competition

www.laptoprockers.eu/remix/p1/sean-tyas-remix-competition/

Remix Type: Remix

Cost: Free

Deadline: September 25, 2011

Prize(s)

1st Prize

Sean Tyas will personally pick the winning remix which will feature on the official “Lift” re-release package from Discover Records. The winner will also have the unique oppertunity to colloborate one-to-one with Sean Tyas either in the studio or via the internet.
A KRK Ergo Room Acoustics Correction Unit as used by Sean Tyas.
£100 worth of sample packs from Trackitdown.
3 months FREE subscription to TID Pro.

2nd Prize

A runner up remix will also win a place on the official “Lift” re-release package
A pair of KRK KNS-8400 Studio Headphones as used by Sean Tyas
£50 worth of sample packs from Trackitdown
1 month FREE subscription to TID Pro

AudioAcademy.fm

Win A Warm Up Set For Dillon Francis

Take Me High

Boom!

How to Enter:

Moumba-What?

Beautician

Jump On It

Masta Blasta

The Blue Bus, Is Calling Us

September 24th

Aleks

Club Virgin – August

Bridging the divide: “DJ or Producer”?

Step 1: Song Selection

Step 2: Check the frequencies

Step 3: Remixing

Step 4: Live Mixing and Performing

Step 5: Rearranging & Mastering

Step 6: Practice, Practice, Practice

Free Man: Jake

Remix Roundup – September

1st Prize

2nd Prize

Prizes

Prizes

1st place:

2nd place:

3rd place:

Prizes

1 Grand Prize Winner

10 Honorable Mentions

25 Judges Finalists

25 Popular Vote Finalists

1 Grand Prize Winner

2nd Place Winner

3rd Place Winner

10 Honorable Mentions

The Grand Prize:

2nd Place

3rd Place

Grand Prize

Honorable Mention

Grand Prize

Honorable Mention

Prizes

1,500 Frosh + Zed’s Dead + You With An Opening Set

Zeds Dead, Baby

White Satin

Drop The Fire

How to Enter:

Barletta – Panther (Zeds Dead Remix)

The Business of Winning

How to Enter:

Out For Blood

Are There Any Tickets Left?

Aleks

Win an Opening Set at the Emulator Festival

Can You Imagine Getting Your Hands On This?

Emulator – Multitouch Interface

It’s Fire

How to Enter:

When Does It All Go Down?

Filo and Peri – Lights n Loaded

1 Full Hour on the Emulator, Live

The Future of DJ’ing

What if I Just Want Tickets to the Event?

Aleks

Club Virgin – July

Remix Roundup – August

Winners

1st prize

2nd prize

3rd prize

1x Grand Prize (worth 3898 GBP)

3x Runner Up Prizes (worth 1997 GBP)

3 winners

Grand Prize Winner

1st Runner -Up

2nd Runner-Up