Been a long time…

Yes.

It’s been a while. Still collecting vinyl, not playing much as opportunities are slim, however I have dipped my toe into Twitch streaming. I’ve tested a couple of setups and OBS doesn’t kill my ancient MacBook…so there’s that. Considering working in a “Live” page and perhaps a twitter feed for if / when I do play. Not the same as spinning in front of friends / a crowd, but something to blow the cobwebs off.

Recently discovered Tidy Trax are pressing / releasing new vinyl, so those are winging their way towards me. Another label I’ve been following since its inception, Selador, has also been releasing new vinyl, and I’m currently 4 from 4 there [tech / progressive house].

I could blame the pandemic, but really, I’ve just been bone lazy. I don’t do any shameless self promotion, so this site ends up a hobby more than a marketing tool, and without an echo in the chamber…I just do my own thing. Sometimes, that thing is not playing music at all.

Finally…not sure wtf “capcomwindow” is, but the bots are hammering my login page with this user name. Yes, bots…I see you.

 

_k

Stop. Talking all that Jazz

Lots of n95 health mask spam. I wonder if elastic and my Nokia n95 work just as well…?

Not a lot in the new mix department, however I have been padding the vinyl collection. I’ve also been testing a streaming setup, and once I nail recording audio separately to capturing and streaming…we’re going to be good to go. Will investigate whether I can stream directly to this site, other wise will be a twitch stream on a dedicated page.

I’ve uploaded the DJ Edwin tribute night mixes, occasionally spin rekkids with DJ Syntax, and SOLON LORDS isn’t currently returning my phone calls.

I’m considered an essential worker, working in an essential service, so my expectations of a couple of weeks off work to mix and read and stream and PS4 have been dashed.

…recent additions to the collection include: The Shamen – Ebeneezer Goode. 🙂

New Mix: Asylum

I have been somewhat quiet over the last few months…my output as slowed due to moving the Beat Laboratory across the city, and work / life / study. I’m also dealing with audio equipment failure and the need to buy / acquire a new set of monitors to hear myself mix properly. I have uploaded “Asylum” and I’ve had DJ Syntax record a couple of mixes, the first in a series I’m calling Guestmixes which is available here. Click through for a description of each mix. I’ve also been investigating live streaming, and this is a definite possibility for the future. I will need a webcam [currently investigating Logitech c922] and some test runs to ensure I can stream and record audio at the same time. I see a B2B session with DJ Syntax in the future…

New mix in the works…

Yeah, I’ve got a house / electro thing brewing. I’ve done a sort through the records and I’ve easily got an hour or two. Looking forward to getting this one in the can. Opening with an Aquasky remix and immediately retreating back to 4/4 cause safety. Although maybe I should try another couple of break beat tunes…anyway, stay tuned, should have this done in the next couple of days.

New Mix: Thunderstruck [Big Girls]

First mix on the new rig is uploading as I write this post. My 1200mk3Ds arrived, and I’m now using Shure Whitelabel Carts / styli. The clarity in the sound is definitely noticeable over my entry level Numark GT needles / carts. The 1200s have come from a library in Japan, and even have that musty book smell about them. Really enjoying spinning on them, might even up my mix output. Next purchase is a new mixer…I eventually want to mix records and digital files via DVS. I’ll write a more detailed description of the mix on the Podcast entry, but think bouncy hard dance…I was dancing around my dining room mixing this, so hope someone else gets a kick from it.

_k

Things that are happening…

Not much new on the mix front, I have 1 broken / malfunctioning Numark turntable, and I’m awaiting 2x refurbished Technics 1200s to arrive from Japan. There’s a new GAS LOUDER mix in the works that may show up on Mixcloud soonish, depending on whether I can get up there to sign off on it. I was supposed to record a mix in the Ipswich Beat Laboratory recently but I struggled to get motivated, so looking forward to new decks [and new needles / carts] to play with…probably time for a big vinyl sort anyway. I’ve also turned off the setting discouraged search engines from indexing my site…see how I feel about that in due course. May potentially pick up some techno in Melbourne towards the end of the month if time allows…other than that I’m processing some DJ SYNTAX vinyl mixes, but not doing anything of my own.

_k

SOL_k – Twisted Sounds is coming

I’ve a new mix coming shortly. Electro House and very mid 00s, it’s getting rave reviews from my DJ mentor who happened to end up with the USB stick that the mix is on. My output has been somewhat stalled as I’m dealing with a broken Numark turntable at home, and my refurbished Technics are still ~2 weeks away. Suspect this new mix to available sometime in the next couple of days, on the Mixes page.

I’m on Mixcloud

SOL_k

Yes. It’s true. I’m on mixcloud. As SOL_k would you believe. I’ve added a link to the menu that will automagically take you to my page. Currently hosting a mix I helped finalize with an old friend, GAS LOUDER. Techno, digital, and sequenced, this mix is tight, dank and dark. I added input into cueing and mix down, but track selection was all GAS LOUDER…for better or worse. Mixcloud doesn’t allow downloads, without use of one of *those* tools. Oh, and GAS LOUDER’s mixcloud page is… here

The mix no one will ever hear…[but 2 others you can]

Spent some time last night recording a hard trance mix…Overdose and Pulse records stuff. Dropped an absolute trance classic around the 40 minute mark. Finished up, started post processing work [was in the middle of an amplify pass, before a normalisation pass]. Macbook crashed [gpu panic because Apple are terrible and used a cheap chip on the logic board, well documented]. I had broken the rule of save first, process 2nd. Rebooted, project unrecoverable. Added all the .au chunks in, in a manual recovery attempt. Macbook crashed again [gpu panic].

Re-attempted manual recovery this morning…and it’s not happening. As a small consolation…I do have firstly the “Diynamically Shambolic” to upload, and as a bonus, I have mix titled “Trance and Acid” which was recorded during a party a few weeks back, whilst I slowly sunk into a state of under the influence. Unreviewed, and I don’t remember much after the 20min mark, except for relief at making it to an hour…

_k

New Mix inbound…

I’m calling it Diynamically Shambolic. Sampled a few tunes off 10 years of Diynamic Records, followed up with a few tunes from my mostly under appreciated techno stack. Was really flying blind with this one, even let a record run right out [quick little edit in post production to hide the silence]. I need to do the car listen test, and then it’ll make its way into the mix archive. Let’s call it…24 hours?