I got to Ghent at 1pm on saturday while snow was falling for the first time this year. This reminds me of how much I hate snow, but it wasn't much of a problem anyway.
I went over to the venue where Play'n Produce was going to take place. It is a very old theater which looks very well restored on the outside.
People were entering slowly when I got there. After registering I checked out the place as much as I could. I wasn't allowed everywhere yet as it was still early. The organisation was really professional, nothing to complain about.
I checked out the Vintage Expo by Kozz, a DJ who is well know for his Kozzmozz parties (Techno) and had a little chat with him about hardware. He has quite a collection himself as only a part of it was on display.
Next I checked out Speedfeedback, here you could get feedback on your tunes by pro's. For each music style there were one or to pro producers to check your stuff and tell you what to do with it. For Dnb there were 2 Gods called Nimfo (also know to collab with Icicle) and Daze (also know to collab with Whiz)...
Next I went to the playground, this looked like a typical music fair but quite small. There was a Dutch music mag called Interface, you could see Roland and Native Instruments, SAE institute and some other stuff. The most important keywords were hardware, DJing, scratching, education, ear protection. I had hoped to see some stuff from Image Line but they weren't there.
Then I was off to a "Emiel zaal", I came in late and I saw some dutch guy doing a presentation on Logic Pro that didn't seem to be fancy to work with, so I left after a couple of minutes. The room was good for this purpose though and they had some nice equipment. All in all Apple was very dominant on this event.
I saw a forum called Homerecording.be, they do what this site does, but for more or less all music styles and in Dutch only. They have a very nice starter guide on producing, explaining all the basics on just about 10 pages, good idea.
There was also a Apple (yes, again apple) Garageband remix competition. But there was too little info on this competition and all computers were occupied all the time.
I checked the masterclass from DJ Bigband (aka GrassHoppa), what he was displaying there was damn nice, he was using high tech turntablism (Serato Scratch, again on a mac) and the organisers were using 2 camera's to display what he was doing and the screen from the mac was also shown. But it was hiphop only and started to bore quite soon, especially because this DJ was just showing how good he was and not explaining how he did atleast some of his tricks which still is the goal of a masterclass in my opinion.
Around 4'o clock it was getting pretty crowded and I left the event because I thought it was a bit too slow for my needs (174BPM you know...).
All in all it was a nice event, good venue, good organisation lots of interesting views on producing. But it was too much Apple oriented and too much dealing with DJ-ing and scratching for my taste. The organisers seemed to asume that all those 18-26 year olds (that made up almost 90% of the crowd) had tons of money to buy all that fancy stuff.
Events like these tend to be complete sausage fests and this was no exception ofcourse. Let's hope this event will have a second edition which will hopefully be a bit bigger.
Battledrone over and out!
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The inside report by our very own investigative journalist BattleDrone!
Wicked mate, thoroughly enjoyed your insights. Sounded like a pretty interesting day.
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Originally posted by BattleDrone
Just bend over and relax, this will only hurt a little...
__ MySpace | Soundcloud | Drumnbass.be | Facebook "It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." Carl Sagan
Thanks bruv. I was interested in going, but couldn't fit it in my schedule. Would have been nice to hear what them DnB guys had to say about my tunes, but they probably found them too hard
__ "In dnb you should make people jump not swim"
- Pieter Frenssen 2004
Thanks for the nice report from the peops from Poppunt (organiser of the event) themselves.
We have also posted a photo report: you can find it here
We realised there was a lot of Apple - they were indeed a partner in the event (we're still looking for that donkey with money coming out of its ass when you twist its tail
) and they indeed had their own room (where the contest was taking place). But on the day itself it appeared that most of the other 'teachers' and peops on the fair had also brought Apples. So we didn't intend that, it just kinda happened.
Good remark you make about Image Line software: we tried to convince them to participate, but since it was the first time, they had cold feet. After this first succesful edition, I think it will be easier to convince other gear- and software makers to participate as well, and change the small fair into a medium-size fair
If you or other readers have any other suggestions on what kind of software or hardware you would like to see on the fair, or suggestions for specifiic drum and bass related workshops: do not hesitate to post ur suggestions here, or mail us at floris@poppunt.be
Originally posted by Poppunt
After this first succesful edition, I think it will be easier to convince other gear- and software makers to participate as well, and change the small fair into a medium-size fair
Off you go to a bigger venue then
It was bad enough that the DJ sessions were in the back of some boutique. I had to run over there without my warm clothes (left them at the wardrobe ) and it was almost freezing outside
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nice one BD! 
