Steve Reich and other pioneers might have used tape to manipulate and blend sound sources, but the traditional medium – the defining symbol, really – of the DJ has always been the LP. For most of the five decades since broken funk beats started shuffling out of the Bronx, the [...]
The 110th trade show for the National Association of Music Merchants, more commonly known as NAMM, took place last week in Anaheim and crossfadr was on the scene. The massive conference was held on three levels of the cavernous Anaheim Convention Center. Over four days 1441 exhibitors from around the [...]
NAMM is America's biggest music trade show, bringing the titans and the up-and-comers of the industry to sunny Anaheim, CA to show off their latest and greatest wares. Crossfadr is the internet's finest source of DJ news, pitting some of this generation's most distinguished thinkers against the churning sea of [...]
Over the past five or six years, the arrival of Web 2.0 has captured many column inches. It describes a shift in the focus and interactivity of websites. You'll notice the ubiquitous comments field at the bottom of this article as an indication of this, along with the Twitter shortcuts [...]
A couple of months ago a friend put it to me this way: DJs are the rock stars of the new millennium. At the time I agreed. The similarities are pretty convincing. Tiesto and Armin command the biggest stadiums that, twenty years ago, were the sole domain of the U2s [...]
If you try to mix all the different elements of a track using only the volume faders on your mixer, you’ll find that everything quickly descends into woolly, distorted mess. Your speakers are only capable of producing so many frequencies at once, so if you try to feed them, kick, [...]
If you use your computer to record live instruments or sample from turntables, you’ll soon find that the 3.5mm mini jacks on your computer’s soundcard lacking in terms of quality. An audio interface converts the signal from your instruments into a high-fidelity data stream that can be captured by your [...]
Well, well, year’s end is upon us already, and in these last reflective days between the indulgence of Christmas and the resolutions we’ll make, hand on heart, tomorrow night, we take a look back at the trends shaping DJ hardware and software in 2011, and honour the best of the [...]
Many people cringe when they think of Christmas music and rightfully so because most of it’s bad to begin with. Never mind that by the time December 26th rolls around, it will have been completely played into the ground anyway. But on the other hand, the holidays can be a [...]
By the time he began recording his solo debut in early 1994, Adrian Thaws had already enjoyed moderate success as an MC for Massive Attack, performing under the name of the Tricky Kid. However, upon shortening his name and releasing Maxinquaye in 1995, Tricky established himself as one of the [...]