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Make better podcasts

By Blogs & Podcasts, DJ, In English, MusicNo Comments

Seems like podcasts are going to be the next big thing in DJ-circles. When any of the johndigweeds or above&beyonds releases a new podcast, it jumps directly to iTunes’ Top 20 Music Podcast Charts.

Podcasts are a great opportunity for artists to share music and an easy way for listeners to receive it. So – the technology is just great. I wish the content would be, too :/

I use podcasts as a background music when I’m working or listen to them from my iPod when moving from a place to another. Nothing disturbs me more than an amateur radio voice speaking between each played track. Speaking breaks my concentration and more importantly – it breaks the flow of the music.
Most of the podcast authors are just horrible wannabe radiostars, repeating their 60 character long website URL three times per show with an accent which definitely doesn’t help you to write it down. Or even make you want to.

Many podcasters are nowadays small internet radio channels which have realized that they will get more listeners if they release a podcast. The question remains – why have both? Podcast has so much more freedom of choice that probably you will just lose your online radio listeners if you share the same content on podcasts. Unless your radio show is on DI.fm or BBC’s Radio One, of course :)

So to summarize all of it:
To make a better podcast…
1) Do not talk. If you have something to say, say it in the end of the show. Then it’s easy to skip or if you’ve really listened that far, maybe you even want to get some more information.
2) Do not talk, pt II. Instead of talking, make links to your podcast description which gives more information about the show, tracklists etc. That’s easier, faster and more effective.
3) Make it short. To grab the attention of the listeners, don’t podcast 2,5h shows. Make it 1h. Or 30min. Or just 15 minutes. It’s easier to get the full picture of the music when the show can be listened while walking to the supermarket.
4) Make it short, pt II. If you broadcast full radio shows, why would you want to podcast the full show? Go and podcast just a part of it and mention in the end the actual broadcast times when you have a possibility to hear the full show. Use the podcast as a advertisement medium, not as a parallel broadcast medium.

April 10, 2006

Shoutbox spam

By Blogs & Podcasts, In EnglishNo Comments

Frustrated with spam and continuous attacks against this site, I spent some lazy Sunday hours fixing things and making the commenting system work again. Seems like the v1aggrA-advertisers have something against electronic music DJs :) It isn’t enough to fill all the possible shoutboxes and guestbooks with spam but they also have to hack the script which monitors the downloads of my mixes. Just great :P

Anyway, now there’s only one shoutbox available and it should be a bit more spam proof than the previous one. The box is located on the main site, feel free to testdrive it :)

April 9, 2006

A perfect DJ website

By In English, LinksNo Comments

Today basically all the active DJs have a website. Bedroom DJs build their own site to promote themselves and forums like Platinum, NTF or Klubitus offer a possibility to add your DJ-biography and other information there. This hasn’t been like this for too long – in 2000, only a few DJs had their own site. At the moment it seems though that you do not even exist as a DJ if you don’t have your information online.

Well, what makes a good DJ website?

Read More

April 2, 2006

Icebreaker Sampo

By In English, Photos & VideosNo Comments

Conan O’ Brien looked at the frozen sea at the harbour of Helsinki and said: “In Finland… if you miss your cruise, you can always catch the ship by walking.” :)

Well, Conan obviously didn’t know how true it was. Take a look at some photos and videos from Icebreaker Sampo, nearby Kemi.

Read More

March 19, 2006

DJ Gateway’s guest mix on Orion’s podcast

By DJ, Entertainment, In English, MusicNo Comments

In order to introduce some talents from Northern Finland, I chose DJ Gateway from Oulu as the first guest of the podcast.

DJ Gateway has compiled a very nice mix of latest progressive and trance tracks. Even though I’m not so much into vocal trance, I have to admit that these tracks weren’t cheesy despite the female vocals. Quality stuff :) You can spot DJ Gateway spinning in the biggest clubs and events in Northern Finland, especially in Oulu and Rovaniemi.

Podcast feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Orionpodcast
Do you have iTunes? Click here to subscribe.

What are podcasts?

March 10, 2006

New podcast address!

By Blogs & Podcasts, In EnglishNo Comments

The address of Orion’s podcast has changed. The new address for the feed is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Orionpodcast
Copy it to the player of your choice (iTunes, Winamp etc)

Oman podcastini osoite on muuttunut. Päivitä soittimeesi (iTunes, Winamp) uusi osoite: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Orionpodcast

Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience.

March 4, 2006

Orion’s Top Choices 26/02/2006

By DJ, In EnglishNo Comments

01. Unknown – Gorecki
02. Antarctica – Antarctica (Sun Version)
03. Jerome Sydenham & Dennis Ferrer – Sandcastles (Tiger Stripes Dub)
04. Nalin & Kane – Open Your Eyes (MS remix)
05. Frost & Maron – Mute Your Mind (Yield remix)
06. Matthew Dekay – Clearing The Mind
07. Tiger Stripes – New York, New York
08. Kortezman – Rain
09. Chelonis R. Jones – Le Bateau Ivre (M.A.N.D.Y remix)
10. C83 – Tempest
11. Cirez D – Deep Inside
12. Sied Van Riel – Fearless (Miika Kuisma remix)
13. Håkan Lidbo – Saturday Night
14. Introvert vs Mamas & Papas – Deeper California Dreaming
15. Supermodels from Paris – Keep On
16. Miika Kuisma & Kenjido Okiru – Basscore (Dallas Superstars Techcore remix)
17. Unknown – Rhythm’s A Drug
18. Mylo – Paris Four Hundred
19. King Britt pres. Scuba – Love Is The Answer
20. Reel People – The Rain (Rasmus Faber remix)

I have to admit that selecting Top Choices without repeating the last month’s charts wasn’t too easy this time. Somehow in the beginning of this year it has been extremely hard to find good releases. Normally you have to listen 40-60 records to find one good, but this month it has been like 100 records and one good. Even though this #1 Gorecki-remix is HUGE, last month’s #1 (Kortezman – Rain) was soo much bigger. Looking forward to March, maybe it’ll bring in something mindblowing…;)

February 26, 2006

Beauty in Rovaniemi

By In English, Photos & VideosNo Comments

The last couple of days have been totally cloudless, the amount of light nearly makes you blind after the dark kaamos period. The contrast between the warm sunshine and -20C weather is also incredible. These are the moments I’m definitely going to miss when I’ve moved back to south.

Discotech on Friday was also incredible. The bar was totally quiet until 00:30AM when it finally was clear that Finland is going to beat Russia and ends up to the Icehockey finals. It seems that it was a good reason to party – never seen that wild crowd on Discotech.
After getting the mood on with some older disco tracks I played the rest of the night quite rough, techy tunes. When it was getting too monotonic, I dropped some melodic groovy tunes like Antartica’s Antarctica and Lifelike’s Adventure. Still – the tune of the night was Moguai – U Know Y (Starecase remix). The huge reaction on it gave the possibility to play some more trancey tracks until the end, which was nice :) I’m really really looking forward to the Discotech Ending on the 11th of March. See you then, too :)

February 26, 2006

Musiikkia jaossa

By In English, MusicNo Comments

THE breakbeat DJ of Finland, DJ Infekto, opened his brand new website. There are five old breakbeat/drum’nbass mixes available for download – and quite cool layout, too.
=> DJ Infekto website
Doubting the skilllzz of Infekto? Check the video from Koneisto Festival. => Infekto @ Koneisto (25 mB)

Also Niko Nyman from Slusnik Luna has been busy with his chill-out project Softys.
Niko writes:

The project I have been working on is to create a website where I will release one song every month (I’m late already, yes I know), for free. Every release will also include generative computer art, a Flash animation that draws something on the screen while you listen to the music and changes every time you watch it again.

With Softys I’m also experimenting with the idea of open music and trying to incorporate it into everything I do. It’s kind of an open source movement in music thing. You will be allowed to download remix kits for each release and make your own versions of the songs. I’m hoping to soon add a cover art “remix kit” as well.

Sounds interesting. Maybe I’ll end up raping these fine tunes too as the remix kits are available… :) ==> Check Softys site

Oh, nearly forgot – I just finished the guest mix for the Swedish Icam Sessions web radio program. The one hour mix includes lots of melodic house and nice progressive tunes to just lean back and listen to. Tiger Stripes, Kortezman, Artificial Funk, Matthew Dekay, Lifelike, Guy Gerber, Green Velvet etc… I’ll inform you when I know the exact broadcasting times.

February 21, 2006

Flyer of the week

By In EnglishNo Comments

Why don’t people just concentrate on simplicity when making their flyers? Levitation has really enjoyable simple artwork although the composition of the text disturbs me a bit.
Still definitely the best flyer I’ve seen this week, I’d wish to have a real copy of this.
Info of the party available here.

February 9, 2006

Another piece of Tampere-fiilis(tm)

By In English, Links, MusicNo Comments

As I got a permission, I’m glad to share another album from DFG. Celebrate the Sound (2000) includes already a bit more harder sound – you can hear that hard house was about to break through at that time :) Oh, and despite of the bad sound quality, “Hyvin Hiljaa” still kicks hard ;)

Check it:

01. Lohkeama
02. Hyvin Hiljaa
03. Dopamine
04. Rubber
05. Aaltokone
06. Hyppyri

DFG – Celebrate the Sound

A piece of true Tampere-fiilis(tm), indeed ;)

More DFG-sets available here.

January 29, 2006

Ministry of Sound acquired Hed Kandi

By In EnglishNo Comments

“Ministry of Sound today announces that it has acquired the Hed Kandi record label, alongside the Enterprise Records division of Smooth FM from Guardian Media Group”.

The reactions have been quite shocked, the customers seem to fear that MOS releases Hed Kandi albums mixed from now on. Also the mixture of super kitchy MOS and quite stylish Hed Kandi doesn’t look too good:

“does this mean that we can expect a whole range of cheap’n’tatty bedroom audio products under a “Hed Kandi” logo…. with each item looking exactly the same as every MOS product…”

–IM DJ Forums

The news auf Deutsch.

January 28, 2006

DFG-live

By In English, MusicNo Comments

I bet that everyone living through the rise and fall of the Tullikamari rave era in Tampere in the 90’s remembers DFG. DFG (Jussi and Ossi) was at that time one of the most famous trance live-acts in Finland. When Helsinki had Perwert, we had DFG :)

In fact, DFG was promoting lots of important events in Tampere after the time Eliot Ness’s House Nation -parties ended: Frequency with DJ Misjah, Resonance, Turbulence 1&2, Unique etc. They also performed all over the country including Labyrinth-events, legendary Hype-club, Time Tunnel etc…

If you ever witnessed the Tampere-fiilis(tm) at that time, these news are good: Severi from Peak Twins has found an old DFG live-recording and shared it. So here you are, 30minutes of Tampere-fiilis:

DFG – live ´99 @ Tullikamari

Seems like I have lots of old DFG tapes and CDs to share too – the most fascinating are the Demo-cassettes made with FastTracker II :D Actually, DFG made some of their first live performances with the help of FT2 – crazy, huh :) Anyway, I have to ask a permission to share them, there would be some video footage from Resonance event, too.

January 28, 2006

Pohjanmaa Underground

By In English, MusicNo Comments

After working dozens of endless nights (yeah, right:), Ylivieska.org crew will finally publish their second complilation. Ylivieska.org presents: Pohjanmaa Underground introduces electronic music talents from Northern Finland like Zage, Deepdream, Roo Rekvenssi, Scape, Super Blackstone Bros, FanuSamurai, Fynky and Introvert presents: Aenimies.

The price of the first well-produced, full-lenght album was less than seven euros and I guess it will stay as reasonable this time, too.
edit 08.02.2006: We just got an update: The price will be around ten euros.

Ylivieska.org-website should be updated soon for more information.

January 27, 2006

Fotofinlandia 2006

By In English, Photos & VideosNo Comments

On the first look I was sure that this series by Renja Leivo is about disabled people. All of the models have this empty look in their eyes, just staring somewhere, being totally in the world of their own.

Then I read the description.

They aren’t disabled. The photos present people working at their computers, watching TV, playing PlayStation games. Familiar, uh?

As the photos have been shot with a camera phone, the resulution is quite bad, but it represents one of the ideas of this series: digitalized people become pixels. Fascinating.

See all the series of the Fotofinladia 2006 (browse them by clicking the names on the left side)

January 27, 2006

Piraattitehdas

By In English, MusicNo Comments

Read about the copyright comic in English.

Kopioinnin kauheuksia pusketaan eteenpäin nuorille tällä kertaa sarjakuvan keinoin.

Edunvalvontajärjestöt ovat tuottaneet puhuttelevan sarjakuvan, joka antaa järjestöjen yksipuoleisen näkökulman kopiointiin ja tekijäsuojauksiin.

Ei siis ihme, että siitä tehtiin pikapikaa vaihtoehtoinen versio.

Lue molemmat sarjakuvat (.pdf)

Alkuperäinen sarjakuva “Piraattitehtaan arvoitus”
Vaihtoehtoinen sarjakuva “Copycontrollin arvoitus”

Lisää tietoa piraattitehtaasta.

January 26, 2006