If you like dubstep, gypsy music, hip hop, reggae, breakbeat, drum and bass, you'll find all of that on the west coast. You will find zero hardcore whatsoever, and you might find a bit of techno or psytrance in small circles...and even then only in vancouver. 4/4 stuff is much more popular out here in the east. NTK crew are probably the most established group out here for the freeparty/teknival side of things.

The West Coast is funky, mellow, groovy, with mega hip hop influences in everything.

Once everyone gets on there I think it's going to pretty much sink facebook for me. I'll probably continue to use FB as a promotion/networking device but I would much rather have Google's developers in charge of my main networking platform than . All of google's shit is just...better. Intuitively designed and (with a few exceptions during beta stages) flawlessly coded.

I've loved Gmail for a while now, just been waiting for them to finish building stuff to let me do everything online from a single centralized hub.

Thumbs up from me.

Appears that Mt.Gox is back online, people are being granted access to their accounts again...

Fucking awesome. Can't wait for 10 years down the line when I can get a handheld version :D

Wow.

That was awesome. FM Radio gods threw down madness...they've gotten a really techy edge to some of their new material, and the video setup they used added a nice element to the show that I hadn't seen before. Anima & NTShanti really impressed me, especially the first half of their set. They played some sick new minimal psyprog shit that i have definitely not heard before. Ygriega's opening with the full on circus freakshow going on onstage was epic, and Rikam was totally on point and dropped some older Prometheus stuff which sounded like it was released yesterday.

What I caught in the bass room wasn't my style for sure, but the djs and liveacts down there definitely had a solid vibe going on, lots of grooving people and smiling faces!

Quality through and through. Big ups to Simon, Sebastian, and Yohan for this one.

This is going to be fucking amazing.

I want to say first of all, thanks to everyone who helped out with this party. There were a lot of you and you were all incredible. Allie, Natalya, Leiah, Zoe, Cass, Johnny, Rance, Andre...and man Johnny you especially, you were a fucking machine. This guy was there until from Noon saturday until 10am the next day helping us sweep and mop and haul speakers...

A few things about money...

We made tickets available for $20 for more than a month prior to the event. For three rooms, professional sound, a clean venue, and an international deco artist of that calibre...20$ is nothing. Vince and I understand that for some people 40$ is a lot, and that's precisely why we made presale tickets so cheap. Neither of us want to prevent someone from experiencing one of the parties we throw because they can't afford it. We make these parties happen because we genuinely want as many people as possible to experience something which is completely beyond their everyday reality. But at the same time...this was a 40$ party. This party cost about 8000$ to organize and it makes sense for that cost to be shared among the people taking part. Our projected attendance was 250-300, and we wound up with 210 attending, which includes DJs and staff. In the end we were able to pay everyone who we told we would pay, but both Vince and myself now have significant debts to work off.

I think both Digital Garden and Prism Code are planning on taking a long break from throwing parties after this one. It feels great to be able to create such an experience for so many people, but in the end, the level of financial risk combined with the stress of organizing is just too high to keep up with anymore. And if people can't or won't pay $40 for a party...we can't throw $40 parties, it's as simple as that.


______________________________________________________________________________



As for the sound...please, if you go to concerts or clubs or raves on a regular basis, invest in ear plugs. If you don't wear earplugs to these events, you will have hearing loss. It's as simple as that. I agree that the sound was a little loud for the size of the venue, but...it's a rave. That's kind of the point.

Earplugs like these: [ img.shoppingnexus.com ]

Can be purchased online from any of these places: [ www.google.com ]

Decent hi-fi earplugs can be purchased for 15-30$, and will reduce the overall volume equally at all frequencies, which means that you can still hear the same frequency range, but just a little quieter. And that way you can still get your body massaged by some badass motherfucking heavy bass.

Yes. The volume was very low during the event, with levels reaching "rock out" levels only during the wee wee hours of the morning, (I'm talking 3am-7am) and even then I doubt it was above 100dba. Databoy could give you precise data because he was working the sound.



I've seen more fucked up people on a saturday afternoon in downtown Montreal. If anything, if that is such a concern you'd be better off with your kids in the environment of Open Mind then in a public space within the ville de montreal!

I did see people who were high... and obviously it is impossible for me to see every single person, but overall the people who were intoxicated were very much in control of themselves. There were a few people who were expecially exuberant, but I honestly couldn't tell you if their moods were assisted or if they were just genuinely happy people.

Put it this way...there were no tweaked out ravers shuffling around like malnourished zombies. There may have been a few earthtone hippies who were sitting blissed out in front of gongs or making wierd yoga poses.

Ah sorry, I missed part of the convo there...looks like I came in a bit late.

Anyways...this is a topic that really interests me...I'm gonna track down an article I read earlier this year and come back with it.

Open Mind is absolutely a family event. There were lots of families there last year, and I can see absolutely no problem with having kids there. The fact that someone would even question it tells me that you weren't there and aren't that familiar with the community that is involved with organizing the event.

If the only reason you would attend a festival like Open Mind is because you want to get fucking wasted, then you would kind of be missing the point.

Amazing party! I had a blast. Great music from beginning to end, and SCORB! Holy shit. He's definitely in my top 5 live acts that I've ever seen. Full power intelligent psytrance.

I know that Andre and Kalan went through a lot to get this party running so big big respect to them for seeing it through and pulling it off.

Can't wait till next year...

This party was one of the craziest things I think any of us (Etienne, Pat, Myself, or Ot) have done. It feels really amazing to have so many people tell us how much they enjoyed the party! We definitely pushed ourselves to the limit to make this event happen, and it wouldn't have been possible without all the amazing help we received.

Huge thanks to Anne Marie, Zoe Venus, Sylvain, Theo, Zven, Maggy Baba, Leah Dubkat, le deux Francis, Vincent (Virtual Light), Johnny Boy, Gabrielle, Yousef, and the many many more who I unfortunately didn't get to meet.

And of course, all the people who came to share the experience with us! Huge thanks.

I can't wait! QUANTIZE IN THE MOTHERFUCKING HOUSE!!! Fattest bass in the scene! =D

Fwaoh, quelle soirée! Vous êtiez le plus belle crowd que j'ai vu dans ma vie. Merci pour aider nous en creé un experience collectif incroyable et trés unique.

J'ai hâte pour la prochain fois... :D

So thank you to everyone who came out and shared the night with us. It was a lot of work but seeing all of your smiling faces and hearing your thanks made everything ABSOLUTELY worth it!

I can't wait till next time...

Special thanks to/remerciements spéciaux à Tim Larner (Sensient), Jessica, Zohir, Ben-yam, Patryk, Kiri, Monika, Tomas Skandal, James Brown, Noiyeh, Tom, Lindsay, Vanessa, Marc-Andre Theoret (notre homme de son!), and all the people who stayed until the end of the night and helped us clean up. You all rock. And of course, the DJs who kept it going all night: Sinae, Mat THC, Ygriega, Andrei K, and Psydraulix.

Aussi, nous avons trouvé des articles et vetements à la venue apres la fin de la nuit. Si vous cherchez pour quel'que chose, laissez un message sur la babillard de l'evenement ou envoyez un message à moi.

Et finalement! Finally...last thing... here is a new Zentrix track which I played during my midnight set. I hope it brings you back to that moment! [ soundcloud.com ]

QUICK!

Right now I'm rocking the Newcastle Brown Ale. Shit's tasty and you can drink 3 of them easily without it tasting like shit.

Also Simple Malt Double Porter from QC...godDAMN that shit is yummy.

BEER.

Here's a little collection of some of the biggest bombs I've been dropping this summer. Starts with the psytech genius of Sensient, goes into some insanely heavy minimal tech courtesy of Stu Altik and Umek, and takes it up from there. Enjoy!

[ soundcloud.com ]

Tracklist:

01. Sensient - Data Kids [Zenon Records]
02. Stu Altik & Remy Maurin - Loko Motif [Unreleased]
03. Umek - Squeamish (Advent & Industrialyzer Remix)
04. King Unique - 2000000 Suns (Nick Muir & John Digweed Remix) [Bedrock]
05. Victor Ruiz & Lucas M - Schizophrenic [Flow]
06. Hypogeo - Sector of Silence [Glitchy Tonic]
07. Shapestatic - Dance Medicine [Pure Perception]
08. Perfect Stranger - Simple Cells [Iboga]
09. Daniel Portman - Virtual Suicide [Unreleased Digital]
10. Mark Marzenit - Neo Galaxy [Bedrock]
11. Ido Ophir & Gabe - Mastermind [eVapour8]
12. Sinhafazatron - Acid Cloud [Glitchy Tonic]
13. Sensient - Simple Sex [Zenon]

Check out this beautiful video put together by Khalil Michot, one of our VJs for the party.
[ vimeo.com ]

New mix on Soundcloud now as well...just to give you a taste of what you're going to hear!

[ soundcloud.com ]

What multi-timbral synths exist? I'm looking for units that let you run, say, 16 different simultaneous midi sequences with different patches. So far I know that the Virus TI lets you do this but I don't know offhand of any others.

I'm also specifically interested in synths that either A: send out individual mono outputs for each different patch, or B: send separate channels of audio back into a DAW via USB. I don't know of any that do B, but I believe the Virus TI can send out up to 6 mono audio signals...8 if you count SPDIF.

Thanks man! The synth is on loan right now from a friend, no way I could afford such a beast myself right now! But it is definitely a sexy machine. I'm going to be seriously tempted to buy the smaller version of the TI once my friend asks for this one back...it'd nice to be able to outsource most of my synth sound design stuff to the virus for a live set, keeping the tweakery tweakable without eating up all the CPU with hooj vsts.

Sounds tight.

[ soundcloud.com ]

Made with my new toy...

Next tuesday, May 25th!

This track is the first (publicly released) example of what my live is going to sound like. For this track I'm triggering drumloops and midi patterns using the Ableton Launchpad and using 8 faders to control the parameters and effect sends of two Reaktor ensembles (the loud washes of fm-y noise that first appear at 0:20 and the squelchy timbre that is present right from the start of the track.) This track was largely about seeing what I could squeeze out of reaktor, and is also my latest/cleanest attempt at uptempo psytrance. Enjoy!

[ soundcloud.com ]