Q: Why "Anti House?"
A: The title of the series comes from a brief experience I had with someone who had come up to the DJ booth when I was playing at an outdoor event in Toronto. She had asked, as politely as possible, why I was "anti house," eventually indicating that I had not been playing any house tracks. This precisely was the reason I had been brought up to DJ in Toronto... I played just about anything electronic, but not house. The genre for electronic is actually exceptionally broad and there are many styles within electronic that are also danceable without resorting to cheap, manufactured club music. The title is now a basic term to indicate that anything I choose to mix would not include house. Some tracks may toe the line but I find them substantial enough in composition and depth that I would not consider it the kind of house music that really needs to die.
Q: And what IS the kind of house music that you think needs to die?
A: Tracks that aren't much more than 2 note repeating basslines with no progression or chord changes over a THUMP THUMP THUMP beat with looped sound effects and screeching diva vocals. Anything remixed by Junior Vasquez and Club 69 are prime examples. Anything considered to be an "anthem" is a sure bet.
There is as much of a criteria that is expected to be met in many clubs as there is with mainstream radio. Don't play the most expected stuff and you most likely won't be playing in clubs on a regular basis. (And I'm sure we all understand how what is expected to be heard is not always the best music out there.) There is exceptional stagnation in both clubs and mainstream radio. I try to do as much as I can to step away from that ideal and work with my own... that if it works, it works, regardless if it's not a very well known act or song.
Q: But this song kinda sounds like house...
A: And when have you ever heard it played in a club, eh? Definitions of subgenres are often blurry and things cross over often, but despite the similarities... anything that isn't "pure house" often won't get in clubs except on theme nights or on request by a DJ that is friendly to you. Even then, it's still the same overall pool of tracks in which setlists are derived from.
Q: What software do you use to make these mixes?
A: Just about anything I can use. Some tracks have been recorded as part of mix via drop-ins from CD or Vinyl, other tracks were manipulated beforehand in Cool Edit Pro to smooth out segues. Sometimes multitracking is done within Cool Edit Pro or using MixMeister Pro. Mastering is done within Cool Edit Pro. I also use external hardware to record/and or master the tracks... mostly to ensure that perceptive levels are consistent.
Q: Eww, you use Windows?
A: Yeah. And I've been using Windows long before audio work on a Mac was considered practical, trendy and fashionable. What can I say? It just works.
Q: Hardware?
A: Whatever my current computer happens to be at the time. The first Anti House Mix was made on an Athlon Thunderbird 700Mhz system, a slow computer by today's standards. As the years passed, my CPU was often updated to more modern specs. Anti House 3 was mixed and mastered on a Athlon XP laptop, Anti House 5 was done on an AMD64 based laptop and Anti House 8 and 9 are on an Intel Core2Duo system. In the end, the original Thunderbird still has enough horsepower to do all the work needed on each volume. So, no, you don't need a $2400 MacBook to do audio mixing when a $299 netbook has more horsepower than my first system did.
For line-in recording, I prefer to use mAudio's 24-bit sound cards. The Revolution 7.1 is an excellent card backed with a fantastic chipset that provides clean line-in recordings. When on a system that does not have a PCI slot, a Creative X-Fi USB sound card is used. I prefer the mAudio card over the Creative one, though. (And never, under any circumstances, would I ever use a built-in sound card for recording. I'm looking at you, Mac DJs.)
For Vinyl, a Sony PS-LX350H Turntable was used.
I use Sony MDR-CD999 headphones I purchased from Gareth Jones for reference listening. Probably one of the best pairs of headphones I've ever used, as it provides an exceptionally unbiased (flat) output compared to the source materials. To power the headphones after reference listening, a Chu Moy amp with a Texas Instruments Burr Brown Opamp2227 chip is used. The CMoy amp gives a boost to the headphones and it also makes the lows richer without oversaturating the sound. To make changes needed to suit all other types of listening methods out there... I also use a pair of computer speakers (really bad ones, at that) and earbuds of various types. As a friend told me, if you can make it sound good on a horrible set of speakers, it'll sound great on anything better than that. Mixing and mastering anything only to your unique setup is a foolish way to go.
Q: Have you played anywhere?
A: In the past I have DJed in Toronto and Philadelphia, but due to the nature of the clubs and the kind of music they expect... I often have trouble finding people to even consider listening to my work on the basis of it not being house. When I DO get the chance to play, people seem to like it. The most frequent compliment I get is that it's "different." (Well, I take that as a compliment, at least...)
Q: Why do you include MP3s on your site? Couldn't you just sell it?
A: I could. But I also do not have the rights to sell the tracks that I work on. Fair use doctrine applies to an extent, and deravative works also applies... also to an extent. My mixes are presented here as a promotional tool for my works and are not to be used for any other purpose. This effectively limits the rightful use of these mixes to in-home and NON COMMERCIAL uses only.
Q: You put that in caps...
A: That's right. I've caught my mixes being used for commercial purposes in the past and I really don't appreciate it, especially when it's done without reference or compensation. The sad thing is, I still could not and would not grant any permission to use my mixes commercially as it would put me afoul of copyright law.
Q: Who used your mixes?
A: A stupid pay-only website for a 30 year old woman who pretends to be "barely legal"... They used significant amounts of The Anti House Mix as background music for her web-cam style porno. Yes, they were notified and no, they did not remove the tracks from their videos. They also did not give me any credit for the mixes... maybe for the better. "Soundtrack: Apparently (not by a long shot) barely legal slut girl who whores it up in front of a webcam." Er, no thanks.
However, people have informed me that they did use some of my mixes (such as Anti House 5: Wish You Were Here) as background music for their student projects or non-profit institutional use. Stuff like that I have absolutely no problem with and glad I was considered for such.
Q: Do you have permission to use their mixes, though?
A: Yes and no. Officially, a DJ does not have to obtain permission to use tracks in their setlist when performing in public as long as the venue has paid for the necessairy licenses (ASCAP, for example), so when mix discs are made out of a performance (or based on, like The Anti House Mix), the distribution is not necessairly improper.
Unofficially, however, I have recieved the blessings from several artists whose work I have used and they contacted me to let me know what they thought. I appreciate their support and understand that their position may not trump that of copyright law with regards to record labels. This is why all of my mixes are licensed under the Creative Commons license -when it can be applied-, but no further.
Q: But you do sell the Anti House Collection DVD...
A: At cost. Actually, no. At less than cost. Several hundred people download my mixes every week and I hope they all enjoyed what they listened to... but a very tiny, small fraction of people actually donate. Hosting costs money, but that's what makes this a hobby rather than a professional job with legal issues to consider (see above.)
Q: Anti House 9 came before Anti House 8?
A: Yep. I had a specific theme/concept in mind with AH8 and didn't quite achieve what I was hoping for until a while after I finished AH9... I used some of the ideas I had worked on during the production of AH8 to make a different volume, half of what became AH9. Both volumes have some similarities in tone, but AH9 is faster and more aggressive and wouldn't have fit within what I wanted done for AH8.
Q: Will you send me (this track) from (one of your mixes)?
A: No, no and no. What was the other answer? Ah!... Again, no. Buy it proper. I'm not going to promote piracy.
Q: Please?
A: Lemme think about that some more. Hmmm. Nope! Please support the artists that you like by buying their proper releases.
Q: Why aren't the mixes track split/separated?
Several reasons. The most popular MP3 player out there that shall not be named (iPods) STILL didn't support gapless playback mode for a long time after the market already had. Even then, to some brands, gapless can still mean there's a gap... or track truncation/skipping at end would be used. Separating the tracks for burning to CD sometimes results in glitches (pops or noise) at the point of track change. I upload the mix as one CD length track to eliminate these issues and to preserve the mix as intended as much as possible across any possible listening situation.
Q: Why no higher than 160k Stereo MP3 quality?
Webhosting. 160k puts an 80 minute mix at just under 100MB. When not charging for the downloads, 160k was the highest quality I could justify that would not be considered an issue with available bandwidth. I consider 160k Stereo to be fairly acceptable for sound quality. The Anti House Collection also has 256k versions of the mixes on the disc.
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