yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy what a month
we had so many gems and brilliant guest bloggers, The Young Punx
this month’s APC TOP 10 is dominated by videos
it’s a kindda visual fiesta

first, here is the official APC chart
followed by the exclusive TOP 10 of The Young Punx
plus the APC Family members charts

#01 Sebastien Tellier – Look (promo clip) [link]
promo clip for the Record Makers’ 10th Anniversary
sweet animation, great tune, nice booty
#02 Kraddy – Android Porn (Mochipet Godzillaporn Remix) [link]
AudioPornographers <3 Android Porn
#03 J Wow – Klang [link]
the debut single of J-Wow of Buraka Som Sistema
#04 Bomb the Bass – Up The Mountain (Gui Boratto Remix) [link]
the most downloaded song of the month
#05 SugaMotor – Bitter boy [link]
RiRi RAWKZ
#06 Frail Limb Purity – Drake v. Sub Focus [link]
spring break hit alert
#07 Hot Chip – I Feel Better [link]
LAZERZ KILL
#08 Eli Escobar – Oslo [link]
taken from the superdope Scion A/V Sampler V. 29 by Plant Music
#09 Frunt Room – Hey Stavros! [link]
the funkiest lollicop
#10 Dj Moule – Kids are Stronger [link]
two overused songs get a new life

and now let’s see what our VIP Bloggers loved most on APC in March

The Young Punx’s Top 10

#01 The Young Punx – Ready For The Fight (Black Noise Remix) [link]
#02 Marcos Cabral & Shux – A Lifetime Groove [link]
#03 Reset! – If We Try (Kry Wolf‘s Space Disco Remix) [link]
#04 The Young Punx – The Young Punx Theme [link]
#05 Plan B – She Said (16-bit Remix) [link]
#06 Acid Washed – SNAKE (Future Beat Alliance remix) [link]
#07 Eli Escobar – Oslo [link]
#08 SugaMotor – Welcome song [link]
#09 Hell On Steele Wheelz – GorillaMama [link]
#10 The Phenomenal Handclap Band – Baby (Architeq Dub) [link]

and here are the personal charts of the APC Family members

Copycat’s Top 10

#01 Tanita Tikaram – Twist in my sobriety (Alf Tumble Re-dress) [link]
Words cannot describe how much I love this cool disco take. Huge.
#02 Vitalic – Second Lives [link]
LOVELY car driving electro! Make sure you find the Lifelike rmx as well!
#03 Lord Numb – Little One [link]
Dunproofin’ turned a great track into a stunning one. Very excited about this.
#04 Reset! – If We Try (Kry Wolf’s Space Disco Remix) [link]
Space disco indeed. With the obligatory vocoder, of course. Slick!
#05 Grum – Can’t Shake This Feeling [link]
Glitzy 80s infused disco soul pop from Grum. Yum!
#06 J Wow – Klang [link]
Etno goes electro. Trippy. Haunting. Excellent.
#07 Junkie XL (ft. Jan Hammer) – Made for each other [link]
Never thougth I’d put Junkie XL in a list of mine. Blame Jan friggin’ Hammer! Now, where’s my Miami Vice box…
#08 Los Massieras – Boogity Boogity Boogity [link]
Simon says: Excellent spacediscojammin’! Copycat says: Simon knows his shit.
#09 Papi Brandao Y Sus Ejecutivos – Baila Bilongo (MayaVanya re-work) [link]
Perfect for the upcoming summer parties! The rhythm’s gonna get you…
#10 Villa Nah – Daylight [link]
Minimalistic electro soul pop from Finland? There’s a first for everything…

Phil Retrospector’s TOP 10

#01 iamamiwhoami– b [link]
WTF? Got way too obsessed with this weird/zexy viral series from swedish singer/songwriter Jonna Lee, allegedly…
#02 Frunt Room – Hey Stavros! [link]
Who <3 ya baby?
#03 Marc Johnce – I Can’t Stand [link]
Fact: I cant stand Hot Chip and/or Genesis but this is flawless!
#04 The Golden Filter – Hide Me (Opera Clock Remix) [link]
The band with the Midas touch
#05 G3RSt – I’ve Seen That Paranoid Face Before [link]
DisGraced Jones
#06 Acid Washed – Snake (Future Beat Alliance Remix) [link]
Spaced out disconaut bliss
#07 Bomb the Bass – Up The Mountain (Gui Boratto Remix) [link]
Tim Simenon get favela flava
#08 O Children – Ruins [link]
Dis guy makes Nick Cave sound like a pussy, nuff said…
#09 Yacht – The Afterlife [link]
Don’t go into the light!!!!!!!!!!!
#10 CFCF – Big Love (Mathemagic Remix) [link]
Yupp, a Fleetwood Mash Mac cover

Simon Iddol’s TOP 10

#01 Reset! – If We Try (Kry Wolf’s Space Disco Remix) [link]
they say ‘we can make it together if we try’, dammmmn right
#02 Eli Escobar – Oslo [link]
what can I say, new tune from my fave producer
#03 Rihanna – Rude Boy (Cosmic Dawn Remix Edit) [link]
RiRi D.I.S.C.O.
#04 Tanita Tikaram – Twist in my sobriety (Alf Tumble Re-dress) [link]
the surprise of the month for me
#05 B.A.R.T.O. – SUSPICIOUS STENCH + BRITNEY SPEARS [link]
B.A.R.T.O. iz BACKKKK
#06 Los Massieras – Boogity Boogity Boogity [link]
spacediscojammin’
#07 The Phenomenal Handclap Band – Baby (Architeq Dub) [link]
the dark side of the Baby
#08 Frail Limb Purity – Drake v. Sub Focus [link]
party like there’s no tomorrow
#09 Villa Nah – Daylight [link]
it’s been a while since I’ve seen daylight
#10 Lord Numb – Little One (Dunproofin’ Beatless Remix) [link]
Dun’ doesnt need beatz 2 RAWK

One of the best things about dance music is a fat old bassline and seeing as the best things come in threes…  Here at Punx HQ we are fond of melody, we appreciate the need for structure and form, and a song WILL make ladies sing and dance.  But we know the best girls… now they like rhythm :)

I’m not talking ill-considered wobbly basslines thrown over a rock or rave sample for the sake of, nonsense Herve copycat cliches, or fidgety rising rasping guff that has no sense of rhythm.  I’m thinking grooves that lock you, three-dimensional glue like structures that seem to stick in every corner of your brain, and that special frequency that pumps lead into your chest.

Here’s three producers and three new tracks that force a smile on my face like the victim of a Chelsea FC hooligan.  Three that will certainly be hitting the airwaves when the Punx take to the stand.

Paul Weller ‘Wake Up The Nation’ (DJ Zinc Remix) - Zinc has long been rocking my World since my early adventures in Drum & Bass.  Most notably for tracks like ‘Super Sharp Shooter’ but also forgotten classics like “Reach Out’ and ‘Casino Royale’ and then of course his whole Bingo Beats years.  Still on form some fifteen years later, first with the Crack House EP and now this, a remix of Paul Weller!  Typically great rhythms, fantastic b-line and nothing short of what i expect when i see that name appear on a promo pack.

Delphic ‘Halycon’ (L-Vis 1990 Remix) – this guy in my opinion seems to be doing no wrong.  I’m seeing a really exciting rebirth in garage 2-step soaked rhythms and thankfully people have dispensed with the pervasive plastic beats of early noughties UK Garage.  L-Vis 1990 is right up there on the frontline.  Alongside cohort Bok Bok with their Nightslug parties, basslines have never sounded so exciting.  Often twisted and unexpected there are no cliche fidget wobbles and squelching here.  Just hard-hitting filth straight from the gutter.

Claude Von Stroke ‘Monster Island’ (Christian Martin Remix) - Claude von Stroke’s not really somebody you’d necessarily associate strictly with ‘bass’ but a pioneer nonetheless.  ‘Who’s Afraid Of Detroit’ made it ok for a dropping bassline to be played in a house club and his remix of Luke Solomon’s ‘Ghosts’ was pure ‘tear-out’ drum & bass reinvented.  His label Dirty Bird has a steady rate of releasing subtle little bass-fueled bangers and this, the latest is just brilliant.  Taking on all the themes i love in jungle/drum & bass; sinister overtones, tribally beats, and a heads down stepper basslines.  It WILL freak some people when we play this out but i for one can’t wait.

No YouTube link on this one but you can check it here

Well, it’s Friday evening. I won’t lie to you, I’ve got better things to spend my time doing than writing another of my meandering essays here. Instead I’ll just point you in the direction of HUGE AMOUNTS OF GREAT MUSIC.

Check out The Young Punx FM Podcast. It’s a 2 hour show we do roughly monthly combining the best in new electronic music, special guests, mayhem, humor and, occasionally, snack reviews. You’ll probably like it.

So kick back, turn up the sound and have a little party. Or get ready to go out. Or whatever takes your fancy.

Subscribe using RSS. Or subscribe on iTunes. Or just play it in the soundcloud player.

The Young Punx FM Podcast by MofoHifi Records

Hello. So the reason we have a week of VIP Blogging on APC THIS WEEK is that we are celebrating the release of our second album, Mashpop and Punkstep. (um… apart from DE, AT, CH – May and AU, NZ, JP – June). Now I’ll have you know that the week’s VIP blogging is the warm-up – not the main event. We have a couple of much more exciting things for you in the coming couple of weeks. But for now I thought we should tell you about the album a bit.

Our marketing bumf says: “The Young Punx return for their second studio album, a startling and inventive exploration of the deliberate destruction of genre boundaries in electronic music. Probably the first album in history to have toyed with drum and bass, heavy metal, electropop and cuban timba within the first 5 minutes (!) “Mashpop and Punkstep” is a vibrant manifesto for the next generation of mashup music.”

Well. That’s what we like to tell people anyway.

1. This is me talking about making the album

2. This is what it sounds like

The Young Punx – ‘Mashpop and Punkstep’ – OUT NOW! by MofoHifi Records

3. This is the page on our web site with more information about the album

4. This is what some blogs have been saying about the album this week

5. Some music for you

The Young Punx – Simple Pleasures [mp3]

The Young Punx – Ready For The Fight (Black Noise Mix) [mp3]

The Young Punx – Juice and Gin (Riva Starr Mix) [mp3]

Buy now!

…and if you fancy being oldskool and buying some music we’d really appreciate it because it cost a frickin’ fortune to make. Try iTunes (most of the world), iTunes (USA and Canada), Amazon UK, Amazon.com, Beatport, Juno, eMusic (USA) etc.

A lot of what we spend our time doing at Young Punx high command involves taking production ideas, and aesthetic principles that evolved in the Mashup community and finding ways to express them in other contexts, such as live or using 100% original music rather than other people’s records.

As a result we spend a lot of time effectively making ‘fake samples’. If we want a track that has the sound of having sampled a disco record, but we don’t want to be simply recyling someone else’s music, we will record a whole disco track using vintage instruments, vintage production techniques, mix it down, master it, add vinyl noise and hiss, down-sample it it in a Bitcrusher to sound like an old MPC or Akai sample, and then ‘sample ourselves’ to make a dance track.

We’ve have done this for 60s soul tracks, bossa nova, punk, opera, heavy metal, 80s pop, and so on – creating a whole ‘retro sounding’ song – which we then sample only part of to make a second track, which is the one you actually hear.

You then have the option of working with the creative constraints of NOT having the multitrack of the sample (as is the case when doing most mashups / bootlegs) or you CAN go in and, say, remove the drums from the ‘sample’ if you really want to.

I call this a ‘twice baked’ approach because you do a track once, finish it, and then use that as the starting point for making your second track.

Anyway, the end result is “mashy sounding” music that does not actually incorporate anyone else’s work.

I went into more detail about this in a feature for Computer Music magazine in 2008, which the production minded of you might be interested in watching:

What’s that you say? You didn’t come here to talk about side chain compression and bit crushing? You came here to get music for free? Oh OK then.

Here is the track ‘Drum and Bacharach’ from our debut album “Your Music Is Killing Me” in which we first of all created an imaginary Burt Bacharach style lounge Bossa Nova track. Bounced it down, then took it round to the house of Number 1 Drum and Bass DJ in the World^TM John B where we used it as a sample in a semi tongue in cheek drum and bass track. What with the Brazilian Drum and Bass scene etc, it isn’t that unusual to hear Latin sounds and Drum and Bass sounds together, but I think by separating them out into 2 totally different production systems like this, even in different studios, it makes for a more striking soundclash.

The Young Punx – ‘Drum and Bacharach’ [mp3]

Meanwhile, for those of you who mash, boot and remix, here is the acapella (plus some of the psuedo Jacko instrument parts) for The Young Punx track “It Doesn’t Stop” which was featured in the Computer Music tutorial, in case you want to do your own mix.

[The Young Punx - "It doesn't stop" acapella / remix parts"]

OK. See you tomorrow.

Follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Please.

G’day. In ye olden days there were two types of pop recording. Your home made demo, which was basically zero budget shit, and of no commercial use except in the lofi garage scene, and acts that were SIGNED TO A RECORD LABEL. Record labels would throw some money at signed artists to make them sound good and pay for musicians, producers, expensive studios etc. So a commercial record would have pretty plush production values.

It’s all changed now.

At the bottom end of the market, anyone who owns a home computer essentially has free access to the majority of the facilities that would previously comprise a multi million dollar recording studio. So there is now no real differentiator between ‘home made’ music and ‘professional’ music. At the high end, most traditional labels are starved for cash, conservative in their A&R and not throwing money at developing new acts – so the chances are even if you are signed you don’t often have much scope for elaborate recordings. Even artists as established as Beck have commented that since no-one BUYS his music anymore, they just file share it – there basically isn’t a cashflow to put into complex expensive recordings any more, and though he can make good sounding records – they are creatively different from the days when there was a noticeable budget for making a record whatever way he wanted.

Now I am of the belief that all these changes are overall for the better. However, something negative has been happening to the palette of sounds producers are using. Essentially – any sound that can be made by a computer plugin, performed by a commonly found musician, or recorded on one microphone is still in circulation. Any sound that requires many musicians, large recording studios, specialist skills and equipment – or basically costs a lot to record – is disappearing from most records

These are the lost sounds.

I spend a lot of my time trying to find them again.

Choirs, orchestras, brass sections. The oldskool shit. And don’t talk to me about sample libraries and software emulations. They can cover you on certain phrases – long notes and short stabs, but they can’t mimic the phrasing of a collection of real, imperfect, players.

In the 50s, 60s and 70s – pretty much ANY commercial act that asked for an orchestra to play on their record would get one. These days, in dance music in particular, its very unlikely to happen. Hire all the musicians and facilities required to record full orchestral session costs a minimum of £3000, and probably much more. i.e. More than most records will ever be likely to make, and more than a good remix package for your record. NO-ONE does orchestral dance music now.

But they used to. Disco was heavily orchestral and we LOVE the sound of it, which why we keep sampling it. Then the whole War of the Worlds into Hooked On Classics orchestra with a drum machine vibe is a bit kitch and naff, but I think its a great ‘lost sound’ for dance producers.

I wanted to find a way to be able to re-capture these orchestral sounds without having to sample someone else’s work, in an affordable way.

Basically I’ve cracked it. I’ve managed to get to the point where we can record a convincing orchestra using one mic and around 2 to 5 musicians for around £500. The down side is it takes forfuckingever and you have to have a strong working knowledge of arranging and mixing for an orchestra to make it sound decent. Essentially its blindingly obvious. Record a small number of players a lot of times and track them up – rather than recording 60 people in a room at once. In practice there are lot of do-s and don’ts about making it sound convincing. Which would take too long to go into here.

But on our new album, mid way through we drop fully into Puccini Opera, in which we have performed every single instrument of the orchestra one at a time, between me and 1 violin player using mostly ‘real’ instruments, padded out with good sampled instruments low in the mix. You have to do no end of hacks to make it work. To make one string player multitracked sound convincing you have 1) Make them keep standing in different parts of the room 2) Make them play ‘like different people’ – different vibratos, different bow positions. 3) Tune the violin down to play the Viola parts 4) Play the violin through an octaver to do the cello parts, then add in cello samples to cover up the carnage etc. etc. etc. And edit and mix it for days. But the end result is an entire symphony orchestra and opera singer recorded for just a few hundred pounds. Of course spread this attitude over a whole album, throw in a few guest performers etc and you still end up spending over 10k of your own money that you may never see back again, but at least it was POSSIBLE.

Which brings me to our first track for today, The Young Punx theme. This track is basically me and Phonat trying to capture the essence of those late 70s orchestral disco records, but with a 2010 attitude.

The Young Punx – The Young Punx Theme [mp3]

um… I hope you like it.

We are more than happy to have some more versions of the track on hand, so for those of you who are producers, here are the remix parts for the orchestral elements, in case you want to make your own remix of it. 125bpm, once it gets going.

For those of you who are interested in how this orchestral sound is built up, here is a screenshot of logic showing; tubular bells on the sampler, 3 trumpet tracks, 2 high trumpet tracks, 4 trombone tracks, a synth flute, 4 tracks of the trombones playing out of position to mimic the sound of French horns, 3 tracks of flugal horn, 4 choral singers, then a load of sampler orchestral percussion and piano. All put into a bus, compressed and then put through a convolution reverb of a concert hall. That’s 3 musicians (me, the trumpet/flugal player and the trombone player) plus 4 choral singers. And a lot of work.

I’ve also employed this approach in a Mashup context. For example, I wanted to do a mash up of Deadmau5 “Ghosts N Stuff” with Shapeshifters “Lola’s Theme” (or more accurately with Johnny Taylor “What About My Love”). However – all the instrumentation in the sample made it far too cluttered, and if stems exist, I certainly don’t have them. So we pulled in a violin player, a trumpet player and a sax player, and some days editing later we have this, which is one of my favorite mashups.

The Young Punx – “Lola’s Ghost”
Deadmau5 VS Johnny Taylor / Shapeshifters [mp3]

Anyway. Screw you guys. I’m going home. :-)

See you tomorrow.

Hal

Well hello there. Nice to meet you. This is Hal from The Young Punx here to take the reins of the APC VIP blogger series for the week. And a great honour it is too.

We’re here this week in celebration of the release of our second album “Mashpop and Punkstep”, but I’ll leave talking about that until later in the week when the bastard is live on iTunes in the USA. We have a few pretty damn exciting things lined up specifically for APC in the coming week or two. But Mr Iddol says today I can just tease you about it, but not make any big announcements. Consider yourself teased.

For those of you who don’t know who we are; we are a largely London based collective of DJs, producers, mashers, musicians and vocalists held together under my evil dictatorship benign leadership. We started out doing mashups and bootleg mixes around 2003. It’s all expanded a bit since then with moving on to ‘official mixes’, original material, DJing and live performance. But our home is always really in the mentality of the mashup scene, and a lot of what we do involves taking the aesthetics and approaches born in the mashup community and expressing them in other more diverse places.

In the light of that, I thought a fun, if totally random, place to start with on our first post might be reporting on some of our recent activities doing mashups totally live. By which I don’t mean mashup live on the fly with Ableton (which we also do) but performing mashups while playing all the parts live in a band. We have done this for years with The Young Punx, but the reason this has been most fun recently, and got a fair bit of exposure, has been that I have had the privalege of working as Musical Director for Dizzee Rascal at several of his live shows. Dizzee has been great to work with because he has given us a huge amount of creative freedom to back him however we like, which has enabled us to pull some mashup based stunts that might have lead a more closed-minded artist to say “what the fuck are you doing with my music” but Dizzee has been really up for it.

The mash that has got most attention has probably been our decision to play Dizzee’s track “Stand Up Tall” over a live backing of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. We’ve done this at a few gigs now and it always goes down a storm. Big lolz at the yourtube comments, where the mashup people love trolling the hardcore Nirvana geeks who think that rap isn’t real music and this is ruining ‘their song’. Here we are seeing in 2010 on New Year’s Eve on BBC TV in the UK:

Or for an alternative performance, here we are playing it at the Roundhouse at the BBC Electric Proms:

Dizzee Rascal backed by The Young Punx
Stand up teen spirit [mp3]
live at the BBC electric Proms

I know Teen Spirit is a bit of a mashup cliche, but its been fun.

We’ve also been dropping odds and ends of mashing wherever we can. When playing “Jus A Rascal”, although we’ve been mainly doing the ‘original’ version, we’ve been able to drop into the Strokes Reptilia mashup of the track for the second verse (at 2:27), and then add in some Jeremy Paxman in the playout in the place of the original Answerphone message.

Dizzee Rascal backed by The Young Punx and The Heritage Orchestra- Jus A Rascal (/Reptilia) [mp3]
live at the BBC electric Proms

It’s come full circle in a nice way really because one of the very first Mashups we ever did back in 2003 was a mash of Dizzee’s “Fix Up Look Sharp” with J Lo “Play” and Madonna’s “Music” called Play Big Beat Music. It’s a bit rough around the edges in places with imperfect timestretching, but its still decent.

The Young Punx – Play Big Beat Music [mp3]
Dizzee Rascal VS J-Lo VS Madonna

Another fun Dizzee related live mash we were involved in recently was the Dizzee VS Florence and the machine mashup at The Brits. Dizzee and Florence were basically put together to do a joint performance of 2 of their songs together, doing the vocals live on the day, to a pre-recorded backing track. In response to this brief, we put together the “You Got The Dirty Love” concept, using the stems of You Got The Love and acapella of Dirtee Cash. Florence and Dizzee learned the structure from this mash, then performed live at the show.

In a great move, the Brits people put the song for sales on iTunes just a couple of hours after it was recorded live and it went to number one. Its for charity, so feel free to buy a copy.

Anyway. That’s enough for now. We’ll be back during the week with anecdotes, tech tips, exclusive downloads, and EXCITING NEWS FOR YOU.

Cheers

Hal

can’t tell you how happy we are
next week we will start the new season of our VIP Blogger Series
and our guest will be none other but the mighty Young Punx!!!!

we will celebrate the release of their new album Mashpop & Punkstep
and we will have a whole lot of  mashed punk fun
so do NOT miss this
make sure to check out APC every day next week to read their exclusive posts

menwhile say hello to the guys and check back our previous posts about them

welcome Hal and Nathan , welcome The Young Punx!!!

the APC Team

we were more than surprised when we have seen the headlines
its all over the internet now,  like in Reuters for example
we were and we are trying to reach his team who we work with
but no feedback so far
so we decided to stop the BPA VIP Blogger week, for obvious reasons
and we also close the contest too!!!
and we will get back to you with more info as soon as we can

till then  like we say it in the header
go Norman go! you will win mate
and we are looking forward to meet with you again!!

the APC Team

+++UPDATE+++
just to kill the rumors
yes he blogged with us
and even if Copycat is PRO with whiskey
and Panic Girl wins every drinking contest
and Phil is Irish
and I’m handling Jagermeister pretty well
but now we R innocent ;)

we wish all the best to Norman
and we hope he will get back soon in one piece ‘n healthy!

London – August 1975

Tonites’ first gig wasn’t exactly stellar.

We showed up late and only had time to play “He’s Frank” before the cops showed up and shut down the gig. Charlie Stains (our road manager) got in a brawl with a few locales, but when pressed he couldn’t remember what it was about. As a result of that, a brawl then ensued between Charlie and the band.

However, mid brawl, none of us could remember what we were fighting about either, so we all went for a drink instead.

continued…

As you already noticed, The BPA VIP Blogger Week has started :) Norman Cook wrote us an exclusive mini story series about the secret history of The BPA. While you are waiting for the fresh daily episodes to show up,you can enter to our The BPA Contest and you can win a limited edition The BPA album on vinyl. Here is how you can put your paws on this rarity. Leave a comment (with a valid email of course) in this post and tell us what was the craziest place where you ever danced naked!! You answer doesn’t have to be true ;) This time we are really looking forward the craziest fake naked dancing story!! You can enter more stories if they are different enough.

The contest will end on Sunday evening (March 08. 20:00 CET)
we will pick the craziest story then and…

one lucky winner who sends us the craziest naked dancing story
will win the limited edition We’re Gonna Need A Bigger, Boat vinyl
and we have 5 We’re Gonna Need A Bigger, Boat CDs too
for five more creative fake naked dancing story creators

readers of the International APC and readers of the Hungarian APC can enter to the contest as well, if you wanna comment in English, pls do it here ;)

if you have any questions ask
otherwise go ‘n win!

So go recall your memories or use your fantasy, what was the craziest place where you ever danced naked????

For two decades the secret history of The BPA has been kept under wraps. But with the recent release of “We’re Gonna Need A Bigger, Boat”, further information continues to come to light.

Leading the charge is Dr. Randolph Seal, BPA historian, passive aggressive obsessive, garboligist, bus spotter, and amateur peeping tom. Seal has recently unearthed pages from Norman Cook’s journals that had been “thoughtlessly discarded as trash.”

Despite their poor and incomplete condition, these excerpts offer a rare insight into the evolution of The BPA.

“You have no idea the painstaking work involved here”, Seal assures us from an undisclosed location. “It’s not easy reading torn scraps of paper stained with coffee grinds, liquor, bodily fluids and cigarette burns, but with the will, a microscope and a lot of free time, it can be done.”

continued…

Oh yesssss, the excitement :D This announcement was the biggest and the hottest thing in the short history of APC. Many of you asked about it and it seems like everybody is just as much excited as we are. So we are happy to tell you that the waiting is over. Norman and his friends will start to blog on APC from this Monday. Get ready for The BPA

, get ready for an another round of our VIP Blogger Series. The first post will come out on Monday evening, make sure to check it and share this link with all of your mates! This will be hotttt ;)

Morgan Page AudioPorn Central Trivia Contest
CONTEST CLOSED!!!
Tuesday, November 11th – Tuesday, November 25th

Now that Morgan Page has graced the AudioPorn Central community with a wide variety of blog posts from a behind the scenes look into 'Call My Name' to essential items for travel, APC and Nettwerk Music Group are here to test your Morgan Page knowledge. Below are ten questions about Morgan Page for you to answer. Most of the answers can be found in Morgan's APC blogs. Good luck!

+++UPDATE+++
the contest is over, massive congrats to our grand pize winner Qubic!!

Questions:

1. What does Morgan say a good DJ mix needs?
2. Which of Morgan's noted favorite producers is from Toronto, CA?
3. What does Morgan call his blanket that is essential for traveling?
4. Who did Morgan most recently tour with?
5. What mixer does Morgan generally use?
6. What does Morgan say about hardware MIDI assignable controllers?
7. How long did it take Morgan and Tyler James to write 'Call My Name'?
8. Name another artist who played at Morgan's Halloween show besides The Crystal Method, Moby, and Paul Van Dyk.

9. What did Morgan dress as for Halloween?
10. What do you think is the next big pop hit that Morgan should remix? (Opinion question)

Prizes

Prizes will be awarded to one (1) grand prize winner and one (1) runner up. One grand prize winner will win one (1) Peterson Tuners Strobosoft Suite Software v2.0 (retail $149.99), one (1) Peterson Tuners Hat (retail $14.99), and one (1) Peterson Tuners T-Shirt (retail $19.99). The runner up will receive one (1) Peterson Tuners Hat and one (1) Peterson Tuners T-Shirt.

Submission
Please send your answers to nettwerkcontest@nettwerk.com by Tuesday, November 25th. A winner will be picked based on amount of correct answers. Prizing for entrants with all correct answers will be judged on their question 10 answer.

If you enjoyed the VIP Guest series why don't you check out Morgan Page's music on iTunes  and/or Amazon

Making great music is all about teaming up with the right people – singers, players, co-writers – people you have chemistry with and whose ideas you respect. I always look for people that come up with ideas that complement my music, ideas I wouldn’t have thought of on my own – or people that can play an instrument with greater skill. This mix of good ideas and performance is where the magic happens.. that and great gear and tons of coffee. Here’s a short wishlist of collaborators i’d like to team up with.. maybe they’ll stumble on to this blog post and get inspired

Imogen Heap – Amazing vocalist – truly unique ideas, and a great sense for harmony.
Ray Lamontagne – Another great singer who really infuses his song with emotion and powerful delivery.
Rocco Deluca – Great guitar player and songwriter who does some insane stuff with his resonator guitars.
Chris Thile – Formerly of Nickel Creek. Masterful mandolin player that could really do some damage in the electronic world

This Halloween I had the opportunity to DJ with The Crystal Method, Moby, and Paul Van Dyk on the main stage in front of 8,000 people in Seattle. It was a crazy show. Seeing as it was Halloween I wore my viking outfit, but ditched the Viking sheep coat ’cause it was way too hot on stage. Most shows go as planned, but even the most simple technical mishap can catch you off guard. At nearly every gig there is  a Pioneer DJM-800 mixer provided, which are great – I prefer Allen & Heath mixers for their sound quality, but the design of the 800 is nice and fairly straightforward. I plug my Xone 3D into the DJM-800 and it works like a charm. But before I went on we weren’t seeing any incoming audio signal. We tried everything, but the last song from the previous DJ was running out and it looked like there was gonna be dead air. Of course, the guy before had some crazy fx setting on – I think it was a filter, but there was no flashing light or obvious indicator – just the "color" switch turned down. The sound guy managed to catch it in time thankfully and it was smooth sailing after that.

At every gig you have to plan for the unexpected and things rarely go as planned – that nice neat itinerary always goes out the window, and you’re forced to improvise. Here’s a quick list of 5 bizarre things that have happened at gigs

1. Laptop vibrated off the stand or table in the dj booth – and was caught one-handed,
2. Had a bongo player ejected from the venue because he was overpowering the music
3. Viking helmet got in the way of DJ headphones (Halloween)
4.  DJ’d without monitors in Miami in a venue that was basically a hallway
5. Played behind a curtain for 30 minutes at one of LA’s biggest venues, until they sorted out the stage issues – and people came streaming in.

I wrote this song with Tyler James in literally two days. He was in town playing at The Hotel Cafe , another great venue in Hollywood where I saw Lissie for the first time. I immediately liked the sound of his voice – and felt there was some potential for a song. His voice reminded me a lot of Chris Martin from Coldplay.

For the remix package, I selected a lot of my favorite producers of the moment – Thomas Gold, TV Rock, and several others.  I wanted to give the song an extra edge or the dancefloor, so we picked out producers accordingly, and I did my own remix of the song that would work best for my sets. It’s surprisingly fun to remix your own song. All the mixes have their own personality – The Timewriter went deep, Thomas Gold went techy, TV Rock went for an epic clubby vibe with an 80′s flair, and both J Nitti and myself did very melodic mixes that work well for both radio and the club.

Recently I had the chance to
tour with Delerium and play theaters and ballrooms across the U.S. and
Canada rather than the usual DJ booths in clubs. It was a refreshing
change, but also an important reminder that you need to keep your live
shows fresh and interesting to crowds who want to see a compelling
performance.
Simply spinning on a pair of CDJs isn’t really the most exciting thing
to watch, so I wanted to share some tips and techniques on how to spice
up your rig.

My
DJ setup consists of an Allen & Heath Xone 3D mixer and Ableton
Live 7 software.  The beauty of the software world, when paired with a
hardware controller – is that you can change your setup to suit your
tastes. You’re not married to the effects on your DJ mixer, and you can
piece together your dream mixer from scratch, making changes on the
plane or in the hotel room minutes before a gig. Everyone does it
differently, and most people immediately take off the preset overlay
and stash it with the manual. Here’s some ways I set things up for my
shows:

- Drop the faders. Cap everything at -6 or -4dB, even the effects,
and keep the master at unity to ensure good gain staging so you don’t
clip the internal mix bus. You can crank the main mix on the DJ mixer
(in my case the Xone 3D) or the house mixer – which is usually a
DJM-800. As always, try to avoid clipping at all stages of the mix.

- Choose your effects carefully. Try to think what effects are
really going to make a difference and excite the crowd.  My bread and
butter effects are beat repeat, delays, filters, and reverb. These help
to build anticipation and tension throughout the set. Experiment with
combining different chains of effects – this is where software really
triumphs over hardware mixers.

– Multi-Assign. One of the biggest advantage of hardware MIDI
assignable controllers are the creative possibilities of twisting two
or more controllers simultaneously, liberating you from the constraints
of a single mouse click. Additionally, you can create massive control
chains in Ableton Live by assigning several values to one knob. I use
the various knobs on the Xone 3D to control different values of beat
repeat, changing the note divisions and timbre of the sound. It sounds
simple, but this really brings a performance aspect to your DJ’ing and
turns your controller into more of an instrument than a simple mixer.

More importantly, you liberate yourself from staring at the computer
screen and can focus your eye contact and energy on the DJ mixer and
the crowd in front of you.

-
Tactile vs. smooth touch. I really like having tactile response when I
press a button, but many Ableton Live users prefer controllers like the
Lemur that have a more visual display, but instead provide a smooth
flat surface. Find which one you like and run with it. The best setup
is probably a combination of both worlds, as one of the problems with
the Xone 3D and other controllers is that you can’t see the current
values and active assigned controllers without shuffling around on the
computer screen.