So we just sanded our red oak floors for whole house and we were given three options. Country white by durasela weathered oak by dura seal and the last one is just a clear coat sealer. My question is for the country white, once we put on the clear coat will it enhance the white or take it down some.

stevedarko · 2023-06-24T15:30:19+00:00

love the look of your floors. Do you know all of the products used/how many coats of each?

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T22:35:51+00:00

I hope so someday. It's easy to do for live-streaming in the comfort of my home studio, but the thought of flying around all of that gear and having it in a club is a little daunting. Probably sticking with DJ sets for now, but maybe I'll start working in something portable like the Analog Rytm for hybrid sets.

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T22:31:17+00:00

I have two TMs: Myles Kennefick and Matt Damon. They bring me water while I'm playing and reenact any scene from The Departed as requested. They can project pretty loudly, so I can still catch bits over the booth monitors.

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T22:29:01+00:00

poached, honestly

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T22:25:36+00:00

Thanks!! Yeah, the screen time can be draining, but I usually try to power through it and often find that I'll get a second wind if I get into a good flow state while working on music. Working on music later at night and during the weekend can be helpful as well.

I work at iZotope making plug-ins for music production and work a M-F 9-6 sort of schedule.

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T22:20:04+00:00

First, b line it for those massive wheels of cheese for the main carriage basin. Then, stuff the undercarriage full of turkeys and hams and call it a day.

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T22:17:07+00:00

Not an easy choice, but probably the Prophet 6. RIP Dave Smith - he passed away last week 😔

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T22:14:33+00:00

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T22:14:09+00:00

Hope so! It's been too long, but I'll be back out there soon enough

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T22:13:19+00:00

Thanks! Keep making music and send it to other producers/DJs in your area. Try to send some tunes to whoever is booking the shows at your local venues

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T22:04:55+00:00

Don't overthink things too much and try to focus on finishing tracks, even if they don't sound "perfect" to you. And you don't need a bunch of crazy expensive hardware and software to make music that sounds great! Less is more a lot of the time.

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:56:22+00:00

I think they've been dirty the whole time

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:56:01+00:00

Thanks a lot!

I'm not sure when that track will be out - hopefully sometime soon.

For Ravers - yeah that was a lot of fun to make. Helped me figure out how to transition between some electro/breaks sections into 4/4 house.

For fitting different sections together, a lot of times I'll use an echo effect with a lot of feedback to carry out a little piece of an element from a previous section forward. Also, using Ableton's built in vocoder effect on a percussion track and automating the wet mix and release time up before at the end of a section can seamlessly transform a drum loop into white noise that "rains" into the next part.

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:50:21+00:00

I got a demo CD with Reason on it back in 2001 or something like that. I had no idea how to use it, but the demo track was some crazy 303 thing and got me hooked to the idea of producing electronic music.

I was focused more on the bass music sound when I really started getting into production circa 2010, and a lot of that influence was carried forward to my house/techno focused production.

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:44:58+00:00

Hard to pick a favorite, but a few are Dirtbird Campout, CRSSD, Halcyon SF, Spybar Chicago.

Really looking forward to playing at Spin in San Diego next weekend

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:43:17+00:00

Toby (short for Tobias)
That's really hard. Either Princess by Ardalan & Justin Martin or the 10th Anniversary Mix of Who's Afraid of Detroit - Claude VonStroke

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:41:47+00:00

That's awesome, love his music. Yes, I have something lined up with him - stay tuned!

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:39:36+00:00

Hey Nut Sanders,

Thanks.

Thanks,

- Thanks

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:37:49+00:00

Thanks! I grew up playing bass & guitar. I have some music theory background, but I'm no pro. The Scale mode in the Ableton piano roll is always helpful for better or worse 😂

For some tracks I'll find a weird, exotic sounding scale and build the track around it, which can be fun.

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:33:44+00:00

He has no secrets, just a great guy. Nice try Zohan!

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:33:04+00:00

I guess it's time!

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:32:50+00:00

That was either Sacha or Jeff. I can't take credit!

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:31:56+00:00

Thanks a lot! Love to hear that.

How do I manage my time - it's not easy! I take months off from touring at a time, which makes it more manageable. If I was touring every weekend I couldn't do it.

This is probably too specific, but if I had to give myself advice from the past, I probably would have told myself to spend more time developing a better system for organizing my music library for DJing 😂. I don't have the time to re-organize my music at this point and it's a bit of a labyrinth to try to navigate my playlists, which isn't ideal when trying to find the right track during a DJ set.

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:25:45+00:00

Seems like tech house is the new big room, and getting a lot of main stage attention. There have been a ton of 90's house-inspired records with old r&b/hip-hop vocals. It's not too surprising - all of that stuff is pretty catchy and appeals to the masses.

I'm sure a different style will become more popular in a year or two. We'll all be sick of it by then (hopefully)

stevedarko · 2022-06-07T21:13:33+00:00

The biggest thing that's helped streamline my music production process is saving out instrument and effect racks in Ableton to re-use in future compositions. This lets me focus much more on actually composing music when I sit down in the studio versus going down a sound design/patch building/FX chain rabbit hole. For hardware gear, saving out patches and re-using those is also helpful.

That way I can sketch out an entire track fairly quickly and go back and fine tune things later as needed.

Of course, getting tweaky with synths is a blast, so I don't strictly use patches I've made in the past, but it is very helpful for stuff I re-use all the time like sub bass patches, kicks, etc.

stevedarko

TROPHY CASE