We’ve seen lots of gadget lust around the tiny Pacemaker mobile DJ device, but could you, say, show up in Miami with one and DJ? Alfred Nerstu, who’s actually an Assistant Art Director for Pacemaker’s maker Tonium (not a PR person), sends along this video they made.

Answer: yes, you can be taken seriously with a Pacemaker, but you’ll have to lose your shirt. (Literally — not just because the Pacemaker costs some dough. And, hey, I’m sure you could afford one Pacemaker for about the cost of a two-night hotel stay in Miami during WMC…) I’m still not convinced I could take a Pacemaker seriously as a primary DJ tool, but it does look like something you could have a lot of fun with or add to your toybox of gear on the road.

That’s Tonium employee Willem, shirtless.

The best part of the video? The YouTube comments like these, which, whatever they mean, just look insanely cool:

haha fantastiskt

haha pappa willem? skjukt bra film du får fan fixxa rabbat till mig //gräsätarn

Fantastiskt, indeed.

Damn, I wish English weren’t such a square language. Keep your native tongues alive, folks.

Pacemaker.net

After the jump, Arthur shares a bit of "beachjaying" — clever idea for a video; maybe I should do this with a Game Boy tracker or something for the geekier among us. I’d better work on my washboard abs first, though, if my tummy is going to be in the shot.

Pictured: the Hot Hot Heat at Ultra; not, in fact, the Killers. -PK

target="_blank">Ultra Music Festival 8 has evolved into a bigger festival
than ever, with an expected turnout this year of 50,000 dance music
enthusiasts.

To accommodate the increase in population, the festival
location has shifted slightly from the usual location of Bayfront
Park to Bicentennial Park and closer to the Causeway back over to
South Beach. Both locations are located in downtown Miami and have a natural
barrier of the bay on one side. In past years, the main stage in Bayfront Park was
contained in an amphitheater, with tiered seating and great sound
quality. Bayfront Park at times had seemed maze-like, with more
separation between the different stages. Bicentennial Park, the new
venue, was set up as one big field, with all stages on the same
level. This year’s main stage was at one end of a huge field of
people and the sound just seemed to get lost into the air.

On the main Ultra Stage, Paul Oakenfold was able to capture the
audience from song number one, transmitting his ethereal vibe for all
to hear. However, the last two acts, The Prodigy and Paul Van Dyk,
paled in comparison to last year’s talent, many of whom were
committed to play conflicting shows on Sunday instead. The divided
video screens were a great addition to this year’s setup.

Ultra does however provide something for everyone, and this year was
no exception with almost 200 acts on the bill. Because
of the multitude of artists and dance music genres, one can bounce
from one giant tent to another and be engulfed in a totally different
sound experience in each. Ultra Music Festival 2006 included 14
separate stages, including a cluster of Breakbeat and Drum and Bass.
Surprisingly, the sound from each different area did not overlap.

Carl Cox and
Friends exploded with energy and people in the House Tent. When Carl
Cox was performing, there were people packed into the tent and half
as many outside of the structure peering into the open side of the
structure at the stage. Carl Cox spun an incredible set after
sundown, flanked by Ultra dancers, Jennifer and Lynn in their
outrageous zebra outfits. The year before they had performed in full-
painted form for Rabbit in the Moon, the headliner for Carry On in
2006. Danny Tenaglia wrapped up the day on the Carl Cox and Friends
stage with 2 more hours before also heading over to the href="https://www.ultramusicfestival.com/lo/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=50&Itemid=83"
target="_blank">Carry On after party, to rock that event.

The House Tent was packed during the Benny Benassi set,
a high-energy performance complete with outstanding video production.
The theme of the day seemed to be eyes and synchronizing an optics-inspired video loop to the beats of the music.

Not to miss was Richie Hawtin on the Techno Stage, the Ableton Live
user put together an incredible performance that had the entire tent
dancing.

WMC Articles at CDM:

• Gear watch at the Remix Hotel
• DJs talk about going digital, with tips and tricks
• Moby Q&A panel: Moby talks tech (Cubase and Mac aficionado), music-making, and inspiration
• Ultra Music Festival closes out the week with an incredible music lineup

WMC Image Galleries at CDM

• [wpg2]archived/wmc/[/wpg2]

WMC Coverage Elsewhere . . .

NYC's Village Voice (Tricia Romano)

Got a link? Send it to us!

Still not jealous that you weren't at Miami for the WMC? This should
do the trick — and here's the right way to record a concert: in HD 5.1! (Photo: DJ Eldorado — gallery coming soon.)

Miami — Ultra Music Festival (UMF) is an all-day outdoor festival that
acts as the official closing ceremonies to Winter Music Conference
(WMC) here. The event took place at Bayfront Park & Amphitheater in
downtown Miami and featured over 100 artists, including: Timo Maas, BT,
Josh Wink, Junkie XL, Armin Van Buuren, Rabbit in the Moon, The Crystal
Method, Carl Cox, Danny Tenaglia, Pete Tong, Paul Oakenfold, Tiesto,
Paul Van Dyk and Moby.

The event ran from 11am to 11pm on Saturday and
was incredibly fun with headliners playing throughout the day on seven
different stages within the venue. Advance tickets started at US$65 and
increased up until show time, one friend paid US$83 for her ticket at
around 5pm. Having paid for UMF last year, I recommend that you
purchase a WMC conference badge instead as it includes admission to
UMF.

Highlights of the show include Timo Maas on the Be Yourself stage
on the bay, Pete Tong, RTIM and The Crystal Method on the Ultra Sound
Stage and Layo & Bushwacka on the Subliminal Sessions stage.
The entire event was captured live in High Definition (HD) and mixed in
5.1 Surround Sound and will premiere on May 28th on DirectTV. Last
year's event (UMF 2004) is currently playing on INHD2 in High
Definition.  

In support of his new CD, "Hotel", Moby gave an exclusive Q&A
session for Winter Music Conference attendees. From his new album and
musical tour, to his appearance on NBC's The Apprentice, Moby has been
all over the place and in the musical limelight.

It was a great opportunity to see Moby up close and personal (there
were about 100 people there). Moby "loves questions," and fielded quite
a few from the audience. He related his philosophies about music that
"the act of making music is precious" going on to say that "if you make
music you are proud of, do everything to get people to listen to it."
From reflecting back on his first appearance at "Cameo" in Miami to his
more recent success in licensing music, Moby was successful in
inspiring his audience to create greatness.

Moby touched on just about everything including politics,
consumerism, alternative ways to get dance music heard,the last movie
he saw (South Park: The Movie, like "50 times"), and his current favorite bands in
NYC. He talked about the differences between working with an
independent and a major label and how that has allowed more flexibility
in his album creation.

To a bass player from the audience who had been the recipient
of negative attitude and comments that his music was "not commercial
enough," Moby said that "if you really believe in yourself you've got
to keep doing it."

Moby also informed us that he didn't use any samples on this
album. Hotel is his original artist album he created with Steinber's Cubase and Digidesign's
Pro Tools on his Power Mac G4 ("the one with the silver door"). When the
Apple rep in the audience invited Moby over to the Apple booth to
enlighten him on Logic Moby informed him that he prefers to stick with
Cubase because it's more familiar. What blew me away was the fact that
he's running it on OS 9 because "they don't run at the same time on OS
X." (Steinberg and Digidesign: Get him hooked up with OS X, would ya!)

Get a session pass to next year's WMC and go to the conferences, it's worth it.

Ed: Thanks, Lizi! Moby (up through his last album, at least)
reportedly used an old Mac IIci so he could run an early release of
Cubase because he liked a specific groove quantize he claims Steinberg
changed. So this is one oldskool Cubase lover. (And Apple, I'm a big
Logic lover and not tempted at all by Cubase, but you could learn
something from its wild arpeggiator and other MIDI fx — stuff that's
right up Moby's alley. Predecessors of the modern Logic and Cubase were
rivals back in Atari ST days, and their competition has made them the
deep products they are today.) -PK

Miami — The Remix Hotel event here this week during Winter Music
Conference provides "hands-on access to the technology and equipment
used to create today's electronic and urban music via artist
presentations and demonstrations, workshops, clinics and discussion."

Held at the Eden Roc Hotel in South beach and sponsored by Apple and
Guitar Center the event featured a ton of Mac hardware and software on
display (Garage Band, Logic, G5s and those sweet 30-inch Apple Studio
displays). What really impressed me was the vendor area on the lower
level that featured several rooms of equipment from the likes of
Mackie, Alesis, M-Audio, Ableton, Pioneer, Rane and Stanton. Your
fearless sunburnt editor fell in love with the new Mackie Firewire
mixer although I'm still partial to my Rane TTM56 and its patented
magnetic fader. Off to the Ultra Music Festival and Carry On… More on
those soon!

Ed: Watch for a full image gallery later this evening. It'll cheer me up here on a dreary day in New York! -PK

We start our live coverage from Miami's WMC (Winter Music Conference) — more reports through the
weekend and into next week! CDM's Eldorado is on the scene. -Ed.

Miami — One of the most interesting parts of the electronic music
revolution is the digital convergence. An industry once steeped in
vinyl is gradually turning to digital technology. At a panel "Art of
the DJ/Digital Mixing" DJs and producers discussed switching from
traditional analog equipment (turntables and a mixer) to digital
technologies (i.e. software). Panelists include: Greg "Stryker" Chin,
AJ Bertenshaw, DJ Skribble, Josh Gabriel, Jay Dabhi and Cyril Palacios.
Joe Vangeri was the moderator.

A lot of the panel discussion centered on turntables vs. digital music.
Some of the most interesting nuggets from the panel are that five out
of seven use Mac OS X. Josh Gabriel extolled the virtues of using
Ableton's Live and performs using only his PowerBook laying a
plexiglass panel over the turntables at the clubs because there's "not
even three inches of space for a laptop." Everyone agreed that the
capabilities of tools like Live and Final Scratch were worth the
initial investment in time to archive all your music.

Some of the tips from the session on archiving your vinyl to digital
included:

• Encode your vinyl in the highest bit rate you can. Most panelists
  preferred 320 kbps, but will work with a well-encoded 192 kbps file
  when necessary.
• When converting your vinyl it is imperative that you
  use good needles (club, DJ and scratch needles are all bad). Use an
  archival quality needle like the Stanton 890 FS. Bertenshaw,
  recommended the high-fidelity needles from Shure for around US$200.
• Encode using a good analog to digital (A>D) converter, not the
  built-in sound card in your PC. It all comes down to budget, with
  things like the Apogee converter at the high end.

The M3 Summit (Miami, Music, Multimedia) opens tomorrow at Winter Music Conference
in Miami, FL. The event (which is co-sponsored by Apple) bills itself
as "the only gathering in the United States to merge modern music,
technology, fashion, and multimedia arts as an integrated lifestyle."
On the bill are sunset sessions and poolside networking parties,
confirmed guests include John Legend (Thursday night), Cirque Du Soleil
Musique (Saturday night) and one of my personal favorites – Layo and
Bushwacka. I will be covering the event live from Miami for CDM and
look forward to bringing back reports on the latest in mobile DJ
technology. More soon…

Ed: Thanks, Eldorado; we'll be watching for the latest! -PK

CDM welcomes new contributor Liz who's going to allow us to live
vicariously through her and make believe we're in sunny south Florida. Here's the latest on the Ultra Music Festival lineup:

The lineup
for the seventh annual event, now an official Winter Music Conference
closing event, is unbelievable. Timo Maas is will be performing in the "Be Yourself" arena – Need I say
more? The Crystal Method will be back at Ultra for the first time since
their only Ultra appearance in 2002. Also on the Soundstage will be a
live set by Moby but I'm most looking forward to seeing Rabbit in the
Moon who kicked some major butt at Ultra 2004. Rabbit in the Moon will
not disappoint with their live performance art and electronic
originality.

Paul Oakenfold, the headliner for last year, will be playing a sunset
performance followed by two hours of Tiesto. Tiesto is currently ranked
#1 in DJ Magazine's worldwide poll, not to mention a personal fave.
Paul Van Dyk will be closing the show for the 7th straight year. He's
the only DJ to do so and is set to end the festival's day with a
special seven-year Ultra Anniversary set. Hundreds of DJs in beautiful
downtown Bayfront Park, now let the sun shine at Ultra on 26 March
2005. See you there.

…of course there's a sick after party if you can't make it to
bayfront, Sasha and Digweed at "Carry On" in the American Airlines
Arena. Sasha will be creating a 100 percent digital experience using
MAVEN – his custom built controller, an Apple laptop and Ableton's
awesome Live software. Look ma, No decks!

The Miami Winter Music Conference has an enormously overwhelming line-up of events. InternetDJ has the scoop on which events to check out.

Here's what CDM sees as the big events:

• Remix Hotel should be fun again, and it's both chill and free.
• Wednesday BPM Magazine is hosting an all-female lineup — though we look forward to the day when gender balance and recognition doesn't segregate by gender any longer.
• Fatboy Slim will make an appearance Wednesday
• It is Miami, after all, so why not head poolside?
• Saturday is the big night
  (accurately called Ultra), with Paul Van Dyk / Tiesto, Crystal Method,
  Oakenfold, Danny Howells, Photek, and 100+ other artists, followed by
  an after-event with Sasha, Digweed, UNKLE, and more. (Breaking news from residentadvisor: Moby will be there, too.)

Trends this year: more professional events, bigger, huger, larger. Jason O'Grady will be there for CDM covering the action.

Miami is cool, but as an aside, wouldn't be great if the US had an
event for more underground and experimental electronic acts? WMC is
completely DJ-dominated.