Decibel NYC Recordings – Blog

Decibel NYC would like to welcome the newest addition in the retailer family. Everyone stand up for Digital-Tunes.net .  from the genius’ who brought you Soundcloud are keeping the ideas pumping with their latest family jewel.  if you are already a member of the cloud then you know the impact that they are having on the dance music and electronic circuit. Now with their digital music download service, they are treating us all just right. our first release on this store is our compilation “strongbox vol. 1″.  a collectin of catalog gems for your aural re-pleasure.  go explore the store and stop by our page and support your local electronic scene. we are happy to be a part of the new home!

Download Your Very Own Decibel NYC Toolbar! right here: http://decibelnyc.media-toolbar.com/

O U T  N O W ! !

decny034

the undah-dub feat. grier

slinky secrets

decibel nyc recordings

the dynamic duo of undah-dub and super voice grier are at it again!  this time it’s a funky junky called “slinky secrets”.  imagine that beautiful piece in the club that you know has got the goods. but smoke, mirrors and beauty keep their dirty side at bay just to save face…this is the song to rebel on those types!  ”…the dirty ones you think are, too hot and moist and pinky for slinky secrets!” that should say it all. i guess it’s literally asking those tricks to unlock that vault and let us in, cuz we might have to take it by force.  undah-dub pops off one of his funkiest and quirkiest numbers yet, with a steller electro type remix that completely seals the power of this song in a new compact form. fit for radio or clubs, this vocal driven gem will drive everyone crazy.  CJ Burken ducks his head out of the lab to serve us, “the people remixes”.  the vocal mix is a deep and abstract journey into radio space. this is a vintage journey from the master himself, you do not want to miss. And for the boys in the big room, you might want to check out Noxxers twisted version.  he beefs up the soundtrack with a pumpin drum kick, crazy bass line and a lot of moaning….perfect for that 3 a.m. light show.  trust with any of these mixes there will be no wrong turns here tonight. gets to goin!

1. radio edit

2. live remix

3. dj noxxer remix

4. burkens slinky peoplez remix

original version from the lp “no vacancy” on Decibel NYC Recordings – cd and digital download

this evening, at Studio 152 – our recording studio in the heart of washington heights in harlem, new york – Breeze was putting the final touches to Slutty Pooh, one of the songs from his much anticipated upcoming album “RISE“.

Scheduled for release before the summer 2008 and packing no less then 12 full length songs, Breeze’s second full-length studio album is a veritable musical retelling of his years growing up in the club scene in New York City. Featuring unique and orignal club and radio tracks produced by Breeze himself, The Undah-Dub, CJ Burken and Mad Cows, RISE will delight and enchant all who listen to it, from the shores of Abu Dabi to the sunny sands of Miami Beach or the dark side streets of New York’s East Village.

below is a picture and video essay of their maddening 10-hour-production session where the music, the haze, the chicken wings and the pizza all come together to create the magic that is their sound. gentlemen, pick a lady please…

After a year of procrastinating like only a Mista A could do, a miraculous event transpired and it went a little something like this:

It all started with a hot and sunny 8 hours of driving, a pound of gelatinous confections and a few choice swear words for all those summer tourist drivers, then I finally made it to the big (and sour) apple, to finally put my new single to bed and reconnect with my peeps, Kevin and Cj in New York City.

Spanish Harlem, a six pack of Big Red and plenty watermelons were all I needed to get the juices cookin’. Under intense pressure and scrutiny, we got the single and the remix package for it wrapped up.

“Mental Health Hotline” is done and in the process I conjured up a little remix for the label’s newest superstar, Don Davenport. A saucy joint aptly titled “Strut“, which I think will slam all those fortunate to hear it on a dance floor.

I was totally blown away to the hear all the new-ies for the upcoming Fall and Winter release calendar and all I can say is: wear suspenders and slide up your depends because you will be moist!

So thanks to my family in NYC for keeping it cute and giving me new weapons for the masses, I left an automatic slayer for them to fire off at there discretion……so Catch it!

Mista A

it’s been well over 6 months since i have done any music productions, and no i ain’t afraid to admit it! it’s not for lack of desire. but this artist here has an entire “other”, somewhat more “formal” second life/identity in corporate america to remedy what one of my best friends (voyager) calls “tight-purse-days” – you know what i am talking about.

so, for the last several weeks, i have been unable to hide my anticipation and expectation about playin with beats, tracks and knobs again soon. the projects for my other job are maturing and don’t require as much from me. so i got time comin up to really put a lot of frustration, problems and conflicts into my music. can’t wait.

so tonight, while in the studio shooting the breeze with label mate the undah-dub, he started going through old, long-forgotten, early productions of his – some of mines too – and we had a good time reminiscing. (picture it: two producers, locked in a studio, vibing on their own early beginnings at production! funny and a lot of self-congratulations). but with time and distance from those tracks, comes true appreciation for my early efforts and i can put into perspective the rich musical journey that my life as a dj/producer has been.

at the end of the mini retrospective evening, i accepted the undah-dub’s dare (easily) to put up on this very blog – for a limited time, an mp3 sample of my very first “official” attempt at music production, loops, bad edits and all! yes, the first one that i seriously tried to submit to a record label for real, for real. bananaz!!!

for your appreciation, aaron carl’s “i am a soldier (church of ken mix)” circa 1997-ish. comments and feedback are appreciated! somewhere in there is the genesis of the burken sound.

aaron carl official web site

in 2000, boy bands were the biggest thing around. Thomas Grant was formerly of one em. this was his single to launch his career. my friend john called me on 3 way with thomas and they talked me into doing a remix of it. i was hesitant, because i felt that i had to live up to a pop medium, that i wasn’t ready for. but i also thought that this was the cheesiest song i ever heard…

when i got the vocals, i remember cj and i having a huge laugh over the vox. what the hell was i gonna do with these crazy pop licks? cj dared me to use em. i took the challenge. this project was a turning point for me, because it was the first time, that i knew exactly what i wanted and executed every lick, note and cut, flawlessly.

i made the track first, and it took me no time to set it up. but this time, i wanted to do a track that was almost breaks and progressive. i had just received a hyrid lp in the mail, and i loved the sound…needless too say, this was my motivation for changing up my style at this point. i figured, it’s a commercial record….lets just make it work..

overall, once i cut and placed the vox into the track, it was kinda magical. everything flowed perfectly. still, i was very conflicted because the track was way too stellar to be missed, and thomas’ vocal was way too many things. i didn’t want to be known for being a pop producer, so i used my guise Brandy Syndrome for the remixer.

when i presented it to thomas, he was in 7th heaven “that’s how the song should have been all along!” i remember him saying. i was happy. it was to come out on mca. i got paid…

in hindsight. i always loved this track and was in the closet about it. this could quite possibly be my favorite production of all the things i’ve done. i don’t care if it’s a pop record! i am proud to have twisted it.

CLICK HERE FOR MP3 thomas grant – hop skip and a jump away – grantmusic/mca 2000

Everything involved in the running of the record label, the studio – pretty much every aspect of the business – is now in some digital format or another. Everything! From the tracks we produce and release, the tools we use to market our products, the daily tracking of business expenses and decisions, everything is accessed or managed through a computer. (This puts into perspective all the external and additional hard drives that we are constantly buying, replacing or backing up to).

The other day, while at a friend’s studio in midtown, i needed to get some vocal files from my computer studio back in Harlem. I used his Mac Powebook to remote access the linux server (running Ubuntu Server Edition 6.10 LTS) back at the studio. With that first leg established, and looking at my linux server screen on his Powerbook, i was able to access the network and grab the needed files from the Windows XP studio computer.

Why is that interesting to me? It’s this techno-lization of our tools of the trade that allows us to be more productive. It’s the wave-ization of the production process instead of good old MIDI. It’s the Web 2.0 view of how we work. It’s the inter-operability of all those machines via the web that allows me to be more creative and be able to work on my music from virtually any part of the world.

What Operating System runs your studio?

around the office or the studio, we had more or less standardized over the last few years on musicmatch as our favorite and default mp3 player/manager. somewhere over the course of it’s history, musicmatch got bought by yahoo and that’s when things got really ugly. the software became a constant source of restart, computer freeze, headaches and drama…

we’ve been keeping an eye around for something better – and remain outside of the microsoft monopoly; windows media player never quite delivered anyway!

about a month ago, i gave the media center 11 from j-river a try and things have been nothing but impressive, to say the least (the undah-dub replaced musicmatch on his laptop and his desktop faster then you could say ‘be gone’). this player really works for what a true music fan would want an mp3/audio manager to be. the interface takes some getting used to – that’s because this player does so much more. but the adherence to standards, such as the mp3 id tags specification, makes it a real savior.

read around the net about it and the reviews have mostly been good. it costs $40 for the full registered version but you can download a trial version and give it a try. it’s not often that a piece of software delivers so much. for the price, it’s a pittance.

recently, i completed my first blog deployment on blogger right after it was bought out by google.

after reading plenty about the blog phenomenon on Business 2.0, i knew conceptually what made a “good” and “interesting” blog in this web 2.0 environment, but i had never actually deployed one.
around early october 06, i suggested to a friend to use a blog as a way to get his feet wet in publishing. he had always wanted to write a book but never really could begin the process. a blog however provided a perfect way to put forth his thoughts and over time, get a sense of direction and grouping for his topics that could perhaps lead to a book. that’s how eclectic commons was born.

in the mean time, we had been putting a lot of thoughts in developing a better promotion campaign that would be both effective and cheap. it was also becoming more and more difficult to differentiate our label from the myriads of labels featured on all these big digital distributors (beatport, stompy, itunes) or to get the occasional favorable placement on their
section pages. it became obvious that the best way to play was to increase the number of “contact” points for our fans and by custom-packaging our content for different audiences or mediums.

the web 2.0 movement rides on the concept of user-generated content, specifically the flexibility of the blog. hey, even CEO’s are getting into it these days!

so, this blog is an attempt at reaching to another segment of our fans and deliver our music in a fresh and contemporary way. there is no real big plans for this. it will be more news-y then news, more ramblings and conversations, more insights into the creation process of the music you see released on this label.

contribute in any way you see fit!

we welcome the input and opportunity to have a dialog with the public out there. it will definitely give us an insight into how to do better what we’ve been doing for the last 10+ years…