2009 July | The Detroit Techno House

I’m always game for a new venue, a new place to catch some music and enjoy a few choice beverages, so I was all down to check out some techno at Pulse on Saturday. And honestly, a $5 cover is always welcome. Nice downtown venue, clean spot, but for real, small as fuck. Just by the crowd you can tell they normally don’t have any decent electronic music in this place, I felt like I needed a spray on tan and a shirt unbuttoned halfway down my chest to drink here. When we got there CFX was playing a live set of some decent glitchy techno, but it was really lost on the crowd. The sound was really low, and not even a really good setup. We caught about 30 minutes of CFX’s set, and then a DJ went on, I think it was Jeremy Nida(don’t quote me on this), he was playing some pretty minimal shit that was definitely not sounding good on the house sound system. This is about time the place started to “pulse” with a really douche bag crowd, and a pack of cougars moved onto what I guess you could call the “dance floor”. I about laughed my ass off when the first person tried to make a request to the DJ. We busted out early, really no reason to stay. I hope Kero went on and played some weird shit that really scared the hell out of these people. I can guarantee I won’t be at this spot again, but I guess you gotta learn through experience.

For all us digital DJ heads out there, this new update of Serato should be extremely exciting. In the last version of the software we saw the introduction of the SP-6 sampler. Although this was a great new feature, it left most of us wondering of a way to play whole tracks in the sampler and effectively mix them. Well with this new update you can do all that and more. There is now a pitch slider, key lock, and cue points which are all midi controllable. You can also send an instant double of a track to a sampler track. So I can use the tables to mix two tracks, send one to the sampler while I’m mixing, load a third track to the turntable, and have three tracks mixing together. Sweet! Now I don’t have to buy a third turntable. I think this is a big step for Rane, because Tracktor definitely had them smashed in the multipe deck catagory. Now you can mix up to eight tracks together. I can now see the direction where the Ableton/Serato partnership might be heading. Imagine those six sampler banks to be six ableton channels that will all sync together. Check out the official video for more on this new update.

So last month Tom Oberheim announced at the Red Bull Music Conference in Boston that he would be releasing a new Oberheim SEM with updated electronics. The original was his first creation done in the 70′s. It was meant to be an add on to other synths so you could layer the sounds and get some real fancy creations going. The SEM was simply a module with no keyboard – two analog oscillators, a 2-pole multimode filter, ADR envelopes, and an LFO. Many artists have used this in there recordings including Van Halen and Detroit’s own, Underground Resistance. Here is a video of Tom explaining this re-issue of an analog classic.

After another long week, I pondered what to do on a Friday night; Terrence Parker and Stacey Pullen, uh…yeah! It’s been a minute since I’ve ventured down to Ferndale for, well, anything involving nightlife, but it was nice to have a little change of scenery for my weekly electronic foray. Nove Lounge was a nice, clean venue with a vibe that was mos def’ different from what I’m used to in the D. I can see that a lot of the folks that used to douche it up down at Bleu before it closed(thank fucking god), inhabit this place for their dose of electronica. We got there just as Stacey Pullen was going on, and he definitely brought it proper. He kept the crowd going, and there were definitely loving every minute of it. There were a few noticeable quirks to the sound of his set, but a couple of my boys attributed this to the equipment he was using.

After about half of Mr. Pullens set I wandered downstairs where Terrence Parker was tearin up the house music. It was definitely nice to get down into some cooler air, the upstairs in that place was

hot as fuck(in the temperature sense). I don’t get to see TP as much as I’d like to anymore, and I was glad he brought that signature sound to make my Friday night even better. It wasn’t as big of a crowd downstairs, but the househeads that were there were soaking it up, I haven’t danced my ass off like that in quite some time. It was a great night of music, and nice to check out a slightly different venue for a change of pace.

The Detroit Techno House

Weekend in Review: CFX, Jeremy Nida, Kero

Serato Scratch Live Update 1.9.1

New Oberheim SEM by Tom Oberheim

Weekend in Review: Stacey Pullen and Terrence Parker

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