Galway Social Space

24 Middle  Street.

FUNDRAISING GIG! Thurs 14th

We are having a celebration fundraising gig in the Warrick next Thurs 14th. Intinn and Flo are playing.

OPEN DAY! Sat 16th

Our open day will be on Sat 16th from 2pm. Please do pop down for a look and spread the word!

DJ Techbot will be doing an improv set  in an AMBIENT BATTLE OF THE BANDS against his long time evil nemesis DJ Gerard.

WEBSITE!
We have a new website at www.galwayspace.org

DJ lessons, Poetry Readings, Multimedia, Movie nights and much much more.....

Say hello to my new USB mixer. :) With four mono inputs and two stereo, it is perfect for my few outboard synths and samplers, which I've hooked up. Speaking of which, I've also bought a Roland Juno 106on Ebay.

I've been playing with the usb mixer the past  day or two, but won't be using it in my dj set at the Galway Earth festival because of the potential for surprises. I lilke the effects but they don't work on computer out only the instruments plugged into the mixer, but thats ok.

 Controllerism is to laptops what turntableism is to Decks. I love this concept. And just as many DJ's were informed by turntablists even if they diddn't necessarily use ALL the techniiques, I too have found this form inspirational and picked up a few pointers that I intend to experiment with. What I was buzzed by was how similar his Ableton session layout is similar to mine. We both reserve the first two channels for complete tunes whiles the remaining contain prechosen loops and fx channels.

 I've ordered a cool little Alesis 8 chanel usb mixer, which I'm hoping will arrive in time for some testing before the Galway Earth Festival, failling that i'll stick with my M-audio Black box. I've been using the evolution x session mixer controller for a month or so and am quite used to it, so I reckon i'll be using it at the Galway Fest. I'd like to get another controller, not as complex as the video below. But I'd certainly like to encompass some of his techniques.

 Anyways.....

Meet Muldover

In spite of all the smart, multifunctional and state-of-the-art controllers that are commercially available today, there has always been demand for custom physical interfaces and specialized controllers. That's why we have developed a modular prototyping platform. The prototyping modules are aimed at researchers, artists, musicians, circuitbenders and performers who want to use high quality controls without spending too much time on manufacturing or trying to find a suitable enclosure.

Radio:
I've tidied up the news section a bit and added thickbox functionality to allow for more control over content layout with infringing on the minute console size.

Meanwhile I've down a huge amount of tagging so hopefully the request pages are getting that little bit easier.

And I've added my updated Chaos Theory dub plates. These will be used as source for gig and radio mixing but you can also request them and hear them in their raw form.

They will be constantly tweaked to perfecting so there will always be something new.

Ive also added a huge library of midi loops to my Ableton setup, routed both to VSTs and my outboard gear. I'm still tweaking the control setup,making presets, cabling and such like. But the time spent mixing live without stopping to fix something is getting longer and more enjoyable.

 Now that all the main prep work is done, both thge organinsing of sets, samples and loops, and the actual physical setup, I'm hoping to collab with a few local galway DJ's musicains, drummers and Rappers. Galway is Full of em :).  I just need a better mixer to plug a set of decks into.

RADIO:
The radio set is progressing, slowly, but progressing nonetheless. Unlike the Mobile set, the radio set involves much more long term experimenting using anything that I come across. This stuff can then be recorded and used as loops etc.

 I've spent a few days travelling around galway city with a small tape recorder, Shop street is especially cool for finding sounds. I'm hoping touse these samples on a small homemade 8 bit sampler that I'm currently designing and building.

My main focus is experimenting with synth both virtual and real.

That was then, now things have changed.

The biggest change for me has been the upgrade to Ableton Live 7. Although this new feature was actually introduced in version 6. I simply couldn't afford the upgrade 'til now.

This new feature is the ability to load a set while another set is playing. This negates the need for a second laptop and means that the entire gig need not be as predefined as before. I have about 100 minisets writen at this stage and any one of them can be called at any moment. Once a sample from the new set is activated the set will auto adjust to its bpm If I so wish.

Mobile:
Now obviously the first few stages involve getting to know your weapons of choice and actually writing your toons. I'm not going to bother writing about that. There are plenty of sources out there on the net should you need to brush up on your music theory or get bogged down in discussions on mastering techniques. But I would like to share two things which would get me shot by any pro's out there, aassuming of course they had a gun and I was standing in their line of sight.

Firstly as a beginner I recommend you choose one or two bpms and stick with them. I chose 100 and 120 originally. Now after 5-6 years of decent success

I've expanded to included 80,90,110,115 and 130. Why? As a beginner how do you intend to mix your 117 bpm tune with your 120 bpm one. It is very very fulfilling to write 3 or 4 110 bpm tunes then hear them mixed into one seamless set. Only then do you get a decent grasp of what your tunes sound like in their proper context.