Photosynth

I am not the biggest fan of Microsoft, but they do come out with some interesting ideas now and then like this one, Photosynth.

Photosynth is a program that combines thousands of snapshots to create a seamless view of a space. The program also makes it extremely easy to flip through a large collection of pictures on line. The photos shown in the clip and examples are tourist locations, but I see this application have a great affect on nightclub photos. The two things I don't like about looking at photos online are that:

a) They are a pain to go through, especially if the net is slow that day.
b) Where is my picture? Wait I found it after looking at 50 random shots.

Now imagine this program. You could flip through the photos in seconds, guests could add their pictures to the collection, and with the thousands of pictures that are taken at a nightclub over the course of a year a pretty strong virtual environment could be created.

How cool would that be?

-Charles Cushman

Technology in the DJ Booth, Part 2

So how are clubs adapting to the changes in the DJ booth? Most of them, well, are not, but some are. The approach being taken by the forward thinking clubs largely depends on the crowd they are catering to and subsequently, the DJs that they book..

The clubs that cater to the traveling DJ, i.e. superclubs and destination clubs, work around the limitations of having a set DJ booth through several means. Some clubs customize the DJ booths for the headliner and change their setup every night. This can be typically found at clubs that have a stage for the performers and not a set DJ booth. Examples of this set-up would be Ruby Skye in San Francisco and Avalon in Los Angeles. Clubs that have a more traditional DJ set-up, such as 1015 in San Francisco, or Circus in Los Angeles have gone another route. Circus depends on DJs doing a sound check early in the night with the equipment being installed directly into the DJ mixer while 1015 has installed a patch bay accessible from above that lets people easily reroute the audio going into the mixer. These systems work at these clubs primarily due to the star power of the DJs that they bring in and the fact that the equipment is not typically plugged and un-plugged through the course of the night.

Going down a notch to the smaller club, lounge, bar arena it can be seen that a new standard has emerged. Along with the CDJs, and Technics turntables either a Serato box or a Serato certified mixer can be seen more and more often. The multi-format nature of these venues have lead DJs to rely heavily on the Serato system. Venues, tired of having their gear ripped apart night after night are providing the necessary equipment for their DJs and if they don’t want top invest in a box that might walk away they are turning to patch bays specifically setup for the Serato DJ to plug into.

The last arenas we will look at are house parties and underground raves. At these events DJs are lucky to find working mixers much less anything beyond turntables. The only positive is do to the temporary nature of the setup there is typically more than enough room to plug into the mixer prior to a time slot, just be wary of pissing off the vinyl diehards.

Technology in the DJ Booth, Part 1

It used to be easy.  If you owned a club and wanted to have DJ perform you only had to provide two turntables and a mixer.  To make it even easier there really were no choices.  The turntables were technics, and depending on the era the mixer was Rane, Pioneer, or Xone.  as time progressed the only new choice was cd players, and once again a dominant player came in to being, the Pioneer CDJ-1000.

As a bedroom DJ, if you had dreams of playing in the clubs you bought what they had.  If you did not have the money you might go cheap on the mixer, but in the end we all wanted to have what would be in the club so that there would be no surprises.  Some of us who were a little crazy would buy accessories, such as samplers, drum machines, or effects boxes.  But the people that used those in the DJ booth were so few and far between no special allowances have been made for them.

Now days things are different.  While there are still DJs that use only vinyl or CDs, there is a growing number of users who use alternate systems such as serato, final scratch, traktor, or Abelton Live.  To go with these programs are specialized hardware, soundcards, DJ mixers, and controllers.  

How is this advanced in technology, coupled with the multiplicity of choices going to effect the DJ booth, and conversely the bedroom DJs choices?  In part two of this blog I will examine how clubs, bars, and Rave owners / promoters are addressing (or ignoring) the situation and in part three buying options for the bedroom DJ will be looked at.

Dirty Dirty Techno in San Diego?

An opportunity has arisen for the:metronome:project to host a club night in downtown San Diego. With every opportunity like this first comes the excitement. Here is a chance to create a night that I would want to go to, my vibe, my music.

Unfortunately, that is quickly tempered by reality. A $2,500 guarantee, no support from management other than running the venue, and a previous cliental that was hip-hop driven and have refused to even check out previous attempts at electronic music nights (which have failed miserably).

To succeed I need to bring in partners which means watering down the vision. Quickly the night starts loses direction and instead of creating a night like Club Mighty in SF, it devolves into a cheap emulation of Ruby Skye relying on model wannabes and another overpriced DJ in an already saturated market.

Is it worth it, I have until Monday to decide…