Soporific Airs (DJ Bolivia)

Thursday, November 2, 2006

Joining the Digital Revolution

All around us, we can see the accelerating presence of computers, digital communications, and digital technology. Today, CNN announced that the Internet has just reached a major milestone of 100 Million websites online. For my own website, I'm just a few days away from reaching the milestone of a quarter of a million hits in the less than five years that I've had it online.

Well, today I lost my virginity.

I have always been a vinyl DJ when it comes to electronic music. True, I've used CD players when playing rock music and other conventional tracks at the club. And I've actually had a Pioneer CDJ pitch-control CD player here in my studio for over a year, although I've never used it except for playing single tracks. However, tonight I felt a little crazy and I mixed a track into a practice session using the CD player, rather than using a piece of vinyl.

I'll admit, I felt a little bit cheap. Once the genie is out of the bottle, you can never put it back. I still hope to stick to mostly vinyl for my live shows, because it just looks more impressive to the people dancing in front of the decks, and it's so much more fun. However, I can't argue with the fact that digital media is far more flexible, portable, and versatile, and essential if I'm going to start playing my own self-produced tracks in my sets.

Anyway, I'm worn out now from the emotional significance of the evening, so I'm off to bed.

I'm Jonathan Clark, known online as DJ Bolivia. Do you want to learn more about DJ'ing and music production? If so, visit:

djbolivia.ca/training

If you happen to enjoy techno tracks, most of my tracks are available as free downloads from this link:

djbolivia.ca/tracks

Thanks so much for visit, and for your support! I really appreciate the fan base that I've been able to build up over the years.

Also, if you want to visit any of my other sites, here are a few links:

YouTube: youtube.com/djbolivia

SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/djbolivia

Blogger: djbolivia.blogspot.com

Main Site: www.djbolivia.ca

Friday, March 24, 2006

GDC 2006 Game Developers Conference, San Jose

I DJ'd at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose (California) last night, and then flew back up to New Brunswick today. It was a lot of fun, but next year I'm going to have to try to take a week off and go back so I can sit in on some of the seminars. Wow, there was a lot of stuff happening there!

GDC is an annual conference devoted to computer software programmers, known more frequently as coders. Quite often, I don't think the general public appreciates just how much work goes into creating software, and just how big an impact computers have had on increasing the standard of living and GDP in the past few decades. The coders are the people who make it all work, and although this conference is designed specifically for developers of video games, people who work in just about every branch of programming should find something of interest.

The show was very well organized by the ShoutCreative team (www.shoutcreative.com). After I played, Uberzone (www.uberzone.net) took to the stage, playing a set based on Ableton Live with scratching and live drumming. It was basically a breaks set with a lot of interaction and effects, and it was really enjoyable. If you ever get a chance to see Uberzone, do it. After seeing that, I realized that I've got to get myself up to speed with Ableton.

One of the craziest parts of the night was the fact that there were combot wars happening at the party. A "combot" is a specialized type of robot, built specifically for these matches. Basically, it's like a hi-tech version of smash-up derby, with remotely controlled machines that are about the size of Fat Forrest (my 110 pound black Labrador). Now I'll admit that I had never seen anything like this before, so I didn't know what to expect. Before the show, I noticed that there was a huge enclosed structure built for the competition, and I thought to myself, "that's a little bit over the top." After all, I thought this was more of a game than a sport (it's only a sport if you can lose an eye). Or so I thought.

Anyway, while I was playing later on, I could just barely see the combot arena from the stage, and at one point during my set I looked over just as two of the combots attacked each other. All I saw was large chunks of wood and metal flying about eight feet up in the air as a huge cheer went up from the crowd around the arena.

All in all, it was a very fun experience, although I don't think in general that the Americans drink nearly as much alcohol as Canadians do. The party had open bars everywhere, and if they had that kind of setup in Canada (complimentary drinks with a thousand people in the room), they would have needed truckloads of beer and liquor!