07 - DECEMBER VOX
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Transcript of 07 - DECEMBER VOX
infinit-E test driven by francis wong
A few weeks ago, on theway home from work I reached intomy, at the time, deep pockets and loand behold! I managed to scrapeenough cash out of my wallet to startthe financing on a brand new piece ofD.J.'ing hardware/software packageknown to the greater population asFinal Scratch. Basically a special lit-tle round box and some customrecords which allow me, as the infa-mous house of pong, to play music offof my laptop. It's as simple as itsounds and it's, if you'll pardon myFrench, effin' awesome…
I won't bore you with thetechnical aspects of this fantastic plas-tic machine; how it actually works isstill beyond this genius, but thankful-ly it does. Being able to play virtual-ly any piece of music on my turnta-bles doesn't just mean super fun timesfor the D.J., but a better show for you,the listener. Which is really whatelectronic music is about (those ofyou who have been keeping up withthis column the last few monthsshould be quite well versed in my par-
ticular point of view). What has
always made electronic music soinnovative is the fact that it can bewritten and created with virtually any-thing one could imagine as an instru-ment. On a single computer, onecould orchestrate an entire symphony,but depth and variety has never beenan issue, but its means of distribution.Making dub plates for amateur pro-ducers is just way too expensive. Sountil recently, while there still exists abrilliant selection of records for usD.J.s to choose from and for us listen-ers to jam to, we always sat in theshadow of the knowledge that therewas at least ten times greater stuff atthe tip of our tongues which we wouldnever party to.
D.Js and producers, asWindsor's own Ian Hind comments,benefit the audience by being able toreally play to the audience, not justwith their own original tracks, but bybeing able to remix and remaster othersongs to befit the setting (i.e. for alounge as opposed to a warehouse…)."It's about enhancing the audience'sexperience by combining what theyknow with what they least expect."I've seen it in action… he isn't kid-ding.
What it means to me as a
D.J. is that I may never have to playan 'anthem' again. During my stint asa D.J. in Ottawa, I was enjoyed as thetype who played out that whichnobody else did. You can imaginehow increasingly difficult thatbecame, but now I can pretty muchguarantee you can come to expect theunexpected from this performer. Ifyou never get a chance to see RitchieHawtin or John Aquaviva use thisamazing technological bridgebetween analogue and digital, thereare a few local geniuses running loosein the city with it, have trust that theytoo will blow your minds.
addendum:As Final Scratch is starting
to come into it's own commercially,there has been quite a lot of concernregarding the legitimacy of usingsound media such as mp3's, wav's orCD-R's, and a lot of that concern isbeing expressed by club and bar own-ers… for good reason. Unfortunately,as far as rumours and tips go, every-thing which has been floating aroundhas been clear as mud. Myself, aswell as a few other D.J.'s and produc-ers have been doing a little researchinto possible copyright infringementand, while we are a little reluctant to
be doling out any legal advice, wehave managed to turn up a fewresources for everybody to look up.
At the advice of the federalauthorities, I have managed to find theCanada Copyright Act on the internet,and have found section 42 deals withour possible predicament. Also, aCanadian company by the name ofAudio Video Licensing Agency Inc.(AVLA) deals in representing recordlabels legally and have been helpful inanswering a few questions. They canbe found at www.avla.ca.
I would urge everybody(club owners and performers alike) todo their homework, as I believe isn'tanybody's intention to break the law;however that may become difficult todo if you don't know the rules. Thekind people of the Electronic MusicProgression have dedicated space ontheir website to post findings on thismatter, and I urge you all to takeadvantage of this. If we don't clearthe air on this, the only suggestion Ican offer is that D.J.'s stay at homeand everybody else break out theDance Mix '95.
Check out the M.E.A.T. list-ings for upcoming electronic musicevents.
voice electronicelectronic music scene by francis wong
8 WINDSORVOX MAGAZINE DECEMBER V. 1. 10
510 Pelissier St. Downtown Windsor519.252.2267
510 Pelissier Street l Located Next to Baseline519.252.8380