Thursday, December 24, 2020

Diary of Musical Thoughts Podcast Episode 44

New Controller, New Era Mix #1, 76 minutes 

https://www.mixcloud.com/bruiserfs/new-controller-new-era-mix-1/

It hardly needs to be said that 2020 was not a typical year.  I was so out of touch with contemporary music that I won't be publishing a top ten albums of the year lists for the first time since the early 90's.  I simply couldn't follow along with new releases with any enthusiasm this year.  I was continuously updating a list of new albums that caught my interest, but never got around to listening to most of them.  Having said that, Resident Advisor's best albums list overlaps quite well with many of my tastes (KMRU, DJ Python) and provided me with even more album recommendations that I really must listen to.  

Two themes dominated the year for me.  The first was the rekindling of my love for classical music, thanks to Alex Ross' "The Rest Is Noise".  The second was buying my first piece of DJ hardware in nearly twenty years, a Roland DJ-505 Serato controller.  Suddenly I feel like I've been transported out of the DJ'ing stone age and placed in front of a modern hardware/software combo that is indescribably better for translating my ideas into results.  After three months, I still feel like I'm barely scratching the surface of what this equipment can do. 

It's taken longer than I expected to start posting mixes made with the controller, in part due to an ear problem that put me out of action so to speak for a few weeks.  But finally I'm thrilled to post the first mix.  It feels a bit like a work in progress where I'm still finding my way around the controller, but the new era has to start somewhere.   


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