Sonic Walker

More music from Mexico:

Cyan Recs is a Mexicali, Mexico based netlabel for digital contemporary electronic music. This new portal is mainly for creative sound compositions like minimal dub, glitch jazz experiments, techno, microhouse music, and everything in between. All this of course is for FREE and available on high quality MP3, encoded in 192 kbit. Also we have included a 300 dpi slim case color cover for each release, so you’ll be able to put a ‘face’ to your downloaded recording. Welcome!

Welcome on board. I am looking forward to more netlabels and releases from this region.

Cyan Recs makes its start with a micro-compilation named ,Señales‘, containing exclusive tracks by mexican artists Fax, Plankton Man, Karras, and Antena, plus Daniel Fritschi from Germany. This first MP3 release gives a small view of the music you can expect on Cyan Recs.

With version 4.9 Apple has introduced podcasting into their popular iTunes application. Apple has released their official specifications on what you need to do in order to publish your podcast in the iTunes Music Store. Dave Winer has more on his Really Simple Syndication site.

Apple has defined a namespace for podcast information. Just took a brief look. Some of it is non-controversial. Some of it is.

1. Their category element is a duplicate of the existing RSS 2.0 category element, although more verbose. I love the part where they say it’s okay to duplicate information, in other words we’re funky and we know it. I suggest ignoring the itunes:category element, their software seems to work fine without it (Morning Coffee Notes is listed, apparently, we don’t have any of their extensions, nor do I expect to add them any time soon).

2. Same with author. RSS 2.0 has an item-level author element. They don’t say why they reinvented this, giving theirs (again) the same name as the core element, indicating that they probably knew it was there. (The RSS 2.0 element is a mail address, but a person’s name is easily included in a mail address.)

3. It would have been really smart to review this stuff with the community before releasing their software.

4. All this is based on a ten-minute read, so take it for what it’s worth. If you think I’m wrong, say so (no doubt many will).

5. Further, I think it’s kind of a bad idea to use a trademark in the name of a namespace. I think Apple may regret doing this. Also their competitors, already objecting to the use of “pod” in the name of the category, may further object to supporting information with a trademark of a competitor as its name. Come on Apple, we can do better.

The European summer is getting cold and wet again. How about some Mexican music to get us warm from the inside again? Ed Fladung is offering a nice compilation on his site. Just click on the cover for the tracklisting and download.

No summer road trip is complete without a hand-picked mix. This is the soundtrack for your mexican adventure. Destination? Lake Chapala, the high-plateau lake sanctuary hidden in the hills above Guadalajara.

Soulseekrecords has published its 7th release, a compilation for the grand opening of the Trabant Chai Lounge in Seattle.

The style of this compilation is somewhat similar to the Cen-Art release in it’s relaxed feel but the focus here was to make music you would hear on a space station. The tracks were selected by Monotremata(Mike), one of the owners of the lounge.

augias amena - was it all a super mario dream
deborah - straight line feat. djnort
dof - thirsteen
gift culture - chrysalis
kilowatts - stares
phed - stor
kaebin yield - microglian activity
5even5 - arianne
andrew velker - grubb
ekkolabs - statement
new delhi fm - one call left
nedavine - ctrl minus shift
skipper - ella in gauze
skipper - micronaut method

At the moment I have Mimo’s set of two Pioneer CDJ-1000MK2 with the Pioneer DJM-500 mixer at home to prepare for the gig in 2 weeks. The last time I have been behind the decks has been more than 6 years ago and back then first DJ CD-Players didn’t convince me at all. But those CDJ-1000MK2 are quiet nice, not perfect though. So I had a look at the market and the prices.

Numark CDX
This is a CD/Mp3-Player in the size of a classic turntable with a motorized 12” platter, allowing scratching, with build-in looping and effects.

Price:
EUR 889 (N-Joy Music, NL) - EUR 950 (New-Line, NL)

Denon DN-S3000
Motor Driven Active Platter, real time scratch (CD/MP3) - small brother of the DN-S5000

Price: EUR 589 (Thomann, GER) - EUR 789 (Nederland Muziek, Almere/NL)

Denon DN-S5000
Tabletop single-disc CD/mp3 player with an active analog turntable platter with real-time user interaction. Other features include sampler, loops, alpha track, hot disc and much more.

Price: EUR 849 (Music Store, Cologne/GER) - EUR 1099 (New-Line, NL)

Stanton Finalscratch 2
Since I am already using Traktor as DJ software, maybe all I need is a turntable to computer interface like Finalscratch. This way I could still use my vinly collection and at the same time the growing mp3 library on my PowerBook.

Price: EUR 749 (Star-DJ Tools, NL) - EUR 849 (Thomann, GER)

Numark 5000FX
5-channel DJ mixer with sampling, scratching, and effects

Price: EUR 555 (DJservice.com, GER) - EUR 629 (Feedback, NL)

Denon DN-X1500
4 channel matrix dj-mixer with effects, sampler, BPM counter and digital output.

Price: EUR 775 (Thomann, GER) - EUR 949 (New-Line, NL)

Ecler Nuo 5
5-Channel Club DJ Mixer with computer-programmable FX section.

Price: EUR 989 (Thomann, GER) - EUR 1049 (New-Line, NL)

Allen & Heath Xone 92 DJ Mixer
6 stereo channels, 2 auxiliary sends, MIDI output, 2 VCF filters, 4 band EQ

Price: EUR 1485 (DJservice.com, GER) - EUR 1599 (New-Line, NL)

Total result:
Germany: 6
The Netherlands: 2

Conclusion and additional notes:
As so often it is worth comparing prices. I would prefer to buy from a local dealer but his (there is only one) prices are just too high. So then there is the choice between a Dutch or a German online mail-order store. Still the Germans are cheaper and at least Thomann and Music Store are large dealers with a fairly good reputation.

I have’t made a decision yet. First I preferred the Numark CDX but since I have seen and tried it life, I have changed my mind. It is too large and I didn’t like the quality at all (neither of the Numark 5000FX mixer). So my favorite CD-player is now the Denon DN-S5000. Compact in size, solid construction, rich in features and still a lot cheaper than the Pioneer CDJ-1000MK2, which has less to offer.
I have my doubts about Finalscratch2. The idea sounds good but I would really want to try it out first before I spend that much money. Native Instruments Traktor 2.6 has been crashing too often and sometimes there are drop-outs in the audio, so I am not convinced about laptop DJing yet. I guess I will have to wait for the Intel powered Apple PowerBooks next year.
Among the mixers the DN-X1500, Ecler Nuo5 and Xone92 all look interesting. Because I would like to sync Ableton Live the Nuo5 or Xone92, both with Midi-Out might be a good choice. But I still have my old Behringer DX1000 and later this year Allen & Heath will introduce the Xone:3D, which might be exactly what I want.