67
reviews
aLesis master ControL minimaL teChno
Price: £899 Developer: sm
Price: £58.67 from
time & space: www.timespace.com
This product whipped up a storm at the rates up to 192kHz at 24-bit, where the higher Minimal techno remains the most popu-
Frankfurt Musikmesse. Nowadays, all produc- rates reduce track count. Other notable fea- lar dance music at the moment. It’s a scene
ers seem to be staring into a future populated turesinclude talkback, three-way speaker/output dominated by coke-loving DJs who are raking
by hollow promises of all-in-one solutions that switching and a 2x16 LCD display. There are no in the cash, where bickering and infighting is
let you make beats, DJ, mix and even simmer digital outputs. hard to avoid, and over-exposed fans probe
sauté, and the Alesis Master Control – a simple, questions at the music they once loved, but are
cute-looking package – is taking a step towards Sounds like a lot of shit crammed into one now tiring of, due to incestuous politics. But
realising this dream. device? Well it is. The Alesis Master control this cycle happens to all dance-music scenes,
really does cover all bases as far as producing and will probably happen to dubstep at some
So, what exactly does this sucker do? Pretty music goes. Geeky pros will berate it for offer- point in the future. That doesn’t mean DJs like
much all the things you require when you buy a ing diluted features at the expense of anything Richie Hawtin and producers such as Dubfire
music studio but usually need four or five dif- particularly solid or focused, but, what with many aren’t downright fucking dope. So, why not
ferent devices for (plus all the cables, connec- electronic music producers these days making dip your toe into the minimal ocean with this
tors, drivers and so on that go with that). The hits on speakers held together with sticky tape and rather brilliant sample package; sink your teeth
Alesis Master Control is an audio interface, BluTac, the Alesis Master Control quite clearly into Acid, EXS24, HALion, Refill, REX and
control surface and monitor controller. You offers more than one really needs to get their Wav files spanning drum loops, single hits
want stats? We’ve got ‘em: it’s a Firewire audio music onto Beatport and beyond. Particularly and swooping breakdown FX characteristic
and MIDI device with 26 inputs (two mic/line nice on the Alesis Master Control are the digital of cutting-edge minimal techno? This DVD
on XLR/TRS hybrids with phantom power and and analogue inputs meaning that, if one does contains 2,454 files in total weighing in at
individual insert points, plus six TRS line and start churning out hits on this sucker, he / she has 2.29GB, representing fantastic value to all the
two 8-channel ADAT lightpipe) and six outputs the very real option of icing out their studio with smart producers like Sub Focus who use genres
(TRS). The Master Control boasts two inde- outboard gear in the future. Don’t forget, the like minimal techno as a source of inspiration
pendent headphone outputs, MIDI I/O, nine Alesis Master Control also allows you to switch for their chart-topping drum & bass hits.
motorized faders, 10 rotary encoders, transport between three sets of speakers, control your
controls, scrub, zoom and two banks of eight sequencer via its pots and faders or even break
user-definable buttons that can be used for any- the window of your neighbour after they shout at
thing and everything MIDI. It runs sampling your for producing well into the night.
looking up and everything was falling into place. When ‘Kung Fu
Fresh’ was released, I think I did my first tour of the US and had
just bought my first house, so all in all it was a pretty good couple
of years.”
How did the wheels of creation creak into life for the produc-
tion of ‘Kung Fu Fresh’? “It’s originally from some film I guess,”
Red One thinks back. “I got it from a sample / scratch record. It’s
where I got the vintage “fresh” scratch from as well. A friend of
mine, Neil Mitchell, used to work in Boogie Times in Romford
and he had loads of these types of records there for hip-hop DJs.
So, I borrowed one, ripped it to bits and made the track from it.”
‘Kung Fu Fresh’ is dark, funky drum & bass and slots into the
RAM mould effortlessly. Did Red One have to adhere to certain
guidelines to achieve this? “I never made ‘Kung Fu Fresh’ with the
intention of it going out on RAM in particular, it just worked like
that,” he dissects his track. “I’ve always been into the more mini-
mal, stripped-out D&B and so it wouldn’t surprise me if people
the making of...
put it into that category.”
At the time of ‘Kung Fu Fresh’, recording studios were smack-
track: ‘kung fu fresh’ (taken from ‘ram and counter culturists. Helping to tee bang in the convoluted transition from analogue to digital… “The
raiders’ eP vol. 1)’ off the Ram Raiders series that spawned studio I made ‘Kung Fu Fresh’ on was in the attic at my parents’
artist: red one many drum & bass classics, Red One’s house,” Red One tells K Mag. “I built it in there about a year
Label: ram records [ramm 030] ‘Kung Fu Fresh’ – like himself – had beforehand with my close friend DJ Rhythm (who made ‘Cold
Date: 2000 cult status. Fresh Air’ with Ant Miles as Higher Sense). Set-up wise we had
loads of outboard gear ... EMU 6400 Ultra, Akai S1000, Akai
Red One played his part in the defining Red One takes us back to the formation S3000, Behringer 24:8 Desk, Mackie 16:4 desk, MIDI keyboard,
RAM Records movement coming into of the Ram Raiders clique: “I made this Apple Power Mac running Cubase and ReCycle, Alesis monitors,
the new millennium, nurturing an un- track at the tail end of 1999,” he begins. Digitech effects, an Alesis compressor and so on. It was a basic set
derground record label into an iconic “About nine months after starting to up for home studios of that time.”
lifestyle choice for rebellious teenagers manage RAM full time. Things were
www.kmag.co.uk
K66-69_DigitalNation.indd 67 29/4/09 13:23:18
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