Tomcraft
Tomcraft (real name Thomas Brückner) is a German DJ and producer. He is specialized in progressive house and progressive trance and is better known for having created the tracks "Loneliness" and "Prosac", working alongside Eniac.
Tomcraft began working as a DJ in Munich in 1994, shifting between techno and the emerging progressive trance style. The following year, he released his first track, "This Is No House". He first met in Eniac in 1996, and the two immediately started producing music together, beginning with "Viva". The same year yielded the track "Prosac", but this did not achieve success until it was re-released in 2001.
2002 was also the year Tomcraft released "Loneliness", a progressive vocal track that eventually reached in the UK . The financial success allowed him to found his own record label, Great Stuff Recordings, followed up in 2005 with Craft Music.
His song "Overdose" was featured in the 2003 movie Party Monster for its parallel theme of drug use to the Club Kids of New York City.
Tomcraft has released three albums so far, All I Got (2001), MUC (2003) and Hyper Sexy Conscious (2006), all on Kosmo Records.
Albums
* 2001 All I Got
* 2002 MUC
* 2006 Hyper Sexy Conscious
Compilation albums
2003 Tomcraft - The Mix (Remix album (of other artists), with two exceptions, where other artists have remixed his tracks)
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org
Audio mixing
Audio mixing is used for sound recording, audio editing and sound systems to balance the relative volume, frequency and dynamical content of a number of sound sources. Typically, these sound sources are the different musical instruments in a band or vocalists, the sections of an orchestra, announcers and journalists, crowd noises and so on.
Sometimes audio mixing is done live by a sound engineer or recording engineer, for example at rock concerts and other musical performances where a public address system is used. A typical concert has two mixers, one located in the audience to mix the front of house speakers heard by the audience, and the other is located at the side of the stage, mixing for the monitor speakers positioned directly in front of the performers so that they can hear one another.
Another example of live mixing is a DJ mixing two records together. Break beats are created by mixing between identical breaks. Often the end of one pre-recorded song is mixed into another so that the transition is seamless, which is done through beat-matching or beat-mixing, and possibly pitch control.
At other times, audio mixing is done in studios as part of multitrack recording in order to produce digital or analog audio recordings, or as part of an album, film or television program.
An audio mixing console, or mixing desk, or mixing board, has numerous rotating controls (potentiometers) and sliding controls (faders which are also potentiometers) that are used to manipulate the volume, the addition of effects such as reverb, and frequency content (equalization) of audio signals. On most consoles, all the controls that apply to a single channel of audio are arranged in a vertical column called a channel strip. Larger and more complex consoles such as those used in film and television production can contain hundreds of channel strips. Many consoles today, regardless of cost, have automation capabilities so the movement of their controls is performed automatically, not unlike a player piano. A recent trend is to use a "control surface" connected to a computer. This eliminates much of the electronics in a conventional console as the actual mixing work is done digitally by the computer.
Audio mixing on a personal computer is also gaining momentum. More and more independent artists are starting to use their personal computers for digital recording and mixing their work. Audio editing on the computer is also easy and generally preferred.
A recent trend is mixing to 5.1, which is "surround" audio. This requires 6 channels of audio: left, center, right, left rear, right rear, and low frequencies (subwoofer, or LFE). The demand for 5.1 in the audio and music domain was once small but has recently increased dramatically, along with the introduction of 7.1 & 9.1 surround channel audio.
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org
DJ Aligator
Ali Movasat, more commonly known as DJ Aligator was born in Tehran, Iran on March 10, 1975. He currently resides in Sweden after having lived in Denmark for many years.
He is responsible for songs such as "The Whistle Song" (co-made with Danish producer Holger Lagerfeldt), which can be found on the popular videogame Dance Dance Revolution or the song Fly High. Dj Aligator has also remixed the popular song Dragostea Din Tei by the band O-Zone as well as Reel 2 Real's I Like to Move It and Infernal's "From Paris to Berlin".
Biographical information
In particular, he remembers how much he loved all the gatherings and parties his parents arranged quite often at their house. Relatives, friends, and neighbors would come together to mingle, sing, and dance to the music of a hired live band. While other kids of his age fooled around the house, chasing one another, and wrestling, Ali would rather stand next to the guy playing the keyboard, fixing his eyes on the black and white keys which made all those pretty sounds. The love for music began to develop and grow inside young Ali rapidly. His obsessive passion for music however did not go unnoticed by his father. Ali got a toy keyboard for his tenth birthday. Ali Movasat is muslim.
Studies in music
While devoting as much spare time as possible to playing the keyboard Ali embarked on his preliminary education in music by attending introductory courses in jazz and classical. This helped him tremendously in gaining a deeper understanding of music in general as well as learning how to play his instrument by the notes.
Upon graduating from high school, Ali did not hesitate to enter the Rhythmic program at the Danish Music Conservatory. This would give him the opportunity to push his comprehension of music even further, building up and laying down the theoretical foundations for a future career as a professional musician.
The first mixer… While attending school eagerly Ali began to plan his next move. Being fully aware of the fact that although what he was learning in school was quite beneficial, in order for him to accelerate on his path to success he had to furnish his education with a more hands-on experience. The simple keyboard he owned wouldn’t suffice.
Therefore he went ahead and took a loan in order to purchase his first mixer and a few other devices. However, the expensive loan had to be settled soon. In effect, this meant that he had to work multiple evening jobs right after school to make the payments. One job in particular turned out to be just right for Ali. A local nightclub was on the lookout for a new DJ. He auditioned for the job and was hired.
180 CDs
With strong faith in his new creation Ali set about paying almost every record company in Denmark a visit, presenting his Whistle Song. Unfortunately none of the directors in suit and tie recognized the potential success of the piece. Disappointed but not surrendered he returned to his studio. He had a plan.
He burned over 180 copies of the Whistle Song on CDs and shipped them out to every single DJ he knew in Denmark, asking them to play it for their audience. It worked. People loved it. Gradually the song became quite popular.
source : http://en.wikipedia.org
Technoparade
A Technoparade (the word is German) is a parade of vehicles equipped with strong loudspeakers and amplifiers, along the streets of a municipality, which are closed down for this purpose.
It resembles a carnival parade, but the vehicles are less elaborately decorated and the music -- usually, but not always, techno -- comes from a DJ's sound systems. Also, a technoparade doesn't share the carnival parade tradition of bombarding the spectators with sweets. However, the revellers do occasionally throw confetti (usually larger and more sparkly than that in a carnival parade) and spray foam from the vehicles onto the crowd.
Nearly all of the vehicles are converted trucks. In order to power the amplifiers, the trucks are frequently equipped with an additional electrical generator. The theoretical possibility of using overhead tram wires in some cities has never been put into practice: as a rule such overhead current-delivery systems are switched off during the gathering for safety reasons. Likewise for safety reasons, horse-drawn floats are never used in technoparades: there would be a danger of horses panicking from the noise and chaos. However, there are occasional human-drawn floats equipped with generators, record players, amplifiers and loudspeakers. Some of the vehicles allow people to ride along, for a fee. For those on the sidelines, or travelling alongside on foot or bicycles, attendance is free.
World's largest technoparades:
1. Street Parade, Zurich 800,000 participants
2. Love Parade, Berlin (1989 - 2003) 700,000 participants (2003)
3. techno parade, paris 500,000 participants (2006)
Technoparades generally take place in large cities. In Germany, the most important technoparades (past and present) are:
* Love Parade, Berlin (1989 - 2003)
* Fuckparade, Berlin (founded 1997)
* G-move, Hamburg
* Union Move, Munich (until 2001)
* Reincarnation, Hanover
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org
The Prodigy
The Prodigy (or just Prodigy) are an English band. Their music consists of various styles ranging from rave, hardcore techno and industrial in the early 1990s to alternative rock and bigbeat with punk vocal elements in later times. The current band members include Liam Howlett (composer/keyboards), Keith Flint (dancer/vocalist) and Maxim (MC/vocalist). Leeroy Thornhill (dancer/very occasional live keyboards) was a member of the band from 1990 to 2000, as well was a female dancer/vocalist called Sharky who left the band during their early period. The Prodigy first emerged on the underground rave scene in the early 1990s, and have since then achieved immense popularity and worldwide renown. Some of their most popular songs include "Charly", "Out of Space", "Smack My Bitch Up", "Voodoo People", "No Good (Start the Dance)", "Breathe" and "Firestarter".
The name changes from The Prodigy to Prodigy between Music for the Jilted Generation and The Fat of the Land in 1996 and back again with the release of Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned in 2004. This was only done to fit the changing logos, according to Howlett.
Members:
The Prodigy consists of Liam Howlett, Keith flint, Leeroy Thornhill and Maxim Reality.
The music charts were filled with unsophisticated "hardcore" rave tracks to which speed- and ecstasy-filled clubbers had danced all night but which did not appeal to critics in "the music press" such as Urban Hype's Trip to Trumpton, and Smart E's (a reference to Ectasy) Sesame's Treet, instigating death-by-publicity to the underground "hardcore rave" scene. Charly (a contemporary reference to cocaine), with its memorable sample of the "Charley Says" children's Public information films and The Prodigy were thus identified as "kiddie rave".
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org