The Oracle of Apollo Snippets from the life of Apollo Lee

Digeum Mix Session 01E

Tonight, I went for it yet again, with my third Digeum Mix Session, this time entirely with music from my collection that had been reimported at 192kbps or higher. Some of the tracks in my high resolution collection seem to be, for some reason or other, unplayable by Traktor. However, I just skipped over the exclamation points in the browser panel and went for it.

Some of my transitions were really not successful and there were burps and staggers in my flow. I got a few things right and played around with a number of the effects processors on the mixer, but my fade wasn’t fast enough at the end. We ended very abruptly. I’ll do better next time. All in all, I’m pretty happy with the session, despite the oopses on the mixer.

I liked that I kept a nice 124 bpm groove going that didn’t entirely rely on a tracks I listen to all the time. I wanted to play a good selection of old tracks and new tracks, especially since I’ve spent the last couple of days reimporting a number of CDs with release dates prior to 2001. I’d forgotten how funky some of these tracks are.

Digeum Mix Sessions – Volume 01, Session Echo. Mixed by Apollo Lee in Sunnyvale, California, USA, on Saturday, September 13, 2008. Running time: 1:36:18.

Please give it a listen and let me know what you think.

Digeum Mix Session 01D

Jay Def‘s back with his sophomore mixdown. His mix set this time is even more groovy, a little bit laid back, and just beautiful. He tossed in one of his original tracks, “U’re Gruv! I Has It!”, which really begs to be placed on a picture of a cat with headphones on. The man takes charge of his Hercules mixer and we all get to nod along.

Digeum Mix Session – Volume 01, Session Delta. Mixed by Jay Def in Boise, Idaho, USA, on Thursday, September 11, 2008. Running time: 1:09:28.

Go give it a listen and leave a comment with your thoughts.

Music Rerip Project

I noticed that a few of my tracks sound kind of low resolution when I’m listening to music on my wonderful Koss headphones at work or my new Sony DJ headphones. Erica, a bit of an audiophile, listened to my Digeum mixes and asked me why I insisted on ripping everything at a low resolution (Since 1998, I’ve been ripping everything at 128 kbps). She’s right.

With higher resolution sound files, my mixes will sound so much better and, if at some point I plug my stuff into an honest-to-goodness sound system with actual dancers, I’m going to not want to have my stuff sound farty. Ripping at a low resolution and listening on an iPod is okay. But, my computer has more than 200 GB of free space now. I might as well upgrade my MP3 collection (especially since, as I’ve recently discovered, my eMusic downloads are all 192 kbps VBR).

So, now to dig all the dusties out of the closet and find all those compilations over the years and rerip everything. I think 256 kbps is a little bit of overkill, so I’ll import everything from now on at 192 kbps VBR MP3s. My next Digeum Mix Session will be ripped to 160 kbps VBR. I think you’ll enjoy the difference.

And now to find all those thousands of CDs. I really should organize them better. Like, I dunno, in one location? <gasp /> Imagine!

Digeum Mix Session 01C

I just couldn’t contain myself, so I decided to put my hands on the Vestax again and churn up another mix session. I started out in tech house territory, but faded into a Latin house track that got me started on a Latin house kick that lasted mostly for the rest of the mix. I had a lot of fun.

I really need to get better at crossfading and not pulling and pushing volumes simultaneously. That’s not smooth mixing and some of my enthusiasm with the effects on the virtual mixer is a little bit overblown. Still, I think I’m improving with each mix. And, very soon, I’ll figure out that damn microphone and add my own vocals to the mix. Or my flute. Or the bass clarinet. Watch out!

Digeum Mix Sessions – Volume 01, Session Charlie. Mixed by Apollo Lee in Sunnyvale, California, USA, on Sunday, September 07, 2008. Running time: 1:14:31.

Please give it a listen and let me know what you think.

Digeum Mix Session 01B

Now it’s my turn. Tonight, I got everything lined up, recorded my intro, and got to work. There are a few places where I slopped the beats a little bit, but I’m not going to complain too much about my initial mix session. I’m supposed to suck at first.

I was considering doing a live voice over announcement at the beginning, but I couldn’t figure out how to get Traktor to “hear” my microphone. After a few false starts, I started mixing and was surprised how quickly the hour went by. I played a lot of my favorite deep house tracks, favoring the vocal grin-inducers quite heavily. I also slipped one of my own originals in there, a rough draft track I wrote last year called “Grinning Black Dress”.

Digeum Mix Session – Volume 01, Session Bravo. Mixed by Apollo Lee in Sunnyvale, California, USA, on Friday, September 05, 2008. Running time: 1:18:28.

I’d love to hear your comments about that mix set, whether here or over on the post on Digeum.

Digeum Mix Session 01A

Jay Def threw down the gauntlet with gusto in our first mix session. He plays a heady mix of delicious funky house music.

Digeum Mix Session – Volume 01, Session Alpha. Mixed by Jay Def in Boise, Idaho, USA, on Sunday, September 01, 2008. Running time: 1:04:39.

Go give it a listen and leave a comment with your thoughts.

Reintroducing Digeum

Three years ago, Jay Def and I started a project, which was conceived of as a podcast called Digeum (The Digest of Electronic Underground Music). We produced one episode and then found the technical and logistical challenges of synching up two schedules and getting Skype to record without feeding back too great to regularly produce additional podcasts. One week became a month became a year and Digeum faded back into distant memory.

After shopping for my new DJ gear, Jay bought a Hercules RMX and we decided to revive Digeum.

I’m considering doing a podcast in the future, but for now Digeum is home to a new series of mix sessions called Digeum Mix Sessions. During my hard drive meltdown fiasco, Jay Def took up the charge and cranked out a mix session while my computer was kablooey. I’m going to post it soon to Digeum, announce it here, and we’re on our way.

Now to reinstall all my software and get back on the pony myself.

Hard Drive Meltdown

Right on the heels of my new gear, I began experiencing intermittent kernel panics, which led my operating system to stop booting. Pissed beyond all conceivable description, I headed to the Genius bar at my local Apple store to ask for an assist.

We scanned my hard drive, determined that it was okay, but realized that the boot failure was going to require a reinstall. Unfortunately, I hadn’t backed up my computer for about 9 days. So, I went home, rebooted from the DVD drive, and copied over the files that had changed using the Terminal and attempted an Archive & Backup install. Six hours later, after much churning and optimizing, the install DVD crashed, leaving me with a full hard drive and no working operating system. So, I plugged in my backup drive, rebooted, and grabbed that nine day old archive and do a Time Machine Restore.

The computer ran glacially slow. Firefox in any version would freeze the computer up. After all this, I made sure to back the computer up with Time Machine once I’d restored all the data. Yeah, I think I’d better blank the hard drive, start over, and manually restore my files.

Oh, I’m sorry. You wanted that hard drive? This volume has reported a fatal hardware error. Thus endeth the drive.

Thankfully, there’s an Apple reseller / repair shop around the corner from my office, where the guy installed a shiny new 320 GB hard drive in my computer for about $200. Now, I can get back to a new project which a friend and I are relaunching.

Oh, yeah, before I forget. BACK UP YOUR SYSTEM. IF YOU DON’T, YOU’RE KIND OF DUMB.

New DJ Gear

Despite the more than 35 tracks I’ve written so far this year, I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m not writing anything good — especially house music, which is where I was aiming for anyway. I’ll keep slugging along at the production, but I thought the best way for me to introduce my music to the world is to find a way to include it in a mix with other people’s music. I decided that I should get myself a DJ controller and a sound card and learn to spin. If I can’t play a live set and get a feel of performance, even if it’s just DJing music, I’m never going to get anywhere with any of my music.

After consulting my friend, Sunshine, I decided to buy a Vestax VCI-100 MIDI DJ Controller and a soundcard. This setup will let me plug my mixer in, play tracks from my own computer without buying a bunch of vinyl or carry around a stack of CDs, and sing or play instruments over my lazy house tracks.

After playing around with it tonight, I think I’d better buy the full version of Traktor, which includes internet broadcasting and on-the-fly recording, plus the ability to play from four decks at the same time. This is going to kick much buttock and I can’t wait.

I spun a little mix set tonight after a long series of kernel panics (due to crappy drivers) and finally getting everything basically working. This is going to take a little practice, but I should be able to post some mixes before too long.

Time to drop some beats!

Pan-Mass Challenge 2008

Last weekend, my friend, Seth rode in the Pan-Mass Challenge for the sixth time. The Pan-Mass Challenge is a three-day charity ride across the state of Massachusetts to raise money for the Jimmy Fund at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. This event raises millions of dollars for cancer research and I’m proud that my friend rides in it.

I’m also proud that I have the means to sponsor Seth’s ride for the fourth year. This year I am donating ten cents for every mile on Seth’s cycling diary. As of yesterday’s update, he has ridden 3116.53 miles. So, right now, I’m sponsoring Seth for $311.65. I challenge all of you who read this blog to help me push Seth into “heavy hitter” status again.

How can you help? Seth has several ways you can contribute on his website. I’m making a direct donation. You can also donate to his software auction, if you’re a developer.

Congratulations, Seth, on your sixth PMC. You’re doing us all proud.

Previously: 2007, 2006, 2005.