Annie Mac to leave Radio 1 – the end of an era!
Legendary radio DJ and broadcaster Annie Mac has announced her departure from BBC Radio 1, after an incredible 17 year run on the station. She has become one of the most reliable tastemakers in the world with her various shows over the years, and has played everywhere worth playing around the world.
Hailing from Dublin, Irland, Annie MacManus joined the station as a production assistant in 2002, and her broadcast career started out in 2004, with her Thursday night show “Annie Mac’s Mashup”. She was at the heart of the explosion of electro, blog house, dubstep, indie dance and so much more in that incredible time. She has hosted various shows in her time with the station, including the flagship Friday night dance music show, which will be taken over by Danny Howard.
I was lucky enough to play with her many times over the years, from sweaty basements to huge festival stages, and she always tore the roof off wherever she played, with an uncanny knack for knowing what trends were coming round the corner. She was also great fun to DJ alongside – on one particular occasion, a New Year’s Eve, she had been partying hard enough at her Bristol show that she arrived at Stealth nightclub in Nottingham without her headphones, and had to borrow mine. And naturally, she smashed it, before handing me back my ‘phones and heading off to her next show that night!
For so many producers and bands, getting a play on one of her shows was a huge moment in their careers, an endorsement from one of the biggest DJs on arguably the biggest radio platform in the world. Many anthems got their first play on her show, and went on to dominate clubs and festivals. She started the Annie Mac Presents mix series and events, and her sound and style evolved over the years, reflecting and shaping the tastes of different eras. The Mini Mix format that she popularised, a 5 minute megamix by the biggest names in music, is often a brilliant crash course in a genre or artist. She also championed female DJs, in a male-dominated business – in other fields where a woman has broken through, they are often accused of pulling up the ladder after themselves. Not so here – she gave breaks and support to a whole host of colleagues, really helping to normalise the sight of women behind the decks, and give inspiration to the next generation of DJs. She even put her name behind a campaign to push for gender parity.
The timing of her move makes sense – Radio 1 is squarely aimed at youth music, and while plenty of more experienced DJs exist in this realm, it is logical for the station to lean towards younger hosts, and as she puts it in this Twitter post
“I also love the idea of leaving the party (and make no mistake working at Radio 1 does feel like a party) with a huge smile on my face, when I’m still having the most fun I can have. I will be coming back to radio broadcasting when the time is right”
Annie Mac has a family with her husband Toddla T, and also wants to pursue other aspects of her career – having launched a great podcast (Changes with Annie MacManus). She is also about to have her first novel published – Mother Mother.
Clara Amfo will take over her Future Sounds show, which runs Monday-Thursday 6pm-8pm. Diplo is also leaving the station at the same time. Funnily enough – that’s who was DJing off-camera in the photo above!
If you want to get yourself better prepared to rock parties the way Annie always has, head to the Heavy Hits pool now! And check out the socials – Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. You can find me streaming regularly on Twitch.
Serato 2.5 is out now!
Serato is the daddy of DJing software, and this is a BIG update!
You may have been testing the 2.5 Beta over the last few months, especially if you have Phase (I have been doing so, and it has improved the performance of Phase dramatically). It hasn’t been perfect though – its a Beta version after all, really only intended for testing purposes, not professional use at gigs.
Well, the Beta is done now, and the official release of 2.5 is out – which Serato users can download here!
Phase is now an Official Serato Accessory, with improved accuracy, reduced latency, and no need for phono cables when plugged in via USB (which will simplify things for DJs taking Phase to gigs!).
2.5 bring a whole host of new features, and crucially, it supports the latest Mac OS, Big Sur, and also provides support for the new generation Apple M1 chips.
This one is an essential upgrade for all the Serato DJs out there!
After you’ve done that, head over the the Heavy Hits pool to grab the best new music to play on it, and check out our socials over on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook! You can catch me streaming regularly on Twitch!
DJ Tech News – March 2021!
We are only a quarter of the way into 2021, and already there are some FASCINATING new things bubbling up in the tech around the music and DJ business! And I’m back to give you your regular round-up of the most important and interesting highlights!
Audacity 3.0
The ever-popular (and free!) Audacity audio editing software has just had a major upgrade to 3.0. This really is a fantastically useful piece of software for doing a whole host of editing functions. It may look a little dated, but it works brilliantly, and the update has fixed over 160 bugs, as well as introducing a bunch of new features, including an interesting sounding “Label Sounds” which can label sounds and silences. I’ve used this software many times over the years, its a really handy thing to have on your computer!
Rekordbox mobile for Android
Great news for Android-phone-and-tablet-having users of Rekordbox, Pioneer’s DJ software. They have launched an Android version of their mobile app – iOS users were already catered for. This software allows users to perform all sorts of useful library-management while on the move. The key features are outlined in full here.
Ableton – the reviews are in…
We mentioned the beta in February’s round-up, but now that the full version is out, the reviews are in – and they are very, very positive! Music Tech gave it 10/10, Music Radar gave it 4.5/10.
I’ve used it on a couple of projects myself, and while I have barely scratched the surface of what it can do with these, it worked better than ever, and the finished work sounded great!
DJ EZ x CDJ3000 performance video
UK Garage legend DJ EZ, fresh from raising £88,000 from a 24-hour livestream, has just dropped a video showcasing the new Pioneer CDJ-3000s.
Spotify to launch Clubhouse rival?
It looks like Spotify is set to launch a live audio social network, after acquiring Betty Labs – who are behind Locker Room, which is currently much like Clubhouse, but exclusively for sports events. It will remain online, but is expected to be rebranded.
More on this in this Verge article.
Denon x Serato
Denon DJ has announced that its excellent SC6000 Prime and SC6000M Prime media players will be compatible with Serato DJ Pro software as of next week. Players need to be upgraded to the latest firmware, and was introduced at Serato DJ v 2.4.6.
The huge touchscreen is perfect for Serato, and the integration gives users fantastic control over Serato from their controllers – any of the 4 decks can be controlled by each media player, as well as everything from loops to hot cues to sampler, and gives full colour waveforms in the display and library access.
Pioneer DJ launch new Studio and DJ monitors
Pioneer has launched the VM series of monitors – they come in three sizes, with 5, 7 & 8-inch cones. All 3 sizes come with DSP tech with which to “tune” the speakers to whatever room they are used in, a very handy feature for people unable to make big changes to the rooms they work and listen in.
Prices are very reasonable, priced per pair at £318 / €358 / $368 (VM-50s), £438 / €498 / $458 (VM-70s) and £538 / €618 / $578 (VM-80s). They will be available from mid-April.
Rane One now works with Virtual DJ and djay Pro AI
This is very interesting for a few reasons – it hints at the possibility of Serato’s vice-like grip on the DJ software market being loosened, and also because both these pieces of software feature the ability to create “stems” live, isolating or removing vocals, instrumentation and drums. It will be interesting to see whether Serato decides to introduce the Algoriddim Neural Mix technology in a future software update…
So that’s all for this month! Now, go head over to the Heavy Hits Pool for all the best music, and go check out our Instagram, Twitter and Facebook! You can find me streaming over on Twitch.
The 2021 Goldie Awards
2020/21 has been a strange time for this industry. But while it has temporarily taken away the old way of doing business, it has opened up a bunch of new ones – some of which have advanced the artform in exciting ways!
The 2021 Goldie Awards took place over the last couple of weeks, with the heats and finals spread across a week or two in February – this was the first Goldie Awards in a while, as the 2020 edition had to be cancelled, for obvious reasons.
You can watch the whole final, with snippets from previous years and the heats in the first 45 minutes or so, right here – it is an incredible, inspiring watch!
The Goldie Awards take on two disciplines – a beat battle, and a DJ battle. The beat battle final featured Buck Rodgers, Tsuruda and OddKidOut – each with their own distinct style. As A-Trak makes clear to the other judges, DJ Craze and Baauer, in the beat battle, its about the sound coming out of the speakers – not the performance. Which is good news for Tsuruda and OddKidOut, as Buck Rodgers is a beast when it comes to his performances of his beats! They drop some absolute fire in this battle!
However, probably of more interest to readers here is the DJ battle segment. Anyone who caught DJ Lazyboy‘s set from the heat will know what I mean when I say that it is a brain-melter! Here’s a section from it to give you an idea, as well as snippets of the other 2 finalists’ sets from the heats… DJ Lazyboy’s full routine can be found at about 22 minutes in the above Twitch embed, its worth watching in its entirety! In this battle, the performance is a critical element of the judgement – and it shows!
View this post on Instagram
The final featured the aforementioned DJ Lazyboy from the USA, Fummy from Japan, and DJ Michelle from Dubai – who, incredibly, is just 8 years old! I won’t spoil the suspense by saying who won, but lets just say that the production levels, wit and creativity were INSANE! The way they used the medium of online submissions was genuinely at genius level – it’ll be fascinating to see which of these concepts and ideas percolate their way into physical, in-person battles. For now, the online bar has been raised to a very tall height!
If you want to skip the full thing – the DJ battle winner’s winning sets are all played together at about 2hr13m onwards – they are WELL worth your time, although the whole thing is incredibly dope! Massive props to A-Trak and Fool’s Gold for creating this new competition to rival Red Bull 3style and the DMCs!
And now that you are all inspired from this incredible battle, head to the Heavy Hits pool to pick up some amazing music, and check out the Instagram and Facebook pages too while you are at it! And for the Twitchers, you can find me on there several times a week, right here. Peace!
DJ Tech News – Feb 2021!
Things in DJ world are a little strange at the moment – with no real global club scene and no festivals at the moment, and big chunks of the world still in various levels of lockdown, things are just sort of ticking along in many corners. But there are still some very interesting things popping off and developing!
Not least the new tech which we talked about a little bit last month – the Rane One has been very warmly received in the first month, garnering great reviews. And the Pioneer DJM S7 is getting rave reviews, like this one in Digital DJ Tips. Because of the pandemic, I’ve not had chance to head to the Serato studio and get stuck into these new bits of kit yet – I can’t wait for the UK lockdown to relax so I can go and test them all out with DJ Blakey!
Speaking of Serato, they have launched a new competition – Serato Studio – BeatFighter ’Slam Dunk’ . Entrants must use Serato Studio, and the overall winner will take home the incredible sum of $20,000! 2nd prize is $4,000, 3rd $1000. Voting will take place as head-to-head battles on Serato’s Instagram, so if you are entering, be ready to mobilise your crew and get your vote count up!
Ableton have announced the release date for Ableton Live 11 – February 23rd. Beta users have been testing the product for several months now, but this will be the official release. Its one of the most popular pieces of music software for creating your own originals, remixes and edits, and fantastic for piecing together DJ mixes too – if you aren’t familiar with it, they allow a full 30 day trial. I’ve used it for years and have already committed to the upgrade. Highly recommended! You can save 20% on the upgrade price here.
Some big news for Rekordbox users – Pioneer announce this month that they now officially have compatibility with Big Sur. Big news if you like to DJ with them and use an Apple computer! At time of writing, Serato is still not compatible with Big Sur.
However, there is still plenty of good news from the Serato camp. For streamers, they have created a great set of visuals to use on live-streamed DJ sets (I’ve been using one of the retro TV set overlays on my streams, which people have really been into!). And they have also created a Twitch extension called Now Playing which, unsurprisingly, tells your audience what song is now playing! Very handy indeed.
For a little bit of fun – there’s a new “Guitar Hero” style game on the block, Fuser – check it out here. Its not exactly a close replica of the experience of being a DJ, but looks like it could be a good laugh for people wanting to mess around!
Thats all for this month – follow me over on Twitch and Instagram, go get the best music for your sets at the Heavy Hits Pool, and check out our Instagram, Facebook and Twitter!
When Will We Be Partying Again?
One of the hardest things of the pandemic has been the difficulty of planning. Back in March 2020, nobody really knew how long we would have to close clubs and festivals and event spaces. In the summer, certain parts of the world started reopening, then the 2nd wave came through and much of that came grinding to a halt. Across much of North America and Europe, the things you can do as a DJ are highly limited. I don’t like to think about the amount of gigs I had booked in at various points that have been cancelled across the last year! Quite apart from the financial hit, it is psychologically very hard to take the repeated disappointments and upended plans.
We enviously look on at places like New Zealand, and wonder when it will be our turn to run big concerts and festivals again.
Well – things are looking up. First things first, the incredible achievement of creating multiple vaccines this quickly means that we can say with confidence that herd immunity is an achievable goal in the forseeable future. The USA’s Dr Anthony Fauci spoke last week at a conference held by the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, and said that live entertainment’s return depended on vaccination rollout and getting between 70% to 85% of the population vaccinated. “If everything goes right, this is will occur some time in the fall of 2021, so that by the time we get to the early to mid-fall, you can have people feeling safe performing onstage as well as people in the audience.”
He went on to say that mask-wearing and good ventilation may be required for some time after the return of events, and given everything we have been through, you can understand why people may urge caution, even after a population is vaccinated. Another possibility is that attendees will have to present a negative Covid test to gain entry. But he was bullish overall – “We’ll be back in the theaters — performers will be performing, audiences will be enjoying it. It will happen.”
Millions are already vaccinated across the USA and UK, with the EU gradually rolling out their vaccines too. Priority is naturally going to higher risk citizens – but it is very exciting to see the numbers of vaccinated climb rapidly. At the moment the UK is vaccinating 140 people per minute, and hope to increase that pace. The sooner people have the jabs, the sooner our lives can get back to normal.
Related to this, there have been German studies which appear to show that the risk of Covid infection in concert venues is actually not that great, if appropriate measures are in place. As reported here, the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute conducted research on venues. “Concert halls and theatres are not places of infection,” Dr Raphael von Hoensbroech, director of Konzerthaus Dortmund, concluded. “The past few months have shown that politics needs a scientifically sound basis for decision-making. With our study, we want to ensure that concert halls and theatres may again admit sufficient audiences when they reopen.”
It should be noted that clubs and theatres/concert halls are quite different beasts, but it is encouraging nonetheless – if any ways exist to put on events, that can only be good news for our industry.
As we’ve seen with the very creation of the vaccines, things can move a lot faster than expected when there is enough economic and social motivation.
If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that nothing is promised – but I wouldn’t be completely shocked if things start to come back a bit earlier than Fauci is saying, even if on a reduced scale – humans are a social animal, and people need to socialise and let off steam. Reduced capacity, socially-distanced events could even be happening by Spring/Summer – who knows?
Its so important to have light at the end of the tunnel, to feel like positive progress is being made, and to have things to look forward to. And finally we have this! I’m going to ramp up my livestreaming and Mixcloud use with an eye on hopefully picking up bookings later in the year…
In the meantime, make sure you stay on top of musical trends and ready for action by downloading the best tracks at the Heavy Hits pool, and go follow me at Instagram!
DJ Tech News – Jan 2021!
Well, its that time of year where we are normally getting ready for industry trade show NAMM, but of course, this year things are a bit different. Because of the ongoing pandemic, the actual in-person event has been cancelled – however, a virtual NAMM “Believe In Music” event is taking place, so there are still things to get excited about! The event kicks off on January 18th, and you can sign up here. The full schedule can be viewed here.
Around this time, we normally start getting intriguing leaks of DJ kit that will be launched soon, and some very, very interesting things have popped up online in the last week.
First up – pictures recently leaked of a new 2-channel all-in-one Rane controller, featuring motorised platters, apparently called the Rane One. This is a very interesting development, as Rane’s Twelve controllers have become a firm favourite of many DJs, and this seems to bring that technology to a more affordable level.
The platters looks to be roughly 7″, which is very decent for this size of controller. It looks like they have a Mag Four X3 label above the crossfader, which bodes very well for that aspect. The look is very much like a pared down Rane mixer, and they appear to have FX paddles too – always a welcome feature!
The company is renowned for high quality hardware and great sound quality – I can’t wait to have a go on one of these. For a full in-depth review by DJ Soo, head over to DJ Tech Tools.
Elsewhere, a less substantiated story, but one worth remarking on nonetheless. A photo of what seems to be a new Pioneer scratch mixer has leaked, and speculation is that it plugs the gap between the old S9 and the new S11 – it was odd that they simply skipped S10, and this would help explain why! This mixer seems to be a more affordable version of the S11 – still legit, but not quite as feature-packed.
Thats all for now, but I’m sure there will be plenty more things announced of the coming month, so check back for more in February! In the meantime, head to the Heavy Hits pool, and follow me over on Instagram!
Best of 2020!
New year’s are always a big chance to look forward to the fresh year ahead, to make plans, resolve to improve, all that stuff – but its also important to reflect on the year just gone, and as DJs it is a good idea to have a look back at the big tracks of the year. Its also a GREAT opportunity to pick up gems you missed out on, or grab the top tracks from genres you don’t specialise in but want to be ready for if the need arises.
So, we at Heavy Hits pool have got your backs – we’ve put together 6 “Best of 2020” playlists across our main genre categories of Hip Hop/R&B, Electronic/Dance, Pop/Top 40, Latin, Reggae/Dancehall, and International.
For obvious reasons, this was an unusual year for music. Most clubs in the world were closed for most of the year. Almost no festivals took place. But DJing was still happening all over, largely thanks to the emergence of live-streaming as a popular medium.
Despite this, the #1 Hip Hop track was a straight up club banger – WAP. This tune is basically a cultural phenomenon at this point, launching a million memes, remixes and parodies. The influence of TikTok is all over the placing of Toosie Slide at #2 – that one really felt like Drake seeing if he could turn social media dances to his advantage! There’s no real surprises in this chart – Pop Smoke, Megan Thee Stallion, Roddy Ricch
In Electronic/Dance, the leading download is Roses (Imanbek Remix) by SAINt JHN, which has big ever since it came out – and again, the influence of TikTok can’t be ignored here. Like it or not, if a song goes viral on there, it makes a big difference. Fortunately, this song is a banger! Meduza & GOODBOYS reunite with Lose Control, this time joining forces with Becky Hill – a worthy follow up to Piece Of Your Heart! And in #3 is Joel Corry with Head & Heart, which of course was the focus of the competition we ran last year – check out the winners here!
Pop/Top 40 has a lot of familiar names at the top spots – Justin Bieber at #1, The Weeknd at #3, but sneaking in at #2 is comeback kid Scott Storch with his latin hit Fuego Del Calor – great to see him back in the mix, he’s one seriously talented producer. Special mention here to the track in #7 – DJ AndOne’s brilliant edit of Bee Gees and Bruno Mars, a genuine hands-in-the-air party rocker!
The most-downloaded Latin song of 2020 was Tusa, by Karol G & Nicki Minaj. Most unexpected sample of the year has to the Spongebob infused Agua by Tainy & J Balvin… did not expect that when I first listened, will have to take a place in my crates next to the Elephant Man classic! As with the other charts, lots of familiar names – Daddy Yankee, Bad Bunny, 6IX9INE and others feature prominently.
Reggae/Dancehall’s top spots are a mix of new, in the form of Buju Banton’s Trust Remix, and then some stone cold classics, such as Beenie Man – King Of The Dancehall, and Sean Paul – Temperature.
The International chart is dominated by Afrobeats, with Burna Boy taking the top 2 spots, and 4 of the top 10! I’m a big fan of Aya Nakamura, and she appears with Jolie Nana (DJ Mighty Club Edit).
Go check out the full charts, and all the latest hits, at the Heavy Hits pool!
DJ Tech News – Dec 2020!
Well, we’ve nearly made it through 2020. That was… not great. We can only hope that 2021 will be a better year for everyone!
But I’m back here for our periodic examination of what is going on in the world of DJ tech – so let’s dive right in and see what’s new!
Air DJing?!
I was casually scrolling through my feed when I stumbled across this DJ Yoda video, and my mind was BLOWN.
View this post on Instagram
There’s a lot to take on board here. First of all – how? Well, it seems that the iPad takes a 3D view of your hand, maps that to the software, and hey presto, you are virtually scratching the virtual decks, with no contact. If you look to the top-middle on the iPad, there appears to be shadowy “hands” in a control panel, to show you what the iPad is receiving. Pretty clever stuff.
The CEO of Algoriddim, Karim Morsy, said “The ability to mix music using djay Pro AI’s intelligent, built-in hand tracking technology represents a fundamental change in how DJs are able to orchestrate mixes and adds a new visual dimension to live DJ sets. Gesture Control is a new paradigm with implications beyond DJing and music creation. It is a major step forward with how people interact with mobile technology.”
This is one of those moments where you get a sense you are glimpsing a whole new corner of technology, which could have amazing stage performance possibilities. I am a Serato user, and dabble in Rekordbox – but it is fascinating to see how the smaller DJ apps are coming up with so many incredible ideas (such as this one that we covered earlier in the year), some of which Serato have expressly said they will not be adopting. Could someone like Algoriddim come in and steal a big chunk of market share? I’m sure they will hope so!
Reloop Buddy
At the risk of this seeming like an advert for Algoriddim’s djay, Reloop have announced this fun little controller for using with their software, due for release at the end of December (£199 / $279 / €219). Its only a tiny thing, with a docking station for iPads, but looks to have all the features you would need to get going – decent sized jog wheels, 16 pads (8 per channel), controlling all manner of useful functions. And the unit has controls to easily access their incredible “Neural Mix” feature – essentially allowing you to instantly isolate drums, instruments or vocals on tracks. At the price, it looks a very handy piece of kit for people who don’t just want to be touching iPad screens the whole time.
Serato Scratch Banks
The new Pioneer S11 scratch mixers included a brilliant new feature – scratch banks. A recent update to Serato means that you now have access to Serato’s scratch banks across the Rane Seventy, Seventy Two and Seventy Two Mk2 mixers. This is covered in more detail over here.
Pioneer DDJ-FLX6
This was announce earlier this winter, and the DDJ-FLX6 got a strangely hostile reception in the places I looked at, seemingly because it has a somewhat different visual aesthetic to the other Pioneer controllers. Designed for use with both Rekordbox and Serato, and has 4 channels. It has some pretty interesting sounding features – merge FX look fun, and then it has a series of scratch patterns to apply, cutting the sound in and out – all you have to do is move the platter back and forth! This is exactly the sort of thing that annoys purists, like sync on steroids basically! C’est la vie – this is how technology moves forward! To me, this looks like a really competitive unit – in the UK it is priced at £539. I’m looking forward to having a play on one to see how it compares to the DDJ1000srt and XDJ-XZ.
Ableton 11
Its now really more a studio tool than a performance tool, but its still a very popular app for the DJ community, and Ableton Live is about to hit v11. Its due for release in early 2021, and includes some improvements aimed squarely at live performance. Check out this video for more info
For me, though, the ultimate piece of DJ technology is probably the cheapest you’re going to find this Christmas – its this vinyl-style pizza cutter – I’ve always been a big fan of cutting up 12″s as often as possible!
This will be the last blog post before Christmas, so everybody – have a very merry Christmas! And, as always, head over to the Heavy Hits Pool for the best new music!
RIP DJ Spinbad
On 10th November 2020, the world lost one of the best DJs ever to do it. DJ Spinbad (born Chris Sullivan) was a true legend of the scene – an incredibly skilled DJ, and creator of some of the best, most influential mixes ever recorded. He was 46.
A fixture on New York radio for many years, Spinbad was probably best known for his wildly creative 80s Megamixes. As A-Trak put it,
“The level of artistry that he put into his mixtapes… he sent everyone back to school. Those “80s Mega Mix” tapes changed the game, straight up.”
DJ Yoda spoke of how greatly Spinbad influenced his style, and opened doors for other DJs to walk through.
‘Spinbad is one of the main reasons that I am a DJ. Let me tell you how important his infamous 80s pop mix is. Spinbad was the first hip-hop mixtape DJ to leave the comfort zone of rap music. He showed me that music isn’t something you need to be embarrassed about.’
I would say that open-format DJing as we know it goes back to those mixes. It is hard for people who didn’t see the impact to understand the degree to which he liberated DJs from having to feel like some music was off-limits, not cool enough to be taken seriously. I remember hearing about them, and ordering them from Turntable Lab, and being so excited when they arrived via airmail. They totally opened my mind.
But he could throw down hip-hop better than the rest too – his Cold Cutz Remixes mixtape with DJ JS-One is a masterclass, and his FABRICLIVE mix stands as one of the very best from that impeccable series.
In particular I loved this incredible mash-up of KRS-One’s Hip Hop vs Rap from Cold Cutz Remixes, cutting up the suitable instrumentals as KRS rapped through dozens of hip hop anthems. I was lucky enough to pick this up on 12″ when it got pressed, and it ALWAYS had people running over to ask what the hell it was!
Spinbad was genuinely an elite DJ. But, more importantly, he was also good man, with the tributes not just focused on his undeniable prowess on the decks, but also on him, as a human. Comedian Russell Peters, who Spinbad toured with, paid tribute to his friend
RIP DJ Spinbad, you will be missed.