With the launch of the Kontrol Z2 this morning, Native Instruments released a video with DJTT’s founder Ean Golden performing an original song with vocals from Maceo Plex on two F1s and a Z2. Check out the video plus an interview with Ean about the release after the break.
I asked Ean to give our readers an even deeper look into his demo video:
Q: What’s the idea behind this style of laid-back, chilled-out performance?
“In the early years of my work the focus was on “What’s the craziest thing i can do?!?!” Lately I have been asking myself, what needs to be done and playing a lot less. Miles Davis said: “It’s not about the notes but the space between the notes”, so I guess you could say I am exploring that zone.
The focus on this routine was making the music sounding amazing and designing live parts that really make sense in the composition. It was actually a lot harder than I imagined to come up with interesting things that fit the track. Chopping up tracks with effects and cue points is pretty straightforward, but making it sound like they really belong is the magic part.”
Q: What does it take (technically and logistically) to shoot a video like this?
“Native Instruments has really raised the bar on these videos, working with world class video teams and shooting a full-on music video. I am very impressed with the results they are getting – the footage is amazing. Actually getting that quality is a lot of work though, I had to shoot everything in London and it took a full day to get all these shots. My only regret is not having enough time to develop the routine. I only had two weeks with the mixer and the music, which was not enough time to fully develop my original vision for this performance.”
Q: Why did you pick this music?
“Right now I am very inspired by the new deep house sound and playing a lot of it, so I wanted to do something in that vein. Instead of mashing up various songs, I wanted to explore writing an original track and building synth parts designed to be played in Traktor so I could be really musical with the performance. Finally, Maceo Plex’s “Stay High For Me” is a personal favorite, and I wanted the challenge of building something around that central vocal hook, while reframing the meaning.”
Q: What are you doing with the F1?
“I worked with James Terris, who is an amazing keyboard player and sound designer behind PowerTools to build a Remix Deck pack that would be very musical and jam-friendly. The result was an amazing set of notes that we sampled directly from his MelloTron. This pack is going to be available with all the parts from my original song within a month for people to create their own interpretations directly in Traktor.”
Q: What is your favorite part of the mixer?
“I really like the USB hub, controller, mixer combo. It’s the perfect central DJ hub for my style of DJing and I plan to test/use it extensively on the road next month during the CNTRL tour.”
This article was written by Ean Golden, who is an active DJ and producer and Dj TechTools founder. Support his work on Facebook, SoundCloud, or Instagram
