Warsuit

To say I was there as in physically would be wrong. I was there chronologically though. I ordered a lot of tape packs. I live in Canada. But we were lucky enough to have Sniper and Ryan Ruckus and that whole Toronto crew representing for our side of the pond. Here in Calgary we have Fever, who started as a hardcore DJ under the name H8. That guy was and still is a true proper jungle soldier. He made the rounds of the globe with some of the Tru Playaz crew (still does with the Innovation crew…Phantasy, Shodan, etc.) and has always brought great sounds back home with him. Meeting and befriending Fever changed my jungle-life. He’s a bit…crusty. Not the easiest person to get on his good side. But it changed everything once I did.

This is remotely topic related…so bear with me. I was playing a 3am slot at a promoters birthday party (our jungle/d&b parties were a very underground affair back then, not in the clubs at all. Very smokey and boozey, anything goes, sort of affairs). Fever steps up behind the decks and gives me “the nod”. I felt like a champ. He leans in and yells in my ear over the PA “you’re playing some real bangers tonight. too bad you’re not a better DJ, keep it up though, we’re having a good time”. There was a time when that ‘better DJ’ part would have crushed me…but I realized he was propping up the idea that you don’t have to be a perfect DJ…you just have to bring the heat in your record box.

Fast forward a number of years. We’re at the pub having pints and I ask Fever, in his opinion, what exactly is the difference between jungle and drum & bass. His answer? Totally crusty. “If it sounds like computers, it’s drum & bass. If it’s the tunes you played the night we met proper? That’s jungle. What you play these days? That’s drum & bass. If it sucks, it’s drum & bass. Don’t get me started on dubstep…”

Cranky.

Anyway…my own personal opinion…jungle is a headspace. If an artists track gets you in that headspace (I’m thinking of the heavy jump-up sounds of Sensai, Tyke, etc here) then it’s still jungle. If it sounds like laZors and feels like light shows? That’s drum & bass. I like both.

LOL…I know dude. I was there while that whole evolution took place. I guess I meant more along the lines of, say, Andy C: Quest was a bad ass jungle track…but it was a long time ago and the OP wanted recent artists. Personally, I’m against the hairsplitting that takes place in the “subgenrefication” of this thing we know and love that is electronic music. So props to both of us for giving the OP a road map he can follow wherever he wants to go.

Sometimes I’m just contrary for no good reason, but I always mean well 😉

I wish I cod speculate on whether it is server-side or user-side…but I’ve been plagued by this for days now around here. For what it’s worth, this is the only site that gives me such issues…

I had tried to reply to this days ago but like many I couldn’t post replies for a couple of days. Luckily I type long replies in OneNote first just for that exact situation. So here is that reply:

I don’t know if it was the original intention of the post, but I can think of some rather unique advantages to Google+ over Facebook. On a personal level…nah, it’s kinda useless because even though it is actually superior to Facebook in several ways (I won’t get into why I think that because it just starts arguments) there’s no one there. What good is a social network that no one uses/posts on? My stance is that Google+ is superior but it’s empty so it’s inferior.

For a DJ though? Far superior, and for the exact same reasons it is inferior for personal use. EVERYONE is on Facebook. Sure, there are Groups and Pages dedicated to any given genre of music; but in a single hour there might be, say, a dozen mixtapes and two dozen new “remixes” or original songs posted to that Group or Page. If someone is perusing just that Page then I suppose that’s okay…but that’s what I use Soundcloud for. It’s dedicated and specialized and good at what it does. Thing is *most* people aren’t looking at Pages or Groups anymore…they just scroll their Newsfeed. Cutting through the signal-to-noise ratio to reach *new* people is really hard. Most people are just clicking on stuff where they already know the work of the content contributor. Like I said, when I look to discover new sounds and vibes I’m not on Facebook, I’m on Soundcloud. So it has the result that you only reach new people if one of your Friends share’s a link to something you posted, but even then you’re only reaching *their* friends. How many of their friends do you think care about your new tech house mix?

Flip to the Google+ side…different world. First, there aren’t as many people on the thing in the first place. That makes the noise part in the signal-to-noise ratio quieter. Second, most people are their for far more specialized purposes because they don’t have it connected to every other aspect of their lives. Circles have the advantage of filtering content in a far more specialized way. I found a few Communities that are down with what I do and every time I post a mixtape to my Mixcrate page I get far more hits to it from posting it on Google+ Communities than I do posting the same link on any Facebook Page or Group…period.

Now, if one is looking to raise their profile out there in the *real* world then they should have both. Undoubtedly they will focus on their Facebook Page more because that is the platform the people they are interacting with are using. You go where the people are. But that only works after you’ve attracted those people in the first place by the things you do in the *real* world. If what you’re trying to do is just spread the sound of what you do because you genuinely just want people to hear it because you know they’re of like mind and it will give them joy? Go where the mouse clicks are.

Google+ won’t make me famous…but it gets music into the ears of people I know are going to enjoy it.

Got your back. I’m not in front of my computer (and therefore my jungle folder) at the moment but I’ll post a list of current producers making that same vibe these days tomorrow morning.

This has a nice throwback vibe to it. Roots house. I really dig that. On first listen I was starting to wonder why you put a vocal about a bassline over a track with no persistent bassline…aaaand then that old school bassline came in and all was right with the world again. I just wish that the bassline came in right after her talking about her bassline. More dramatic. If I was going to play this I would have to rock doubles or make my own edit so that that happened. There’s a couple points as well where the vocal lead and some of the other vox samples you use overlap and I’m not sure what I think about that. Could it be cleaner? Maybe. Were you looking for that grit? Maybe, so my opinion is only an opinion…the opinion of DJ and not a producer at that.

Once upon a time I was a massive trance fan. I thought Scott Stubbs was the mad note. Platipus records was a source of great things to my ears. I haven’t listened to much trance in the last decade or so though. I checked out your two newest mixtapes however, and I liked them. I see that trance is still really good, it’s just me that changed. Your track selection seems solid and your transitions are clean and control the energy and pace of the mixtape.

That being said, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ready. Only you will know that for sure. There is a lot going on in and around a DJ booth when you’re playing out. The experience is so far removed from making a mixtape in your very controlled and precise environment as to be a completely different skill set. If you can reproduce what I hear on these mixtapes live and in full storm then yes…you’re ready. If you can do what you do on these mixtapes as second nature and you don’t have to focus and concentrate with all your attention to get it just right, then it’s time to make the next step. Consider that not only will you be doing what you do here, but you will be learning an entirely new set of skills *while still doing this*. You really won’t know until you try. The very first time I touched down on the 1s and 2s in front of a crowd everything went horribly wrong. I had friends that were DJs that told me beforehand that that was going to happen and they were right. It is a skill set you simply cannot develop plugged into your own mixer in your own home. Even house parties with your friends will only catch you a glimpse of what it’s like to jam to a room full of strangers.

Are you familiar with the concept of “failing forward”? I say go out and do that. All your mistakes are going to happen eventually, may as well get them over with sooner rather than later. Get them out of the way so you can get on with the business of succeeding. Your technical chops are there…now go out and try to hold onto them while learning an entire new set of skills on top.